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Dollywobbler's Invacar - Ongoing


dollywobbler

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got TWC fired up (dying battery) and went for a drive. Sluggish as hell. Awful. Got back, rear wheels were warm...

 

Turns out the handbrake mechanism has been sticking, possibly for quite a while. Oops. I went through it front to back and found various sticky points, including the main pivot. Freed everything off and she was rolling sweetly. Went for a test drive and wow! While she still doesn't like hills, she's a flying machine on the flat. 60mph is really quite easy. In fact, I hit 65mph before discovering that the brakes were shite! Turns out I'd adjusted them up with the handbrake binding in seems, so with that freed off, the rears were way out of adjustment. Single-wheel braking really not good...

 

All sorted now. An Invacar transformed. Have some new pulleys on their way from a friendly source. No guarantee they'll fit or indeed work in this application, but my contact reckons it's worth a go. Won't have them until February, but I will report back.

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Got TWC fired up (dying battery) and went for a drive. Sluggish as hell. Awful. Got back, rear wheels were warm...

 

Turns out the handbrake mechanism has been sticking, possibly for quite a while. Oops. I went through it front to back and found various sticky points, including the main pivot. Freed everything off and she was rolling sweetly. Went for a test drive and wow! While she still doesn't like hills, she's a flying machine on the flat. 60mph is really quite easy. In fact, I hit 65mph before discovering that the brakes were shite! Turns out I'd adjusted them up with the handbrake binding in seems, so with that freed off, the rears were way out of adjustment. Single-wheel braking really not good...

 

All sorted now. An Invacar transformed. Have some new pulleys on their way from a friendly source. No guarantee they'll fit or indeed work in this application, but my contact reckons it's worth a go. Won't have them until February, but I will report back.

 

 

ohh thats excellent news! (well not the sticking part but the transformed part)

 

I do wonder how long the handbrakes been sticking for, hopefully its not worn out any of the components

 

are we going to be treated to a new 0-60 run? or a top speed run? I wanna know if a Model 70 can actually hit 82Mph :) (might want to avoid 88Mph so you dont end up going back in time  :mrgreen: )

 

are the new pulleys supposed to be the same type as whats on TWC or are they of a different type? (if I read the Manual for the transmission properly theres 2 types ones "speed sensitive" and ones "torque sensitive", whatever that is supposed to mean...)

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The pulleys are from an entirely different application, but still for a Salsbury transmission I think. Top speed run limited here by geography! Not enough straight bits...

You need to gaffer tape all the shut lines, spray some Teflon on the paintwork, and get it over to the salt flats. It’d be a first!

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Hard to say as it's not exactly flat around here. Will try to take her for a longer run. She needs it.

 

I was wondering if a higher speed run might help the engine run better

 

I imagine when these engines where used in those "Fiat 500s" they where more often then not driven flat out like a 2CV is :)

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My favourite part of the most recent video was the moment you reached warp speed. Due to the unique way your phone was rattling around in the car mount, it felt like the Autoshite equivalent of the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Should have been accompanied by the caption: “My God, it’s full of chod!”

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Had a run out to town today.

Dw9RPmkWkAAZBGp.jpg

 

I do love driving this thing when it works, and it really does feel totally at home around town. On the sweeping A roads with terrifying crosswinds, not so much! Still, she cruises much more happily at 50, and I'm actually off the throttle a lot more on downhill sections. Still not very happy going uphill - which gets scary when there's an Artic up your arse, but definitely better. Incredibly, having one window open about an inch means demisting is not an issue as long as you don't stop moving.

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im glad she feels at home driving around at home :) (as thats what my future model 70 will mainly be used for because I sadly live in London and all the stuff that encompasses  :mrgreen:

 

BTW I was having another flick through the workshop manual and I noticed it explicitly states that the CVT transmission holds the engine at 3500 RPM which so happens to be the peak torque point for the Puch engine, which would lead me to believe Model 70s have the "torque sensitive" Pulley setup from Salsbury

 

I dont know if this of any help at all but I feel like it was worth pointing out especially as it was previously thought that the transmission held the engine at 3000 RPM (which did not make much sense to me from a power/torque curve prospective)

 

 

but hopefully it helps :)

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Thanks, but there's no high-tech approach to these pulleys. It relies on springing and free movement. I suspect my pulleys are lacking somewhat in the free movement regard, hence it isn't holding the engine at the right rev point. It'll be interesting to see if the new pulleys make a difference, and where the revs end up.

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That's a lovely photo.

 

Curious to see how the heater in mine performs in the real world - testing it in the garage it seems to kick out a decent amount of heat. Especially having attacked it with the vacuum cleaner and pulled half a bag of crud out of the ductwork.

 

Hopefully it won't be too long now before I'll be able to make a trip over there with TP and we can get some photos of the pair of them together.

 

Have to admit that I'm suffering a bit from countryside withdrawal at the moment so an excuse to disappear into rural Wales for a few days seems a great idea!

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I went for a drive.

Dx1r5hNWkAAlXQc.jpg

 

There's a weather warning for wind today. I should have heeded it. The drive was very exciting. It was made more exciting by the wiper refusing to turn off when instructed to do so, a trick learnt from the 2CV it seems. I shall have to separate them again. The only way to get the wiper to stop was to try and find the dead position on the switch that cuts power by accident, or turn the ignition off briefly when the wiper was in the normal park position. Trying to do that while battling crosswinds is an experience, I can tell you. In fact, I just have.

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I had a similar wiper issue on my second scimitar, flexi rod that went up the tube to the spindles was full of dried up old grease which means it couldn't hit the motor's park switch when you switched them off, so they kept running. Took dad and I about half an hour to get the flexi rod out, cleaned, new lubrication and put back in, then had no issues with it until we took the car off the road.

 

Could also be the park switch gummed up. Hopefully it's an external one and just needs a squirt of something.

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I think TWC took "intermittent windscreen wipers" a bit too literal  :mrgreen:

 

also cool to see your planning to take TWC to the National microcar rally, I definitely will see if I can hustle my way down there

 

(aka check and see if Zel is going and if i can hitch a lift :) although its a good 8 months away so who knows maybe ill be able to drive down by then :) )

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Sometimes, you just need to do stupid things.

DyKS_n7XcAMW4UK.jpg

 

You can just about encourage a drift, but with so much weight over the driven wheels and none over the steered one, she just tends to push on instead. Then she fills the engine bay with slush and starts misfiring, and you start wondering if this was such a good idea after all...

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Sometimes, you just need to do stupid things.

DyKS_n7XcAMW4UK.jpg

 

You can just about encourage a drift, but with so much weight over the driven wheels and none over the steered one, she just tends to push on instead. Then she fills the engine bay with slush and starts misfiring, and you start wondering if this was such a good idea after all...

Reliants are class in the snow, spending most of the time sideways. Shame these are not so fun in the snow.

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Sometimes, you just need to do stupid things.

DyKS_n7XcAMW4UK.jpg

 

You can just about encourage a drift, but with so much weight over the driven wheels and none over the steered one, she just tends to push on instead. Then she fills the engine bay with slush and starts misfiring, and you start wondering if this was such a good idea after all...

 

I imagine with all the weight over the rear wheels it does help with traction at least? :)

 

(or did you still get manic wheel spin?  :mrgreen: )

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this was a very fun video to watch :)

 

its a shame there was not an external camera setup when you did the drifting/doughnut in the car park, tho knowing me I would end up accidentally squishing the camera  :mrgreen:

 

BTW what was that god awful crunch around 7:09? (sounded gearboxy, im guessing you cant take model 70 out of neutral while the engine is running?)

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