My Essex V6 Transplant

[Leeday]

how you doing the exhausts lee, one pipe or two out the back ? or the side ?

At the moment I have 2 downpipes into first silencer, 1 pipe out of that silencer and will then join up to my original rear end exhaust system, so 2 into 1 at the minute as I need the van back on the road and be able to get back to work.
Once I have assembled the exhaust on the van I will then take measurements and buy, probably, 1.5" stainless steel tubing and make up a 2 pipe system, both going out the back end where the original exhaust exits (this mainly due to the fact I have the chrome side steps and making the exhaust exit to the side won`t look good and will probably make the side steps go black). That's the plan, as once the van is on the road I can take as much time and measurements as I need to make up a twin exhaust sytem

[Leeday]

best something for the weekend i've seen in a long time! best of luck

Many thanks, can`t wait to hear it running

[Leeday]

Started with sorting out the power steering reservoir, decided best place was on panel just behind passenger headlight and above the windscreen washer bottle. So I have the reservoir, the original mk5 mounting bracket and some metal, lets cut and fabricate













So bracket cut, plate cut, plate welded to bracket, how-ever the panel it will be bolting to is angled, so more fabricating





Have welded 2 bolts into angle bracket which will come through panel and secured with nylocs:







Heres a picture to show original ford bracket for the mk5 and my modified bracket for the mk3:





Drill 2 holes in panel behind headlight and bolt the new bracket it in:









The pipe from the steering rack was longer than required and fits to the bottom of the reservoir so easy fix ... cut it and fit it, the hose from the pump is shaped and goes to side of bottle and due to relocation of the bottle the hose wont fit without kinking and closing the hose off so had to make a modification using original hose, 2 copper 90degree elbows and 3 short lengths of copper pipe, solder all the copper together, attach hoses and hey presto ... done:





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Checked prop centre mount bracket, which turned out to not be quite central, so broke tacks, re-aligned it and welded bracket up, have only bolted plate into place for now with the 4 bolts and after a road test to confirm all is well with the prop, then the plate will be welded to the chassis beams:









Also shortened & re-shaped the hard plastic pipe that feeds the brake servo as it comes off the inlet at the top of the engine as opposed to the passenger side on the Pinto.

[robbie.cee]

Well i must say you did a far better job mounting pas bottle than me, i just zip tied it to a bit of the second battery tray hehehe. Was still secure,mind.

You'll soon be an official member of the v6 club, look forward to hearing of your maiden voyage on 6 cylinders!

Keep up.the fab fabbing !

[Leeday]

WEEK 4

Decided to get exhaust sorted, using the front pipes that came with the engine and my standard rear pipe (as the exhaust that came with it had the mk3 ambulance front pipes attached to a rover pipe/silencer making it exit to the side, however on my SWB it exited dead centre of my rear wheel).



Dived under the van to connect the front pipework and realised it was not going to be as straight-forward as I thought ... as we have worked out the mk3 ambulance had a beam axle and not independent suspension like mine, the pipes mount to the manifolds, the downpipes wedge into the crossmember and the rear pipe (to connect to the middle bit) is wedged against the van floor









so .... a bit of measuring (and guessing) and need to cut the tops off and cut abit out and weld it altogether:

















Passenger side welded and fits, but this has put the drivers side out by a bit




So to give me the correct curve, cut the top off my pinto exhaust that connects to the pinto manifold and welded that piece to my exhaust and it fits:






Cut the exhaust support off my old pinto exhaust so can weld it to the Essex exhaust and support front exhaust off my vans original support mount:







Had to make up a 26" section to join the front to the rear, using the exhaust pipes left over, clamped them altogether and now have an exhaust system...... this will be used to get the van on the road, as time passes I can measure and make a twin stainless steel exhaust system whilst keeping the van on the road, once exhaust is made, whip the old one off and fir the shiny new one:












Didn`t think this would take all day, but didn`t realize I would have to modify the front pipes, but good job done.

[bobdragon12]

Does it sound good ?

[Leeday]

Does it sound good ?

Still not running yet Still got to put the radiator in, all the cooling hoses, extend the starter cables, extend the fuel lines, gearbox oil, engine oil and new filter and then hopefully it will start up and roar into life

[Leeday]

Yesterday fitted radiator and coolant hoses, as they are all different from my Pinto had to rework hoses, There is a ford factory fitted oil cooler, fitted beneath the oil filter which connects to the water system, but haven`t got enough hose so will be buying some today and connecting that up, noticed that the clutch cable leans against the exhaust manifold so had to make up a temporary bracket to hold it off:





Removed rust from underside of bonnet slam and support and painted with black hammerite before re-fitting it and radiator:



and now its starting to look like a van again

[Leeday]

Got some more coolant hose and connected the oil cooler, all coolant pipes now connected:





Fuel lines extended and connected:





Temperature gauge and oil light wires extended, so they reach the sender units (wires cut, extra lengths soldered in, then re-taped in black as original loom):



Still to extend starter trip cable, sort out coil (anyone know if the coil is 1.5 ohm or 3 ohm, does the mk3 petrol have a ballast resistor in its wiring or direct feed?), waiting for new length of starter cable to arrive and need to sort out 12v supply to electric cooling fan.

[hornhead]

according to book, mk3 coil 0.7-0.88 ohm, so i think it only relates to that module...

mk2 was 6v coil and ballast. btw high lift pump, worth gravity feed at filter to get going imho

[Leeday]

Yes, according to the Haynes manual wiring diagram, the 2 wires from coil go to the ignition module, the 2 wires from the distributor go to the ignition module, but there is no internal diagram of the ignition module, so I have no idea how it works, I may just go old skool and not use the ignition module, just get a 3 Ohm coil (no ballast resistor required) then positive of coil to ignition on supply, use a accu-spark electronic ignition then 2 wires from this to + and - of coil.

[Leeday]

Sorted out more wiring today, removed 2 connectors that go to autobox and attached the MT75 reverse light connector, removed all automatic inhibitor wiring and relay and installed new wire to starter trip, installed a new accessory fusebox to supply electric cooling fan, engine came with a kit (switch, thermostat & relay) to operate the electric fan so figured I would use it, the thermostat thingy goes inside the top hose with a thin wire coming out the hose where it clamps to the radiator, to some rotary switch that allows you to adjust the temp that the fan cuts in and cuts out:





Installed switch and wiring beneath slam panel by the power steering reservoir bottle, so its out of sight but easily accessible :



Extra fusebox with 4 outputs mounted to battery tray:

















Filled gearbox up with MT75 gear oil
Filled power steering system up with power steering fluid
Filled coolant system up with water Radiator leaking at the top somewhere:





Tomorrow will have to take radiator out and see if I can repair it.

[robbie.cee]

Almost there mate, chin up !
Crack an egg in it?

[MattBlackMinibus]

Great work Lee.
Love a home-brew project
Nearly there. Good on ya

[Leeday]

Cheers Matt
Your van (avatar pic) is looking good to