Hello again, i'm back for another update spending some time in the workshop over the weekend.
But before I get to that, I just realised that this thread just ticked over 20,000 views!!
Alright, to the details of what I got up to. When I took the car for a trial drive a few weeks ago, I found that even though I had fitted a 90 to 95 temperature switch on the inlet manifold, the thermo fan was turning on before the thermostat was even open (88 degree thermostat fitted). This suggested to me that the temperature switch was picking up the temperature of the manifold, rather than the temperature of the water (which was interesting to discover).
Anyway, to try and address this, I pulled out the original Bosch sensor which used to be on the inlet manifold. You can see it below beside the 90-95 temperature switch:
I figured that one way to address the problem is increase the surface area of the temperature switch in contact with the water. So I chopped off the tip from the Bosch sensor:
And soldered it on to the temperature switch:
When I re-fit it on the inlet manifold, I wrapped a heap of teflon tape around the threads to try and provide some thermal insulation between the switch and the manifold.
Does it work? I don't know yet... Because I haven't finished running in the engine I don't want to start it and leave it idling.
I sorted out the crank case breathers, I drilled a couple of holes in to the silicone elbow and screwed in some brass barbs with silicone on the threads:
Next, I moved on to addressing the plumbing between the LPG evaporator, the water tapping on the front of the inlet manifold and the back of the pump.
There are two fittings on the back of the water pump, in the original setup, the right hand side fitting used to run to the heater box. Connecting the evaporator here didn't used to give me enough pressure to get the water up to the evaporator when you drain the coolant. So as you saw in the photos a few updates back, I fitted a new tapping on the inlet manifold which took water from the back of the left hand head. For those of you who can't rember what I'm talking about, the photo is shown again below:
I found that even with the water being taken from the back of the head, this didn't work until I removed the return line from the right hand fitting on the pump to the left hand fitting of the pump:
With this setup, the evaporator would get water straight away, even if the coolant was drained. But I didn't want to leave it like this since I had blocked the fitting on the inlet manifold which allowed water to continue circulating through the engine when the thermostat was shut. Essentially, if the thermostat shut, flow through the engine would stop until the thermostat opened!
So, I had to convert the hose shown below, in to a 3 way arrangement:
I doubted I could make a T piece from brass fittings due to it being a very tight space (you will see what I mean) so, I got creative with a copper 1/2" T piece and two brass barbs:
Using the lathe I cut the 1/2 brass barb in half and machined all the bits down so they fit inside the copper T piece:
And then, simply soldered it all together:
Now before you tell me that galvanic corrosion occurs between copper and aluminium, yes I am aware of this. But, this piece is going to be isloated from aluminium components using rubber hose on all sides and the coolant additives prevent electrolysis. So, provided the coolant does the job, the copper shouldn't corrode.
Anyway, here is the T piece fitted. Absolute pain in the arse area to work in, and as you can see, if the T was any bigger, it wouldn't have fit:
My only concern now is that I have short circuited the coolant flow from the back of the head, so I now need to go out and buy a small brass valve to put in the LPG evaporator line to restrict the flow and ensure that sufficient water goes through the left hand head.
Aside from that, the engine is finished!!