The answer to the most frequently asked question is....

[davew]

After a number of false alarms it seems that the container finally arrived in Liverpool at 8am this morning and has cleared customs ready for transporting to Ripon.

Hopefully by Wednesday afternoon I'll finally have my motor back and can start to assess the work needed to get it ready for the 3 peaks challenge

Fingers crossed now that the isolators got turned off in Sydney and we haven't got to jump start the two working vehicles. The Ibex has a dead engine anyway so that'll have to be towed out regardless.

[TwoSheds]

Is there much damage that you know about? (from the pics it looked relativly unscathed)

[davew]

The front spring mounts need some attention, the left hand side one has started to come away from the chassis and will need welding/reinforcing. Looks like a stress fracture that is working it's way up the side of the spring mount, probably due to the strain put on it by the twin shock turret.

The A frame mount on the rear axle has bent, probably as a result of me managing to select reverse instead of neutral when changing into high box on the fly, combined with very worn rear radius arm to chassis bushes that we had to change shortly after.

The engine may need to be shipped back to the USA due to an apparent drop in oil pressure. At the same time I'll get them to replace the pistons with a more civilised set that are more road than track biassed. If the oil pressure thing turns out to be a faulty sender unit then we'll get the pistons shipped over and fit them ourselves.

[TwoSheds]

Not much to worry about other than the engine then - I'll keep my fingers crossed that it's the sender...

[nicks90]

The engine may need to be shipped back to the USA due to an apparent drop in oil pressure. At the same time I'll get them to replace the pistons with a more civilised set that are more road than track biassed. If the oil pressure thing turns out to be a faulty sender unit then we'll get the pistons shipped over and fit them ourselves.

while the engine is in america - you gonna put a proper engine in there?

You know, something that burns DIESEL!!!

[davew]

The engine may need to be shipped back to the USA due to an apparent drop in oil pressure. At the same time I'll get them to replace the pistons with a more civilised set that are more road than track biassed. If the oil pressure thing turns out to be a faulty sender unit then we'll get the pistons shipped over and fit them ourselves.

while the engine is in america - you gonna put a proper engine in there?

You know, something that burns DIESEL!!!

Perhaps I should, then again if I wanted to put a primitive oil burner in there I would be better off with an oil fired steam engine.

[pamw]

Hmmmmmm, which of the 3 UK vehicles won't get out of the container under its own 'steam' ? It has a very poorly sick / dead engine and ohhhhhh yes .... its the DIESEL one !

[davew]

Seems that, once again, our respected shipping agent hasn't a clue what is going on. When he told us on Monday that the container had cleared customs what he actually meant was that the container was still on the ship and wouldn't be unloaded until this morning...

Not sure if the guy is incompetent or just taking the p**s, anyway, latest ETA in Ripon is now Thursday morning. We shall see !

One thing for certain, if I have to send my engine to the USA I know one company I'm not going to use !

[davew]

Finally, my motor arrived safe and sound on Thursday. Pam took some pics but, as yet, has failed to post any...

The agents in Sydney had turned the isolators off on all 3 vehicles and all 3 (even the Ibex) managed to start and drive out although the Ibex and the Range Rover had flat tyres.

Blowing up the tyres on the other 2 vehicles was the last straw for my ARB compressor and it finally gave up the ghost, will need to replace it or fix it with bits from the one I drowned.

First stop was Maddisons to check the oil pressure gauge against a mechanical tester - bad news is that it is indeed running low on pressure but, by the way it's behaving it looks like the bypass valve may be sticking, need to change the oil filter and, if that doesn't fix it, take the sump off and have poke at the valve.

I've put a couple of videos from the OBC on youtube... they were supplied by one of the spectators. They should both be available in high quality format, look for the link underneath the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOkVX1hRBk

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quwKyabF-2k

[pamw]

OK, I can take a hint!

As the Land Rover was just about off-loaded when we got to the yard I missed getting a pic of it coming out, but got a pic of going back in again to help get the others out....!

[davew]

After talking to the engine builder and explaining the symptoms he said that the oil pump will need replacing and promptly stuck one in the post for me.

It arrived on Tuesday and yesterday afternoon I borrowed a spare ramp at Maddisons and set about fitting it. The oil pump is mounted under the front engine cover with the crankshaft going through the centre of it so I had to remove the front winch and radiator, crank pully. sump, water pump and timing cover to get to it.

The old pump looked to be in good condition however the relief valve spring didn't seem very strong and there were some marks on the piston as if it had been binding.

Got it all put back together and plumbed back in yesterday with just the sump to replace and headed back this morning to finish off. Patrick had taken one of the con rod shells off to check for any signs of wear and, glad to say, it looked perfect so we refitted it and put the sump back on with a new oil filter.

Once filled up with water and oil, I fired her up, took a couple of seconds to prime then the oil pressure went straight to around 47 PSI and stayed there at tickover, increasing to around 54 psi at 2000RPM, even when fully hot it only dropped a few PSI at idle.

Such a relief that it turned out to be such a simple fix ! Still have the piston slap to sort out with some cooler running pistons but that can wait for a while longer yet.

[TwoSheds]

I'll uncross my fingers now...

oooh ow!

That's gonna hurt come winter...