Up and Running

The mechanic replaced a number of other things when he did the timing belt. Since he was in there, it made sense to also do the:

• Water pump
• Front seals (camshaft, crankshaft, oil pump)
• Power steering belt
• Fan/accessory belt of some sort
• Valve cover gasket
• Valve cover half-moon seal at the rear (this was a last minute thing that I was able to get from Rock Auto, surprisingly, after cross-reffing Isuzu P'up parts)
• Coolant hoses (whatever I had basically)
• Tensioner pulley
• Idler pulley
• Thermostat gasket (I think? I should check...)
• Power steering pump

Maybe some other stuff, too? It's been too long.

I can't forget the huge difference made in getting power steering back, of course. I remember being super thrilled that the used pump I bought from some guy in Greece actually worked! It was 95% identical but one of the hose flanges needed to be modified a bit. Interesting that even though it really seemed identical, there was a small difference. I'm glad it worked out!

I really should have had him do the fuel filter. That thing is hard to get to without removing the driver-side seat. Ugh.

Speaking of removing seats, I managed to swing by at once point and get a shot of the engine bay while it was disassembled for access. Both the center console "hood", driver and passenger seats were removed for better access. It's really quite impossible to do anything beyond an oil change with that stuff still installed.

The lighting was really bad...you get the idea

At this point it became a kind of back and forth waiting game. Admittedly I wish I pushed harder to get the work completed so I could start messing with other aspects of it. Weeks went by with intermittent progress. And then Covid-19 hit!

At that point, I didn't really want to push my mechanic to work faster on something I could genuinely wait for. He was dealing with his own issues relating to the pandemic. So I tried to take it easy and let him work at the pace he needed. I think it was for the better. We seem to be on pretty good terms and I think he was able to do the work on the engine in a methodical manner.

During the waiting period, I spent a lot of time researching this and that about the camper. I probably bought a few too many things in anticipation.

When the week of finally getting the camper back arrived, I made a beeline to the Interstate Battery store in town to get two brand new deep-cycle RV batteries. I needed a pair of batteries which didn't cost an arm and a leg, and would offer a good middle ground between starter battery and house battery. I didn't want to (nor have the patience for) finding some ultimate battery pairing that was meant for boondocking for a zillion years. I just needed a new battery to start the vehicle, and a battery which could handle a day or two of camping without charging. Thus, the Interstate SRM-24 was my pick. 

Oh, and I also needed to fit two of them into a tiny storage space! If you'll recall from other photos (or the ones below), there was minimal space for big fancy American batteries. I took some measurement and while I haven't actually tried to get both in there yet, I think it will fit into the space.

The two batteries are stored at the base of this cabinet.

The old batteries, very snug

One drawback to these batteries which I do wish I could have gotten around is that they require some amount of venting. The storage space does have some little vent holes that lead outside the van. And the cabinet itself can be pretty airtight otherwise. Maybe I'll add a dinky fan to the vent hole and run it off DC power?

Okay, van acquired and battery swapped in! The only remaining thing was to affix the super awesome collector license plates! I don't want to revisit that whole thing but basically just know that if you're importing a car from Japan, just go for the collector plates! I tried to do the whole motorhome plate thing, but it got rejected for "reasons" and the nice person at the DMV said to give the collector plate option a go. So I did, and to my utter relief the plates showed up not that long after! It's hard to convey how happy I was to have them!

Super cool blue and red color scheme!

One of the nicest things about these plates is that they don't need to be renewed. One and done! The unfortunate thing is that you're not supposed to drive a "Collector" vehicle in January. So...I won't be doing that I guess!

Having brought the plates, I knew beforehand that just affixing an American license plate to a foreign vehicle was probably not straightforward. Fortunately, I was able to get the rear plate on with a single screw that would last for the 5 mile drive. Good enough!

I said goodbye to the mechanic, hopped in and starting driving home. Not 5 minutes after leaving did a middle-aged guy yell out his window at a stop light that the camper was indeed "fucking awesome". Yes, a trend would soon be established in which middle-aged men would do a double take and stare, thumbs up, or yell in excitement upon seeing this small camper. The attention is kind of fun, I'll admit.

Power steering pumps have arrived! New YouTube video!

Awesome! We received both power steering pumps. Here is a quick (maybe not...) video comparing the two. I'm excited to install one of them ;)

New YouTube video!

Here's a quick video unboxing of some new parts that came all the way from Dubai!

Parts obsession

I have to admit a bit of an addiction.

When there's something to search for, and it's on the internet, I get pretty obsessed.

An imported Japanese vehicle with lots of obscure parts therefore lends itself to this sort of time-consuming activity.

You see, after I won the bid, and the mechanic confirmed that yes, it did need a new power steering pump, the hunt was on!

I briefly touched on this in the previous post. It only took me a few paragraphs to explain myself, but it really took up way more of my time that I let on.

To start, I jumped on partsouq.com. This site is great, because it offers very excellent exploded diagrams of nearly the entire vehicle. Powertrain, accessories, electrical, it's all there!

This map of the entire vehicle wasn't actually specific to my RV. Rather it was for the Isuzu Fargo truck (van?) that existed before it was hacked up and converted to an RV. But majoritively all of the parts were still present and therefore accurately represented in these diagrams.

All one has to do is click through the various systems until they dig down to the part they think is needed.

In my case, I did strongly desire a power steering pump.

At first, my beginner understanding of Partsouq let me only to an exploded diagram of the pump. I spent far too long staring at this blown up assembly, trying to figure out which parts might be available and which I would want to try for a rebuild.

It took quite a while before I basically gave up on these small parts. Even though they were largely clickable and existed as real parts sometime back in the '90s, nowadays they were nowhere to be found.

I sent a few emails to other parts vendors (see my prior post) and came up empty handed.

Eventually, after digging around for some time longer, I found that the entire pump itself was represented in another exploded diagram of a broader steering system category!

If you look near the center, you'll see Item #1. That's the pump I needed!

Obviously enough, this part number turned out to be the same one that the mechanic back in Japan found I needed to order. It was also the one that would cost around $900 new!

Most power steering pumps for Isuzus of this generation run about $100. So I knew it was not financially practical to pursue this option, even though the perfectionist in me wanted to do so. Period correct Isuzu Fargos aren't a thing, so I didn't need to keep in authentic!

Knowing the actual pump part number, I pushed my Google-Fu to the limits. Glimmers of people selling this pump as a used item popped up on very foreign websites. Most of the languages were Cyrillic in one form or another. I admit to knowing zero about language, but basically many of them were Russian or near neighbors of Russia.

But lo and behold, they WERE selling the pump I needed!

So close, and yet so far.

I made numerous attempts to contact these various sellers. But their oddly complicated methods of contacting (I needed a foreign phone number) and impossible to solve Captchas (because my keyboard could hardly handle their alphabet) made it hard to reach them.

I haven't heard back yet. I figure they wouldn't want to bother shipping overseas anyway. I wouldn't, at least.

Another avenue took me to an Indian automotive forum. They seemed super techy, knew their diesels, and also spoke of the rare 4FG1 engine that my Fargo has.

But again a road block. I tried to register for their exclusive forum and was denied!

I want to try again, but possibly the same issues would come up. Who would want to ship a cheap old pump to the US from another country?

So now I think I've finally come to accept not getting an OEM pump.

I have an angle on a similar pump, and some fine folks at PlanetIsuzoo seem to assure me that if I can just mount it up proper, it will work fine. I think that's convincing enough!

And so my pump hunt comes to a close.

But I cannot rest, for there are many more parts to be had!