Getting closer to the Easter weekend but lots (comparatively) done.
I took the Glow plug from my spares kit and fitted it in to see if that was the problem. During this process, I dropped a screw-down inside the heater case. It rolled underneath and the only way I could get it out was to remove the heater and give it a shake.
This meant I had to remove both the exhaust and inlet pipes. This showed another potential problem to the heater running correctly.
The inlet pipe is 25mm diameter and although it was fixed to the bodywork with the supplied pipe clip it was crushed constricting the air flow.
The heater was put back in, fuel rebled, pipes refitted and test run.
All good now. Working a treat. Too well in fact. With the freezing temperatures in the morning, I thought it would be ideal test conditions. Fired up, ran at full chat until the 20c temp was reached then backed off to minimum run. I left it for a couple of hours to see how it performed. Although the outside temperature had gone up quite a lot (8c-10c) the inside temp was nearly 24C. The thermostat should work on about 1C tolerance so at that setting and with a warmer ambient temperature the output still exceeded the losses. Not really a problem as there is usually a window cracked over the hob unit anyway.
I had purchased an updated controller called an "Afterburner" for the ultimate in a controll system. This displays information on its screen not available on an OEM controller. This showed that the pump operation rate at minimum was 1Hz. I had read that each time the pump operated it injects 0.022ml (a 22 pump fitted to 5Kw units) of diesel into the burn chamber. The fact that my heater was a 2Kw heater not 5Kw also means it is over fueled during operation as a 2Kw unit should only need 0.016ml for best running.
Needless to say, a 0.016ml pump is on order although it will take a couple of months to get here on the "slow boat from China"
In an effort to counter the potential over-fueling long temp on ✔ over (It could cause the burn chamber to soot up) I adjusted the Pump frequency via the "Afterburner" down from 1Hz to 0.9Hz. So far it hasn't flamed out so I am hopeful it's all good.
Next, to get the camper back on the truck
In the past I had always taken the tailgate off to save weight but having realised that it was impossible to get the spare wheel out from under the truck while the camper was on I removed the spare wheel first. With other needs, the tailgate was left on for them.
The Tonneau cover and fixing rails had also been removed in the past. In an effort to avoid this. Instead of the camper sitting on 50mm wooden packers to raise it to miss the tub sides I decided to try 100mm of Celotex sheet and leave the framework on. This worked ok but I found there was just 10mm clearance with only 50mm Celotex so that is what I went with.
Two problems emerged.
1. With only 10mm to play with, raising the camper on its legs was more time consuming being only able to go from side to side 10mm at a time until the compression in the suspension was released.
2. The 50mm packing didn't lift the camper quite enough to enable it to miss the support wires to the still connected tailgate.
It meant that the camper was sitting about 50mm further back in the tub.
It did have a benefit though. I didn't need to remove the actual tonneau cover. I was able to roll it up and it would sit snugly between the camper and the truck cab
Now just need to clear the tools out. Make the bed and stock up ready for a Thursday off to Santapod.