busmansholiday

AERFER Firenze 426's   (based on a FIAT 412/1 chasiss. They had two staircases and the driver sat in the middle; the conductor sat at the back, the exit was at the front.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/410484568325225/

Ha, ha, ha. Many a small operator has fitted a ticket machine on the top of the engine cover to use such things for one man. The difficult bit was the doors, either a mechanical arm / handle or even a piece of rope. Ask me how I know.
 
Don't also forget Ford offered their R192 or R226 (both front engined) with Plaxton Derwent bus body for one man operation. 

This is more for my own sanity really, Just somewhere where I can document general maintenance and repairs I do on my little darling. So basically, as my username might suggest, I like my old SEAT's. A Mk1 Ibiza being pretty much on the top of that list (barring a Malaga, however that doesn't look like its going to be possible anytime soon 😂.) It's taken me some years to source a decent one and to actually be in the financial position to buy, however I got my way in the end. I acquired it some 3 months or so ago now and I have absolutely fallen in love with it. Its not the "Porsche System" variant and its not got the cool, early style dashboard with the rocker indicators, however I simply don't care. It's basically perfect. Its had some very sympathetic previous owners who have lavished money on it keeping it in mint condition. One previous owner resorted it at great expense ( I've seen photos of it before and my word, she was in very poor condition). This trend is something I intend on carrying on.  
 
Anyway, enough with the soppy shite. Recently I've been having some ignition issues. It was an absolute job to try and get her to start. Even with some good ole' fashioned easy start it was extremely difficult. So I set about diagnosing. She was getting fuel and air no issue whatso ever so my attention turned to spark. 
It turns out she had a very weak spark. So I immediately ordered a new ignition coil. 

 
I was quite surprised at how easy it was trying to find parts. I thought that due to its rarity, parts were going to be a thorn in my side. However I've been proven wrong. Anyway, new ignition coil delivered, i cracked on.
 

 
Out with the old and in with the new. This job must've taken me all of ooohh maybe 5 minutes and people judge me for liking old cars.
 

 

 
I took the opportunity to change both the spark plugs and battery as I wasn't sure on when they were last done and, hey, I wouldn't harm to do it. 
Good thing I did as the spark plugs were honking of fuel.

 
Now, I'll admit it, I may have made a little bit of a cock up. While removing the air filter I may have sheared a bolt. So I had to address that as well. Out comes the tapping set and time to reverse my fuck up. 
I know it's not pretty but it'll have to do. 

 

 
All back together and ready for testing. 
 

 
She fired up straight away without a hesitation so I must've done something right! All in all this took me about an hour to do the lot, including the tapping. Not bad for a novice like me lol. 
 
Anyways sorry for rambling on. Thanks for reading if you got this far

I went to the Carris museum in Lisbon today. It's just like a transport museum should be, with everything in good shape, well explained (with English translation), not trying to be painfully relevant. The vehicle section is buried in the middle of the Carris works right underneath the 25th April suspension bridge. So you pay just inside the works entrance, look around the first part of the museum, and are then taken down to the vehicles on the old red tram in the photos. There's a huge amount about the history of Carris as well, with lots of other equipment on display. Amazingly, only €4.50 entrance. The only disappointment was that they don't seem to have any of the rather wonderful locally bodied AEC Regent Vs they bought inthe sixties.

Phwoar! Look at that pair of big Bristols

Vintage & classic cars Truck lorries Other | eBay

https://www.copart.co.uk/lot/39727824/clean-title-1972-othe-other-sandtoft

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315146398622
 

Aaarrhhh, the sound of that V6 engine, screaming away in the back of a Roadliner was something to behold. I was lucky, Chesterfield had some (never got to drive one), but travelled on many, and travelled on Bournemouth's (on loan to LCBS),  and.. 
 
Stay still my beating heart !!!
 
The re-engined ones with the Perkins V8 may have been more reliable but....
 

https://www.lesanciennes.com/encheres/1977-talbot-simca-1100-ti-a660745

I'll just drop this here.

Minor ailments with this currently include one of the carb needles becoming loose resulting in raw fuel being dumped out of the exhaust (pretty stains on pavement) and a somewhat temperamental fusebox connection. Both easy fixes I suppose.
In preparation for a long journey down to Rustival, a 700 mile round trip, I thought it would be good to add a few features.
First up is a working 12v socket. The wiring had long since disintegrated from this do it had to be redone.
To begin I stuck it in phosphoric acid to clean up the rusty insides.

Then made up new wiring. Originally this is fed off the ignition switch and is both permanently live and unfused. Not happy with this, I've made the wiring to fit into a switched live on the fusebox, and added a tail onto it for future use.

That meant I could then use a portable inflator to pump the tyres up that were all sitting at 20psi.
Next up, I wanted to do something about the high-low beam toggle which is operated by a foot switch next to the clutch pedal. 

That's not it in location but you get the idea. My problem is my feet are way too big to use the switch and I keep pressing the clutch instead.
The full beam can also be flashed by pulling the indicator stalk towards you so my plan was to modify this so that it can be used as a toggle switch, then I could do away with the floor switch.
The advantage here is that the stalk flash is fed through a relay, so I can make modifications that don't need to handle the current. The floor switch by comparison is straight wired to the headlamps and is consequently chunky as hell.
So here's the plan. Splice into the feed to the flasher stalk and wire in a bistable (latching) relay. That way you have one flick for full beam on, then another for full beam off.
The relay is easy to come by for a staggering £3.43.

And here is how it wires in.

Temporary wired in with alligator clips.

That'll do.
Next plan is to improve the indicators. You'll have to take my word for it, but as standard they're so damn slow. Going all the way round a roundabout it'll probably flash twice, which I feel is dangerous as the non-lit time is far too long.
This one is simple enough to fix, the original flasher relay is binned and a modern relay with adjustable speed wired in.
No need to explain this really as it's a like for like swap, I just had to make up a couple of wires to connect the pins into the existing plug. I kept the old plug so that for any reason the old flasher can be put back on.
Waaaaay better.
Final electrical mod: hazards. Seems odd for a Volvo not to have hazard lights but there you go.
This required splicing into the yellow wire coming from the flasher relay, adding a 4 pin switch, and splicing the output straight to both left and right indicator bulb wires, bypassing the stalk.

Hardest part of that was cutting the loom wrap in the right place to find the green and blue wires for the indicators to cut into them.
I'll feel a bit better about using motorways now.
Time to celebrate with a chippy.

 
 

Think you'll find that's Leeds.

1. Obtain the (hopefully present) keys for the JCB-esque device on the right.
2. Start up said device.
3. Use it to process your utterly shagged Golf into easily recylable metal pieces.
4. F*ck off.

Think you'll find that's Leeds.

Think you'll find that's Leeds.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/914594240159497/?ref=category_feed&referral_code=undefined&referral_story_type=listing&tracking={"qid"%3A"-2581598599176721913"%2C"mf_story_key"%3A"6685876144851604"%2C"commerce_rank_obj"%3A"{\"target_id\"%3A6685876144851604%2C\"target_type\"%3A0%2C\"primary_position\"%3A21%2C\"ranking_signature\"%3A4808173986877696896%2C\"commerce_channel\"%3A504%2C\"value\"%3A0.00015762186478764%2C\"candidate_retrieval_source_map\"%3A{\"6685876144851604\"%3A111}}"%2C"ftmd_400706"%3A"111112l"}

Looks good, the pics even make Donny look desirable*.

PROVIDED you don't spam every thread at every opportunity with things about Invacars like you have done in the past (as you know Dez, I've helped you with some things and my grandfather had one). Bare this in mind when you comment on other people's threads !
 

PROVIDED you don't spam every thread at every opportunity with things about Invacars like you have done in the past (as you know Dez, I've helped you with some things and my grandfather had one). Bare this in mind when you comment on other people's threads !