darrenjlobb's Adaptronic Managed Compound Blown Derv Bus Build

[darrenjlobb]

Time for a little update (for a change!) As some people may have seen in a previous video on YouTube, I finally got the car out of its dusty shed last week, and moved it into my workshop. However some slightly sad / bad news is that the thick layer of dust, has done a little more damage than I had first thought, It turns out dust from putting bags of cement into a mixer next door has been blowing in over the car, and has built up a thick layer of cement dust..which has sadly now gone rock solid on the paint!

After some advice from several people on here / youtube, I ended up using some acid brick cleaner and water to try and lift it, along with the pressure washer etc.....After getting rid of the majority of it, I then was able to use a claybar and lots of water to try and remove what was remaining...Sadly this has put a fairly large amount of shallow scratches into the paint, and also not managed to lift it all... Not sure what to try next to remove what left, from a distance you wouldnt know, but up close you can see it, and if you touch the paint, it feels rough on the back of your hand, whereas it was smooth before.... So this is a bit of a shame, but no one to blame other than myself for leaving it parked where it was so long un protected.... Good job it was only a home paint job and not one I payed thousands for!!! Bledy job!

So ignoring this problem for the time being, as think its just something I will have to live with now...I pushed on and pushed the car into the workshop over the pit, ready to be able to continue working on it.

The car inside in the background awaiting some attention:







The next little thing I wanted to sort out on the car after sorting out the wiring inside, was the clutch linkage situation. As I have said before, I am trying to sort out everything on the car before I make a start on the engine!

So previously on most of my engines, I have ran a 4 paddle unsprung clutch from CG...Which in all honesty, has worked very well, and given me very little grief....However I sold it a few years ago when I built up the 205 VNT'Bus for Tom, so I needed something new either way. I have noticed the quality of some CG items to have dropped somewhat over the last few years, and have seen several clutchs with very poor spline / hub manufacturing, leading to alot of "slop" on the input shaft of the transmission, which isnt something I like, A - because it can make a horrid noise when the shaft is unloaded, and B - because I can see this slogging out / stripping it right out when abused with lots of torque, which is something I really don't want happening! 

So off the back of that, and the need to upgrade ideally to support bigger torque at the flywheel, I decided to order a 4 paddle disc from Helix (lets hope mines ok as think Piggy has been having similar issues with his ?!) and also an uprated pressure plate, with a higher clamping force. 

Because of this, I have concerns about the stock clutch cable, more so the plastic ends, which I have seen fail before under extra strain from aftermarket pressure plates. When coupled with the problems I have had in the past with manifold / turbo's partly melting the cable, or at least constantly drying them out / making them stiff and squeaky, I decided now is the time to convert to a hydraulic setup to avoid these problems and give more reliability / release force on the clutch.

Obviously no 306's came with a hydro setup from the factory, so needed to make something up custom, and after having a little search around online at what other people had been doing (for V6 conversions etc) I didn't really see anything that I felt I would be happy with, infact most involved using a cable anyway, and then converting to hydro remotely, which to me just somewhat defeated the point / added alot of complexity and mess that I don't think I would  have been happy with.

So after much thinking, I came up with an idea in my head, so set about making it, so started out by ripping the dash / pedal box etc all back out the car:




Then removed the brake servo and master cylinder to gain access to the bulkhead:




My plan was to have a pivot system mounted in the rear corner of the engine bay, as to hopefully avoid being in the way of anything else, yet still be directly actuated by the pedal itself. I decided I wanted to be able to remove the entire system rather than fabricate it directly on the car, meaning once the engine is in, if it requires modification / changing, I am able to unbolt it, and remove it, without having to pull the entire engine out to get in there with the grinder / welder or whatever is required!

So step one was to make up a mounting plate that sat on the rear chassis member area, basically 3 bits of plate cut / bent to shape, and then welded together:



Which sits in here like this:



Next up, I needed to modify the stock clutch pedal, so that I could mount a rose joint at one end of it, to actuate the pushrod through the bulkhead:








Next up I needed to drill and rivnut the car, so that the plate could be bolted to the car securely. I also remounted the old brake servo as to make sure we retain clearance during the build:



This is what I came up with for the clutch lever system, the far back bit holds an OEM style PSA clutch master cylinder for simplicity:



And with a lick paint:




And assembled to give an idea of how it all works:






And then fitted / bolted back in the car:




And inside:



And with booster re mounted to confirm clearance (tight!):




And a video update for anyone who likes to watch these to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjSyhF5xIOw


Thanks for reading as always!