retropower

Prob will do! A while away yet though! Really scratching my head about turbos at the moment. Thinking the hx35w is a smidge large, but it's quite a tricky engine to size a turbo for as its rpm capability throws it straight off the top of the compressor map for most smaller turbos. I think the holset vnt from a 24v cummins Dodge Ram with a controller on it could do the trick but lots of money!

Very neat indeed, in fact possibly nicer than my bought one lol

I use Gas Direct and just rent bottles. Rent for their large (full size) bottles is £4.50 a month, a fill of argoshield is £15 for a full size bottle and they charge £10 delivery for as many bottles as you need. Oxygen is £9 a bottle and pure argon for tig is £20 a bottle. They seem to fill to around 250 bar

Tiny bit more done in an hour this evening, lt230 main and r380 rear cases jet washed and glass bead blasted and r380 maincase steam cleaned and primed

They're just new ones I'm afraid, nothing technical there. Britpart Teflon coated ones which im told are oem manufacturer anyway. I had 3 pairs of ones off my axle pile and none were completely free of pitting so ended up spending again lol

All the fun of the à-arm ball joint removal fair!! Belted it out, blasted it, painted it, pressed new lemforder item in, done!

Bit more axle stuff. Didn't take too many pics as sticking some axles together isn't exactly thrilling stuff

Realised I missed out a few pics of the axle work

Looking good!!!

Cheers! To be fair, I reckon there's less than a grand in all the repair panels and the om606 in total.

Slight aside, the Mirka electric DA sander in the pic above is one of the absolute stalwarts of our body shop! I bought it 4 years ago as I was fed up of a 15hp compressor running just to run an air DA. It's DC brushless and lighter than an air DA and much more powerful. Has a remote electronic power supply. Expensive machine at £350 but I'd say it's paid for itself a couple of times over now, and still going strong

Now started the panel prep slog! Absolutely hate sanding so not my fave part!!! Trying to knock out and body file where I can to minimise filler. Lots of small tig weld repairs will be needed on slightly frilly edges on some alloy panels. Annoying but realistically I could buy a pile of used ones and be no better off so sticking with most of what I've got. I've sourced a perfect alloy upper tailgate for £40 and a totally rot free but a bit dented lower on eBay the other day for £70. Was going to reskin my lower but frame is a bit messy here and there and for £70 a perfect one made sense

And she's rolling, albeit short of a panhard rod and on nasty wheels

Ps brake choice is partially a slight upgrade and partly I want to go single line front, single line rear system with disco bias valve and master cylinder.

Can't remember where I left off now lol! Well axles are rebuilt, diffs are just the best used ones I had laying about as I will be putting limited slips in both ends at some point in two rebuilt units (prob Ashcroft atb unless there's a reason not to?) used britpart springs for better or for worse, as had no idea whether any others were better or worse. Bilstein b6 dampers all round and a b6 steering damper to go on too. Late defender calipers and vented discs. Stock rear brakes but new. All axle casings and suspension arms blasted and thermal zinc sprayed and raptored. All superpro bushed.

Im interested too lol!! We will see! If it doesn't handle it I will either go tremec with Milner adaptor or relent and go auto, that adaptor looks nice !! I will be enough £££ in the hole by then that a tremec won't seem too painful lol

Ps re. Clutch I keep hearing lack of success with sprinter setups in high power om606 saloon car setups but a remapped 4.5tonne sprinter with 420nm of torque seems to manage fine on it.... time will tell!!

You assume pretty much bang on. I don't know anything for sure yet as it's a fair way off done, but I've assembled it with sprinter dual mass delete flywheel and tdi driven plate and sprinter pressure plate. The tdi driven plate is 5mm bigger than the sprinter one but still just fits in the stock recess. I am sending the sprinter pressure plate to clutchfix to have the fulcrum ring moved for increased pressure, and a driven plate relined with truck lining. Won't cost a fortune, and same diameter as the "Sachs racing" clutches the drift guys use which are also single plate so I can't see why it shouldn't work (famous last words!!!!) release wise I have no idea yet but it shouldn't be hugely technical to modify if it's not a direct fit. If you already have the om603 flywheel setup I'd just stick with that and get the clutch re-rated with more clamp pressure

Cheers, I've learnt more since committing to the path I'm on now. If I were starting afresh I think I'd go 320cdi om648 and remap/deimmobilise etc. Im going to stick with the mech pump now though as I like the idea of simplicity (I run two merc cdi sprinters so know the usual issues etc, very reliable generally tho)

Ps won't be laggy with an hx30 as long as exhaust housing is right

Cheers! I have an hx35w with 12cm exhaust housing sat waiting but I'm going to use the stock turbo for a start, but yes, with dieselmeken 7.5mm pump. I'm throwing my hat into the r380 ring and hoping it will hold together. Fundamentally it should be capable of taking the torque as it is suitably dimensioned in most critical areas. It will be rebuilt with bigger 5th gear housing bearings, new synchros etc and a sleeved lt230 transfer box. Fingers crossed. Any alternative is a fair undertaking to achieve and I wanted it to be pretty stock looking! There are certainly a couple of folks running om606 on r380 boxes. I'm also using a td5 suffix L gearbox with the stronger mainshaft

With my business hat on rather than my "own car" hat, we only use super pro bushes on our vehicle builds unless there is no option (rare since they can usually adapt something if there is nothing in their catalogue) they are a great outfit to work with. Their md (who is Australian and happened to be over here on business) visited us in person when we became stockists, proper company!

Cheers! I've used aftermarket fairly cheaply polyurethane body mounts (duraflex) with new hardware. I suspect they may well be a bit over firm and noisy but we will see! I didn't know that super pro did them until after I'd already got the others. I would have used the superpro ones if I'd known as they seem very good at using quite soft urethane compounds

Got some bushes installed, thanks Superpro UK! https://www.superproeurope.com/

Bit more done, many axles stripped, front and rear casings blasted and thermal zinc sprayed and raptor coated, plus radius arms and a arms done with the same