Bedford CF-UK Message Board > CF Blog Spot > 5 speed gearbox conversion

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	Bedford CF-UK Message Board > CF Blog Spot > 5 speed gearbox conversion

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Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	5 speed gearbox conversion Thought I better add some background info ! Custard is a CF facelift bought on a whim off ebay and turned out to be a very solid original van,no welding .She is a 2.3 slant advantura bodied which had been dry stored most of her life.Only thing I had to do is remove 3 miles of spaghetti wiring which seemed to do nothing! After a recent gearbox failure whilst on holiday I started looking at possible alternatives and an idea was born to adapt a ford type 9 gearbox to accept the bedford bellhousing. Intially this was to be a sierra box The ford box at the top looks a similar size so i started to get an adapter plate made,but Gethin informed me that the Transit type 9 box was similar but had its gearstick in same place as old Vauxhall box so made an easier conversion.Luckily the plate was not that far along and after sourcing a Transit box the plate was altered to fit this Its all built up and ready to fit !!! ----------------------
Sat 20 Jun 2009 @ 14:22
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	ready to fit After moral support fron Phil I chopped of 5MM from the input shaft and chanfered the end. Now need to see if it all fits!
Sat 20 Jun 2009 @ 14:28
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Do you have a drawing for the plate? We should hold this sort of stuff in its own section as many of us have to fix our vehicles with whats available so this would be a good cheaper conversion. What spec transit? ----------------------
Sat 20 Jun 2009 @ 18:25
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Transits made between 1986 and 1991 I believe may have a type 9 gearbox. The plate was made on a CNC millar so is repeatable,I can put anyone intrested in touch with the manufacturer.There is a bit of work to do on the bedford bellhousing drilling holes etc but this could be done at home. With great help from Phil Bradshaw again the box is now fitted,had to grind some metal of the sierra clutch plate to allow the plate clearance to fit flush against the flywheel but apart from that it all fitted nicely. will make up a new gearbox subframe mounting using the existing subframe and welding in a sierra mount once I think how to do it !
Sat 20 Jun 2009 @ 20:36
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	subframe modified and painted ready to fit tonight ! not 100% happy with this might make new subframe for angle iron but see how this one goes!!!
Wed 24 Jun 2009 @ 13:28
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	gearstick Gearbox now fitted and resting on modified subframe:D The gearstick lines up in a rather good place ! Now got to fit the gearstick itself which is an orginal bedford one with the end cut off and fitted into a rather neat sleeve that my mate Ian made up on his lathe;]
Fri 26 Jun 2009 @ 14:10
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	in my honest opinion , this thread should be made into a sticky thread located at the top of the board , excellent work , keep it up . ----------------------
Sun 28 Jun 2009 @ 20:58
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Nearly done! Thanks for the comments but whats a sticky thread !!! Decided to remove and clean up the plate that holds the gearstick gaiter but found it to be quite thin and rusty so made another what do you mean "square peg round hole":D Thought I would use the sierra gaiter which comes in 4 parts,more sound proofing!
Mon 29 Jun 2009 @ 17:15
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	I agree this is a very good thread, and maybe it should stay at the top. (sticky). Only Colin can do that. ----------------------
Tue 30 Jun 2009 @ 06:57
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Today was putting everything back together,first I fitted a universal CV gaiter over the stub of the cut off transit gearstick ford no longer make the original cover!Then the inner cover And finally outer cover Only thing left to do now is the speedo but not sure how to do this.I can either find ,make or adapt a speedo cable that is long enough or fit a right angle speedo drive onto existing cable but this needs more thought and a little experimenting!!!
Tue 30 Jun 2009 @ 20:50
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Looking good Remember to get your speedo re-calibrated as well. Best way to check it is to use a satnav with mph on it. You will be surprised how much an ordinary speedo is out though..... ----------------------
Tue 30 Jun 2009 @ 20:57
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Took the van out for a quick road test today all seems ok all gears working fine nice smooth changes only had reverse crunch once on selecting. Hard to tell what diferance its made to noise at speed as speedo not working yet but there wasnt a big queue of cars behind me so think i was going fast enough!!! will sort speedo out before i use it and check it against my sat nav the electronic ignition is next project !!!
Thu 02 Jul 2009 @ 20:05
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Brilliant work! Have you had to modify the propshaft ?
Thu 02 Jul 2009 @ 23:36
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	propshaft yes I had to weld on the end off a ford UJ type propshaft as I think the sierra one thats usually with the 5 speed (rubber doughnut)would wear out quickly because of the alinment of the gearbox to propshaft centre bearing are about 1" off centre and it would run at an angle constantly. The ford end is of similar size to the CF end so I ground off and filed the tube part of the prop until it revealed the inside of the casting which helped getting it true, it is only a short length to the centre bearing so balancing not so far been an issue but proper test run will show if I need to get it balanced.
Fri 03 Jul 2009 @ 09:45
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	given up on the speedo angle drive and gone for having new speedo cable made which i should get soon. after engine had settled after test run i noticed the oil filler cap was touching the bulkhead!i thought this might be sloppy engine mounts until Phil pointed out that the front to rear alignment of engine wasnt right ooops ! wasnt happy with the modification of the gearbox crossmember so mark 2 verion was made looking better now and oil filler back in the right place!
Wed 15 Jul 2009 @ 23:59
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	scrap yard find Forgot to mention that whilst searching for gearbox bits i found by accident a CF2 Hanlon ambulance conversion in a local scrapyard and was amazed to find it had bosch electronic ignition still fitted so again with Phil's help fitted this also It turns out that the coolant pipe is differant on the CF/facelift that I have to the later CF2 so was lucky that I had got the one off the scrap vehicle ! CF2 pipe is at the bottom. This is now fitted and timed (Phil to the rescue again)and seems to have made a great improvement not yet road tested but van now starts first time everytime;]
Thu 16 Jul 2009 @ 00:14
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	I'd not thought of the coolant by-pass pipe being different with Bosch distributor (to clear the wiring plug); good job Lee wanted the head from the same van & grabbed the right coolant pipe at the same time! The original wiring (ballasted supply) wasn't up to the Bosch system working well - the spark was a bit short, ok-ish to keep the engine running - so it got a by-pass from fuse 3 straight to coil terminal 15: sorted. ----------------------
Thu 16 Jul 2009 @ 01:34
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Could you do a separat write up of how to fit the electronic ignition and what bits are required? I know of two ambulances in a scrap yard so they might be electronic? V reg I think, they also have a CF 2 camper? ----------------------
Thu 16 Jul 2009 @ 14:31
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	V reg will have left the factory with Delco contact breaker system; CF2 is the wrong distributor - clockwise, not anti-clockwise, and a completely different installation & drive arrangement - but the coil, module, their mounting plate (that also is the module heat sink) and the ignition system wiring are worth having, to leave finding a slant Bosch distributor & adaptor plate & the coolant by-pass pipe. I've nearly done debugging the ignition system & wiring fault finding how-to so I could do a section on retro-fitting Bosch to slant engines. In time though: it'll need 6 wiring schematics to cover converting to CF2 ignition supply wiring 1969-1984 because, even though the Bosch system will work on a ballasted supply, there's at least 5 frequently occurring faults in the original wiring that the one new wire will by-pass. Working on it... ----------------------
Fri 17 Jul 2009 @ 00:22
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Thanks Phil So what year do I need to find for the correct Dizzy? The two he has are like this pic http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/77/177273173_d69ac3c38a.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/mjjtlee/177273173/&usg=__swuGG6jXtjgK1FCUfpwzyTN9CMs=&h=358&w=500&sz=122&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=bMJSNQMF-9DHMM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dold%2Bbedford%2Bambulance%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den ----------------------
Fri 17 Jul 2009 @ 07:14
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