Dr Mark's Tardis

Scary. If the belt fails the engine is wrecked So I booked it in with the Iveco dealer. It was one job that I was prepared to pay for. I dropped the vehicle off, and went to wait in the library. Guest trucks rang to give a quote of £780. Wow! I went back to collect it and research how to do the job myself. Well it needs bumper, front grille and radiator removed. Physically big but not too challenging. Lots of photos of the engine as I went in case I forgot how it went back together. Alignment of crank, cam and injector pulleys is crucial. The marks on the top cam pulley is clear. A fine notch in the pulley and mark on the crankcase. The injector pulley has a hole for a 5mm drill bit that locks it in place. The crankshaft  is more puzzling, with conflicting advice. There is no mark on the crankshaft pulley. The crankshaft itself had a wide notch that seemed to line up with TDC. However I also found a notch on the flywheel, looking through the clutch housing, because the flywhe...

The handbrake was a rather loose so I tightened it, right? Wrong! Well it is manual adjustment so it seemed sensible to adjust the cable. A week later it was loose again. This time I thought more about it. Plus an overheating smell from the rear brake drums that Karen noticed. The point is that the handbrake should only need adjusting to take up gradual wear of the brake shoes - but that is gradual and quite minor. So really there is a problem to be solved. The handbrake cable was in good condition, as it should be at only a couple of years old. One brake drum showed deterioration of the linings and a brake cylinder that did not retract. But it was not seized opening the bleed nipple sent a shot of fluid and the cylinder retracted as it should. There was a blockage preventing the brake fluid going back to the master cylinder. One of the flexible brake hoses was blocked. The middle one between the cab and chassis: others are between the cab and each front wheel and chassis and rea...