Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar, Volvo & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 09/10.

[Zelandeth]

Hopefully the new wheel bolts for the Invacar will turn up in the next couple of days.  In preparation for that I pulled the wheel and brake drum off so I could clean things up ready for the road again.

Wasn't actually as much gunk in there as I was expecting.  Bit of swarf, but nothing too difficult to clean out.

The long term plan is still to change the hub as I'm not 100% happy with how close the wider drilling has taken it to the edge of the casting.  The thread hasn't been cut as well as I'd ideally like either, though I did give it a good old heave today on the bolt and it didn't strip, so I'm not too worried.

 

I had a look at something today.  The difference between the 4X100 PCD (used on the Invacar) and the original 4X98 that Fiat originally used.

The bolt holes in the brake drum are actually big enough that there's enough clearance for these holes to be used.  The only thing actually preventing them being used is about 1mm of metal on the wheel.

The question springs to mind of whether a specialist would be able to make that tiny modification.  It's a question I think I might ask of a couple of companies...seeing some of the mad banding mods and such it would seem a relatively easy job.  If it *was* doable that would eliminate the potential stud headaches once and for all.

Before folks ask, yes I have looked at the 12" Fiat wheels from the 500 - the offset is significantly different so the tyre would foul on the wheel arch (can't remember on which side off the top of my head).

I've got one of the front indicators swapped out.  Just need to go back in with a brush to touch in the paint around where the old seal was removed, was fully expecting that to be needed as the construction of the new unit is slightly different.

I will see if I can get the old lenses cleaned up properly though as the moulding is of a far better quality.

The other one will be done when I next have the car out the garage as the offside front corner is really awkward to get at when it's all the way into the garage.

[LightBulbFun]

ya know until you mentioned the rusted on screws

I never realised that TPAs front indicators had never been apart in your ownership?

which makes me wonder what bulbs where fitted?

in general given how few miles invalid vehicles did over their life span I do wonder how many retained a few original factory bulbs here and there

 

although as I think as I may have mentioned before, I do wonder if TPA has been round the clock or not, given the fact her original engine (now in TWC) is a bit down on power etc, not something you would expect for an engine with only 11K on it according to the odometer 

(although I don't know if I ever found out if the engine pulled from TPA and fitted to TWC was in fact TPA's original engine!)

so her indicator bulbs would have been more likely to have been replaced then if it has actually done 110K rather then 10K!

 

 

I do know of at least one Model 70 with about 94K on the clock someone got their "money's" worth out of this one!

[Zelandeth]

The screws that were rusted are the three holding the unit to the bodywork rather than the ones securing the lens.

The lamps in there were devoid of any markings at all as I recall, and the nearside one was about 85% filled with an insect nest of some sort.

[LightBulbFun]

49 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The screws that were rusted are the three holding the unit to the bodywork rather than the ones securing the lens.

ah whoops my bad!

49 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The lamps in there were devoid of any markings at all as I recall, and the nearside one was about 85% filled with an insect nest of some sort.

interesting dovid of all markings would lead me to think the lamp fitted was old enough to still have a typical etch stamped in the glass thats then worn off overtime rather then markings stamped on the base as you see in more modern lamps

(as a side note it will be interesting to see whats fitted in REV  ) 

I can just about make out an etch in one of Dolly's head lamp bulbs, im quite interested to find out who made it/when it was made, etch looked distinctly thorn like, but Dolly is from November 1976 so right in the middle of when Thorn dropped all the old Atlas Mazda Ecko brand names and Unified on the Thorn brand name

(as a side note I found for whatever reason you dont often find Thorn automotive lamps as often as you do ones of other brands)

so it will be interesting to see what it is exactly, I did try and get a photograph of the etch but I was not very successful sadly (its quite well used going by the blackening!)

[Zelandeth]

Not really much to report today.

The indicators looked odd without the gasket behind them, even though they're not really needed to form a seal with how the new units are constructed.  So I went out and set about removing as much of the paint from the old gaskets as I could then refitted everything.

Not totally sure why the one on the offside appears to have swollen up a bit (assuming it's reacted with the thinners in some way) but the other one hasn't...will have a dig through the boxes and see if there's a spare floating around in one of my boxes of assorted junk.

Sadly no sign of the new wheel bolts yet.  Had hoped that they might turn up today, but sadly not, so she's still sitting on a jack.

I did think about tackling the brake disc change on the Jag - in fact I even hauled the tool boxes out to it, before realising that the trolley jack still has an Invacar sitting on it.  Oh.

I could have faffed around and dug it out, but I didn't honestly feel like it.  Nor do I particularly want to jack 1700kgs of Jaguar (including 400+kg of drivetrain alone!) using the one in the boot toolkit if I don't have to.

Slightly irked I decided to revert to type and faff around clean things. 

When I first started the paintwork I was grossly naive where quite how far the overspray would travel which had resulted in a bit finding its way onto the tail light lenses (I honestly have no idea why I didn't just remove the units entirely and put them somewhere well away from the painting).

A bit of a scrub with some G3 cutting paste sorted that out.

I assume there should be a gasket of some sort between the lens and the back plate, does anyone know if this is a flat gasket or just a tubular section rubber one?

Something worth bearing in mind - when folks say that that soda blasting media gets everywhere, they mean it!  There must have been a quarter of an inch of it inside both tail lights!  Gave everything a good clean, greased up all the contacts in there so as to prevent any issues with future corrosion.

When we were pulling down the trees a week or so back I slightly underestimated the flail range of one Leylandii tree when it came down and managed to swat the front of the van.  It was just the brushy bit at the top so no damage done save for a scuff.

Nothing a quick bit of polish couldn't sort.

Glad there's no actual damage done.  Lesson learned - everything gets *fully* removed from the driveway before we do anything like that again.

Quiet day really.

[plasticvandan]

The gaskets were a  white foam about 3-4mm thick,flat in section,should be easy to make.

[Zelandeth]

6 hours ago, plasticvandan said:

The gaskets were a  white foam about 3-4mm thick,flat in section,should be easy to make.

That's really useful.  I've got some white foam weatherstrip that I usually use for replacing the foam tape pads in 8-track cartridges which sounds like it will do just fine then.  She's not likely to see much use in bad weather anyway but it would be nice to not encourage further corrosion to to the lamp contacts.

The wheel bolts arrived in the post this morning, just got to find time to escape to the garage for half an hour to get them fitted.  Let's see how that goes!  Have already been volunteered for half a dozen tasks today.

[Zelandeth]

Oh FFS!

The one on the right (which fits the hub).

Ignore the slightly mangled thread at the end, the bolt is too long and fouls on the brake shoes which has caused that damage.

The one on the left.

Which I was 99.9999999% sure was 3/8" based on my research.  Apparently not.  This is a good bit larger.  1/4"?

Really getting fed up with this now.

[LightBulbFun]

bugger and blast! 

if its just wheel studs your looking for again however, then as I think I mentioned before, I know there is 1 front hub in the spares stash which you could raid for its studs if you want?  

[Zelandeth]

Front hub uses press fit studs.

[LightBulbFun]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Front hub uses press fit studs.

interesting!

according to the spares manual the studs are Store number STY476, quantity per vehicle 12

so I sort of assumed they used the same studs all round!

 

theres also a hub on ebay still  

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133022516385

(which use studs that look a lot like the ones you pulled from TPA)

[Zelandeth]

Interesting.  I've not looked personally but was advised they were standard Mini etc ones ... somewhere.

I seem to have had so much conflicting information on what will and won't work on this from about ten different sources that it's made my head spin.

If the manual says 12 per vehicle though I'm inclined to believe it.

Given the original studs appeared to have been tacked in place I wouldn't want to be reliant on needing to extract them without damage though.

Edit: looking at the photos in that eBay listing, those aren't knock through studs...nor do they look to have been welded. 

[LightBulbFun]

13 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Edit: looking at the photos in that eBay listing, those aren't knock through studs...nor do they look to have been welded. 

yeah I was wondering what the tale tail sign of them being tacked in was, because they just looked like they where screwed in to me!

but I have very little hands on experience with this sort of stuff so I wasn't going to say anything! 

for future reference heres some pictures from the ebay listing  

 

 

 

 

(its an interesting coating they have on them. I wonder if its hard or if its gloopy?)

[Zelandeth]

Well I've grabbed the one off eBay so we'll see what turns up.  Of course I'll need to get wheel nuts to go with the studs as well as the spares I had all went with KPL I think.  Yet *more* stuff I need to order and wait for. 

Of course I do still need to figure out how to get the blasted things out of the hub...which is how a lot of this mess started!

Just massively frustrated with the thing right now.

[Slowsilver]

If the studs are like Mini ones they have longitudinal splines around the back of the stud. They are removed by refitting the wheel nut and bashing them backwards with a hammer  They are installed by inserting them from the back of the hub flange, tapping them in until the hardened splines dig into the softer metal around the hole in the flange enough to stop them rotating, then putting the brake drum and wheel on and tightening the nuts up to pull them fully through the flange.
Many moons ago I remember buying a spacer kit for a Mini that had longer splined studs to replace the standard length ones. Unfortunately the metal that the studs were made of was not hardened and was softer than the material the hub flanges were made of. Hence instead of digging in and preventing the studs from rotating they just got flattened as they were pulled in. As a result when then trying to remove the wheel nuts the entire stud rotated. Since the brake drum and wheel were now fitted and could not be removed there was no access to grip the studs with anything. Even trying to drill out the studs resulted in them just spinning. Fortunately the stud material was soft enough to chisel through, but that did make rather a mess of a nice Dunlop alloy wheel.
 

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Slowsilver said:

If the studs are like Mini ones...

Nope.

Invacar studs are weird.

The outer section is the same as a normal Mini one.  The bit that goes into the hub though is threaded, 3/8" BSF.  So both bits are 3/8" but in different standards!  Figuring that out wasted me longer than it should have.

There's no clearance behind the hub to get splined ones in or out without pulling it entirely off the car.

...When I get to that stage, if getting the hub on/off turns out to be dead easy I will have some very special curses to say given that's the one thing I've been trying to avoid!

[Zelandeth]

Very little to report today.  This seems to have been one of those days where I've got up, walked the dogs, blinked, cooked dinner then it's time to wrap up for the day.

I have set myself a rule though.  I need to tick of at least something on the to do list every day, no matter how small.  My target today was replacing the missing seals in the Invacar tail lights.

This is never intentionally going to be a foul weather car, but it would be nice to know if I do get caught in a downpour (this is England after all!) or if I wash it, that the portions of the vehicle which are meant to be weatherproof actually are.

The starting point:

Thanks to @plasticvandan (hey look, I can do the user tagging thing properly because I'm actually using my proper workstation for a change!) I know there should be a flat section foam gasket present around the periphery of the lamp cluster.

A quick rummage through the drawer of junk in the Utility Room revealed a roll of self-adhesive white foam weather strip which I usually use for replacing the foam pads in 8-Track tape cartridges. 

By complete random chance this was a perfect fit for the width of the channel in the cluster.

...Then back together.

You can just about see a couple of bits of the foam poking out if looking closely, but you really can't see it from a normal distance.

The Concourse Committee probably won't like it...but I'm far more interested in practicality! 

Oh...also have ordered a full set of new wheel nuts as well.  What's currently on the car is a mixture of 10" and 12" wheel nuts (they have a slightly different profile to the conical part) and many of them on the car are pretty well mangled...so a full new set has always been on the cards.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a bit more time to be more productive!

 

[plasticvandan]

That is EXACTLY the stuff that was used originally,so top marks there.

[LightBulbFun]

10 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Oh...also have ordered a full set of new wheel nuts as well.  What's currently on the car is a mixture of 10" and 12" wheel nuts (they have a slightly different profile to the conical part) and many of them on the car are pretty well mangled...so a full new set has always been on the cards.

thats interesting, when I was speaking to stuart a while back we where talking about the wheel nuts and he recalled an ARL (approved repairer letter) mentioning NOT to mix up the wheel nuts between 10 and 12 inch cars and that the 10 vs 12 inch nuts have different shoulder angles apparently and are not to be mixed

however checking the parts manual only lists 1 entry for the wheel nuts, however its TSD (Technical service drawing) number is of a pretty late number, so I wonder/wondered if in time they managed to figure out a universal wheel nut?

would have that been possible? or not possible due to a difference of 10 vs 12 inch wheel holes?

[Mr Pastry]

34 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

however checking the parts manual only lists 1 entry for the wheel nuts, however its TSD (Technical service drawing) number is of a pretty late number, so I wonder/wondered if in time they managed to figure out a universal wheel nut?

"Wheel nut spherical" presumably means  a spherical face rather than an angled one, so perhaps would work with both types of wheel.

[Zelandeth]

Looking at the one 12" wheel I've got here the holes are very slightly larger.  I've noted that some of the wheel nuts I have are "fatter" than others, though the face profile is the same.  Based on that and pure guesswork I would assume that the wider ones were for the 12" wheels and narrower ones for the 10" ones.

So using 12" nuts on a 10" wheel would probably be okay, just not the other way around as the amount of metal it would be clamping on would be reduced.

[Zelandeth]

Today's target: Distributor examination & Replacement of the cap and rotor arm on the Jag.

No surprise it's a bit awkward to get at.

Not insurmountable to be honest, just a bit fiddly.  Removing the cruise control actuator (three easily accessible 11mm bolts and one vacuum hose) makes it entirely doable.

Helpfully the HT leads were all already labelled as that saved me having to do it!  The direction of rotation and the socket for the lead for cylinder 1A is helpfully marked on the outside of the distributor cap too and the firing order is noted in at least two locations in the engine bay, so you've really no excuse for getting too lost.

Having pulled half the HT leads off it started to become apparent how much of an issue being able to reach things was.  This wider angle shot shows just how far away from you the thing is...

Eventually I wound up climbing into the engine bay and kneeling on the left hand inlet manifold.  This would have been far less uncomfortable if those ridges weren't cast into the top of it and if that blasted fuel return line cooler wasn't in just the wrong place.

Once the cap was off...which took a not insignificant amount of force...it became immediately apparent that something wasn't quite right.

While it's not immediately visible in this photograph because of how things are sitting, the centre portion of the plastic cover below the rotor arm has completely detached from the outer part and has been spinning freely around with the rotor arm, there's also a big crack in the central portion currently hidden behind that HT lead.  This I suspect may have been the source of a rattling noise I'd been hearing on and off from this region of the engine bay.

One of the biggest issues I was aware of was that the distributor breather line had become detached from the outside of the cap.  Someone apparently has tried (unsuccessfully) to superglue it back on at some point in the past.

You can see the marker for plug lead 1A next to what's left of the breather line attachment, and the arrow at roughly 12 o'clock showing the direction that the rotor travels.

Underneath it's not looking too bad really.  Not much fouling at least really (the powder is bits of the plastic cover mentioned above which has been getting finely atomised and bits of which are everywhere).

Looking closer however it looks as though the rotor arm has been sitting lower than it really should and has only just been making contact with the posts.

This however is where the fun and games really started.  Quite simply the rotor arm was completely and utterly disinterested in parting company with the distributor shaft.

The plastic cover being broken at this point was helpful as it meant I could just pull it off.  The outer section just lifted off once the four screws were removed, and I decided to just snap the inner bit given that it needs to be replaced anyway.

It appears that the advance mechanism surprisingly doesn't seem to be bound up, this was quite a surprise.  Vacuum one is definitely moving freely, I'll stick a timing light on it and double check that the centrifugal one is also moving.  I was originally planning to strip this all down to clean and lubricate that - but given I need to get things apart again to replace that plastic cover I can do that when I have the replacement for that in stock.

So started roughly an hour long fight with the rotor arm.  Somewhat awkward fighting as well as I obviously didn't want to pull up too hard on the whole distributor shaft as I know on some cars that can damage the drive (no idea if that includes the Jag, so I'm just going to assume "yes" unless told otherwise). 

*Eventually* after a not insignificant amount of swearing...

There are several cracks in this arm...though it's impossible to say if they've been there for ages or are a result of the sheer amount of brute force that was needed to remove it.

Then as they say reassembly is simply the reverse of removal.

I gave the distributor post a bit of a clean up to remove the surface rust on there which was probably why it was such a pain to remove the rotor arm.  Then also very carefully made sure all the HT leads went back in the correct place.

Doesn't that look better than the bright blue thing?

Yes, I'll get some proper insulated spade connectors for the coil when I'm next in here, those are bugging me.

There's really no possible way I think to route the HT leads which doesn't result in them criss-crossing over themselves to at least some extent.

I discovered another potential issue at this point which might also have been responsible for the very slight intermittent idle misfire I've noticed...About half of the plug leads weren't actually clipped onto the spark plugs.  I discovered this when the one for 5B came off in my hand.  This is of course one of the ones buried under the throttle tower, so getting it back onto the plug took me about ten minutes of contortions.  Got there in the end.

Has this helped smooth things out at all?  She's always been a little lumpy at idle for the first couple of minutes, especially from the left bank (and the idle speed is a bit high sometimes - the IAC valve needs a thorough clean)...How's this for an improvement?

I'll take that.  It's hard to say which is most responsible...The new rotor arm & cap or actually having all 12 HT leads attached to their respective plugs properly.  Haven't had a good reason to go out today so haven't been able to leave the drive - but just blipping the throttle when stationary it *definitely* feels more responsive.  To the extent it's now making the exhaust rattle against the floor when you blip the throttle...That's never happened before, so I think is definitely a sign that we've got more urgency.  We'll have to wait until I've got a valid reason for going out to see if that translates into any perceptible difference on the road.

Now to update the maintenance log and get a replacement for the distributor internal cover/shield/whatever they call it in Jag lingo ordered.

Should have been a 45-min to 1 hour job...right up until the rotor arm decided to fight us!

[Zelandeth]

A little package arrived for the Invacar this morning.

Looking like new despite sitting on a shelf for goodness knows how many years thanks to a thick wax coating.  Not much I can do with this until the new wheel nuts arrive though.  Hopefully they should be here tomorrow or Friday.

While digging around in the back of the garage though I did find a good old set of front indicator lenses, which look far better than the modern ones which came with the new lamp housings.  Modern one is on the left. 

The older ones look far better on the car.

On the same note I do have a proper set of headlights on the way too.  These modern ones are bugging me enough that they have to go.  I will keep them around though as they actually work *really* well, so if/when I do the epic country-wide road trip I'll probably refit them for that.  It's just a five minute job to swap them.  These were floating around in the loft though and did just fine for testing.

Not really much else I can do here until we've got the new wheel nuts here though.

So I turned my attention to the van.  Today's target was the hob - not least because I'm sick of tripping over it. 

It did need a good clean though before I was going to handle it any more than I had to.  The whole thing was sticky and just generally horrible.

Yes, I do have the missing knob, it's missing the spring clip which holds it on though so I've just left it in the box of random van parts for now.

After a good old scrub though it was looking much more presentable.

I've moved the missing knob to the grill position as I've yet to build the box below for it to sit in.  Though being honest I'm less bothered about that as it's not something we're really likely to use often.

After a bit of carpentry it was in place.

I've got a couple of metal plates which I'll install underneath as a heat shield.  Plus I've insulated everything even vaguely near to it with aluminium foil tape as well. 

No it's not perfectly straight...but neither is the whole worktop relative to the wall of the van.  This whole worktop will be coming out and being rebuilt at some point in the future as it's an utterly unsuitable material for use in a van and really isn't fitted well (it does slope back towards the offside wall as much as it looks like it does in the photo).

The fact that the kitchen layout has been completely changed is obvious by virtue of the cover opening the "wrong" way.  Obviously the hob originally would have been recessed as well so this would have been flush with the rest of the work surface when closed.

Initially I thought that the hob might have originally been where the sink now is - but if that was the case the grill would have been totally inaccessible.  Hmm.

We'll figure out things like that somewhere down the road though - for now it can live where it is, it's ugly but having a working hob will be worth that when we're using the van.  Just having it functional again will be good enough for me for now.  Should have it up and running tomorrow, just need to hook it back up at the manifold end and obviously leak check etc.  Just ran out of daylight today.

[LightBulbFun]

ohh yay the hub got to you pretty sharpish, hopefully it will finally mean the end to your wheel hub woes and you can finally take TPA out on the road once more!  

on the headlamp front when you say proper set of headlamps, do you mean an original type that takes 36W incandescent lamps, or a set that look original but take H4 halogen lamps?

[Zelandeth]

Guess I should have said "original style" really.  Basically the standard H4 type that were used on the later Minis etc.  I'm sticking with H4 lamps at least, just seems daft not to given the difference in performance and with how unlikely you are to be able to find R2 lamps at most motor factors these days if you had one fail while out and about. 

Yes the load is slightly higher which long term might cause issues for the headlight switches - though I've plans to install relays to both take the load off those and to help make sure that the lights are actually seeing as close to their rated voltage as possible.   See also "trying to ensure long-term reliability."

[LightBulbFun]

38 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Guess I should have said "original style" really.  Basically the standard H4 type that were used on the later Minis etc.  I'm sticking with H4 lamps at least, just seems daft not to given the difference in performance and with how unlikely you are to be able to find R2 lamps at most motor factors these days if you had one fail while out and about. 

Yes the load is slightly higher which long term might cause issues for the headlight switches - though I've plans to install relays to both take the load off those and to help make sure that the lights are actually seeing as close to their rated voltage as possible.   See also "trying to ensure long-term reliability."

yeah im not one to complain here was just curious  (especially as she needs new head lamps anyway, I very much plan to fit H4's to REV for exactly the reasons you state)

[spartacus]

Am I misunderstanding something, or is the sink in the corner of the 'kitchen', if so, it appears to be almost unusable?

[Zelandeth]

The worktop is shallow enough that it's really not an issue here.  Unlike our actual kitchen where it's in a corner and set back miles so is a pain to use.  Previous owner was an interior designer...enough said I think!

I'll be redoing all the worktops at some point in the future in something more appropriate than domestic worktop material.  When that happens I'll give some actual thought to how things get laid out.

Have been keeping my eyes out for someone breaking a caravan or camper as that might save me a bit of time having to fabricate the recess the job really wants to sit in etc.  Nothing has popped up locally yet though.  Well not unless I wanted the whole caravan anyway which I really don't.

[Zelandeth]

A month or so back one of the computers here packed in.  Despite a reasonable amount of faffing around with it revival appears to be off the cards.  As best we can tell it's either a component level fault on the motherboard itself or a badly corrupt BIOS.

It was a cheap and nasty piece of plastic anyway and no great loss.  It's never a good sign when the chassis doesn't contain any metal nor does the CPU heatsink even contain a heat pipe.

Nevertheless a few parts have been salvaged.  The memory has been transferred into another laptop, the hard drive has been added to the standby stash, but most usefully right now it had a spotless display.

I had a plan for this.  Replacing this thing in the van.

This was installed about a year ago, replacing the little 9" portable thing that was in here when I got it, which was frankly unwatchable because the panel was of such poor quality - plus the only inputs it had were composite and RF so not really useful these days.  This upgrade was useful for one trip but I never really saw it as a permanent fixture for a few reasons.  Firstly, it needs mains power.  Secondly being quite an old LCD TV (with an inbuilt DVD player), it weighs a tonne.  It makes the whole side of the wardrobe it's attached to flex.  Thirdly it's really too big for the van anyway.  Finally...it's terribly scruffy...not massively surprised given it was a kerbside find...but it bugged me.  The lack of a 12V option and the sheer weight were probably the two biggest things against it though - oh, and the horrible image quality wasn't exactly a bonus feature either.

Laptop panels have the advantage of being made to be light.  This one is also recent enough to have an LED backlight so no faffing around with high voltage supplies for that needed.  There was a time when panels like this were basically useless unless you had the smarts to build your own interface board or were willing to pay big money for one.  These days though they're common as mud on eBay for most common panels.  Just find the model of the actual LCD panel itself, and stick that plus "LVDS HDMI adaptor" into a search engine and you'll probably find one.  Going rate seems to be about £15-20.

So this overly heavy piece of nonsense was removed.

Few holes were drilled in the back of the monitor case to attach it to the mount.  I went for six rather than four because it's such a cheap plasticy thing that it has virtually no strength to it to speak of.  I wound up having to remove the top two though as they fouled on the display panel frame.

I'm keeping my eyes open for something I can cannibalise to make a cover for the controller PCB - though to be honest you can't actually see this when it's stowed or in use!

It's much more in scale with the interior I think, the other one was just way too big for where it was.

Especially when not in use as it can actually be stowed away properly.

That looks far, far better I think! 

I'm going to install a Raspberry Pi in the locker just above it which will provide a media source for us should we want it.  Plus the interface board has VGA & DVI-D in addition to the HDMI input which is the main one I'll be using.  Audio isn't sorted for definite yet, but I reckon I'll probably route a line down to the head unit in the dash and re-wire that to run off the leisure battery rather than the vehicle one.  It won't be *too* difficult to route from here.  Into the wardrobe, down into the service hatch below there where there is already some ducting running along the length of the vehicle.  Just a shame there's no way to really do that any other way without dismantling massive amounts of the interior.

Just nice to keep making improvements, small though they may be.

[Zelandeth]

There we go.

Rear left could do with a couple of the jets cleaning it looks like, but everything works.  Thermocouples all cut in within 30 seconds which is nice to know.  What is the "spec" on flame failure devices these days?  Pretty sure it was 45 seconds when I last read up on things like this.

Grill obviously was only tested for a few seconds given the enclosure for it doesn't exist yet.

Nice to know it works though and will be ready to go once the enclosure is done.

While I was working in the area and had the joint compound and leak test spray out I capped off at the manifold the gas line to the cabin heater which is obviously no longer needed following the fitment of a diesel fired one.

Now all the lines have been installed I'll get them tidied up and properly clamped in place without relying on quite so many cable ties.  Make sure there's provision made to ensure the lines can't rub through on anything is high on the list too.  Will see if I get time after dinner this evening.

A new regulator and hose tail are also on the way as this hose looks like it's seen better days and I'm pretty sure is way older than the five years or whatever it is they're meant to be changed.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Zelandeth
sodding autocorrect...