LightBulbFun

The Renault 900 prototype
code name: MindFuck (probably)
      
I honestly thought it was one of those joke cars and had to google it LOL

Nearly half a year since updates!
So what's happened since then? Not a lot really on the Dolomite just yet, but a bunch of intervening stuff that affected the timeline to sorting it. In mid February it got transported to storage in preparation for us moving house.


Early March we finally moved house - 5 attempted house sales, 3 attempted purchases and 1.5 years later. Not something we will be doing again for a while. Then the next couple of weeks were spent doing the usual DIY as you move in. Of course as we all know, lockdown happened. This meant my garage, which I'd separately packed away into a storage unit was not realistically retrievable for a couple of months. So in that time I took advantage of an empty garage to paint it.

The garage is a double, so should be plenty of room to work on this. This is good as it's turned out to be much more of a project than I originally intended! Also should be big enough, because I've filled it up a fair bit already with my stuff...
Since then I've got my stuff back, then worked down the priority queue of automotive repairs. Firstly the radiators, coolant pump and expansion tank had to be fixed on this...

That was a fun job I am glad to not be doing again in a rush.
So after moving house, naturally the next good* idea I had was to buy yet another car! Bought completely sight unseen off eBay and delivered to me.



Naturally it needed a bit more work than originally intended. Thankfully mostly mechanical and rarely for an ADO16, virtually no bodywork! However currently that is blocking up the garage workspace.
While chatting to Worldofceri, who transported the 1100, he mentioned that he'll give a buzz when passing next and move the Dolomite for me. I'm very thankful for him doing this as my wife was not keen at all being a tow driver in the front pull car while I sat in the Dolomite. Especially as the storage to my new house is only a short distance but single track lanes with no real passing areas.
So yesterday this turned back up.

I really need to hurry up on the 1100 and get this back in the garage. At least the warm and dry weather we are having at the moment shouldn't affect it too much though.
In the daylight with room to walk around, it's shown up the bits that need tending to on the body. Let's have a brief tour...
Front wing needs finishing. I've got the repair panel for this.

Doors needs attention. This is the worst.

Wheel arch needs some work.

Not sure I want to know what's going on here just yet!

Boot lid has a very crusty spot.

Eyebrows need some attention too. These do pass the poke test thankfully though.


Then there is the bits that you can't see at the moment. Inner wheel arch on both sides with one currently what looks like a lump of fibreglass in.
Finally the bulkhead area. This will be the bit I'll focus on first. Basically needs a new section welding in on the inside and possibly some in the bonnet area on the outside. Now I have undercover working area, my intention is to remove the windscreen from the car. This should allow me to do this area properly.
However I do need to check if I can get a replacement seal. The one on there is cracked up already and in definite need of replacement. But it will likely need cutting out, so I need to make sure I can get a replacement before this is done.
So plenty to do and not quite ready to start. At least with it on the drive it reminds me everytime I go out that I need to hurry up and get on with it. Given I'm quite slow at working, it's likely it will become a late summer and through winter 2020 project.
After the bodywork there is the mechanicals that need attention. Carb rebuild as a minimum, diff/transmission whine looking at, rusty shocks replacement and suspension desqueaking. Finally the front seats are torn up on the front vinyl + foam disintegrating, so they'll need some repair work too.
Just a bit to do then! Next update hopefully won't be more than another month or two. Famous last words...

If only some examples survived.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1971-Renault-6L-a-very-very-rare-and-unmolested-car/174311702220?hash=item2895c97ecc:g:9~UAAOSwoWteuXAf

 

I knew I'd seen it somewhere, probably the Club Triumph magazine. So started googling Triumph prototypes that I could remember off the top of my head. This brought me to Canley Classics site which has some excellent archive materiel on it and voilà. 
See also the TRX... 

... based on the old Bergerac type Roadster. 
And the Italia... 

...which is a TR3 underneath but you can see the TR4 coming through. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stunning-1957-Plymouth-Plaza/233613145514?hash=item36646db5aa:g:Op0AAOSw7zZe3jN9
i hate rock and roll......

but love these Plymouths!

imagine opening the garage door to this (murderous?) car.

So I carried on patching. I’m not sure if this was sheer stupidity or rugged determination but I can now say that I have saved this corner! I was especially pleased with the new mounting flanges I made, and even more pleased when I nipped up the new nuts and bolts to reveal an almost perfect panel gap! And for the first time in my ownership, the wing is actually attached to the front panel and isn’t flapping around. Quite a revelation, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Shame it’s just as bad on the other side, not a job I’m especially looking forward to.
I finished in between rain showers on Sunday afternoon and didn’t want to spend ages with the angle grinder on a Sunday dressing all those welds, so that’ll have to wait until I’m next at my parents. 
 

I imagine it's possibly because a CVT allows better performance on engines where their torque and power is more on the top end. Let the engine rev to its peak power and hold that while the pulley alter to transfer that energy with the increasing speed. Given they extensively used Jatco on other vehicles, so I bet they would have had a design review meeting and would have considered it but the CVT box won over. 
Same reasons why many small cars use either CVT or Robo (manual box with actuators). Torque converters loose a lot of energy until they lock-up - too much loss for small engines for acceptable performance. 

What were the codes? Interested to see what it moaned about. 
Doesn't surprise me that those CVT boxes are power supply sensitive. They have a lot of high powered actuators that will run directly off the battery voltage rather than through a regulator. These actuators will need to be both quick and precise. High power means any resistance from poor power supply will cause the voltage to drop. However the voltage at the actuator will change the speed at what they operate at. No doubt they have a lookup table to modify how hard to drive the actuators but there will be limits in the expected voltage. 
I bet the table is something like 11v to 15v. A poor earth/supply feed and a high current load (e.g. 20-80A) can cause the voltage at the actuator itself to drop below that. 
You see similar with modern Electronic Power Steering (EPS) systems throwing an error code if the voltage is out of spec. Again they're high powered actuators that need to be precise in their movement. 
This was the reasoning why earlier in the thread I said about checking all the supply feeds first. Both earth and the power feed right the way along from battery, through fusebox to ECU to box. 

Got a bit more progress done on the Royale yesterday. 
This corner had all the hallmarks of being rotten as a pear, and the other side doesn’t look any better.


Started attacking it with a screwdriver and a wire brush on the electric drill.


Yep, that’s seen better days.
I had to think about how to repair this as it was pretty far gone. An easy mistake people make with this kind of repair is to chop it all out then get overwhelmed with the amount of work required. 
I decided to repair the headlight surround first then I could start repairing the area around it.




Thats where I got to before getting rained off. I was particularly pleased with the mounting flanges I recreated to bolt the two panels together as per original. There was virtually nothing left and the panels were loose and flapping around before. I’ve got a nut and bolt in finger tight but it should hopefully nip up ok and provide a decent panel gap once all the other metalwork is done on that corner.
In Rover news, I dropped it off this morning. He did the diagnostic check on it and found three strange gearbox fault codes on the ECU. He thinks they’re inkeeping with a power supply issue. He’s cleared them off and test driven it, and is fairly confident that I fixed the fault by cleaning up that slam panel earth wire because he’s seen all sorts of odd electrical faults caused by that connection.
So a big relief there. I’m back to work next week so will start to put some miles under its belt again so hopefully it’ll continue to behave itself.

That all looks nicely linished up, another grand job on the metal side of things.
Nice to hear the Rover is behaving too. At least at the price you paid it hopefully won't be keeping you awake at night though.

The back of the drivers side sill had always looked a bit crunchy, and I made the mistake of picking at it. 

I suppose technically this would pass an MoT as it doesn’t have rear seatbelts, but I wanted to do it properly. So out it came:


The rot had extended into the inner sill so I needed to cut out a bit of that too.
Time to start reconstructive surgery:


With this sort of repair I like to make the sections a bit oversize and trim to suit once they’re welded in place.




There was the usual small bit where the inner arch meets the sill that needed a fillet, but it was much better there than most cars I’ve repaired.
Now to annoy the neighbours with the angle grinder and flap disc...






Much better!
I then had a look at something else that was annoying me, one of the headlights which had constantly had condensation on the inside all the time I’ve had the the car.
It was easy enough to remove the complete headlight unit. Two 8mm bolts at the top and disconnect the wiring plugs and it simply pulls out.
Looks quite manky under there.



I cleaned up this area and went over that crusty looking bit at the side with the wire wheel in the electric drill. It’s double skinned there and the top skin has rotted through from moisture trapped under the headlight. It’s not that bad considering but I’ll see if i can put a small patch in there and paint it properly before putting the headlight back in.
As for the headlight, when I removed the bulb cover a torrent of water poured out!
These headlights are well designed and can be taken apart easily. Six spring clips hold the glass onto the reflector:

The reflector has suffered from the damp at the bottom and top but it’s not that bad considering. Also it’s not really that noticeable on the Royale due to being way back behind the massive thick glass lenses. 

I went round everything with baby wipes, cleaning off the black and green gunk from round the edges etc. 

Something I like about this car is that every piece of glass is etched with the registration, including front and rear lights. It’s all in really good condition too.

There is a thin foam seal which is supposed to keep the moisture from getting between the lens and headlight. It looked in really good condition for over 40 years old. Even so, it wasn’t doing it’s job so I cleaned it up then ran a thin bead of clear silicone around the edge. Left for 10 minutes then fitted my nice clean shiny lens.

So nice I could quite happily install it in the house!
In Rover news, I took it for a blat up the A130 from Southend to Chelmsford and back, about 30 miles or so at 60mph and the gearbox is still behaving itself!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1992-Ford-Taurus-3-8-LX-wagon/193505512606?hash=item2d0dd3cc9e:g:3hEAAOSw9Ide3hoF
so much metal, so little money needed to buy it.....
(£2250, apparently, and more than what i have currently)

no formica sadly, maybe that fad had passed by the time this was made?
seriously though, the next few months i can see a lot of distress selling going on.
great if you are buying i suppose..........

Seconded for obvious reasons...

...I wholly agree though that a lot of modern supercars are utterly and completely pointless and seem to have all the downsides of something like the money pit shown above but without any of the perks that make me love it despite all its faults.
We really need to get those two together at some point for a joint photoshoot.

a neat photo popped up on my twitter feed via a retweet from @dollywobbler
its particularly interesting because the Model 70 pictured is NPJ954L, which is from a block that starts in October 1972 and ends in December 1972 (NPJ741L-NPJ990L, the block is an impressive 250 cars long and also marks the end of the Z chassis number block)
and as such is just from before the cut off date for white on black plates and I have wondered if Model 70's stuck with white on black plates till the very end of if they jumped ship to black on white plates a few months earlier or such
and this picture of a December 1972 car tells me it looks like they stuck with white on black plates to the end  
 

other interesting things to note is the Model 70 is wearing L plates, and the Mk12 there as well, its a shame its registration is obscured as I see its an E reg Mk12, and those who have been following this thread for a while will recall a while back that I did some DVLA hunting for E reg Mk12's and found some oddities but no solid info
(as I believe Simons really early Mk12c lies inside an E reg block)
so it would be interesting to see what its full reg is, see what block its part of and feel that block out for any that still might be on the DVLA! although Im pretty sure I have already gone through and searched every E Reg Mk12 block there is

a neat photo popped up on my twitter feed via a retweet from @dollywobbler
its particularly interesting because the Model 70 pictured is NPJ954L, which is from a block that starts in October 1972 and ends in December 1972 (NPJ741L-NPJ990L, the block is an impressive 250 cars long and also marks the end of the Z chassis number block)
and as such is just from before the cut off date for white on black plates and I have wondered if Model 70's stuck with white on black plates till the very end of if they jumped ship to black on white plates a few months earlier or such
and this picture of a December 1972 car tells me it looks like they stuck with white on black plates to the end  
 

other interesting things to note is the Model 70 is wearing L plates, and the Mk12 there as well, its a shame its registration is obscured as I see its an E reg Mk12, and those who have been following this thread for a while will recall a while back that I did some DVLA hunting for E reg Mk12's and found some oddities but no solid info
(as I believe Simons really early Mk12c lies inside an E reg block)
so it would be interesting to see what its full reg is, see what block its part of and feel that block out for any that still might be on the DVLA! although Im pretty sure I have already gone through and searched every E Reg Mk12 block there is

Bank of dad is old news! We have Garage of Dad now!

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Not quite true.
In the time before lockdown the car had been making a screeching noise with the engine running. I had a look and decided it had to be a bearing and non of the easily accessible ones appeared to be the culprit. Having no history for the car I guessed it was time to change the cambelt and the fucked idler pulley.
In she came and up.

We had an issue and the timing was lost so some locking pins were made.

And easy one fitted.

Then after quite a bit of a hunt the other was found and fitted.

New waterpump, idler pulley and belt refitted, filled with fresh coolant after giving the expansion tank a good clean.

Run, bled and all good. 
Seems to run much happier after the work, certainly started much better.
 

I too didn't take pictures except for the tool modification

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After previously changing the passenger side diff oil seal and it being dry for a couple of weeks the driver's side one joined in the party.
At MOT time I had a good look while it was over the pit and decided that oil seal part two was a required sequel.
In it came

For some reason there were no more pictures taken by me.
It became a bit* of a war at times, I can only assume that the drivers driveshaft has never been off before and we ended up having to unbolt the bearing carrier from the engine and then the use of the vice and mallet were employed to separate the two. 
Oil seal removed with a home made tool (claw hammer with one claw removed so it would fit) and new seal fitted. 
New driveshaft fitted as we had one on the bench and all reassembled. The gearbox got its full complement of oil again and the test driver reported that reverse was happy to play a part in the driving experience once again.
More updates when stuff is done which should be when @stereotype gets some front tyres.

That time of year again

Couple of bits to sort but in general all good.

a neat photo popped up on my twitter feed via a retweet from @dollywobbler
its particularly interesting because the Model 70 pictured is NPJ954L, which is from a block that starts in October 1972 and ends in December 1972 (NPJ741L-NPJ990L, the block is an impressive 250 cars long and also marks the end of the Z chassis number block)
and as such is just from before the cut off date for white on black plates and I have wondered if Model 70's stuck with white on black plates till the very end of if they jumped ship to black on white plates a few months earlier or such
and this picture of a December 1972 car tells me it looks like they stuck with white on black plates to the end  
 

other interesting things to note is the Model 70 is wearing L plates, and the Mk12 there as well, its a shame its registration is obscured as I see its an E reg Mk12, and those who have been following this thread for a while will recall a while back that I did some DVLA hunting for E reg Mk12's and found some oddities but no solid info
(as I believe Simons really early Mk12c lies inside an E reg block)
so it would be interesting to see what its full reg is, see what block its part of and feel that block out for any that still might be on the DVLA! although Im pretty sure I have already gone through and searched every E Reg Mk12 block there is

I've been on 125's as my sole mode of transport since summer 2017 and am in the same boat waiting for DAS to open again as have a Divvy project in the works. 125s are great on economy, especially the modern fuel injected ones. My Assault averaged around 100mpg on a day when I dropped it and lost about 1.5 litres of fuel and that was a carb'd engine with alot of mods (making a whopping +1bhp). Tax is cheap (about £20 a year) and insurance super low even just on a CBT. 
 
To be honest I wouldn't rule out the long distance stuff entirely, as long as you manage your expectations of what's feasable in a day in terms of speed and mileage. When I had my assault I took it on yearly camping trips with my dad and we went up Glencoe, across the Cairgorms, up to Deeside. We covered about 400 miles in one weekend.

With regards to relying on a chinese bike I'm on my second Lexmoto (first a carb'd Assault and second an EFI Isca) and had no major issues in the 13/14,000 miles I've ridden between them including through winter and in any weather. Major things to keep an eye on is rust through the winter and if you plan on an early chinese bike the wiring can be a bit cheap. Also stay away from cheap amazon/ebay chains as the links for the master links tend to fly off when you're trying to accelerate at regular vehicle speeds. Also most of the Lexmotos (in my opinion) are geared a bit low but its easy enough to go up a tooth on the front sprocket so you get a nice (semi decent) cruise at 60. 
 
If you're looking for an all weather bike I'd seriously recommend the Assault (depending on budget as 1399+OTR brand new) as they come with a slightly dirt focused tyre and I rode mine home when we had the 'beast from the east' a few years back and it managed in snow up to the foot pegs. Though I wouldn't recommend riding through that, ever. 

A lot of people will immediately write off 125's and Chinese bikes in particular, but I think they're great. Cheap, fun, and if you're just looking to get from A to B as cheap as possible then they're a good way to go. As long as you service and clean a Chinese bike well it will last you plenty of time and do whatever you ask of it, as long as you're not asking it to do 120 down the autobahn or blow your socks off with performance. Even when I get my DAS done and the Divvy on the road I'm keeping at least 1 of my 125s going for pottering about. 

More food for thought can be found on youtube by the way of a bloke called spicey110, he rode on 125s for about 5 years before getting a 'big bike' and owned quite a few chinese ones too as well as reviewing a lot of lexmotos so might be worth a gander if you're considering a venture into the chinesium 125 world. 

The Cortina owner is clearly a hero of our time - I imagine a sort of Mr Trebus character...
A few more London sights. The blue Mini is absolutely hanging and I think lives in Chelsea driven by an old girl. Plus another French trip and a Savile tastic Y-reg. 


















 
 
 
 
 
 

Long overdue update. Haven't been on the forum very much at all since last update in November. Hoping to contribute a bit more regularly again!
Abridged fleet status update between now and last post;
607 - Sacked off. Couldn't get to the bottom of it and was going to become a bit of a case of blindly spending money on expensive parts with no real certainty of fixing anything. Just felt like a bit of a weight, so it had to go.
405 - Came out of winter storage just last month. MOT'd etc but really needs a bit of attention to bring it right up to scratch. Needs new exhaust back box, rear dampers and a tyre or two. Won't be much work.
205 - MOT expired, but needs a windscreen. What I really need is a windscreen lying about my flat to focus my mind.
406 Coupe - Continues to fulfil daily driving duties without issue. Bit uninspiring, but adequate. 
I had been half considering replacing the 406 coupe. Maybe something diesel, back doors, practical and economical really the main buzzwords. So of course I bought something wildly inappropriate with no test.
Idly browsing Gumtree I came across a 2000 Jeep Cherokee 4.0 with no MOT but competitively priced, with less than 100k on the clock. It looked clean from the pictures and the guy selling could compose a decent ad. 
After initial contact was made I had a long wait, before he replied offering first refusal. I went to view on Sunday night, rendezvousing with  4x4 and yankshite tickler @dome.  Some initial underbody prodding was followed by a brief test drive which was all A-OK. Dome had a good look over and we agreed there was no particular cause for alarm. A few wee points were noted, mainly regards exhaust, leaf springs which had appeared on previous MOTs. 
It had been keenly priced, so virtual reddies were exchanged and I was on my way home a short while later

It gives the impression of being a well maintained vehicle. Underside condition was pleasant enough and the bodywork is straight, paint is good.  Matching recent tyres etc.


Booked test for today (Tuesday). Only potential issue I could do anything about in the short term was the exhaust, so got underneath and patched the real silencer up in two places. Another very minor blow from around a clamp I couldn't do much about. The exhaust is the worst part of the car.


Stopped on the way to the test for a final check round.

Awaited my fate....

We got the result we wanted with a few advisories that I will actually endeavour to rectify. 

Nipped into @320touring towers for a very quick socially distant coffee. Parked in the Doom Blue corner of win.

So a landed, sub 100k 4.0 Cherokee with a years test at a very reasonable price - happy with that.