BUGA Community
Technical => Driveline => Topic started by: greasey monkey on July 21, 2012, 05:54:05 PM
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So it looks like with my Cf facelift im back to square one on the Rb20e conversion.
on the original conversion the wiring was a dodgy ass hook up to get it running and drivable which worked for a short amount of time, which caused many issues with it so it was time to do it properly. I scored an R31 skyline that was a jap import which had been written off from a smash and stripped of everything to rewire the CF and get it running and driving properly but as time has gone on slowly myself and cfjeff have found more issues with using the wiring from the japper more issues than i thought it would be. turns out when stripping the car some crucial bits were missed and to get them would have to be ex japan but without part numbers it became more of a headache (and unfortunately parts out of the Aussie assembled R31s n vl's don't mate up to the jap assembled ones) and work on getting the van running came to a stand still for the last few months.
Finally after 18 months of struggling with the japanese mission, Today came a light at the end of the tunnel i picked up a complete VL commodore running a RB30.
So the next step is to tear my van right back to the start and do it all over again and repower it with the RB30 since the mounts for a RB engine are already there. While doing it i will try and post plenty of photo's and update it regularly for those wanting to do the same thing in their van.
First step will be tearing my van back and stripping the commie out so watch this space
10 steps back but at least this time i will get where im going finally
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A shot of the donor VL commie as it arrived today
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Hey What did you pay for that old girl :) doesnt look to bad....
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scored it for $400 its not bad to look at but is a bit of a mess, blown trans, has rusted out at the bottom of the back window, interior is near naffed n left side rear passengers door is buggered, bit sad to wreck it but its for a good cause lol
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Thats a good price...You maybe able to get some of your money back by selling off some parts that you dont need ::)
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yea am hoping to do so, already got some one chasing the rims n tyres so that'll be a bit of cash back
n then there's the lowering springs that will be next-appealing to a few of the bogan's i know 8).
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cool scott, cant wait to start stripping the commy and get it into the beddy, need to get it on the road, then we can have another beddy to cruise with me and barry on all the regular monthly runs. And then theres the nats at easter next year, "we can do it!" Well done man, this time shes a go.
Cheers Jeff
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so it began ......again lol
this time the strip down of the VL, with the help of cfjeff - who has been a great help with trying to sort out the van and its previous wiring from the R31.
armed with a roll of tape and a marker pen slowly i made my way round the engine bay, taping and marking every plug i came across (dont feel like a repeat of last time with the R31 skyline) so that way when transferred to the van we will know were it goes this time round. Once Jeff arrived he set to on the dash and interior pulling it apart n marking it up the wiring as he went. the VL has definitely been a better choice for donor as everything has its own loom - power window loom, engine loom, rear light loom etc unlike the R31 passage, the previous donor - everything was one great nest of wiring which meant a lot of unnecessary wiring/crap to deal with. the extraction of the dash and centre consul was alot easier than the skyline as well - the japs seemed to have screwed n bolted it into the skyline anyway they could lol.
Haven't quite began to dismember the VL yet but that will come as i am yet to clean out the skyline gear out of the cf.
but the main thing is we have made a start on the right track to getting it running and on the road finally.
few shot's of progress so far included
note photo 3 is not of my interior - forgot to get a photo before it got pulled apart
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time for an update as ive achieve a little bit over the last few weekends
firstly i had to strip out the wiring n custom dash that i had already put in and spent many months trying to sort out to no avail.
which luckily didn't take too much work to strip out.
next came the auto which came out fairly easily with the aid of a trolley jack.
and finally the motor which just ended up falling out as i was jacking up the rear to balance it out so i could lift it out from the front a notch too far
and it just rolled out onto the lawn with a great thud leaving a great hole where it once was mounted.
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a few more pic's
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time for a fair chunk of an update a lot has been done over the last few months since i last updated, mostly at the rate of one day a weekend weather dependant:
after clearing out the van of its previous jap donk and stripping out all the gear out of it, myself and Jeff (cfjeff) took to disassembling the commie to give up its heart to go into the CF, once all was out we spent a few hours fitting the RB30 into the van but run into a couple of headaches, the sump sat on the front cross-member and lifted on of the engine mounts way up so we couldn't bolt it up to the existing mounts, so we ripped of the factory sump to find it didn't fit when reversed due to the large crank cradle on the RB30 so it was back to the old engine to rip off its sump off and see if it fitted as well as grabbing the modified oil pick up and luckily it did but unfortunately some muppet had put a nice hole in it and filled it up with bog and just smoothed it over. so after getting it welded up, it was back to fitting it back into the van, due to the large intake manifold, we had to lift the body up of the cross-member a few inches as well as unbolting the steering rack to slot the motor in.
Last weekend with it all in with the help Jeff who wired all the commie wiring, we then hooked in a battery to see what happened and Wahoo...we got it turning over, so next step was to try to get it to run, so with a old water bottle fill of petrol and hooked up to the fuel rail it was time to see if she would run but it just didn't wanna fire. so it was back to the commodore to rip its fuel tank and lines to give them up to be donated to the needs of the van to see if that helped
what we achieved today:
with the fuel tank out myself and Jeff temporarily hooked up the gas tank and fuel pump from the commie and it was back to turning it over to see what happened and the rb30 fired and spat to life(running not exhaust at all) but didn't quite want to run. after a bit of tinkering we found that the ht leads were hooked up wrong so that was quickly fixed and again we turned it over to find it wanted to run at idle but wouldn't take gas. after a bit of a play we found the timing was well out as some one had put the dizzy in a few teeth out previous to me acquiring the commie, and after a bit of adjustment away it went n gez was it loud n angry as hell
will try and upload a video of it running
a few photo's taken as things were gettin there
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a few more pic's
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and here it is
a running van finally, no exhaust manifold at all, im having to hold the intake in place as well as keep the dizzy in place
while Jeff cranks it over and manually operates the throttle
MOV006 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u77B35lSxkk#)
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Now theres a couple of guys having fun ;D ;D ;D Excellent job boys..... :D
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lol sounds like an old spitfire ::) ;D ;D ;D well done guys...... ;)
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wicked! well done lads! who's who?, us west aussies can't see over the blue mountains....
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ok I'll answer that one, I'm the old, fat, balding one with glasses, and scott is the younger with much hair. Was good to finally have it fired up, although a bit rough and a bit dodgey. So now it can have a gearbox cross member instead of a scissor jack, and the fitting of an outlet manifold will help smooth things out. Then maybe seal the air intake to smooth out idling. After that maybe fit the fuel tank rather than run it from on the ground, oh and hook up a return line as the pump water bottle needs emptying about every 4 minutes. Then its just fit all the rest of the van back together and take it to wellington for the van nationals.
Weekend off this weekend as if we work on it this one then I see both of us being presented divorce papers, lol
Cheers Jeff
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C'mon, the wives will understand! by the sounds of it there's only a little bit to do!!
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I'm sure they will, scott's missus should be looking foward to the trip to the nationals and mine should be looking foward to another female to talk to at the nationals, lol.
And scott the next weekend may have to make sure I'm home on time as its our 21st aniversary, so might be kid free for the night. but will still put in at least a few hours.
Yeah not much to do, looks like a lot but if we break it down into a serries of small jobs and complete them one at a time, should fly through them.
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Dude, whatever you do DO NOT MISS THE 21st ANNIVERSARY - you will never be forgiven and life as you know it my friend will be a thing of the past - Beddies rule - Wives rule harder!!!!
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yeah but I'v had the beddy about a year and a half longer than the wife, lol
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Weekend off this weekend as if we work on it this one then I see both of us being presented divorce papers, lol
yea most definitely dont need that happening ae Jeff, dont wanna end up like Barry n in the dog box most weeks lol
And scott the next weekend may have to make sure I'm home on time as its our 21st aniversary, so might be kid free for the night. but will still put in at least a few hours.
ok sweet wont hold you up on that weekend, dont feel like gettin shot by your missus for holding you up too much.
will try and get a few early-ish nights home from work so i can get the g/box cross-member in and the exhaust bolted up as well
Scott
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dont worry scott, aniversary is 25th nov and celebrations will be evening / night so should be good for the day or at least the morning. If you get the gearbox and exhaust sorted, when I get there I'll get the tail lights and front indicators all wired into the commodore loom, then can start on things like brake light switch, wiper switch, light switch etc all sorted. Speaking of wipers you want wiper dwell on yours? then might pay to get that out of the commodore, thats what I put in mine, works well. And Another thought about the cruise control, from memory in a commodore you need a box that has a cable coming out that connects to your throttle. see if there is one left in the commodore engine bay, may need it for that to work.
Cheers Jeff
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Hey Team,
Way to go!!!. Good to see life is still good in shakey town and another Beddy about to graduate. Looking forward to catching up with both of you at the Nats. I won't have the CF there but may bring the Largo instead. Hopefully the CF will be in primer by then but that may be a big ask at this stage.
Keep up the great work and Jeff don't miss that anniversary. I don't think Ali would let you forget that for about "FOREVER" ;D
Cheers,
Garry.
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Cheers garry, I'm sure I wont miis the anniversary, actually Aly has forgotten it more than I have. Yeah no point workin on our house here in shake city, as mine will eventually get pulled down and rebuilt, so mide as well work on our vans. Panelvan rebuild is on hold as correspondace is progressing with our insurance company, so working on everyone elses project.
Was thinking of renaming the club temporaily to "Shake City Vanners", lol
Anyhow catchup with you at the nats.
Cheers Jeff
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Hey well done guys the rb30 is my choice for a conversion here in aussie land NSW where im from major pain to drop a v8 in as engineers certification is so expensive im just starting on my project beddie attacking the body 1st then the dash putting in a vz calais then the rb30 so im going to pick ur brains for the ins & outs of that 1
yep happy wife happy life been married 30 yrs cant say shes been happy for all 30 thou lol
cheers John