Gertrude our 1976 Sopru

[onetrackwonder]

Hi guys its been a while since I have made an update on here, we have been extremely busy building our house/home which has taken longer than you would think as Katherine and myself are really the only ones doing all the work, well to cut to the chase last Easter on the way down to the Bus Stop at Mallacoota while being the lead driver/ guide the old girl developed a bit of a miss that would clear itself and then come back again, once in the van park I tried to do a bit of trouble shooting to no avail then on the way back from the big photo shoot she went bang in a big way, the poor old girl had a major melt down and melted the main Venturies in the throat of one of the the carburettors, hence we had to tow her home, luckily we were only 3 hrs or so away and Debbie and Mark Perinich were graceful enough to drop me off at home in Central Tilba on their way home so that I could return with a trailer to pick the bus, Kath and the dogs up, once home the poor old Kombi has sat in the shed ever since without me being able to spend any time to diagnose the exact issue with her which has been very frustrating not being able to spend the time to fix her along with not knowing what is wrong ,with building we initially built a large shed that has been used for storage of the kombi and all our household goods along with a cabin that we have lived in, now we are in the house which is unfinished but getting very close, I have spent the last two weeks believe it or nor cleaning and rearranging the shed now that most of the building materials and furniture has gone, now I am happy with the shed space so this afternoon I dragged the bus around from one side of the shed to the other so that I could get at her and then jacked her up and pulled the engine, I was worried that some of the aluminium from the venturies had gone down the inlet manifold into the head, I wasn't going to risk some of that being in the head, lucky I did because yes there was bits in the top of the head on the inlet side and one big bit jammed against the valve , I now have a bench full of engine parts and I have also learnt a bit more about our engine and its condition, we have an electric fuel pump and when i looked at where he mechanical one was there was no plate over it just a hole, I thought stuff what is going on, they must at some stage welded it up and I have never seen that before, I also had never realised that the alternator has a fresh air inlet to the back of it, also found that the engine mounts were stuffed, also very surprised that the air bellows/thermostat had a broken/missing cable so wasn't too happy about that, I now have to pull the head so that I can see if any aluminium bits made its way into the barrel, I don't think they did as the bits that I have found make up most of the venturies, what lookes like caused all of the problem was that there had been a bit of the fuel line when pushed on to one of the carburettor fittings has taken a slice off the hose and then that has got stuck in the end of the carburettors emulsion tube, here are some photos, cheers Greg

https//i.imgur.com/sBAko1E.jpg[/img]]

Engine on the floor
https//i.imgur.com/maNF9jh.jpg[/img]]

Engine in the air
https//i.imgur.com/OXAyiY7.jpg[/img]]

Rubber in the emulsion tube which I think caused all this
https//i.imgur.com/jCUtX0I.jpg[/img]]

Bit hard to see if you don't know what you are looking at but there is a bit of the venturi stuck up on top of the valve
https//i.imgur.com/XtVxR1h.jpg[/img]]

The bits of the venturi dragged toward the front of the inlet
https//i.imgur.com/JT6FMNP.jpg[/img]]

Bits that I have now found
https//i.imgur.com/NXk8tm7.jpg[/img]]

How the venturi should look, thanks to Wayne Murray
https//i.imgur.com/w58WD8o.jpg[/img]]

fuel pump hole
https//i.imgur.com/YVWupgR.jpg[/img]]

Broken engine mount
https//i.imgur.com/soczxxc.jpg[/img]]

 

onetrackwonder, Oct 21, 2019