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I haven’t been able to work on the UMM for a couple of weeks, due to one thing or another. Today, though was a big step forward, as the rear door is now fitted. A little bit of adjustment is still required, but it will be fine. Now the car is almost weatherproof for the first time in years.
As can be seen, I decided to delete the rear door mounted spare wheel carrier. Having the spare wheel on the door makes the door assembly really heavy, putting strain on the hinges, and making it difficult to open and close. It also restricts rear vision. As this is a long wheelbase version, I can find another place to stow the wheel. Underneath, or inside the body.
The door colour is the final coat, and the rest of the body will be this colour eventually, with a lighter roof colour.
The other news is that I have bought a recently reconditioned cylinder head for the UMM. This was from a Peugeot 505 originally. A set of reconditioned injectors also came with it. This will come in useful too.
Next job is to finish off the alignment of the rear door and fit the door catch on the inside.
Here is a photo of the rear door after a couple of coats of paint. I may flatten this and apply a final top coat. This colour is a mid grey. The plan is to paint the roof a lighter shade of grey.
The tool shed has now arrived too. This will be used to store the trolley jack, and other stuff that I don’t want to keep taking back to the shed after working on the UMM.
This week I have been painting the rear door. I’m using Craftsman coach paints, and applying by brush. So far, the results look good. I think that a vehicle like the Umm doesn’t need to have a “showroom” finish. I will post some pictures when it is done.
Today’s job was to reassemble the front propshaft. The new universal joint kits arrived yesterday. They are genuine Hardy Spicer HS166 units. I found these on ebay, being sold in the USA. Still the cost of the two plus shipping was only about £25. Funny to think that these were made about 10 miles from where I live, and have made the round trip to America and back.
I had painted the propshaft, after rust removal, and so the joints were fitted and grease added. So here is a sequence of the stages in the process and the finished propshaft.
Firstly, the prop was put in the electrolytic bath, as I mentioned previously. That removed all the rust over a couple of days.
After wire brushing, the prop was disassembled. Then painted with a coat of red oxide and a finish of hammerite black.
Finished article.
The other news was the door I had ordered from Portugal has arrived. This will now be prepped and painted, ready to be fitted. Thanks to Jorge at UMMonline4x4
While I am waiting for the new universal joint kits to arrive, I thought it would be interesting to dismantle the old transfer box to see if it could be repaired.
I soon found the damage. The rear output shaft bearing has broken into pieces.
Here is the roller bearing cage and a couple of the rollers that I recovered from the housing. The other bits of the cage had spread into the box. They don’t seem to have damaged the chain or gears, which is good.
Unfortunately, though, the outer bearing race had been rotating in the housing, wearing it to a sloppy size.
This outer bearing race should be a good push fit in the housing, but it fell out easily. That makes the housing scrap, because even if a new bearing were to be fitted, the extra clearance would not be any good for alignment.
So the transfer box might as well be scrapped, as I cannot see any need to keep it for spares.
It is just as well that I decided to buy the newer transfer box off Ricardo.
This fault with the transfer box is why the UMM was taken off the road 5 or so years ago by Gregor. I guess it was caused by running in 4 wheel drive on tarmac. That does put an awful lot of strain on the transfer box. So now I have identified and rectified the original fault.
The gearbox installation is now complete. The last things to do were to clean and install the selector linkage, fit the starter motor, rear propshaft, and install and bleed the clutch slave cylinder.
I found the easy way to bleed the clutch. The reservoir is filled, and then the bleed nipple is loosened. The clutch lever is then operated from the gearbox end, using a suitable lever. This forces fluid and air out of the bleed nipple. Then the bleed nipple is closed and the clutch lever is allowed to spring back. This draws fluid from the reservoir. After a couple of repeats of this process, all of the air has come out of the bleed nipple, and the clutch is nice and hard.
Obviously, this would be difficult with the floor in, but maybe possible.
The front propshaft was quite corroded, and so it has gone in the electrolytic bath for rust removal. I will post pictures of the finished propshaft after treatment.
Gearbox and transfer box are now in position. Everything lined up OK. I put the gearbox in first, and then added the transfer box afterwards.
The engine crane I recently bought off ebay, has proved to be the ideal tool for this job.
Now I need to put all the bits and pieces back around the transmission. The front propshaft needs new bearings, so that’s another job. The bearings are similar to landrover propshaft. Old number is Hardy Spicer HS166, but these are now hard to find.
The old gearbox/transmission is now out of the car.
I’ll be splitting the transfer box from the gearbox, to make it possible to lift by hand. Then at some point, I will dismantle the transfer box to see what has broken. Maybe it will be repairable.
There is now a large space in the centre of the car, waiting for the replacement transmission.
I took the clutch cover off and the friction plate has plenty of life left in it. The release bearing is OK too, after a bit of WD40 and cleaning.
Just for reference, the release bearing appears to be the same as fitted to the Peugeot 504, 505 1971-89. Part no. HD4599.
As the weather was promising to be good this week, I decided to make a start on changing the transfer box. I had bought a replacement from Ricardo, on my recent visit to him. The first job was to separate the transfer box from the gearbox. I will be using the replacement gearbox too. There is not a problem with my gearbox, as far as I know, but the replacement has done less miles. I only separated them to make it easier to lug them around for cleaning. Gunk engine cleaner was brushed on and then the muck was removed with a pressure hose. Lastly, scraping and wire brushing, removed the stubborn bits.
Next is to remove the old gearbox and transfer from the UMM. I will have a look at the clutch while it is apart.
Not too much progress in the last week. Mainly because of the weather, and other things to do. I did some refurbishment work on the door mirror and arm though. All the paint and oxidation was cleaned from the arm with a wire brush, and then a coat of Hammerite Special primer was applied. After this was dry, the arm was dipped into Black Hammerite Smooth, and allowed to drip dry.
The mirror was also cleaned and a coat of clear varnish applied.
Another job this week was to replace the seals on my Epco trolley jack. I have had this many years now, and it has started leaking oil. The seal kits are still available and so it was stripped down and cleaned, while the seal kit was ordered. Once it arrived, the seals were changed and it was reassembled. This jack will soon be used on the UMM for many jobs, and so it was a good idea to fix it.
The small plunger on the right is the one that is moved by pumping the jack handle, and the large piston on the left, is attached to the lifting arm.
Geoff
More body repairs to do this week. I bought two front doors on my visit to Ricardo. The passenger door is pretty good, but the driver’s door needed a bit of work. The bottom edge was flakey, and the door was split at the middle seam. This is very common with UMM doors. When the seam splits, the door becomes very floppy.
Also, looking on the inside, corrosion has weakened the door casing. Time to get the cutter out!
After measuring and marking the position of the door bottom, the cut was made.
Then a repair section was made from 1mm steel and welded in. This proved to be difficult, as my MIG welder and skills, are not suited to such thin metal, and the weld blew into a hole in some places. Still, this can be dealt with later on, and the repair section was firmly attached. Then a piece of square tubing was cut and welded in to strengthen the bottom. An extra strengthening “U” section was also welded in diagonally, and a sheet metal panel used to box in the section of the inner door near to the lock.
This should stiffen up the door, and prevent “floppy door”. The sliding window was also removed so that some rust spots under the rubber could be fixed. The door will then be prepared and painted, before the window is replaced.
So I had better decide on the final colour for the UMM, so I can paint the door. I am leaning towards green at the moment. Exciting!
Geoff
Back to my welding gear for the next repair. I got a front bull bar from Simon, but it needed a bit of work.
There are some scrapes on the bar where rust has attacked and gone under the plastic coating. These will mostly clean up OK, but there was one patch under the bar where the rust had gone through into a hole.
Having bought a short length of 32mm tube, the first job was to cut out the rusty section.
As this was partly on a bend, I decided it needed two separate repair pieces, which were cut from the new 32mm tube.
After tacking the first one in, the second piece was offered up and trimmed to size.
After fully welding both pieces. excess weld was ground back to leave a reasonable result. This will be painted and should look fine afterwards.
Having replaced the burnt out wiring, I noted that the alternator was not charging the battery. Took this off the car and found that the regulator was faulty. I sent off for a new regulator – less than a tenner, and easy to fit. I checked the diodes, and the coils which were all ok. With the alternator re-fitted, charging was restored.
I have re-routed the main red wire from the alternator round the engine, and connected it directly to the starter motor, and therefore the battery. The other connection on the starter motor is to the pre-heater relay, and this was replaced with a direct connection outside the wiring loom. The existing connection to the pre-heater relay was traced through the wiring loom, and will be used as the main feed to the rest of the system. In the UMM, this connection is unfused up to the light switch, ignition switch and possibly the clock. This is slightly risky, in that if you have a short circuit on the lights, or any other of these circuits, you are likely to burn the wiring out or start a fire.
In order to make this safer, I have cut the main feed and inserted a maxi-fuse. These are available in 20 amps, 30 amps and more. Which should be enough to cover all the electrical systems fed by this wire. This is everything but the starter, alternator, and pre-heater relay. I mounted it near the original fuse box, under the glove box.
Here is a picture of the maxi fuse, next to a regular sized one. I shall continue to tidy up the rest of the wiring as I go along.
Fitted a proper front grille today, instead of the heating radiator that has adorned the UMM for a few years. That looks more like it! Thanks to Ricardo for supplying this.
The other task I have been doing is to sort out a burned out section in the wiring. I was getting a smell of burning insulation, and so I had to investigate. I found that the main positive wire from the alternator had melted it’s insulation, right through the wiring loom! The wiring on an UMM is simple, but running the main un-fused positive wires through the wiring harness is not a good idea. I will be replacing this wire and re-routing it. The positive feeds to the rest of the systems will be protected by a new fuse that I will fit.
The wiring is in a poor state. Someone in the past has cut through most of the cables and then reconnected them with terminal blocks. Why? I don’t know. All of this will have to be rectified.
More work done this week. I now have a large gas bottle for the MIG welding. The small bottles were only lasting about 10 minutes, and at about 15 pounds each, it soon makes sense to have a large bottle.
The welding is easier with the new gas, so I have been working on the other side of the rear door.
This is the outer repair piece. There are some more pieces on the inside, where the lock catch fits. This is a fiddly bit, but is needed if the rear door is going to work properly.
Next repair panels will be the larger ones that fill in the area below this and on the other side too.
Hi,
You can order the handbrake cables from Portugal. Pecas-Umm is one site, and Umm-online is the other one. They send them pretty quickly.
The dampers are D8460, and D8461, according to the alternative parts guide. They may still not be easy to find however.
Best of luck,
Geoff
Back on the bodywork now. I am working towards a rear door fitment, but the hinge positions needed replacing. So first thing was to cut out the broken section and make up a replacement section. Before that though, I marked the panel for the hole positions.
Then trial fit of the patch.
Welded in the patch and then same procedure for the lower hinge position. I need to upgrade my welder I think, After talking to fellow UMM owner (and ace welder) Chris Wheeler, my welder is struggling with this thickness of metal. Then trial fit of the pickup door to check position of hinge holes. I have made two plates that go inside the panel, these plates have been tapped M8 to take the bolts. New stainless ones are on order.
One little job I wanted to do was to check the cooling system was working properly. I had run the engine for short times, and even driven the UMM to position it into it’s new parking spot, but I hadn’t run it long enough to check whether the thermostat opened or pump was circulating the water.
So today I ran the engine for a longer time, and used an infrared temperature sensor to check the engine temperature.
This was interesting. The engine warmed up fairly quickly, but the top and bottom radiator hoses stayed cold. Eventually the engine block was measuring over 90 degrees C, and the radiator hoses were still cool, and the radiator too. So the thermostat had not opened. I was just about to give up on it, when the top radiator hose suddenly started to get warmer, and then the radiator got warmer too. The thermostat had opened. Now I could measure the temperature drop over the radiator, and the engine block temperature reduced to about 75 degrees. So I think that the thermostat was stuck at first and then freed itself. So pump and thermostat now seem to be good. No leaks either, which is a bonus. So the next thing to do is drain and refill with antifreeze mixture, to prevent corrosion.
The sensor I used is a Raytek Raynger, which come up on ebay second hand for £20 now and again. A useful bit of kit for this type of job.
Geoff
After the new shed was delivered, all the contents of the old garage had to be transferred to it. Then the old garage was dismantled and the mess cleared up. So now the UMM has been moved to it’s permanent position.
Some more concrete will be delivered to make the Umm-pad wider, and a small shed may appear at some point, to contain bulky items, like the trolley jack and axle stands. There may eventually be a carport or similar to provide a roof. But not for a while.
The new shed is almost sorted, with some work left to do on panelling the interior walls.
So now I can start to get back to working on the UMM. The rear door is a priority, and also the transfer box needs to come out. Plenty to do here, but at least I now have the space to work on it.
Geoff
