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bobdisk

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  1. Like
    bobdisk got a reaction from egg in LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...   
    Does "oil swivel pin" refer to the king pin?  "Grease" over to the left of drawing refers to left wheel bearing, under a cap.  "Grease" other side refers to right wheel bearing ??  It must have 2 bearings, one each side of the wheel centre line. Dont know how you would get the grease in there though. Is there an exploded drawing of that area?
  2. Like
    bobdisk got a reaction from Snake Charmer in LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...   
    Does "oil swivel pin" refer to the king pin?  "Grease" over to the left of drawing refers to left wheel bearing, under a cap.  "Grease" other side refers to right wheel bearing ??  It must have 2 bearings, one each side of the wheel centre line. Dont know how you would get the grease in there though. Is there an exploded drawing of that area?
  3. Haha
    bobdisk reacted to Snake Charmer in LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...   
    Great to see some progress. 😎
    Are these jockey wheels going as training stabilisers?  😁
  4. Agree
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Minimum speed and power required for a daily driver in 2024   
    I'd say the 1.9SDI in the Caddy I had (so 64bhp) was probably towards the minimum you'd really want to live with today.  It was absolutely fine on motorways and would happily maintain the legal limit without struggle even when laden while still knocking on the door of 50mpg, but it definitely wasn't the quickest thing off the mark.  Far from "dangerously slow" as I recall someone calling them sometimes in the past though.  It wasn't fast...but you know what?  It was never designed to be.  It was a workhorse and did it's job bloody well.
    I did around the figures you mentioned there, and that included two trips to Aberdeenshire and Glasgow from Milton Keynes for long distance motorway work.  It wasn't the lack of power which saw me move it on either, rather the requirement for more flexible seating!  
    I'd say that any "normal" sized car with 80bhp or more would be absolutely fine as a daily driver.  Not maybe the most exciting thing ever but absolutely fine.  Once you get this side of 2010 you'd maybe be wanting to look nearer to 100bhp just because cars got so much bulkier and heavier due to the ever increasing amount of "stuff" onboard.
  5. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Don't think I've ever had another car which looks quite so at home in a slightly shabby urban setting.

    TPA comes close,  but does tend to stand out a bit more just by not being quite normal car shaped.
  6. Sad
    bobdisk reacted to rattlecan in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    I think I’d be inclined to get a sheet of thin plastic or thick polythene (if ya get me) & place it over the rectangular hole, seal it all around the 4 edges, then put the grill back on. That way nothing can ‘sit in’ the area behind 
  7. Like
    bobdisk got a reaction from Eyersey1234 in LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...   
    Definitely fragile plastic! Desmo made metal version of this as an accessory which can be put on cars of this age, and here when plastic breaks
  8. Like
  9. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Six-cylinder in Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Well that didn’t go well!   
    First FoD 2024 announced for 20/21 April.
  10. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Well that didn’t go well!   
    I have put it in the calendar.
  11. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Today was mostly spent waiting for a landscaper who never turned up.  Being essentially unable to leave the house and not feeling I could get really stuck into any big tasks, I picked away at a few small ones.  
    Firstly was doing a bit of tidying in the garage.  You can't really see much for it, but the mountain of stuff on and behind TPA has really shrunk a lot.  She was pretty well buried before!  Most of this accumulated when I was doing the head work on the Rover.

    Still some stuff under the car, but the engine cover is clear now, meaning I was able to hook up the battery charger.  Hopefully actually get her out again sometime in the next few weeks.
    Actually putting a lot of that lot away will happen once I've backed TPA out of the garage.  Trying to get to where anything lives is just such a pain with the car there - which is why I wound up creating such a mountain of crap there in the first place.
    Still no sign of the landscaper, so I moved on to Trabant tinkering.  
    Given she's in for the MOT tomorrow I wanted to make sure everything obvious was checked and do a little cleaning and tidying.
    I did find we had one brake light out so got that changed.  Everything else checked out.
    The windscreen wipers were still parking in a slightly odd spot, so I tweaked the position of the arm on the spindle which has fixed that.  I also did a little more contortion to tighten up the last two nuts holding the motor onto the bulkhead, so that's securely fastened in place and no longer makes annoying clicking noises each time the wipers change direction.
    I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and gave the interior another quick going over.  It wasn't too bad, but I'd tracked in a fair amount of dead leaves, plus there was the usual omnipresent layer of dog hair, despite neither of them ever having been near the car.  Bit better now.

    This bit of loose trim in the rear of the cabin was bugging me.

    Obviously missing trim clips there which I duly replaced.  I bought like 40 of these and think I'm down to about half a dozen left now.

    Not perfect, still a bit floppy towards the back seat because the panel is water damaged, but it's a lot better.

    I then set about trying to remove some of the plethora of oily fingerprints which the car is basically covered in.   The paint had a lot of ingrained dirt everywhere too.

    Things escalated.  I started polishing things - as that ended up being the most effective solution for removing it.  Safe to say this definitely makes a difference!

    These cars never had a high gloss paint finish even from the factory - it's kind of halfway between an eggshell and gloss finish.  It's cleaning up pretty well all things considered, and is looking a lot better where I've gone over it.

    Amusing looking at the side photo in that the car is a completely different colour now.  It's definitely shifted from "off white" to properly beige.
    Started raining after I'd wrapped up.  Imagine it's been a while since the paint did this.

    This car is never going to be a show winner, and I'm not putting tens of hours into polishing every millimetre, but I'd like it to at least look cared for.
    To that end I'd really like to do something permanent regarding the crack in the front of the bonnet.  Which because of where it is is a bit tricky.  Might be easier to just get another bonnet and have it properly prepped and painted.
    Oh, look what I found thanks to a member of the owner's club.

    The paint on it is absolutely knackered, but I didn't see any cracks or large chunks missing at a quick glance.  It was free though so I wasn't going to quibble over it either way.  I'll take a closer look at that sometime in the near future.
    What will the MOT bring?  We'll have to wait and see.  Rust is my biggest concern - I really haven't had a really good dig around the whole underside, so quite likely there could be rot under there I've not spotted.
    The Partner is booked in to a garage to have whichever wheel bearing is making a noise sorted on Tuesday, so hopefully that will be sorted soon.  Though we will then the following week have the fun of getting that through an MOT - which *hopefully* shouldn't be too painful.
  12. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Okay, let's have another shot at getting this steering rack to track rod bracket apart.
    Attempt number 1.  This failed.  The puller would always slip off well before getting any real torque involved.

    This wasn't actually in use, I just stuck it on there for the photo, so yes I know it's not lined up right.
    The correct tool for this job is essentially just a big ball joint splitter.  However buying one of those would require spending more money than I really wanted to, and waiting for something to arrive.
    Instead, take one £15 splitter from Halfords and spend ten minutes mutilating it with a grinder until it fits.

    Remember, it's not stupid if it works!

    That let go with one HELL of a bang. 
    The old boot was removed and things cleaned up ready for the new one to go on, which I'd already had long enough to have completely forgotten which box it was in and requiring 10 minutes of rummaging until it turned up.

    Done.

    Well, almost.  I didn't initially spot that there's a flat cast into the bracket where the locking washer is meant to locate.  So the nut was loosened off again and the washer rotated through 180 degrees since this photo was taken.
    Only casualty was me being careless with the grinder and nearly setting myself on fire.

    I was already kind of paranoid about fire was I was relatively close to the Rover while doing this job and it's proven so far to be by far the most stubbornly not fuel-tight vehicle I've ever owned!
    MOT has been re-booked for next Thursday.  Shame they can't fit me in sooner, but it is what it is, I know they're always busy.  Aside from the usual sanity check beforehand and making sure all the lights etc are working, I need to try to tweak the headlight aim a bit as I think it's still way too low.  I'll make sure all the adjusters are properly lubricated before taking it in so it can be easily tweaked at the time if need be.
  13. Like
    bobdisk reacted to wuvvum in Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Well that didn’t go well!   
    I rather liked the 33 I had.  Sounded a bit like a 2CV but more raspy.  Surprisingly nippy around town as well for only 33bhp.
  14. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Rain finally stopped today so I could move forward with this.  

    No.  I definitely didn't give it the second coat of paint using the boot as a spray booth.
    Also made a point of ensuring that the brake bleeder cracked loose while I had the arm still off the car as dealing with that as it stood would be far easier than in the car if needed.
    The hub cavity, spacer, stub axle and rear cover were all cleaned up.

    Not really many photos of putting the new bearings etc in as I was absolutely covered in grease for most of it.  In fact I feel like I still am despite having washed my hands a dozen times and showered since I worked on the car.
    Probably the single most awkward part was actually getting the snap ring back into the groove in front of the outer bearing as it really was a bit beefier than my circlip pliers were designed for.  However I managed to not ping it into low earth orbit or embed it in one of my eyeballs so I considered that a win.
    Getting the suspension arm back in place was moderately awkward, but honestly nowhere near as bad as I expected.  I was able to lift the arm into position and get the inboard bolt started, then have a jack support the trailing arm while I started the forward one.  Then was just a matter of evenly tightening them both up.  Which takes takes a while as both of the bolts are really quite long.  Definitely a job which made me wish I had an electric ratchet.
    Then the brake line was hooked back up.  

    Not thrilled by the amount of tension on the flexible brake lines.  Looks like when the camber correction hardware is fitted that an inch or two longer brake line should also be added.  I'll look into dealing with that in the future.
    I appreciate that the brake shoes can be fitted back onto the backing plate as a single assembly without the need to wrestle with a bunch of faffing about with the springs.  You DO need to mind your fingers though as there will be a heap of tension on there.
    Then the hub was reattached, the nut torqued up to VFT and the locking tab bent over to ensure it's not going anywhere.  All that remained there was to bleed the brakes and put the wheel back on.
    A helper would have been handy rather than relying on the Eazibleed (which as usual leaked all over the place).  I know I do have one of those far simpler one man bleeders somewhere, but we all know what my garage looks like.

    All back together.  Glad to report that a test drive revealed no unpleasant noises or anything.
    The next task on the pre-MOT was the steering rack gaiter.  Seems simple enough.  Remove the end nut from the rack, separate it, remove old boot, clean, re-grease, fit new boot and reassemble.

    Yeah...the two parts aren't too interested in separating after 39 years.  Ideas?  I've left it soaking in Plusgas overnight.  Guessing heat is probably the answer, albeit very carefully both due to not wanting to damage the rack itself and given the proximity of the fuel tank.
    Once that's done and I've given the headlight beam alignment a tweak we should be ready to head to the MOT again.  Hopefully!
  15. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Sham in What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread   
    A clean MOT pass on a 14 year old 140k mile Skoda workhorse.
    That's the previous 3 years motoring for £85 per year plus fuel, oil, filters and insurance. Can't help but grin at that, and long may it continue.
  16. Like
    bobdisk reacted to brownnova in Bangerfest (now Rustival Thread)   
    A superb day out! 
    I stopped locally the night before and was glad I did so as not to have a 5am start!
    Such a great range of cars there… not least TWO Yugo Sanas!!! 
    Crikey, I needed a sit down after those. Thankfully I recovered enough to be able to see… 

    Good to see various folks, disappointed to miss some others! But a strong AS contingent were present!
    Looking forward to next year already! 
  17. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Soundwave in Bangerfest (now Rustival Thread)   
    Ooh, is this the photo dump thread? Excellent, allow me to commence dumping... 
     

    No idea what this car-boat-thing was, but I think I want one:







    Here we see a rare shot of a Mk3 Granada giving birth to a tiny Renault Vel Satis. Isn't nature wonderful?:


    Fifty three shades of grey blue:

    It may be on its first outing, but Rustival is already highly Acclaimed. Two of several in attendance:

    My mate's Beetle looking a bit lost among a sea of Volvos:



    Some horrible old wreck that some idiot brought along:

    ADORED this R9...








    Some areas of the car park could almost be a scene lifted directly from the 90s:



    Daewoo Nexia Belmont saloon. Bestill my heart!



    My 216's ancient ancestor:




    Metro saloon. A bold attempt, but maybe for the best this one never made it past the prototype stage. Was still cool to see:





    4wd Mini thing:

    The future Triumph that never was:


    The S.S., before some poncey-tached Austrian gimp ruined the name:




    Things I never thought I'd do: walk entirely through an MGB:





    Straight outta the 70s:






    An overview of the action:

     
    All in all, had a great if somewhat knackering day. Caught up with friends, and had a good nosey around the museum which I've been meaning to do for some time. Thanks @dollywobbler and the team for putting it all together. Hopefully we'll see Rustival again next year? I do hope so, I've started a sticker collection now and I want to keep it going...


  18. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Six-cylinder in Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Well that didn’t go well!   
    When this fully working Volvo Estate was last for sale both Mrs6C and I liked it.  I tried to work out a narrative as to why I should buy it, but couldn’t.
    Now it is broken we have bought it!




  19. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Photo (and diagram of how the whole hub fits together) over here: https://www.ldm-tuning.de/en/artikel-995.htm
  20. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Still no sign of the gaskets ordered from eBay.  
    Thankfully, a member of the owner's club just half an hour up the road bailed me out with a full engine gasket set they had going spare.  Cheers for that if you're reading this!

    Then was a matter of about 20 minutes to get everything put back together.

    The fan shroud to manifold cowling hose is now correctly in place.

    As is the rubber seal between the shroud and the fan body.

    Still have the gasket sitting here for the other cylinder.

    I'll go back in and do that as a preventative measure shortly along with a thorough external clean of the engine.  However it was raining sideways the whole time I was doing this today so I just wanted to get the job done as quickly as was reasonably possible.  
    Glad I looked up the torque specs for the head nuts - only 42NM, so I'd almost definitely have over tightened those if I was doing it by hand without the torque wrench as that's really not all that tight at all.
    Seems to be back to it's old self now I'm glad to report.
  21. Agree
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Hello Pug .. Bye Bye Voyager   
    Tell them to shove their tracker where the sun don't shine.  The more people who put up with this nonsense the more companies will normalise it and we'll all end up stuck with it.  
    Most likely all it's pulling from the OBD socket is power, I'd be very surprised if the device itself isn't entirely self contained.  Mileage recording etc will all be done by it using GPS and regularly phoning home rather than taking data from the host vehicle.  Also likely reporting to them if you're doing anything they class as high risk...such as braking sharply, driving quickly, using motorways or accelerating anything resembling briskly.
    I'm not a tin foil hat sort of person, but this normalisation of people plugging trackers into their cars being required by insurers is something which really puts my back up.  It's just one step too far, and I can really see a situation where something happens and then they turn around and say "No, we're not paying out because our telemetry shows you were doing 70.0000002mph at the time of the accident." Being in the future.
  22. Like
    bobdisk got a reaction from wesacosa in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    First time I ever got into a Trabi , let alone drive one, was when I did a Trabi Safari in Berlin, and really enjoyed it!! After reading @Zelandeth  thread , I do intend to get one sometime in the future when circumstances allow.
  23. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Bfg in Wtf is going on with car insurance prices?   
    As a retiree I now have time to shop around, and not much of a budget.  Yesterday I spent all afternoon and into the evening on-line filling in their forms and getting quotes for a 2010 Pug 308 I've just bought.  I've noted down the prices from each of those websites ..so next year I'll have a check list and only need to revisit those who offered sensible quotes this year.  I didn't buy the cheapest by £25 because the next up gave me a better package with half the excess, and which included windscreen, key loss, wrong fuel, and courtesy car.  After much deliberation I went through Compare the Market and bought fully comp insurance from ByMiles, who are to send me a mileage tracker. Apparently they refund money against the declared mileage not used throughout the year. I presume that's a credit note against future insurance, but nevertheless it may help. 
    £362 for this car, fully comp social & domestic, no commute, residential parking, and 13 years NCB.  Money Supermarket and other websites offered much the same package, at much the same price, but Compare the Market gave me a clearer breakdown of what I was getting and what were my charges, when for example a windscreen needed replacing. 
    On a limited budget - I have to buy according to price and value, as I did this time, but clearly presented information actually clenched the deal.  
    Pete
     
  24. Like
    bobdisk reacted to wesacosa in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    if you want to drive one its a good excuse to go to Berlin, one of the coolest and most interesting cities in Europe, and do the very reasonably priced Trabby Safari 
  25. Like
    bobdisk reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    This car is one which really has surprised me in a lot of ways.  There is a lot more clever engineering in there than you'd think to look at them.  I mean I picked this up more or less just for a bit of a giggle, I really didn't have particularly high hopes for its abilities to function as An Car in the real world.  However I've wound up using it by default as the daily.  It's silly easy to park, the heater warms up in about a minute, the steering is lighter than many cars with power steering but has good feel, and the performance is entirely adequate around town.  It's a bit bouncy but doesn't knock your teeth out, the driving position is...odd...but actually reasonably comfortable once you're used to it (though I wouldn't want to be there for hours - that's not really what it's designed for though), the boot is a decent size, and it's astonishingly chuckable in the handling department.  Yes it's bleeping noisy - especially if you dare venture above 50mph, the standard equipment lost isn't exactly comprehensive, and there's not really a graceful way to get in/out of the driver's seat if you've got long legs.
    I'd really recommend having a proper look at, and if possible have a drive of one if you can.  It's really quite a fascinating little thing.
    That's not a channel I've heard of before...why does that look like a potential rabbit hole for me to fall down?
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