Inside Frosty's Van.

[Motu]

Thought I might take you along with our work on the Frosty van.We are in a bit of a quiet spell,but have one of my guys on holiday,getting time on the van will be grab it if we can.On friday my mechanic ripped out the seats and engine covers,manifolds,power steering pump,air con pump,altenator,driveshaft and countless hoses pipes and electrical dodads.Laying a 8x2 board under sump and gear box with the jack on the balance point the engine and gearbox as one unit were pulled back and down,but are still too high to get out from under.Next we hung the engine from a skyhook,removed the jack and lowered it to the floor.

Out from under we split off the gearbox and removed the clutch - it's still servicable,you're lucky there Frosty,that saves another $300.Next we pulled the head - oh man what a surprise! check out the photos.I've never seen anything like this,or atleast still running in this condition.A portion of the piston is missing,and there are huge holes punched in the bore,they are just gone.But the piston and rod are still in one piece,the big end tight on the crank,little end still on piston,one bent pushrod,but valves undamaged,but head severely impacked with debri.Something has gone through and smashed the top of the piston and punched some holes in the bore,but what...it hasn't come through the inlet valve as the seats are undamaged,guides in one piece,we pulled the sump and fished around in the soup,lots of piston bits,rings,bit of cyl,but nothing foreign.

It had a head job before Frosty got it and I heard a knock before,but we checked compressions,leak down test,oil pressure,checked tappets,but everything was good...I reckon there was something in the piston crown hitting the head,weakened it enough to fail...maybe.It also has a 4Y head on the 3Y block,with a 4Y gasket,but this is common,and replacement heads are marked 4Y.

Next week we get another engine and see about putting it in.

[WINJA]

ARE YOU PUTTING THE AIRCON BACK IN

[Kwaka-Kid]

Winja if its an aircon unit your after.. i just did the Timing belt etc on my old '91 Hiace, took out aircon/all gear with it and its kicking around... was thinking of using it as an external mount air/air intercooler for an MR2 supercharger id like to hang off the VFR400... but what was your idea?

[WINJA]

Winja if its an aircon unit your after.. i just did the Timing belt etc on my old '91 Hiace, took out aircon/all gear with it and its kicking around... was thinking of using it as an external mount air/air intercooler for an MR2 supercharger id like to hang off the VFR400... but what was your idea?
WHY DID YOU TAKE OUT YOUR AIRCON ? I WAS JUST ASKING CAUSE I THINK IVE GOT SOME CAR AC GAS KICKING AROUND ,R134A AND I KNOW HOW TO PUT IT IN

[Motu]

We don't degas and remove them,just tie the pump back to the chassis to get it out of the way.

[speedpro]

Winja if its an aircon unit your after.. i just did the Timing belt etc on my old '91 Hiace, took out aircon/all gear with it and its kicking around... was thinking of using it as an external mount air/air intercooler for an MR2 supercharger id like to hang off the VFR400... but what was your idea?
That's a big supercharger for a 400. They're 1200 or 1400cc/rev depending on model.

[FROSTY]

holey friggin cow--and we were tossing up wheather to carry on or not

[FROSTY]

Im guessin we wont be fixin that motor then motu??

[FROSTY]

WELL I guess i wont be getting the new sparkly sliders n stuff. I gotta feeling this might be rather expensive

[Crazy Steve]

You still got the shitter Frosty???

[FROSTY]

i could never sell the oldcow

[riffer]

Time to chuck an old Holden 202 in there Frosty...

They go forever those old sixes.

[bugjuice]

looks kinda rooted to me Frosty.. nice job well dun :niceone:

[FROSTY]

actually it was dougie driving --hmm maybee he'll cough some coin towards the motor

[Indiana_Jones]

One question......not being a car buff etc....

Does it play "green sleves"? :)

That'd own

-Indy

[FROSTY]

I dunno about the holden motor --I was thinking of a second hand V --I think I might pick a couple up cheap at Pukie right now

[speedpro]

I dunno about the holden motor --I was thinking of a second hand V --I think I might pick a couple up cheap at Pukie right now
Holden 3.8L V6, cheap, plentiful, go good, etc etc.

[Motu]

Well Frosty didn't get his van this week.''Take your time,no rush'' is always a trap for us,you take on one more job,then just one more,in comes a tow truck etc and it's out the window for another day.I also told the guys supplying the motor no hurry,so we didn't get it until wednesday.Oh dear,it looks horrible - they have painted it Goldex green,all over! It must of looked even worse before they did that - he said he was charging me for the paint job,but the freight was free,no bill yet and it was supposed to be COD.It looks nice and clean inside though,swapped fuel pumps,front pulley,rebuilt Frosty's dist and put on frosty's flywheel and clutch,with a new spigot brg.It must be a NZ new motor (3Y,4Y head) because the carb has no emmission control crap on it...no EGR,no 100 vacuum hoses - we want to try and use this carb,as pulling all that crap off Frosty's carb can sometimes end in more trouble than it's worth,here's hoping it's a good one.
Motor and box sitting in place today,you never know...a nother couple of weeks and it could be a runner...

[GROOMER]

Those pics are impressive...well done to whoever was driving! :)

[Sniper]

Well done Motu, best of luck to getting it sorted

[FROSTY]

Those pics are impressive...well done to whoever was driving! :)
Now theres a lil point --I Know that things were extremely unwell--as in fucked before mr Mutu got his paws on it. But I also suspect that the final death knell was him seeing how well it would rev with the funny knack knack noise inside.
Aparently it reved and then tried very hard to kick his leg off the clutch it was lurching so bad.
I think it was a case of he felt so sorry for the poor thing he wanted to put it out of its misery. :whistle:
It was being replaced anyhow so it diddn't matter.

[Motu]

We've been able to put some time into the van this week - I had to set some aside for my revue and the plan was to let my mech putter away without supervision.I've just come back from a drive in it - whooooa,smoked the neighbourhood out! The rear door is covered in oil.When the motor blew a hole in the waterjacket of course oil and water became mixed and it all went down the exhaust,which is now full of a grey soup...no way to clean it out besides burning,heh,heh... :devil2:

The motor seems sweet,no noises and I don't think it smokes by itself.The carb has sorta worked,but seems a tad rich at idle,we have a running on issue and have fitted a manual choke.The tail pipe was rotten and not worth a repair,so we made a new one out of bends and straight bits.Another small bearing went into an idler pulley,oil,filter and spark plugs.I won't let Frosty take it for the weekend,I'd rather any problems happen in our hands,then we can fix our stuff ups without him knowing.Maybe I should do the next test drive at night...

[FROSTY]

how about -600mm of pipe out the back so it doesnt cover the van in shite :devil2:

[Motu]

Well,the van's all finished and running sweet as.I wasn't happy with the carb at all,even though we could of passed it off as being ok.It was doing things that didn't make sence,rich at idle,we lowered the float level to no effect...and really wierd,if we disconnected the idle shut off valve it ran better and we could lean out the idle,that didn't seem right at all.So friday arvo we pulled the carb off and had a look on the bench - a gasket on the base to body was damaged,creating air and fuel leaks.I still wanted to run with this carb though - it was off this motor,was NZ new with a remote possiblity of parts being available.After many phone calls reshearch (all this is unpaid labour you realise) we found the wrong carb kit,lost the correct one in transit,but finally tuesday afternoon (I feel a song coming on here,Forever Tuseday Afternoon) we got the bits we needed and hey presto! she's a good runner.

Frosty's taking it away...oh dear,always a worry for me - some pretty invasive surgery has been done here,lots of parts removed and refitted,we've gone over everything 3 times....but shit happens,bolts come loose,hoses split,we've touched things that haven't been touched for hundreds of thousands of kms.Anyway,I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out - now I just gotta feel happy about giving him a huge bill...and in reallity loosing half or more of the labour he's being charged,it doesn't exactly look like I've bent over backwards,but believe me,I have.

[Kwaka-Kid]

Good on yah Motu!

You rock.

[FROSTY]

Fuck I hate that --- a shit hot mechanic feeling he has to just ify his bill.
So far the van --well its totally different.
It has some power and its quiet
DAGNAMB it motu its lost its little train clack clack
The big test is gonna be on saturday when we drive down to Taupo loaded down with gear.

[BNZ]

Haha, just saw this thread. 3 1/2 pistons - not a bad effort there frosty!

[FROSTY]

well so far so good--shes a aweeet runner :Punk:

[Blakamin]

Big congrats to motu... i woulda told him to burn the whole van!!!!!

glad to hear its runnin.... (love them fotos!!!)