What did you do with your Haflinger today?

[blazing928]

My Petronix electronic ignition kit arrived. Also bought some LED
flood driving lights

[AustHaflinger]

Nigel

Where did you get the Petronix - also how much delivered. Is on my list.

I also have some LED lights to go on as well.

Garry

[jhon]

Fitted a pair of hotter plugs today (Bosch W7AC) - these appear to have solved the erratic tickover and low speed fouling issue, that seemed to occur at the most inopportune of moments.

[AustHaflinger]

I also have one stage hotter plugs in my engine - this was because one plug was fouling but I will rethink this after the rebuild I have just undertaken.

However I was advised when I used the hotter plugs not to drive the haffie at sustain higher revs - ie normal speed on the open road - as combustion chamber temps can get too high. The advice was it was Ok just driving around town eg where revs go up and down but if I was planning a longer open road trip like say to a Treffen etc I was advised to put the normal plugs back in as the sustained higher revs will keep plugs etc clear.

So just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Garry

[blazing928]

Hi Garry
I got the Petronix from the site listed on this forum.

www.expedition-imports.com

unit USD$118 delivered to Oz $USD $165

[jhon]

I also have one stage hotter plugs in my engine - this was because one plug was fouling but I will rethink this after the rebuild I have just undertaken.

However I was advised when I used the hotter plugs not to drive the haffie at sustain higher revs - ie normal speed on the open road - as combustion chamber temps can get too high. The advice was it was Ok just driving around town eg where revs go up and down but if I was planning a longer open road trip like say to a Treffen etc I was advised to put the normal plugs back in as the sustained higher revs will keep plugs etc clear.

So just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Garry

Thanks Garry - good advice. I do very little high speed (relative I know LOL) running, so that shouldn't be an issue - I will keep an eye on the plugs though and go back to standard if necessary.

[AustHaflinger]

Thanks Nigel - I will follow it up when I have a few other issues sorted.

cheers

Garry

[AustHaflinger]

Ok - everything is back together and the Haffie drives fine.

But the usual horizontally opposed engine clack is worse than it used to be. I am not sure if I should be concerned or not. Is it normal, is it from inside the engine, clearances on the head to barrel not right (noting the Haffie does not use head gaskets) or in fact is all normal.

I might drive over to the engine builder and see what they say.

However the engine does drive well.

Garry

[AustHaflinger]

I decided to investigate the "clack" in my engine today - is mainly coming from number 2 cylinder. Yesterday the engine builder said that he thought it might be tappets as the frequency was half that of engine revs.

So off with both rear wheels and side covers.

Before putting the engine back in I took particular care in setting up the tappets (.2mm cold) and seemed Ok today - if anything a little tight so should not be making any unusual sound.

When I took the rocker covers off there was very little oil in the valve area and I have always been concerned as to how much oil does actually get into the valve area so I had a brain fart and started the engine with the rockers off - well I answered my question - I can assure you that the rockers get plenty of oil - the engine only ran for about 2 secs and oil was able to squirt 6 feet out the side covers - so plenty of pressure and volume getting into the rockers. So that curiosity answered.

On rechecking clearances I noticed that the inlet rocker on number 2 seemed to have very slight movement even when clearance was set to 0, so maybe there is slight wear on the rocker/shaft causing a bit of noise - though the movement is barely perceptible.

As replacing the shaft and rocker is not easy (I have spares) I think I will just leave it and get the engine run in and see if things change bed in during the running in process. The engine has only covered about 55km so far so has a long to go before run in. Otherwise no issue with its drivability.

So that is what I did today.

Cheers

Garry

[blazing928]

I remember reading an article by 'Atilla' way back in the 80s. He was the fella driving around the Aussie bush looking for Lassiters lost reef of gold......in a Haflinger.
He burnt a valve outback somewhere.
Took the head out, used some glass to grind it all better. He then added a tube inside the valve cover to raise the oil level up a bit to prevent it happening again.

[AustHaflinger]

I have heard of that mod but I doubt it increases the effectiveness of lubrication to the valve train. The rocker cover would have to be filled up about a third just to get to the lower rocker and this oil would just sit in the bottom and no get spread around much.

Given the pressure and distance that I found the oil squirted out the lifter holes I would say that with the cover in place the oil coming into the valve gear area would be splashed around quite well.

On my Historic concessional registration I am allowed to drive for up to 40km for test drives so I am doing one each day and did a nice drive today.

I am deliberately not going over 3500rpm but it does happen occasionally in lower gears or where I do not watch - this equates to 50kph on the speedo or 57kph on the GPS. It pulls like a train but I try not to lug it very much.

After todays drive the idle was a bit low - down to 600rpm and would stall occasionally so I have ramped it up to about 900rpm.

Cheers

Garry

[AustHaflinger]

Went for another drive today to run the motor in - now done about 180km. The engine itself runs fine - still has the clack and I have no idea what it might be but doesn't seem to impact the running of the engine. After the engine has been run in - I will put it in to an expert for its first service and seek their advice.

I am still staying at 3500rpm max, about 55kph with the occasional excursion to about 4000 through the gears. Today I deliberately did a run up to just over 4000rpm and 70kph and it pulled very well - but I only drove to that speed and then backed off back to 3500rpm. The torque from the engine is exceptional and I rarely have to drop out of 5th - except where it lugs so back to 4th - highlights though the big gap between 4th and 5th.

For some reason idle was up at 2000rpm which was a bit annoying - reset when i got back home but I have had to do it a few times so I am not sure what is going on - I suspect the carby did not like drying out during the rebuild period.

I also installed a stick on meter on the bottom of the windscreen that shows time, inside temp, outside temp and voltage. While inside the cabin felt cold it was actually much warmer than I thought though the breeze through the cabin was a little cool. At cruise speed dynastart was pushing out 14.1v and 13.7 at idle so that is great.

So things are still coming along OK.

Garry

[AustHaflinger]

I drove to my local Landrover Club (a 4wd Club for all Makes) meeting the other night - now that I have an in and out temp gauge I am getting how cold it is in the Haffie. For the last week we have been getting down to -6 each night but the days are great - getting up to 15 but as soon as the sun (you know that thing the Brits can only dream about) goes down it get cold. On the way home from the meeting at about 10.30 in the evening the outside temp was down to -3 and the temp inside was at freezing. The issue is really the top I have which was not well made fitting wise - I can expect some gaps around the doors but at the back top corners and the bottom back corners there are huge gaps that allow the wind to circulate around the cabin. I really do need to look at getting a new better fitting top. I guess the Austrian suppliers are the best bit not the cheapest option.

At cruising speed the canvas above the screen used to lift and let air in but but I have glued some rubber along the top of the screen which now fills the gaps.

Driving up the hill to home in the cold the Haffie started to miss a little under load but I assume I was getting a little carby icing - maybe when I go out at night, I need to close the flap on the rear engine door so the engine is sucking in warmer air.

Also - when driving with lights on hi beam (60w halogens in my case) and with everything else on the voltmeter was still showing 14v so getting plenty of charge but when at traffic lights voltage dropped to 12v indicating the dynastarter system is not able to meet house load with lights on at idle and that most likely my battery is on its way out as it still should have been up around 13v with lights on and little incoming charge.

Cheers

Garry

[heinkeljb]

Gary,

have you tried measuring the charging current at idle and with revs up? You might only be getting milliamps worth of charge going in to the battery, particularly if you think the battery is on its way out.

Poor old Lurch is going to be left for a couple of weeks whilst I am in South Africa, So I will see how good the charging system is when I get back.

What do the Landrover people make of the Haf? How many old Landrover of a similar age to your Haf turn up? Not many I would think.

John

[AustHaflinger]

Gary,

have you tried measuring the charging current at idle and with revs up? You might only be getting milliamps worth of charge going in to the battery, particularly if you think the battery is on its way out.

What do the Landrover people make of the Haf? How many old Landrover of a similar age to your Haf turn up? Not many I would think.

John

No - I haven't checked actual charging current but the voltage changes indicates charging is fine - voltage dropping off with lights on and at idle (where we know generators produce nothing) means the battery voltage is dropping under load - should drop and hold. I will put the battery on my smart charger and then take it in for load testing.

The reality is that the CCAs required to start a Haffie is very low and an almost dead modern 12v battery will still start it.

Most of the older people are quite familiar with Haflingers and while most of the vehicles are newer vehicles there are quite a few older Land rovers - from as far back as the late 40s.

Here in Canberra the local government used to own quite a few Haflingers and they were used as street sweepers.

Cheers

Garry

[brad]

What I did to my haffy today,

I imported some Hella SBBL-14 tail lights from Germany. Now they are not on my wanted list.
Brand new still in box too. These are the round ones with the indicator lens in the middle.

Brad

[AustHaflinger]

When I got back from my run-in drive yesterday heaps of engine oil was dripping out the bottom of the engine bay - so today I took off the drivers side under tin work and I could see the right hand side rocker cover gasket has failed.

When I rebuilt the engine I bought new rocker gaskets but what was provided was made out of cork and I do not like cork gaskets as I have had a bad run with them over the years - they split around the holes and compress and leak over time - and this is what happened - 300km after assembly.

The old gaskets were made out of a fibre material which worked great - so out with the cork and on the old gaskets go back in and off for a drive and no oil leaks.

On this drive I extended the rev limit up to 4500rpm for a minute or two and it pulled like a train - on the highway up hill no longer needs to change back to 4th. Also refuelled and got 255km with 5 litres still in the tank - 9.9l/100km - 29mpg - this is nearly half the fuel consumption that the Haffie was giving on a bad day before the rebuild.

Garry

[heinkeljb]

When I got back from my run-in drive yesterday heaps of engine was dripping out the bottom of the engine bay - so today I took off the drivers side under tin work and I could see the right hand side rocker cover gasket has failed.

When I rebuilt the engine I bought new rocker gaskets but what was provided was made out of cork and I do not like cork gaskets as I have had a bad run with them over the years - they split around the holes and compress and leak over time - and this is what happened - 300km after assembly.

The old gaskets were made out of a fibre material which worked great - so out with the cork and on the old gaskets go back in and off for a drive and no oil leaks.

On this drive I extended the rev limit up to 4500rpm for a minute or two and it pulled like a train - on the highway up hill no longer needs to change back to 4th. Also refuelled and got 255km with 5 litres still in the tank - 9.9l/100km - 29mpg - this is nearly half the fuel consumption that the Haffie was giving on a bad day before the rebuild.

Garry

Gary,

I think i can read between the lines, but when i first read this, I did wonder if your engine had melted and was dripping bits of aluminium on to the floor!

If you were getting 60mpg out of your Haflinger before the engine rebuild, no wonder it went pop! It must have been running very, very lean.... Book only quotes 30mpg so anything near that or better is good going. Lurch manages that on a long run, but general driving it's more like 20 ~ 22mpg

John

[AustHaflinger]

First point fixed - but the half the fuel consumption bit is correct - yes 29mpg is about half the consumption of 14mpg that it was giving before, even though the actual number in itself is double - but the expression/formula is half.

cheers

Garry

[StuartR]

Got back into the garage for a couple of days and made great progress.

Started with refitting the metal front and using a hydraulic body repair ram (new toy) I managed to push out the front that had been pushed in before I got the Haffy.

Then drilled out 130+ spot welds.

This morning I started on the nearside and removed the last of the under seat area and the old foot well behind it, cleaned up let in a repair section and got the new foot well into position for the welding.

Hope to get a day or so in this coming week.