Last weekend, we went on a day trip and drove up a biggish hill.
My lowly 2.0 litre engine and 3speed+OD slushbox had no issues hauling itself up there.
Blorenge, in South Wales, was shrouded in mist when we got there, at some points you couldn't see much more than 20 yards in any direction.
It is also home to the first Geocache ever placed in Wales, which was the purpose of our trip. After finding that -which was quite satisfying given the conditions- and two others on the circular route around the mountain, we retuned to the car in the sunshine:
It only took the time for us to get our kit off when the weather started coming in again.
We took a different route down on some steep narrow roads where at some points I had the gearbox down in '1' to hold the car back.
Other than someone very nearly taking the front end off by changing lanes without looking on the M49, an uneventful journey.
Over the past couple of months there had been an increasing squeaking coming from the powers steering pump belt, but not your usual slipping belt noise, but a continuous "chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp"
Investigation revealed the pulley being misaligned with the crank, so the chirping was the belt entering the pulley at an angle:
This might also explain an entry in the service history "recover car, replace snapped p/s belt" Presumably over time it'll just chew the belt up, and I'm guessing the original owner in his 80s didn't fancy driving it with no assistance.
So this morning I decided to see if I could so something about it.
Researching to see if anyone else had the same turned up a few instances, but all the replies were "replace the bushes".
For the avoidance of doubt,
there are no bushes on the power steering pump on this car!
There is no play in the pulley, and it rotates on an even plane with the pump itself (i.e. the pulley and the shaft are not bent, and the bearings are not failing)
There is an awful lot of slop around the bolt attaching the pump to the big alloy bracket mounted to the block - the bolt is a proper fit in the pumps bracket, its the hole in the big alloy bracket that seems 'too big' allowing the pump to angle as it has.
First attempt - insert semi-circles of tin can to position the bolt at the correct angle:
This got the pulleys aligned initially, but once tightened down it drifted out a bit - it was much better than before, mind.
Its not possible to get sufficient shims in place accurately and then get the bolt in, as they are covered by the pump mounting before you can insert the bolt.
Second attempt, shim the two forward mounting points on the block by slipping a washer under each point:
That's got it, pretty much:
The only disavantage I can see with this is that the belt is now just a few mm too short, so I had to walk it on by rotating the engine slightly.
Not sure whether this fix counts as bodge or genius, time will tell. Its a damn sight quieter now, at least.