Van Injection Project

Thursday, Nov. 22, 2012, Guerneville, CA.

The new intake manifold doesn’t fit.

Note: Added later. The manifold didn’t fit because the exhaust manifold on the van was not the right one. The exhaust manifold was for a 292 inline six instead of my 250 inline six. I didn’t know that until I had to replace the manifold and had to get a new one. With the right exhaust manifold, the new intake manifold would have fit nicely.

Some people might not want to read this one, if you aren’t into mechanics much. :O) I know, bobcats are more fun.

I’ve been spending the last couple days working on this project. One of the biggest problems I’ve run into so far is the new intake manifold didn’t’ quite match up to the exhaust manifold it has to bolt to. It seemed to fit the van all right, but was hitting the exhaust manifold about an eight of an inch before it should, so I had a big problem.

If I worked on the new manifold with a file I would own it and couldn’t send it back to get my money back, but it looked to me like I might be able to file some of each manifold off and maybe make it fit. Since one of my jobs in this life time was machinist, I wasn’t afraid to tackle this. After much hand filing on the aluminum intake manifold I almost had it and finished with a metal grinder on the exhaust manifold and that did it, luckily.

Now, the two manifolds fit together, like they should.

Below you can see a picture of the aluminum intake manifold on top of the steel exhaust manifold. Note the area on the left where the black marker marks are, that is the area that I had to make some adjustments on with a file.

Below is a closer picture of this area I had to make it fit with a file and grinder.

More adjustments to make her fit.

I also had to drill these too stud holes out to let the two pieces move so I could line up the intake and exhaust ports at the engine. Since these two pieces are bolted together, they have to have some sloop in the holes to let the two pieces move for adjustments during the installation of the manifolds. You can see the two studs that hold the two manifolds together below.

I was relieved to get the manifold problem taken care of and was able to move on.

Threaded oxygen bung had to be welded to the exhaust pipe.

A threaded bung has to be welded into the exhaust pipe so an oxygen sensor can be installed. My gas welding isn’t as good as it used to be, but I got her done, as can be seen below.

Engine compartment hole.

I needed a hole in the engine compartment to get the wiring harness to the computer mounting area under the drivers seat, but I didn’t have a big enough hole punch, so I did some more hand filing to make the hole large enough to get the harness stuff though it. I have a grommet for the round part and I’ll use some silicone to seal the squared part and that should work. And it looks like I need a better wire shield as that one their has melted.

A closer look of that hole I had to make in the engine compartment, below.

Is this thing going to fit, or what?

I was egger to get the TBI unit and manifolds in, so I could see if this whole thing was going to fit or not as I still wasn’t sure, since the van has a fairly tight working space engine compartment. Below, I just set the TBI unit in to check.

It looks like it’s all going to work real well. The TBI is an injector unit that takes the place of a carburetor, which most of you are driving these days, so I’m just catching up.

I was happy to get that far with that part of it, big relief, good for now.

One more critical task I have to do is figure out how to hook my throttle peddle to this thing, as things are way different, but I think I have some ideas.

The under the van propane tank project.

Since there was still a bit of time before it got dark, I worked on finishing my under the van propane tank mount. I got that accomplished, but still have to install a regulator and inside gas lines going to all the right places. Need some parts for that, and I want to wait until after black Friday to shop.

The below picture shows what you can see of the propane tank installation, the white thing under there. Note all the dirt I missed after my last adventure. I always say, it’s how it goes, not how it looks that counts.

Below, you can see the propane tank mounting hardware I installed. That tank can be pretty heavy when full, so I made some re-enforcing brackets above the floor that you can’t see.

Kayaking too, from Monte Rio to Cassini’s and back the day before.

It was such a nice day yesterday, after the rain storm. The water was up a few feet and a little muddy, but that didn’t stop the reflections. It was also moving a bit faster then normal,, but not that much.

Below, you can see the reelections