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Let the Projects Begin: Mechanical Update



When buying a 23-year-old vehicle the one thing you know you going to have to do is spend some time and money repairing & replacing some of the worn-out and tired parts, and I had allowed a generous budget to have some initial work done on Digby. As I am not particularly mechanically minded, I did some research to see if I could find a mechanic in the local area that would have at least have a passing familiarity with a Mitsubishi Delica, a vehicle that was only imported into New Zealand in very small numbers or brought in as a personal import. Imagine my joy when I found a mobile mechanic named Harry working in Christchurch that was not only familiar with a Delica but actually used one as his door-to-door mobile garage.


  

I dug out Harry's number and gave him a call and set up a time for him to pop round to my house and give Digby the once-over, and he duly turned up in his green short wheelbase series 1 Delica and proceeded to give the old boy a good going over, and after a good 30 minutes or so Harry came back to me with his verdict. Firstly he said that there was nothing of immediate safety concern to resolve, no structural problems, no rust issues, most of the bushes were in a reasonable state and that Digby was in pretty good condition overall for its age, there were just a few small things that needed some attention. Digby needed the front inner & outer CV boots replacing, there was an oil leak from the rocker cover so a new gasket would fix that and the belts needed changing.


We spoke for a good while and I told Harry that I was prepared to put some money into some preventative maintenance to hopefully get another 300 thousand km out of the old van and with our plan to convert Digby into a full-time camper to travel the world in, I asked him what he would recommend keeping Digby going for the next few years. The Delica’s have a known issue with overheating so replacing the radiator, expansion header tank and blanking off of the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation), would be a good starting point to keep heating problems to a minimum, and as the turbo looked original and had been in the van for almost 25 years, changing that would give Digby a new lease of life in the power department. Harry also thought that the timing chain looked a little loose and would be a straightforward replacement at the same time as replacing the rocker cover gasket, and I agreed that this sounded like a good plan and I asked for a quote to get the work underway.



The quote was in the ballpark of what I was expecting to pay so I gave Harry the thumbs up and we agreed on some dates to get the work underway. I purchased some of the parts we needed to source from eBay, (a new expansion header tank & EGR Blanking kit), and Harry sorted out the radiator, rocker cover gasket, timing chain, fitted a brand new turbo, and bolted on the parts I had brought. This basic mechanical work has given the van a new lease on life, definitely more power and better pick-up with the new turbo in place, and the temperature gauge reaches its operating temperature level one-third of the way up the dial and stays nice and constant. It feels really good to get these jobs out of the way and get Digby to a reasonable state of health, even if there is still plenty of work left to do. Happy days.....



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