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Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...


Zelandeth

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Do you have any industrial fastener suppliers near you (we have Bapps for Bolts)?

If so, go in, and say, "got any of these?".

Always worth the look on junior member of staffs face !. Often followed by an old hand going " that's a ........... , how many do you want?"

 

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Now you mention it, yes the drum probably does locate on the shoulder there.  It does locate quite solidly in place even before the wheel goes on.

Milton Keynes itself is somewhat of a modern corporate wasteland with little in the way of smaller independents or anything more than 20 years old...Though we're on the doorstep of a bunch of older towns/cities which I'm sure do have such places.  I felt it was a major victory a few months ago when I actually managed to find an industrial motor specialist in MK, and that they were indeed willing to sell me a single motor run cap, cash in hand no faffing about.

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So far I've found out that the Rimmer's / Moss item, Triumph part 100869 is 7/16" unf.

Jag used a similar one on the XJ40 but that's 1/2" unf.

Clearly they are something at the lighter end of the late 60's UK car market.

If nobody identifies it I'll have a trip to my local car spares next week and see what they say (after the sharp intake of breath).

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It may be prudent to take note of the  tensile strength of an engineering supplier sourced steel stud fastener, there is a sizeable amount of general purpose unf studs available that are mild steel cut into form out of rod stock rather than heat treated and roll forged like an automotive wheel bolt/stud, maybe the low weight makes it a more casual observation possibly.

Just some random thoughts but It might be possible to screw a 3/8 unf set bolt right through a mini wheel nut to convert it to a wheel bolt with carefully length calculation to avoid the end battling with the brake shoes/wheel cylinder, or maybe lathe turned cone washers with a light push fit onto the bolt possibly if correct studs prove to be elusive.

As an aside motor factors seem to be getting less useful now cars dont need decokes, tube type tyres,glass fuses,general tune ups etc and classic specialists seem to be extremely parochial in their support for specific marques so seem to barely acknowledge cross pollination into 'other' cars, a local MG place seem aghast to sell stuff for a 1500midget that is destined for a dolomite etc bizarre really.

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I'd been thinking along those lines but there's a minor problem.

The drums are centralised, and prevented from moving by the collar on the stud. If you use just a 3/8 bolt the drum could move slightly every time you use the brakes, which would do nothing long-term for the drums, studs or your underpants. Fitting a collar around the studs would be needed or different drums would have to sourced with a 3/8 hole. 

Drilling and rethreading to take the Triumph studs would not be too hard, assuming the collar is the same size, but you'd then probaby find that the wheels will not fit.

Finding out where AC Cars bought the studs and drums from (I've read they  built all the engine and transmission systems) would solve many a mystery.. 

 

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1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

Finding out where AC Cars bought the studs and drums from (I've read they  built all the engine and transmission systems) would solve many a mystery.. 

 

the engines came to AC/Invacar from Steyr puch :) 

but indeed AC designed and built the Gearboxes themselves, (with the transmission coming from salsbury) and then also supplied them to Invacar for use in their share of Model 70 production. I don't know if Invacar got the gearboxes complete from AC with the transmission already installed, or if Invacar put the pulleys on themselves)

AC even put a little AC Logo on the gearbox which you can see on Invacar Model 70's too :) 

image.thumb.png.94ae0db5dd1a60629b76276fa6af193f.png

(side note I just noticed some lettering/numbering on the gearbox bellow the AC logo in that picture, I wonder if thats a gearbox serial number or just a part number for the gearbox? would be interesting to see if its different on REV or TPA or TWC etc)

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15 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

The obvious thing that's just come to mind is, does that place in Essex that DW took TWC to still have wheel studs gathering dust on a shelf ?

ohh thats a good point!

I know they have an entire gearbox on the shelf still :)

(said place was the old Invacar factory :)

they have WPD607G round back which is a Model 70 thats been rung with another AC Invalid vehicles ID

sadly I dont know the actual ID of that Model 70  (and neither does stuart sadly) and Dollywobbler did not have time to check the Chassis number for me

IMG_20190515_100606.jpg

and here it is unknown "happier" times

6115739244_26b1a3f53b.jpg

 

rather ironically? given its at the old Invacar factory, its an AC Model 70 rather then an Invacar Model 70...

 

im hoping if nothing else that when I hit the road with REV I can drive to the Invacar factory and go personally ID which Model 70 it is if no one else has visited and grabbed the chassis number for me by then

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The fiat wheel bolts would have worked in exactly the same fashion as the suggestion  in that the drum is centred on the hub spigot and the bolts stopped the drum moving purely through clamping force, I often find that brake discs have a a really sloppy hole around the wheel studs and yet dont shift even though the front wheels on a car weighing 3 times more will be exercising huge braking torque comparitively.

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Realising that life is not going to cooperate and let me run over to the FoD to make use of Six-Cylinder's thread gauges any time soon, I've ordered myself a replacement.  Obviously won't be half as nice as my old one which dated from the 60s but should do the job.  Won't be lending this to family acquaintances to disappear into the sunset never to be seen again this time.  Though for less than a tenner I'm not terribly worried.

I've also emailed a couple of companies who specialise in things like this to see what their availability is like. 

I'm not terribly worried about the external thread pitch as I'll be ordering a set of wheel nuts to match, so provided the shoulder profile of the nut is right the thread pitch isn't too critical.  It's hard to tell looking at them if it's actually fractionally smaller than 3/8" (the part screwing into the hub almost definitely is) whether they are actually different or the "lost" 0.02mm is just down to wear.  As stated though, I don't much care.  The only critical measurement of the stuff on the wheel side is the shoulder (which is exactly 0.5" in diameter)  as that helps locate the brake drum while the wheel is fitted.

Hopefully get a couple of responses later today.

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Haven't had a chance to touch the cars today, been running around like a headless chicken all day.

Got a quick experiment to run this evening though. 

IMG_20190906_185625.thumb.jpg.bdc3653df868eb770d5b8a27efb55f4c.jpg

This little box arrived today.

I'm fully aware of the complete illegality of it and right from the get go, I've no intention of actually using it.  At £5 to my door though I was too curious not to grab one to have a look at.

I've two main questions to answer.  Firstly is the obvious elephant in the room, how does the optical control work out working with a reflector designed with a H4 incandescent lamp in mind?  Secondly is what sort of output does it deliver?  Better or worse than its incandescent ancestors?

I'm guessing that it will be a horrific fail in both respects. 

Currently have fitted one to the nearside headlight in the van to do some testing with once it's dark.

IMG_20190906_164357.thumb.jpg.3cf033766e9269c48078bb93c44d100c.jpg

I'm not discounting the possibility that I may be pleasantly surprised...but I really doubt it!

Longevity is of course another question entirely... that's not a huge heatsink, especially buried in the back of the headlight housing.  I suspect that even if I were foolish enough to actually use these day to day that they'd fail in short order.  No actual mention of wattage on the package...but even if it's around 10W...that heatsink ain't going to cut it!

It's been far closer to a decade since I last did any proper lighting tests so am curious to see what results I find here.

 

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I've seen some larger ones that do have a fan, not these though.  I purely grabbed these because I was curious and because they were so ridiculously cheap.

Disclaimer: I need to re-do all these tests tomorrow.  I totally didn't spot until later on this evening that the lamps are not permanently attached to their mounting collar...the one not fitted to the car came with the lamp upside down.  So I need to pull it back out and check it's the right way up...the results suggest probably not.

Even so...with the nearside lamp most likely fitted upside down or sideways...I was honestly less horrified than I expected to be.

Actual light output is decent.  A little lower than the H4 on main beam, but pretty much on par on dip I reckon. 

Colour is a pleasant crisp white - not overly blue like a lot of aftermarket HID kits seem to be.

IMG_20190906_200626.thumb.jpg.8c2d836ac3e61e1014acd0e59d4e4503.jpg

Obviously the LED is in the nearside, H4 in the offside.  There's a disclaimer here - the nearside headlight is only a month or two old.  As such it's got a lovely fresh reflector and spotless lens.  The offside one is still the original, and has a somewhat tarnished reflector and less than perfectly clear lens.

It also means I can't easily fit both of the LED lamps to test the overall experience as it's still set up for the old school R2 headlight bulbs (you remember...the ones which H4 rendered obsolete about 30 years ago?), the lamp currently in there is a halogen retrofit I was staggered to find in Halfords shortly after I got the van.  Lord only knows how long that had been on the shelf.  I have successfully stuffed H4 lamps in R2 headlights before...it just requires a certain amount of getting your tongue at the right angle to line everything up.  Usually with a nice plain wall in front of the car to ensure the beam is correct.  Given the state of the reflector though this might be the reminder I need to get a proper H4 replacement headlight ordered in.  Meant to do that ages ago but it had honestly slipped my mind.

Okay...so a little bit of testing.  Realisation number one: it's hard to find anywhere within a few minutes of home that gets dark these days as the new streetlights they've fitted (Halophane V-Max 26W for the most part) are actually really effective.  Like the technology or not, they're a huge step forwards from what we had around here before.

It also wasn't fully dark... didn't have as much time to dedicate to this as I'd have liked.

I walked around in front of the van to see if I was blinding other drivers.  Nope.  Cutoff isn't maybe quite as sharp as it could be, but it's not blasting holes in anyone's retinas.

Starting with the on-street images as they can often be more revealing than test targets for stuff like this.

Dip beam:

IMG_20190906_201338.thumb.jpg.15724a153451a58bc660f491cda2c10e.jpg

Main beam (once I eventually managed to get a clear road for long enough!):

IMG_20190906_201422.thumb.jpg.e6a8009fba7364b56bf6c76ac89d7dc1.jpg

This is where it seems to really shine (pun entirely intended) as it seems to get more light on main beam actually onto the road than the incandescent on the other side.  Obviously this needs to be rechecked once I've verified the lamp alignment.

My highly technical test target made things look less rosy.

IMG_20190906_201514.thumb.jpg.a935660ac69c21027c7e0fb8128bcd19.jpg

It's a bit muddy really... there's no nice sharp cutoff as there should be.IMG_20190906_201526.thumb.jpg.195edb3c1425e8e642353f3792acf393.jpg

Main beam is more of a soft flood than "beam" though it actually didn't seem as bad when driving...the brightness difference is less pronounced than the camera makes it look though.

IMG_20190906_195823.thumb.jpg.45dd9a334ea4ce154f211f54affa1566.jpg

Don't think these images mean a thing though until I confirm the lamp is the right way up...if not it's doing a surprisingly good job.

Watch this space.  I know it's a minor thing, but I find this sort of thing quite interesting.

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not that id condone fitting LEDs to an invacar in a million years

but it would be interesting to see how they would do in an older round head lamp setup like what's on the invacar, I wonder if they would do better because of the more simple optics in those or worse because they were made with modern setups in mind?

(I imagine 99% of them are being (illegally) fitted to modern cars)

(when you get the HID kit from DW then you can do a shoot out of cheap and nasty headlamp conversions! :mrgreen: )

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I see things like these quite different to the illegal and often downright dangerous HID kits. 

HID is a totally different kettle of fish as so often you're talking about sticking a light source producing several times as much light as the optical system (and the beam pattern) was designed to handle.  There you really do need the self levelling kit and such to ensure you're not blinding other drivers.

You can't just throw any HID source into an existing headlight design anyway as it's so different in geometric terms to a filament.  Looking at this though, it's far closer than any HID lamp design ever will be to what it's replacing.

So I don't think these are necessarily worthy of quite such ire as the HID kits are...though as you're not seeing a significant amount of extra light, and realistically you're not going to see better life...so you do have to wonder just...why?  I guess being able to pick a higher colour temperature without taking a huge cut in output because of a blue filter is worth it to some people?

Yes, they're still totally illegal...but based on what I've seen so far these one's don't seem to be outright dangerous.  Poor yes, but honestly still better than the headlights were with the 20+ year old R2 lamps were when I got the van!

The Invacar is an interesting case as I do wonder whether the potential power saving might be worthwhile if you do a lot of town driving - obviously in warm white though...not sure if they'd better handle the voltage variations given the system sits off charge at idle.  Bit of a moot point though as I don't think there's enough room in the headlamp bowl for the heatsinks to fit.

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speaking of invacars just as a side note you mentioned replacing the gearbox mounts a couple pages back

well heres the link that @dollywobbler got his from :) figured it would be worth linking here as I dont think it has been linked here before https://www.johnrichardssurplus.co.uk/dunlop-metalastick-rubber-mounting-sty327.html

I wonder if the place has any other Model 70 bits and bobs kicking around?

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12 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

speaking of invacars just as a side note you mentioned replacing the gearbox mounts a couple pages back

well heres the link that @dollywobbler got his from :) figured it would be worth linking here as I dont think it has been linked here before https://www.johnrichardssurplus.co.uk/dunlop-metalastick-rubber-mounting-sty327.html

I wonder if the place has any other Model 70 bits and bobs kicking around?

Cheers for that.  Had a set of less decrepit looking ones on the wish list on the whiteboard for a while now.  For £3.50 apiece there's really no reason not to grab a pair.  It should be one more thing ticked off the list at least once they're changed.

The one on the nearside I particularly remember being surprised when it remained intact after the first test run...

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The beam pattern that LED retrofit generates, compared to the incandescent is very familiar to me.

 

Soft cutoff with a big blob in the middle and a very wide span- that's almost identical to the beam pattern generated by my Federal spec headlights in the Renault.

You probably find the beam pattern is closer to Fed than European. It's only in very recent years that we've seen headlights with sharp cutoff and that's only with projector style lamps.

 

Phil

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Funny you should say that - I was thinking it looked very reminiscent of the pattern I saw from my husband's car back when I first visited him back in 2006.  This was an 80s Cavalier, so same spec lights as your Renault I'd imagine.

I do recall finding them downright woeful when dealing with dirt roads in the back end of rural Michigan...

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Again been running around all day so haven't had much chance to do much useful.

A few days ago though I finally got around to properly sorting something which had been bugging me on the Xantia since the day I got it.  As with about 80% of them I've seen, the window seals were lifting at the rear of the driver's door and front of the rear offside passenger door.

This meant they always sat a little proud, and periodically would get snagged by passers by, so you'd come back to this.IMG_20181104_222915.thumb.jpg.a967778db070aa8bddbb64a29d8647ce.jpg

There should be a little clip behind there, but this is long gone on mine.

So as seems to be becoming traditional for me, I solved this issue by glooping the offending item in Sikaflex and fastening it in place while this set.

IMG_20190905_160544.thumb.jpg.6b7c04989b8bb336a646b27f08dfd6fd.jpg

End result?

IMG_20190906_131049.thumb.jpg.3b54a71588013101030094a1e4853f40.jpg

I'll take that.  What I wasn't expecting was in addition to looking far better this has also reduced the wind noise in the cabin at motorway speeds very noticeably.

 

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14 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

given the amount of noise it made, I wonder how much drag it produced and if you will see any MPG improvements now you have fixed it? :)

MPG improvement...hahahaha...don't forget that there's a TCT engine in this thing...thirsty doesn't come close.  25mpg is a very good day. 

She'll manage mid 30s on a run no bother, but our local area isn't exactly friendly for a heavily turbocharged engine from the early 80s (possibly earlier, tired enough I'm struggling to remember...).

One more reason having the Invacar on fleet is hoped to save me a few quid for local runs...

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So a quick update on the headlight upgrade experiment.

Here's something that is worth looking at - the actual beam image.

H4 (retrofit into R2 headlight).

IMG_20190907_143815.thumb.jpg.6ed1c48ccc51ba59914623c0424e8d09.jpg

LED H4 replacement (in actual H4 headlight).

IMG_20190907_143825.thumb.jpg.33d91c8a29e5d56d1b88fa28c8068b68.jpg

Out of curiosity I went and put the LED one into the driver's side too - obviously requiring manual alignment as this headlight is still set up for an R2 lamp not H4...no deal-breaker though.

What's interesting is that I actually seem to have a far better beam on the offside one than nearside...

IMG_20190907_202912.thumb.jpg.30945e4e4d57c399285070dd56a0c0a3.jpg

That's actually not bad...it's not stellar, but it's certainly serviceable... I've driven cars with aged headlight reflectors which went through the MOT every year without issues with far worse beam definition.

I have a feeling that what I'm seeing here in terms of a left/right difference is that the offside light while old is a genuine Hella one whereas the nearside is a Depo branded replacement...so it may just be a poorer quality headlight.  Can't say I've ever heard of Depo...though it was in a Euro Car Parts box, which doesn't instill confidence!

Backing up the truck a little (somewhat literally in this case given Merc would actually have supplied the vehicle to AutoTrail as a cab and open chassis) gives a better look at how things really look.

IMG_20190907_201628.thumb.jpg.f6a8327cb77c0863d22b9038a697c3c0.jpg

That's deliberately underexposed to show the beam cutoff.  I'm happy nobody is getting blinded and no nuns or kittens will be harmed if I go for a road test.

This better shows how much light actually gets where you need it (though the white door has obviously washed out).

Dip...

IMG_20190907_201632.thumb.jpg.8029be029b3d7bb82cd10df4b1086a6e.jpg

Main beam.

IMG_20190907_201637.thumb.jpg.b4bdb18c90d0f4204f3c08f3feda209f.jpg

I'm actually quite impressed.  I'm not quite sure how much is purely psychological because of the light being a cleaner white, but the LEDs do seem to do a better job of actually lighting the area in front of the van.

Even under our quite bright LED streetlights it's quite clear where the main throw of the headlights is here.  In comparison, you can barely see that the road is being lit when doing this in the Citroen.

IMG_20190907_201807.thumb.jpg.76c5d8e8974ee5a3afd791568a5508c1.jpg

It's hard to see in the photo, but there's na decent spill off to the left too - this is noticeably better than with the standard H4 lamp.

I'm very surprised.  I had honestly expected these things to be about as much use as a Christmas Cracker flashlight...but they actually seem to work...and actually work pretty well... longevity however is a completely different matter.  I still would be surprised if the thermal management of these is even close to adequate.

I think I really need to re-run this test with the Lada as it's got a properly matched set of headlights and actually has a really good set of headlights out the box.  It lacking an MOT however is is somewhat inconvenient...so might have to wait a bit.  That car does lend itself to testing better though as the lamps can easily be changed in seconds.  The van requires the grill and respective headlight to be pulled.  Only takes a minute but is still a faff.

Overall though... I'm really surprised.  I'd expected these to either give out a pitifully useless amount of light or to blind everyone.  Reasonable beam control and useful output were surprises.

Obviously they can not be recommended even if they were reliable though given the lack of (real!) E markings and type approval... they're not legal for road use, which is why they will be removed tomorrow.

Does show though that the possibility of a proper H4 LED replacement isn't maybe a complete sun dream...it might be a real thing some day.

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What a bloody waste of a whole afternoon.

Gardening.  Bloody hate it.

Exhibit A:

IMG_20190908_144147.thumb.jpg.fa16a158a3b9cd3c9ce3d13477d2db53.jpg

Which of course refused to run properly.  Meaning I'd already put my back out, wrenched my right shoulder and smacked my right arm into the bin before we'd even got close to any actual work.

After well over an hour I eventually came to the conclusion that the only logical issue could be stale fuel...even though it's hardly been in there for ages...Figured I'd mix some fresh up and see how it went.  Realised at that point I was out of two stroke oil.

Cue much swearing as this required me to go out and face the retail park which is always utter carnage at the weekend - especially 1530 on a Sunday when everyone is scrambling to get stuff before everything closes.

As predicted it was an utter zoo - not helped by one of the poorest car park layouts I've ever seen.

Eventually got in and back out (after a 15 minute queue in Halfords where they had a single till in use), and got back to the task at hand.

After a further half hour of faffing around I got the hedge trimmer mostly running okay.

IMG_20190908_165102.thumb.jpg.861750972c429e69095deceb5dab6210.jpg

So that's essentially four hours work start to finish... really doesn't feel like a productive use of my time!

I've done to the boundary of hour property.  I got an earful from the neighbor along that way for offering to do the whole stretch several years ago...so that bit just stays overgrown.

If I've any energy available after dinner I'll see about getting into the garage as there's no shortage of things to do in there, but not holding my breath.  Given the current energy and discomfort levels it's definitely not a givun.

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