CF Bedford Van

[Holden202T]

yeah used the falcon bearing inner......

Inner Wheel Bearing Set - XA - XF Falcon
Cone L68149 - Bore ID. 34.987mm - 1.3775in
Cup L68110 - Cup OD. 59.131mm - 2.3280in

from memory the commodore hub has the right inner bearing OD for the falcon bearing and then that fits the bedford stub perfectly.....

the problem was there is no off the shelf bearing for the outer that will fit the hub and the stub. On the Bedford forums it seems people machine down the stub axle to suit the right bearing, i didn't want to do that as:

1. weakens the stub axle
2. machining a part that is not a consumable and not easy to find spares

so instead i found a bearing that was the same ID as the bedford stub outer bearing, but had 4mm bigger OD (i think) and i just got the hub machined 4mm to suit it..... and im pretty sure from patchy memory that the bearing i selected has like 200-300kg more load capacity than the stock bedford bearing set.

so in theory i just replace bearings and shouldn't have an issue, and the chances i need a new hub are pretty slim, and even if i do its not a lot of work to machine it to work.

im also assuming an engineer is going to be more happy with a machined hub (with still like 10mm meat around it) than machining the stub, and also a higher rated bearing has to be better too.

If you do need any info i have a lot of bearing numbers and specs as well as the timken cattledogs to go along with them, i wasted a lot of time looking through bearings to find my solution!

[immortality]

That sounds like a much better solution, I doubt an engineer would be happy with the stub shaft been ground down.

[Holden202T]

memory is vague, but im sure i saw old instructions from a name brand supplier that to fit hq brakes that was the way to do it...

i cant recall 100% so i dont want to put any names in there but it did seem not cool to me so i looked for the non-stub modification option.

[oldn64]

You are correct Holden202T,

machining the hub is bad practise. It is actually illegal and will void your insurance and no pass engineering anyways. Very common practise by a well known shop to do this whihc meant that the stub was weakened and the re were failures.

The HQ disc uses the same bearings as the commodore one and thus it is the same same. Infact all Holden rotors used the same bearings HR - VP. Little know fact is that the sigmas ran the same bearings as well (meaning commodore rotors onto a sigma was easy to achieve.....dont ask)

From my sketchy memory when i was looking into this you use a falcon inner bearing as the outer bearing but this meant once you machined the disc or hub for the bearing there was no commonly available bearing cap to go with it. This solution looks the goods as I really do not want to have something on the back of the bedford (towing) and have the front fall apart. I am tempted to upgrade the stubs to the dual rear ones as they are thicker but on the calcs the current ones will do the job asked and the bigger stubs do not have an option for better brakes. Bedford drums are just crap. I would consider using the transit setup as they got the better lockheed setup in them.

Cheers
oldn64

[Batvan]

Newbie to the forum... Own an 81cf and currently working on mounting a vs statesman motor an box... Done the HQ disc brake update, just need to make adapter plates to fit vt callipers... Great forum here by the looks... Need to invest some time in reading it all.... Soo much to do an no time to get it done

[oldn64]

Newbie to the forum... Own an 81cf and currently working on mounting a vs statesman motor an box... Done the HQ disc brake update, just need to make adapter plates to fit vt callipers... Great forum here by the looks... Need to invest some time in reading it all.... Soo much to do an no time to get it done

Um....... So dis you use the HQ stud axles or machine the rotor?

The big No No with your conversion though is that the VT caliper does not match the HQ rotor. What this means is that you have one thing to overcome and one thing you cannot overcome. Firstly the offset of the disc is different between the vt caliper and the HQ caliper, so your mounting point will need to accommodate this. The thing you cannot overcome is that a vt rotor is 25mm minimum thickness and the HQ is 24.5mm this means that there is a high chance that when the pad wears out the pistons will fall out. The VT caliper was design with a 28mm rotor in mind. I have seen the piston drop out of guys that have just put the VT caliper on early girls, and I am not sure there would be an engineer that would pass that.

You would be far better off using the HQ caliper instead and getting a better pad material.

cheers
oldn64

[Holden202T]

figured it was time to get this thread back onto the first page of the forum - only been 7 yrs since the last post!

honestly the biggest change in this project up until recently has been me using it for testing delco stuff! .... i did find the exhaust bushes were split and no longer holding the exhaust up, so i bought new rubbers lol

Anyways on to the main reason for this post..... so i had heard that VE commodore racks were a good conversion into a Bedford as they are good width to suit the requirements .... i had never gotten to the point of trying to find one to try, then when dad bought a written off VF to get parts from i had the opportunity to try out an electric rack, given how good the one in my daily driver VF is i thought if it fits its probably going to be a pretty good option, and being electric it probably just means i need a higher amp alternator and no need to mount a power steering pump.

So first things first, pulled the old rack out and side by side they are very similar mounting locations etc.

VF Rack1.jpg (155.13 KiB) Viewed 7308 times

had to make some small mods to the crossmember to get the rack in there, nothing 5 minutes on the plasma couldn't sort!

Initial impressions are it should be able to fit reasonably well if i can get it up a bit higher and back just a little bit.

So this is the main issue stopping it going back any further, i had debated moving the engine back a bit when i did the A/C Condenser install, and i havent yet got the tailshaft made so its not too bad of a proposition still, would only need to cut off the engine mounts and move them back, and the gearbox crossmember will just require longer slots in the holes already there now.

Currently i'm trying to work through the CAN bus side of things to see if i can get it to work outside of a commodore environment, and provided that all works as hoped i'll potentially look at moving the engine back.

I've also been told that there is a certain model Rodeo that the tie rod ends will bolt onto this and then have the correct length and taper to work with this rack in Bedford, so thats probably good to know VE or VF rack wise.

I've also stated work on the interface board which the plan is it will send any CAN signals the rack needs to work, and also hook into the delco ALDL data to get engine RPM, vehicle speed etc as required to feed to the rack - its got two CAN buses on it and the ALDL 1 wire interface circuit, both of which i have tested on boards with Teensys so hopefully it all works with the right code!

pcb1.jpg (74.82 KiB) Viewed 7308 times

[vlad01]

Funny, I saw a van parked in town up the main road and seems to be a resident now, I thought is that a Bedford? and then thought, Geez I haven't seen an update on the this project in years, your ears must have been burning haha.

[Holden202T]

the FX is almost back together after painting, so im trying to get more done on this thing, theres a couple of easy wins with it and a few harder ones .... but i want to get progress and get it registered maybe sometime next year before they outlaw registering anything thats not electric