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Anon
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Bedouin turns tranny!
Well, after 6 months of blood sweat and tears, the old girl passed her MOT today with only one advisory (slightly oval rear drums). I enjoyed driving her with the 2.0 slant in, but when the water pump gave up at the end of last season, I thought it was a good time to do what I had intended for a while and put a Transit 2.5 Di lump in.
Here is a bit of an insight into what was done to help anyone else who may be considering the swap.
Step one - the donor vehicle:
I spotted an old CF 220 camper on ebay in a very sad state, but with a Transit engine conversion half done, and a recon MT75 gearbox. Great I though. After winning the van for only £175 and gettin it shipped from Southhamptn to Bath, I began to realise the "conversion" would need completely re-designing. he had the engine mounted so high in the van that the rocker cover was pretty much level with the top of the bulkhead!
First thing was to get the engine out of the donor..easier said than don in a soggy field in October
Next, the hard bit (or so I thought). Modifying the front cross member to lower the Transit engine in the van, so I could retain the firewall and most of the cab floor...
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 Sat 14 May 2011 @ 17:43
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Anon
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The easiest solution seemed to be to remove the central section of the cross member, then re-enforce it on the under side with two 25 x 40mm box section beams. I chose very heavy duty box section, so although the second moment of area is not quite as much as the original design, it isn't far off as there are four wall as opposed to the original two - and now it is installed the cross member does not flex. I used the donor cross member so I could keep the original in case I wanted to swap back at any point.
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Sat 14 May 2011 @ 17:49
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Anon
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Hello Phil,
I'm glad you posted some pictures, it's always interesting to see how people tackle this conversion.
Rae & Ann
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Sat 14 May 2011 @ 20:18
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Anon
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Next, I suspended the engine over the sub frame in the desired position and welded up some engine mounts. I had to lightly alter one mount on the transit block, but the engine sits nicely now it is installed. I was initially worried about clearence about the edges of the engine mount rubber,as the Transit design encorporates a metal support cup around the rubber - i've not had any issues with metal to metal contact however fortunately. Here is a shot of the engine fixed into the subframe and ready to be fitted to the van. I enlisted a bit of help or this bit, as I needed someone to watch the van as I lowered the ramps down...
i borrowed the girlfriends dad's workshop to use his ramps, which meant we could simply raise the chassis off the old subframe once the gearbox had been removed. This allowed us to not cut the front member.
Old engine and sub frame:
New engine in position and ready to accept chassis:
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Sun 15 May 2011 @ 08:32
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Anon
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The most time consuming bit of the project was still to come however...Time so far:
Remove engine and box from donor vehicle - 1.5 weekends due to weather and poor access under van.
Measure, cut and weld up new subframe supports / engine mounts - 2 weekends
Fit engine into van - 1 weekend
The gearbox fitted easily enough, with an extra hold required in the chassis floor and some temporary gearbox mounts welded onto the chassis rails. I have now replaced these with beams that bolt to the original bedford mounting points and then use the Bedford gearbox crossmember with Transit rubber mount.
I had a modified propshaft from the donor vehicle, but this proved to be too short, so I machined up a spacer to fit between the rear flange and the diff. We don't seem to get any prop vibration so I am assuming this method has worked, despite being a bit heath robinson! The front flange is from a Transit and incorporates a slider.
After a few short trips up and down the lane running with a jerry can in the cab, it was time to think about the return fuel line. I removed the fuel line from the donor vehicle and attached it to the original fuel line in the van. It is a bit of a pig to do with all the wiring etc in situe but not impossible. Next, I drilled out a hole in the fuel sender unit top, and sealed in a bulkhead fitting to accept the return line rubber hose. I don't know how this was achieved on the diesel vans, but the sender unit body has a convenient circular flange cast into it's face which I assume was drilled on some models - possibly for this very reason?
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Sun 15 May 2011 @ 08:46
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Anon
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Next came the brake servo. After some head scratching, I realized that the reason my servo was not receiving vacuum was because the previous guy who did the transplant had mixed up the oil feed to the vacuum pump on the alternator with the air feed! doh. Once that was sorted out, and some new copper brake lines made up, she began to stop a bit better! I have only just finished fully restoring the front brakes, but at this stage I just wanted her to be drivable.
Then it snowed - oh boy did it snow. Ever tried to bump start a Bedouin down an icy hill - well when it refuses to start, it gets stuck at the bottom. We had a daisy chain of 3 vans pulling it back up the hill! brilliant fun! Turns out the starter on the Transit was a bit tired, but also that the transit engine had the typical Transist trait of not liking to start on cold mornings. This waisted three weekends, and caused much frustration.
But finally - success! I drove her home from bath to Oxford over the new year, and aside from a blocked fuel filter which caused us a little overnight stop in Swindon, she did very well - batter than my bleeding ears however, those old engines are LOUD with no engine cover!
No i had her at home, i could tinker to my hearts content. A new timing belt and water pump were first on the menu.
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Sun 15 May 2011 @ 08:55
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Anon
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Which starter have you got fitted to this engine?
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Sun 15 May 2011 @ 20:20
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Anon
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The biggy (tried the smaller geared one and it couldn't even turn it over!). I ended up buying a new one for it which improved things somewhat, but it's still not great. I'm hoping the oil change I've just done should help too, but eventually I need to renew the wiring to the battery and the earth lead to the chassis from the engine.
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Wed 18 May 2011 @ 11:36
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Anon
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The starter wireing is the weak point of the ford,clean all connections back to bare metal,new battery terminals,also make sure battery is large enough starting amps for diesel,think its 580 minimum if i remember correctly.
Also fit a flamestart,put one on mine & it worked wonders
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Wed 18 May 2011 @ 14:10
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Anon
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I have the better starter if your interested.
Starts the tranny in any temp.
Its much smaller and much more torque
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Wed 18 May 2011 @ 19:35
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