Six Cylinders Motoring Notes

[dozeydustman]

Given the recent government announcement, has BL day been cancelled? 

[Six-cylinder]

3 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Given the recent government announcement, has BL day been cancelled? 

I am waiting to hear.

[dozeydustman]

6 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I am waiting to hear.

Okey dokey, if it's off am I still welcome to come up and tinker with something?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

18 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Trevi update!

......In addition to the illumination, the fuel warning light apparently was also out beforehand, it now lights as part of the test sequence at startup.

....

When I drove it, the fuel gauge swung wildly between half and empty as we went along. Has this rectified itself now?

[Andyrew]

3 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Strange thing is there was a new top mounting in the boot and I can't remember who gave it to me.

Guilty as charged. 

 

 

[Six-cylinder]

1 minute ago, Andyrew said:

Guilty as charged. 

Thank you. I was quizzed today as to why I already had a mount in the boot and it was a complete blank!

[Andyrew]

I thought it sounded like a top mount.  So ordered a febi one and chucked it the boot with the old rear number plate under the carpet.

Id thought about fitting it but then it looked like a pain and the noise went away after i had put the rear blind up so then i wasnt sure!

Glad it got sorted tho. 

[Zelandeth]

55 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

When I drove it, the fuel gauge swung wildly between half and empty as we went along. Has this rectified itself now?

Nope, it still bounces around all over the shop when moving.  Guessing there's a dead spot or two on the variable resistor track used by the gauge sender.

[Six-cylinder]

Just now, Andyrew said:

I thought it sounded like a top mount.  So ordered a febi one and chucked it the boot with the old rear number plate under the carpet.

Id thought about fitting it but then it looked like a pain and the noise went away after i had put the rear blind up so then i wasnt sure!

Glad it got sorted tho. 

My garage did complain bitterly about what a horrid job it was. They were very surprised to find it in there and I could not offer an explanation as to how it got there! 

Did I ever pay you for it?

[Andyrew]

4 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

My garage did complain bitterly about what a horrid job it was. They were very surprised to find it in there and I could not offer an explanation as to how it got there! 

Yeah it looked like one of those kind of jobs,  saved them having to track one down tho. It was the last one in stock from FPS and i had to call them to get it relayed from a branch up north. 

10 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

Did I ever pay you for it?

A gift. 

 

[Six-cylinder]

Just now, Andyrew said:

Yeah it looked like one of those kind of jobs,  saved them having to track one down tho. It was the last one in stock from FPS and i had to call them to get it relayed from a branch up north. 

A gift. 

Thank you

[beko1987]

I bet your going to spend tomorrow opening all the boots of all the cars incase more new parts have been hidden... 

Or maybe the BMW just has magical powers. Quick, wish for something else it needs

[Yoss]

5 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

At least you can self-isolate with the layout in your attic 

That is turning epic, I must put some more stuff on the thread. It was my day off today and I must have been up and down the loft ladder about fifty times. More East German stuff keeps arriving in the post too. 

[Floatylight]

46 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

I bet your going to spend all week opening all the boots of all the cars incase more new parts have been hidden... 

Or maybe the BMW just has magical powers. Quick, wish for something else it needs

FTFY!

[Mrs6C]

3 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Okey dokey, if it's off am I still welcome to come up and tinker with something?

Of course!

[Talbot]

21 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

It's obviously a fuel mixture issue as you CAN make the car idle smoothly by manually choking the carb with your hand (carefully).  She sounds really lovely then actually!  Is just starving for fuel if left to its own devices.

One thing worth doing.  On these carbs (if it's anything like the ones I've worked on) there is a fuel gallery that runs between the two float chambers.  This is where the four jets and emulsion tubes pick up their fuel from, but it's also the lowest part of the carburettor, so always fills up with crud.  It also cannot be rodded through and is completely blind.

Well worth blatting it through with some compressed air, as they can build up some real shit in there over the years.  I had some awful running issues with a Fiat x1/9 with a similar twin sequential carburettor.  Took me ages to find the fault, but when I finally did blow that drilling through and a load of crap came flying out, it ran much better!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

...More East German stuff keeps arriving in the post too. 

I recently picked up a Gűtzold HO model of the DR Br.65 2-8-4T, so this can be compared with its DB equivalent 

[Zelandeth]

Part ...Three...I think of the Trevi Tales.

After a tip off supplied to Six-Cylinder from the garage who last worked on the car, the piston from the carb fuel shutoff solenoid was found.  Just!

A few miles more I'm sure that would have vanished through that scuttle drain and never been seen again.

With this fitted (bearing in mind that the solenoid coil is open circuit) unsurprisingly the car idles even worse.  So for now it's been stashed in the bag of "leftovers" which I've removed so far (in a separate labelled bag so it doesn't get binned accidentally!).

I'm not likely to be messing around much more with the carb on this visit, though I'm not saying she won't return in future for more mechanically centred tinkering one day but that's not the main focus of this one. 

 

The dash work was mostly done yesterday, I just needed to put it back together for the most part.  I did need to replace one part though, the stripped out screw from the instrument panel.  This was just a standard M6 thread so a bolt was roped in.  Some folks might consider this a bodge...but I didn't have a machine screw that big to hand, and it's not as though you can see it so it's good enough for me!

On the subject of the instrument panel etc...it's worth noting that this didn't actually end up being a bulb replacement project.  None of the bulbs were in the slightest blackened, and all but one of the failures it turned out were down to dirty lamp holders (three of which I had to replace).  The only blown lamp I found was in the fuel light, which was totally black and obviously dead.  Given how..."variable" the quality of modern lamps can be in a case like this where they all look fine I'll stick to the originals.  This usually winds up being the least hassle in the long run.  This is a pretty easy dash to get in to as well.

I had a look at the light source for the fibre optics (sorry, forgot to photograph that), and it looked like new and everything in there is properly seated and perfectly clean.  The switch illumination is just a bit dim when in the off position.  Putting a more powerful lamp in here is a bad, bad idea as it will just A: Melt the housing and B: Burn the tips of the fibres.  The only really practical way to get more light out of there is an LED conversion.  Something to come back to in the future.

Before I actually started putting the dash back together there were a few more things I wanted to check:

[] The lamps in the parking brake/rear fog light indicators as they don't work (they were fine - the issue is upstream).

[] To clean everything that the dash is normally in the way of the edges of.  The instrument panel in particular is awkward to clean normally as it's so deeply recessed.  Out with the Autoglym Fast Glass (which despite the name is also suitable for clear plastics).

All of the warning lights, buttons etc were also scrubbed up to get rid of the ring of decades old grime that was on them.  The heater air distribution control buttons in particular were absolutely caked.

[] Lower dash heater vents.  I found the vent grills for these in the glove box.  Turns out that there were several broken ones, one complete and one half broken vent in there...Because the design is stupid.  The whole lot hangs off a pair of spring clips which hold a LOT of tension on a tiny little plastic bridge. 

The one complete vent I put on with ONE rather than two spring clips, and using a bolt rather than the plastic clip setup allowed me to space it out a good deal further to massively reduce the amount of tension on it.

This should be absolutely fine so long as you don't have a five year old trying to pull the vent out of the dash.

The second one however was already half broken so I had to improvise a bit.

I've cable tied the "bridge" to the rod which connects the two parts of the vent direction fins together.  This means the vent can't now be fully closed...but given that the opposite is a gaping hole in the dash, it seems like an improvement to me.

Given a bit of time I don't doubt for a second that I could engineer a better solution than this...but this was the best I could come up with in half an hour and the fact of the matter is that it does the job.

The dash moulding was then absolutely drowned in Autoglym vinyl and rubber care and basically left to soak for half an hour.  In hindsight I should have really done this BEFORE I fitted the heater vent grills as it would have made it less fiddly...but meh!  It worked!

Then the fun bit...Reassembly.  I think this picture speaks for itself really with regards to how much the dash moulding was screaming "thank you!" for the treatment with the cleaning products...

The vent which can't be closed is the one on the passenger side - I figured giving the driver full control was the most important. 

The rev counter in particular used to be quite cloudy before it was cleaned.  Looks rather better now.

Oh, and the previously distinctly crusty heater controls.

Much better.

You can see the difference in the surface compared to the glove compartment lid.  The glove compartment isn't fully closed there by the way, that's why the lid is sitting at an angle.

Have another gratuitous Trevi dash warning light photo just because the design is so unique.

The real question however was whether once I'd screwed/bolted everything back together would all the lighting still work!

Drumroll please...

I'll take that!  Think she can have a proper entry in the Dash at Night thread now!

Wanted to get a wider shot with the ignition on so we could get the clock in shot too.

Really need to have a play around with the camera settings to see if I can get things like warnings lights to stop washing out so much.  Also obviously still need to address the bulb failure warning which also brings on the Big Red Light of Doom.

Would be rude not to get some close ups wouldn't it?

Right to left...

Sorry that one's a bit out of focus and there's some odd washout effects going on.

Even the power window switches are properly lit...I've not dared try the actual windows!

It bugs me these are lit white when everything else in the car is green.

Tomorrow's to do list.

[] Tail light bulb replacement & ground chasing.

[] Vactan.

[] Coolant flush.  Looks like we may need to re-seal the neck on the expansion bottle too - though given the state of the radiator I'm tempted to leave this be for now.  I'd rather have the system bleeding a bit of pressure off here than blowing the equalising line stub out of the radiator...

[] See if I can figure out why the rear fog lights don't work...Obvious candidate is the fuse box, given I've had to poke things in it half a dozen times so far.  Including to get the indicator on the dash for the sidelights to work...After I'd had the bulb out and checked it three times.

[] Interior cleanup.

[Six-cylinder]

Looking at the Speedo reading I can see the Trevi has done 189 miles since I have had it.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

I like the way the speedo and rev counter both point to "5" even when the car isn't running. 

[richardmorris]

2 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I like the way the speedo and rev counter both point to "5" even when the car isn't running. 

So sleek, it's moving when standing still!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just now, richardmorris said:

So sleek, it's moving when standing still!

Travelling without moving 

[richardmorris]

6 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Travelling without moving 

Is is the same year as Dune?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

6 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Is is the same year as Dune?

Dunno. I was thinking of the title to a Jamiroquai album....

[Zelandeth]

 

3 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I like the way the speedo and rev counter both point to "5" even when the car isn't running. 

This seems to be a Fiat quirk that goes back to at least the 60s.  I've seen it in several other cars using their parts bin items and derivatives of them.

Lada for one.

I have always wondered why they were like this...as it's present across pretty much their whole model range over a huge time period it's obviously a deliberate decision...but why?

[dozeydustman]

I think the needle at 5 when really zero is a Veglia thing. Seem to recall some Peugeots fitted with Veglia dials were the same, but Jaeger Equipped ones started at 0

[LightBulbFun]

im curious does it immediately start going up when you start moving, or does it stay still until you do hit 5Mph?

[Jikovron]

One theory I came up with about the above 0 needle gauges was to give an air of prestige as the cable is likely to drive the magnet drum slightly erractically when starting from rest where its possibly smoothed out by the time the eddy current overpowers the clock spring, something very noticeable in my skoda given the cable is 9foot long !!

[Zelandeth]

How to temporarily get around a stuffed solenoid coil while waiting for Webcon to get back to me about which solenoid body we need (I've found what I am 99% certain is the right one, but no dimensions are listed and the DAT series are notably absent on the comparability list)...

Result?  Absolutely no change. 

Either the drilling or the idle jet are clogged - if you wind the idle screw all the way closed it makes absolutely zero difference so no fuel is getting through.  At least we're getting somewhere with the diagnosis.

Even if the carb was just cleaned there's no guarantee that it still is given there hasn't been a fuel filter fitted until now that I've found.

Also on the subject of carbs, there's one now stewing nicely in the ultrasonic cleaner out in our back garden.

This will be given the same full 90 minute run that TPA's one got and hopefully this will shift whatever gunk is still causing idle issues for Dolly.

Edit: Yes, those are tea strainers being used to keep the small components from vanishing into the murky depths.

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Also on the subject of carbs, there's one now stewing nicely in the ultrasonic cleaner out in our back garden.

This will be given the same full 90 minute run that TPA's one got and hopefully this will shift whatever gunk is still causing idle issues for Dolly.

Ohh yay hopefully its ready by the weekend