Zel's Motoring Adventures...Volvo, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 13/11.

[PhilA]

That's pretty good, I don't think you'll do better than that because of the cam. It seems to be ground towards mid to high range running so snapping the throttle wide open like that and it not coughing, popping or snapping but picking up (albeit slowly) is about as good as it is likely to get.

I forget too, does it have vacuum advance?

[Zelandeth]

 

22 hours ago, PhilA said:

That's pretty good, I don't think you'll do better than that because of the cam. It seems to be ground towards mid to high range running so snapping the throttle wide open like that and it not coughing, popping or snapping but picking up (albeit slowly) is about as good as it is likely to get.

I forget too, does it have vacuum advance?

No vacuum advance on this engine. Centrifugal only.

Following the experiment yesterday I had cobbled together a link to the throttle control...which went *ping* the first time I tried applying full throttle.

Version 2.0 was quickly put together.

This actually worked surprisingly well.

Unfortunately actually on the road this carb didn't work as well as it looked like it might.  On wide open throttle it feels like the engine is really bogging down at lower revs.  However it has very much highlighted how well the original one isn't behaving in some circumstances.  The throttle response here is far more linear, the original one felt that there was far more of an off/medium/high sort of throttle.  This one is also far happier to sit on a very light throttle at a set speed - 30mph for example can be maintained without needing to continually adjust.

Being able to just bring the revs up till the clutch starts to bite and then being able to just roll it on as you move off makes things so much smoother and pleasant.

At higher revs it felt more lively so long as you didn't go beyond about 70% throttle.

I think I might be seeing a reason that it feels like this engine is holding back a bit at the top end.  Here's what I saw when I got back from the test.

Not maybe obvious in the photo but the whole outer of the carb was swimming in fuel.

Doing some testing with the air cleaner off showed an interesting effect - when the throttle is opened anywhere beyond about 50% there is a tendency for a fine mist of fuel to want to hover about 2" above the carb throat - I'm guessing suspended there by pressure waves caused by resonance within the inlet manifold.

I'm sure I recall hearing of folks using dual carbs on air cooled VWs (so each carb feeding two cylinders exactly like this) having trouble with exactly this phenomenon with certain carb setups. 

That's where the fuel that I've been seeing running off the carb has been coming from though, it's nothing to do with a leak.  It's literally been getting sprayed over the inside of the air cleaner housing, then running down over the carb.  The air cleaner is just a metal-on-metal join so isn't hermetically sealed or anything like that.

I'm getting the feeling that's putting a theoretical limit on how much charge we can get into the engine, and why it has always felt like the last 30% or so of the throttle travel really doesn't seem to do anything.

I think it's a combination between this effect and the carb being better to run slightly lean (according to the manual) which might together account for the sneezing habit.

What to actually *do* about it though I've no idea.  Applying some brainpower and maybe ask thoughts from folks who do more engine tuning etc for a living may be the answer.  Will let you know if I get anywhere.

In the meantime though I will put the original carb back...after further cleaning.  I'd obviously failed to shift the offending gunk last time around so it was dismantled again and chucked back in the ultrasonic cleaner.

My cleaner wasn't quite big enough to fully submerge the whole carb though which was always rather limiting.

However PhilA presented an idea which was a stroke of genius and effectively made my ultrasonic cleaner more than big enough.

Plenty big enough to thoroughly submerge it now.

It was left in there with the cleaner running for a full two hours.  It *definitely* shifted a lot more crud this time round...both based on the sludge left behind when it was removed from the cleaner and just how it looks.

I'll get it out back on the car tomorrow and see where we are.  Setup procedure will be done by the book too.

So while this carb experiment might not have been an immediate fix, the behaviour when bumbling around at 30mph or below, starting etc has very much highlighted that the existing carb wasn't allowing the engine to perform as well as it could.  Whether that's down to this carb being in need of a professional service or just limitations of the combination of this carb and this engine is something I've yet to confirm.  One thing I will be doing is rechecking the valve clearances.  I did check these when I first got KPL, but that was a long time ago.  0.15mm is the correct cold clearance for both inlet and exhaust valves.  It will be a lot more of a faff now the engine is in TPA because she has intact wheel wells...

Will order in a new set of rocker cover gaskets first though.  I was incredibly lucky to get them to seal properly when I reused them the first time round, expecting them to survive being taken off and refitted twice is a bit of an ask...

Also on the subject of carburetors I'm glad to report that the scruffy roadside find lawn mower is working like new again with the new carb fitted.

Might even treat it to a clean as a reward for living to fight another day.  While it looks like hell it is mechanically well looked after though...the oil is a lot cleaner than the outside.  I have tried four times now to buy a new grass box for it, every time I get an email several days after the order saying "sorry we don't actually have one in stock."

I noticed yesterday that the offside tailpipe on the Jag was buzzing again.  Turned out it had managed to rotate and was touching the underside of the cutout under the bumper.  Five minute job to tweak the alignment and clamp it a bit more securely.

This is how the tips now sit.

Know a few of you wanted to know why I'd spent time faffing with it.  This is why.  Sorry, didn't want to make too much noise as our neighbours were having lunch in the garden opposite.

I'll try to get a proper driving video shortly. 

That however is why I was messing with the exhaust.  Sounds a bit more purposeful now I think...

Oh, and the leather has been treated a further two times today.  It's almost getting to the stage where the conditioner actually sticks around for more than two milliseconds before being absorbed now. 

More excuses to play with the wide angle mode on the camera too.

Looks like this car was really well looked after in a lot of ways but the leather had been quite neglected.

Something I really need to do as a matter of some urgency is get some floor mats.  I keep meaning to but keep forgetting.

[LightBulbFun]

very interesting issue with regards to the carb on the Invacar

it reminds me a lot of this, its a shame you didn't have any polystyrene balls to stick/levitate  in the standing wave (as if a fibreglass car with fuel spraying out the carb was not flammable enough!)

 

the Jag is sounding very nice  (and I see you adjusted the video settings some more ) 

 

[PhilA]

Yup, fun with high revving cams on short induction runners.

 

If the old carb doesn't run, rejetting the new carb and putting it on an extended intake runner tube may help re-tune it, but yes, far too rich and too high CFM for the engine.

 

Same issue people get on old V8's here when they fling a 750cfm Holley Dominator on a tired old 350.

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

Imagine getting the fuelling spot on on such a small engine is always going to be a bit of a game.

...Do wish that injection kit wasn't so expensive as it would be a really neat experiment otherwise!

Dual bike carbs maybe?

[LightBulbFun]

side slightly related thing

but I was reading back through some of your past posts on TPA

and read through the bit about the gearbox oil leak, where you mentioned you think it might either coming out of the top of the gearbox or one of the drive shaft seal

and it reminded me and figured it would be worth mentioning here, that to remember the Gearbox and diff dont share a common oil pool if thats the right term?

they are topped up and drained separately, etc and dont mix

just something to keep that in mind when looking into the leak and to make sure you dont accidentally run the diff dry or such  

[Zelandeth]

9 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

side slightly related thing

but I was reading back through some of your past posts on TPA

and read through the bit about the gearbox oil leak, where you mentioned you think it might either coming out of the top of the gearbox or one of the drive shaft seal

and it reminded me and figured it would be worth mentioning here, that to remember the Gearbox and diff dont share a common oil pool if thats the right term?

they are topped up and drained separately, etc and dont mix

just something to keep that in mind when looking into the leak and to make sure you dont accidentally run the diff dry or such  

It's definitely worth mentioning as it's not immediately obvious unless you've read the manual.  Especially if the whole gearbox is like mine was when I got it encased in a good 3/4" thick crust of congealed oil, mud and I assume drive belt dust.  It took work with a chisel to actually find the level plugs!  Oil in both has been changed previously as a matter of course during the recommissioning process though so I know there are separate fill/level plugs.  Probably worth changing the oil again now I've got a few miles covered now I think about it as I've probably done a pretty good job of stirring up any sludge from the corners of the box by now...

First order of business for today (well, was actually a bunch of boring real life stuff...wasn't until gone 1700 before I was able to stick my head outside) was to get the original carb refitted.

On the plus side, I've done this enough times now that it takes about ten minutes.

While fitting this I made a point of trying to get some of the slack out of the throttle cable as there was a lot of dead travel in it before which made applying anything more than about 40% throttle really awkward.

I was then slightly delayed at this point by the battery being flat.  I have been doing a lot of stop/start work lately and it was never charged while the car was off the road as I can recall so not massively surprising.  Conveniently due to the low power draw of the Invacar's electrical systems, the 12A of charge current from the charger is more than enough to meaningfully help as a jump start (as I recall I measured the current draw of the Dynastart while cranking to be in the region of 30A).  While there was initially a lot of spluttering, coughing and one properly shotgun loud backfire while the residual carb cleaner was expelled and a bit of faffing around wishing I had three hands while I got the idle mixture dialled in, we were soon back up and running.

It seems that whatever blockage was in there last time we were successful in dislodging this time.  @Mrs6C it's really, really obvious from both the result and the slime it left in the cleaner that the full-immersion cleaning did a massively better job than the original method.  So if your carb shows any signs of not being happy (or if it's not been fitted yet, as a preventative measure) I'm more than happy to take it back and give it another proper dunking.  As I recall though yours wasn't massively bad on the whole, it was mainly just the idle jet itself being well and truly plugged that had caused you issues, so hopefully it will be fine.  Quite happy to get that reattached for you at the next open weekend unless someone else has already stepped up to volunteer.  Sorry I had to dash off last time before we got to that.

So, on to the test run.  I set the camera running before I started out on the test run.  Unfortunately because I'm an idiot I totally forgot to close the offside window so there's a heap of wind noise.  Sorry.  Equally the camera aim is horrible - again a limit of the holder and that location.  I've got a couple of alternatives on the way from Amazon as we speak to try in the future as I'd really like to be able to get *decent* driving footage.  This gives a better idea of how she's actually running now though at least.  I do note that I appear to need to poke the tail light earthing arrangements again as the indicators stop flashing when the brake lights are on.  Think it's time I just rebuilt those lights with better lamp holders and proper wiring as they're nothing but trouble.

(No, I haven't wired the gauge pod up yet either.)

She will still stumble occasionally if you crack the throttle open instantly from idle, but I haven't been able to provoke any sneezing today.  If you make a point of smoothly rolling on the throttle rather than just cracking it open, cleaning the carb and having tweaked the idle speed up a bit seems to mostly have resolved that.  I do wonder if a throttle damper might be something worth thinking about here.

The low speed/low throttle behaviour has been vastly improved.  It's possible to sit at 30mph now without the car complaining which is a nice improvement.  It was always a bit hit and miss, but you generally could provoke a sneeze from the carb by hitting the throttle hard after coasting for a bit.  I've deliberately tried several times today but wasn't able to replicate it - so am tentatively labelling that as fixed by cleaning the carb more thoroughly.

What it hasn't done anything whatsoever about is the fuel lift problem.  The carb still ends up wet with fuel after any period of hard acceleration, and there's still little noticeable difference between 70% and 100% throttle.  I'm really not sure what to do about this...If the air cleaner was a better seal against the carb body it would be less of an issue, but as there's a sufficient gap there that any fuel mist that lands on the inner surfaces of the air cleaner housing eventually run down the inside of it and then down the outside of the carb intake, then down over the body.  I wonder if it might be possible to fit an O ring to seal the base join between the air cleaner and the carb?  Obviously would need to plug the two cutouts (which allow it to close to clamp onto the carb) with something flexible too.

I'm not sure this is something that I can hope to resolve with the carb itself as it (at least if my understanding is correct) is more a function of resonance effects within the inlet manifold itself causing pulses to force fuel back up through the carb when the inlet valves are both closed.  Alteration of the air filter side of things to mitigate the effects of the phenomenon seems to be the order of the day.  Figuring out a way to properly seal the air filter to the carb *seems* to be the easiest avenue.

It's not a massive problem, the fuel doesn't exactly wind up pouring everywhere, the carb body itself just tends to appear slightly damp to the touch after a run and it evaporates entirely within a minute or two of the engine stopping.  I'd obviously prefer *not* to have flammable liquid, no matter in how small quantities, winding up in my engine bay anywhere other than inside my engine though.  Long term it's definitely something I want to get rid of - especially given that the road layout around where I live means that full throttle blasts are a necessity pretty much any time I go out whether I like it or not.

On the plus side though it seems that she is running pretty well again.  Only gremlin that really came to light was that I do need to put a tiny amount of slack back into the throttle cable.  It sometimes hangs up with the throttle held open by about 0.00002%, holding the idle speed up just high enough that I can't engage drive.  Simple enough to fix though.  Oh, and I need to stick the battery on to charge...Would have done that tonight, but as the Citroen is heading into the garage tomorrow it's currently on the charger as it is in need of a new battery and struggles to hold charge for more than a few days.

Once she's got a fresh MOT on I'll get that battery replaced - it's still under warranty so will be getting swapped out as soon as the car is actually mobile again.

 

I made a point of borrowing my husband this evening to get a bit of exterior footage of the Jag at something other than idle...Sadly I think I really need to re-shoot this with the camera a bit further down the road as it sounds like that's where the good stuff really was based on the distant howl!  Makes sense given it really picks up in the mid range.

The theatre of the way the whole car rears back when you give it some throttle from a standing start really hasn't got old yet.

While we were at it, I was curious to see if the van actually sounded as ridiculous from the outside as it seemed based on my hearing it bouncing off buildings and such.

Yep...That's about what I expected...Sound clip that could well be from a good few decades ago!

Both of these need to be tried again with a better vantage point and when the traffic is quieter. 

[PhilA]

Is the valve lash set correctly on the Invacar? What about the spring tension?

Sounds like you may have an intake valve that's bouncing at high rpm if it does it to that carb too.

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, PhilA said:

Is the valve lash set correctly on the Invacar? What about the spring tension?

Sounds like you may have an intake valve that's bouncing at high rpm if it does it to that carb too.

It will be double checked in the near future.  The valve clearances were checked and set when I was initially recommissioning the engine, they weren't far out at all anyway.  It's actually most pronounced at low to mid revs it looks like based on static experiments - tricky to say how that translates to under load conditions though.

I believe it's something TWC does as well as I'm pretty sure DW has had an elusive apparent fuel leak without an obvious source in the general area of the carb as well as long as he's had the car running.

[LightBulbFun]

very happy to hear even on her original carb TPA is running better now  

I like the jag and the van exterior sound check videos you should do one of TPA just for completeness sake if nothing else  

11 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Only gremlin that really came to light was that I do need to put a tiny amount of slack back into the throttle cable.  It sometimes hangs up with the throttle held open by about 0.00002%, holding the idle speed up just high enough that I can't engage drive.  Simple enough to fix though.

REV had/has a tendency to do that too, do let me know how you get on with the throttle cable, REV's has been a right PITA LOL (doesn't help her twist grip itself is quite knackard, must figure out what diameter the handle bars themselves are and see what my options are)

[Zelandeth]

Bars are pretty standard I believe.  It took a fair bit of messing around to get mine to move freely, but we've got to a point now where it tends to *just* hold itself where you set the throttle.  I've decided to leave it be like that as it actually makes driving the car car easier than having to keep the throttle held open all the time.  Especially if you need to go for other controls, open/close a window, wave thanks to another road user etc.

The grip on the nearside was replaced with a generic bike one I picked up from either Go Outdoors or Halfords - I just grabbed the one which seemed most comfortable.  I'd be surprised if most standard moped throttle twist grip assemblies wouldn't fit straight on for the throttle side.

 

[PhilA]

Or bigger motorcycle grip with a friction lock?

 

That would also give a few switches available to a thumb too.

[Zelandeth]

It's nice when simple jobs turn out to be simple.

Non-functioning nearside indicator repeater on the van was just a slightly grubby lamp holder.  Quick clean restored correct functionality.

The Invacar is now on the battery charger to get that properly topped off.

I set out initially with the intention of tidying up in the garage a bit but suffered a critical lack of motivation after about 15 minutes.  Maybe tomorrow...

[CaptainBoom]

21 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

It's definitely worth mentioning as it's not immediately obvious unless you've read the manual.  Especially if the whole gearbox is like mine was when I got it encased in a good 3/4" thick crust of congealed oil, mud and I assume drive belt dust.  It took work with a chisel to actually find the level plugs!  Oil in both has been changed previously as a matter of course during the recommissioning process though so I know there are separate fill/level plugs.  Probably worth changing the oil again now I've got a few miles covered now I think about it as I've probably done a pretty good job of stirring up any sludge from the corners of the box by now...

First order of business for today (well, was actually a bunch of boring real life stuff...wasn't until gone 1700 before I was able to stick my head outside) was to get the original carb refitted.

On the plus side, I've done this enough times now that it takes about ten minutes.

While fitting this I made a point of trying to get some of the slack out of the throttle cable as there was a lot of dead travel in it before which made applying anything more than about 40% throttle really awkward.

I was then slightly delayed at this point by the battery being flat.  I have been doing a lot of stop/start work lately and it was never charged while the car was off the road as I can recall so not massively surprising.  Conveniently due to the low power draw of the Invacar's electrical systems, the 12A of charge current from the charger is more than enough to meaningfully help as a jump start (as I recall I measured the current draw of the Dynastart while cranking to be in the region of 30A).  While there was initially a lot of spluttering, coughing and one properly shotgun loud backfire while the residual carb cleaner was expelled and a bit of faffing around wishing I had three hands while I got the idle mixture dialled in, we were soon back up and running.

It seems that whatever blockage was in there last time we were successful in dislodging this time.  @Mrs6C it's really, really obvious from both the result and the slime it left in the cleaner that the full-immersion cleaning did a massively better job than the original method.  So if your carb shows any signs of not being happy (or if it's not been fitted yet, as a preventative measure) I'm more than happy to take it back and give it another proper dunking.  As I recall though yours wasn't massively bad on the whole, it was mainly just the idle jet itself being well and truly plugged that had caused you issues, so hopefully it will be fine.  Quite happy to get that reattached for you at the next open weekend unless someone else has already stepped up to volunteer.  Sorry I had to dash off last time before we got to that.

So, on to the test run.  I set the camera running before I started out on the test run.  Unfortunately because I'm an idiot I totally forgot to close the offside window so there's a heap of wind noise.  Sorry.  Equally the camera aim is horrible - again a limit of the holder and that location.  I've got a couple of alternatives on the way from Amazon as we speak to try in the future as I'd really like to be able to get *decent* driving footage.  This gives a better idea of how she's actually running now though at least.  I do note that I appear to need to poke the tail light earthing arrangements again as the indicators stop flashing when the brake lights are on.  Think it's time I just rebuilt those lights with better lamp holders and proper wiring as they're nothing but trouble.

(No, I haven't wired the gauge pod up yet either.)

She will still stumble occasionally if you crack the throttle open instantly from idle, but I haven't been able to provoke any sneezing today.  If you make a point of smoothly rolling on the throttle rather than just cracking it open, cleaning the carb and having tweaked the idle speed up a bit seems to mostly have resolved that.  I do wonder if a throttle damper might be something worth thinking about here.

The low speed/low throttle behaviour has been vastly improved.  It's possible to sit at 30mph now without the car complaining which is a nice improvement.  It was always a bit hit and miss, but you generally could provoke a sneeze from the carb by hitting the throttle hard after coasting for a bit.  I've deliberately tried several times today but wasn't able to replicate it - so am tentatively labelling that as fixed by cleaning the carb more thoroughly.

What it hasn't done anything whatsoever about is the fuel lift problem.  The carb still ends up wet with fuel after any period of hard acceleration, and there's still little noticeable difference between 70% and 100% throttle.  I'm really not sure what to do about this...If the air cleaner was a better seal against the carb body it would be less of an issue, but as there's a sufficient gap there that any fuel mist that lands on the inner surfaces of the air cleaner housing eventually run down the inside of it and then down the outside of the carb intake, then down over the body.  I wonder if it might be possible to fit an O ring to seal the base join between the air cleaner and the carb?  Obviously would need to plug the two cutouts (which allow it to close to clamp onto the carb) with something flexible too.

I'm not sure this is something that I can hope to resolve with the carb itself as it (at least if my understanding is correct) is more a function of resonance effects within the inlet manifold itself causing pulses to force fuel back up through the carb when the inlet valves are both closed.  Alteration of the air filter side of things to mitigate the effects of the phenomenon seems to be the order of the day.  Figuring out a way to properly seal the air filter to the carb *seems* to be the easiest avenue.

It's not a massive problem, the fuel doesn't exactly wind up pouring everywhere, the carb body itself just tends to appear slightly damp to the touch after a run and it evaporates entirely within a minute or two of the engine stopping.  I'd obviously prefer *not* to have flammable liquid, no matter in how small quantities, winding up in my engine bay anywhere other than inside my engine though.  Long term it's definitely something I want to get rid of - especially given that the road layout around where I live means that full throttle blasts are a necessity pretty much any time I go out whether I like it or not.

On the plus side though it seems that she is running pretty well again.  Only gremlin that really came to light was that I do need to put a tiny amount of slack back into the throttle cable.  It sometimes hangs up with the throttle held open by about 0.00002%, holding the idle speed up just high enough that I can't engage drive.  Simple enough to fix though.  Oh, and I need to stick the battery on to charge...Would have done that tonight, but as the Citroen is heading into the garage tomorrow it's currently on the charger as it is in need of a new battery and struggles to hold charge for more than a few days.

Once she's got a fresh MOT on I'll get that battery replaced - it's still under warranty so will be getting swapped out as soon as the car is actually mobile again.

 

I made a point of borrowing my husband this evening to get a bit of exterior footage of the Jag at something other than idle...Sadly I think I really need to re-shoot this with the camera a bit further down the road as it sounds like that's where the good stuff really was based on the distant howl!  Makes sense given it really picks up in the mid range.

The theatre of the way the whole car rears back when you give it some throttle from a standing start really hasn't got old yet.

While we were at it, I was curious to see if the van actually sounded as ridiculous from the outside as it seemed based on my hearing it bouncing off buildings and such.

Yep...That's about what I expected...Sound clip that could well be from a good few decades ago!

Both of these need to be tried again with a better vantage point and when the traffic is quieter. 

I enjoyed those, I could imagine that Jag v12 howl becoming very addictive!  Exactly what an executive lounge on wheels should sound like - like the Lord of the Manor who also smokes Woodbines and drinks pints in the local. 

The van sounds brilliant as well, takes me back a few years when pipes were a bit rorty as standard.  Bloke who used to deliver the Evening Standard to the newsagent round the corner used to have an Sherpa that sounded a lot like that.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, CaptainBoom said:

I enjoyed those, I could imagine that Jag v12 howl becoming very addictive!  Exactly what an executive lounge on wheels should sound like - like the Lord of the Manor who also smokes Woodbines and drinks pints in the local. 

The van sounds brilliant as well, takes me back a few years when pipes were a bit rorty as standard.  Bloke who used to deliver the Evening Standard to the newsagent round the corner used to have an Sherpa that sounded a lot like that.

The howl is indeed addictive - very - though you're acutely aware that every time you make it do that it's costing you probably north of £1 a shot.

...Fuel costs are about £0.50 a mile at the best of times!

I do very much enjoy how it's just got a lovely refined burble when you're just wafting around (under normal use you rarely see north of 2500rpm as this engine has such a ridiculous amount of torque)...However once you open it up, you get a howl which no other engine can imitate.  I still can't quite get over how smooth it is...and I was expecting that anyway.  You hear a lot of people say "turbine like" which I always thought was a bit overstating the fact, but no...it really isn't!

You don't actually realise quite how quickly she picks up her heels and gets moving until looking at the video I think.  The alarming thing is that that rate of acceleration never really tails off until well, well north of legal speeds. I booted it once when someone was messing around refusing to be overtaken on a dual carriageway and it is truly alarming how rapidly this car can get moving.  Must have been biblically fast in the late 70s.

The exhaust note of the van still amuses me, I don't think I've ever come across a setup before where you can quite so clearly hear when the engine comes on cam.  I've got a video from onboard somewhere on here too I think (albeit looking at the ceiling the whole time as I just left the phone sitting on the step of the side door).  It's a noise which rather like the starter motor on the Jag (V12s sound really, really odd when cranking over) tends to immediately draw attention of anyone with any interest in vehicles of any kind within a 500 metre radius!

Edit: Yep...Here's the onboard video.

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Had TPA out and about again today.  Probably 3/4 an hour driving under various conditions.  No issues to report.

The carb continues to seem a lot happier after the second stripdown and clean.  That and having removed about 1/2 a turn at the twist grip of slack out of the throttle cable has vastly improved the driveability of the car.

I've been deliberately being a bit heavier on the brakes while out today and they do seem to be improving as a result.  They do definitely have the grunt to pull the car up rapidly if you press hard enough (I've had to do one emergency stop from 50-ish when someone decided to reverse out of a driveway on the A422 without warning in front of me, and pretty much had to peel my face off the windscreen), they just feel a bit "dead" under normal use in a way that just doesn't inspire confidence.  Hoping that a bit of use will improve matters.  If not a new set of shoes (rather than ones stored in who knows what conditions for a few decades) aren't expensive.

I've officially given up trying to free off the engine cover lock.  A couple of external straps (like used on the Jeep Wrangler) will be fitted for now to stop it rattling until I can find the patience to try to come up with a solution to the existing lock (and all its fasteners) being a solid block of rust.  No it won't look stock, but I'm more interested in getting miles covered than satisfying the concourse committee at this stage!

[PhilA]

You probably find the brakes are similar to the service manual to mine: clean with MEK, inspect for cracks and delamination, carefully remove any scoring with sandpaper and then lightly bevel the edges with a Vixon file while all the time cheerfully breathing in all the asbestos dust.

Re-grease bearings, reassemble and adjust for trailing shoe touching all round and leading shoe 15 thou' gap at the top, touching at the base.

The Jag has a nice note now, dissimilarly similar harmonic to my 8- smooth! One example of how a more free-flowing exhaust lowers fuel economy.

My Transit sounded similar to your van- you could hear where the exhaust went from low speed parp to mid speed warble then high speed mishmash of both. Found the best economy in mine was just as the note was audibly changing, about 40mph in 4th. Not ideal, Ford!

 

Thanks for posting those up though, was a trip down memory lane from when engines all sounded different and you could tell them apart just by listening to them. 

Tell me a Mini from a Fiesta from a Chevette any day.

 

Phil

 

[Zelandeth]

These arrived this morning.

Which has put a stop to the horrendous rattling and crashing from the engine cover.

Not exactly pretty, but I'm not really worried about pretty on this car!  The bungee cord which was previously keeping (or rather failing to) the engine cover from bouncing around has now been removed.  It's made a huge difference to the amount of racket in the car.  Especially on uneven surfaces.

On the way back from running some errands I made a run up the A5 for a couple of junctions so I could do a better comparison of cruising to the earlier efforts when we made the run to/from FotU last year.  Definitely far, far improved.  She will now absolutely happily cruise at 60-65mph without any drama. 

Think I broke a few people's brains though.  They weren't expecting to get overtaken by an Invacar on the A5!

[PhilA]

Doesn't look the slightest bit out of place.

[somewhatfoolish]

On 8/3/2020 at 12:25 AM, PhilA said:

Yup, fun with high revving cams on short induction runners.

 

If the old carb doesn't run, rejetting the new carb and putting it on an extended intake runner tube may help re-tune it, but yes, far too rich and too high CFM for the engine.

 

Same issue people get on old V8's here when they fling a 750cfm Holley Dominator on a tired old 350.

 

Phil

I suspect a straight runner would mean having a trumpet poking through the engine lid, at least in the rev range needed. Curly trumpet needed.

[PhilA]

Single power-stack trumpet out of the top.

[LightBulbFun]

12 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

I suspect a straight runner would mean having a trumpet poking through the engine lid, at least in the rev range needed. Curly trumpet needed.

 

2 hours ago, PhilA said:

Doesn't look the slightest bit out of place.

needs to be leather straps for that period look IMHO  (robbed off an AC Cobra for extra LOLs maybe? )

[Zelandeth]

Yeah, if I come across a leather set of bonnet straps I'll definitely switch to them as they'd look far more in period.  These were cheap and available though and have solved the problem, which was my main target.

"Engine cover not properly secured" had been glaring at me from the whiteboard for far too long.

[Zelandeth]

Needed to venture out today to get some more dog food which meant a trip right down the the south edge of MK.  The Jag is too damned hot in this weather, Xantia is still at the garage and the van needs fuel.  Will be taking the Invacar then.

Think it's fair to say that the last couple of runs have helped confidence as I didn't hesitate to take the quick (if actually slightly longer) route straight down the A5 to Caldecotte then across to Walnut Tree from there, and the same route back.  Again no issues to report other than as DW will attest to, the CVT belt section does make a godawful din above 50.  I think that's something which adding some soft trim to the cabin will help massively as it's just white noise which just reverberates around the cabin horribly.

Oh, finally got around to actually fitting the offside gutter infill strip that I cut to size months ago, started to fit then realised I couldn't reach the far end in the garage.

Think it's nice to have something to break up the otherwise solid block of blue.

Not needing your feet for anything frees up a lot of floor as cargo space...

When we got home I decided to give her a much needed wash.  There were still greasy handprints and such like all over the car plus no small amount of sawdust everywhere.

Despite being careful we ended up losing a bunch of paint.

Once it started peeling off the engine cover I just kept at it until the whole thing was stripped back.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.  The rattle can paint job is still immaculate under there it looks like and I always had a far better finish with that than I got from the spray gun.

The datasheet for the paint I used stated that I didn't need to prime this surface, apparently it lies.  The paint came off in sheets, almost like a vinyl wrap being peeled off.

We lost a small bit from the nearside door too, only a tiny patch though. Think my response to this is basically *shrug* and "so be it." I'll stick to rattle cans in future to touch other areas in.  Will mean I need to do the work outside and will cost more but the results seem worth it.  Plus my compressor having died makes the spray gun kind of useless just now.  I think my poor results with the spray gun are probably down to an inadequate air supply to be honest.

At least it's a complete panel that's done this so it's not *massively* obvious at a glance.

[Zelandeth]

Been one of those days.  Aside from seeing 34C in the shade in our lounge which is a surefire was to put me in a bad mood, the fleet have been misbehaving.

Firstly the Invacar while still driving perfectly decided to drop the pin out of the gear selector linkage for the second time.

Hardly the end of the world, and I really should inspect the belt anyway and check the tightness of the pulley bolts given we've covered a couple of hundred miles since that lot was apart now.  I really need to find a proper substitute for the original roll pin and R clip.  I'd hoped that using a locknut on a bolt would do the job, but as we've now lost two it's obviously not.

Thankfully we were in drive when this happened and as the car weighs about as much as a postage stamp I just pushed it a couple of feet back out of the parking space when I discovered that I was lacking in a gear selector.

I'll see if I can summon the willpower to sort that out tomorrow.

Given I lacked a reverse gear I decided to take the van out to complete the errand run I was out on.  When getting home I noticed diesel dripping off several points and that the back of the van was soaked.

As far as I can see there's no sign of any leaks underneath.  My guess is that the ridiculous temperature here today has just heated the air in the tank up enough to generate sufficient pressure that it's just forced it back out of the filler (which attaches to the tank about half way up and has a poor venting arrangement).  The seal on the cap doesn't look too clever so I'll get a new one ordered.  Obviously I need to look at the tank vent too...that involves dropping the tank though, which currently contains somewhere in the region of 70 litres of diesel.

Obviously she's going nowhere though until I'm sure that's been resolved.

Wanting to get something useful done I decided to have a crack at sorting the offside door on the Invacar.  The window runner is knackered, the weatherstrip the glass sits in is 50% missing, and the top of the door skin and frame aren't properly anchored to each other which means the door has as much structural integrity as soggy cardboard.  You can see daylight under the window frame too.  On the plus side I had a spare window channel in stock which while not perfect was a lot better than the one on the car.

Oh for the love of...I had forgotten what a massive faff this job is since I did the other side!

It's not really difficult as such...just incredibly awkward and requiring things to be done in exactly the right sequence.  Especially when you're trying to get the glass back in.  You have to get both panes seated in the top runner, then position them into the bottom one and slide it into place as one unit.  After the best part of three hours we're now at this stage.

The window runner now has a thick foam pad under it, the remains of all the original fasteners have been removed so it can seat flush with the door too, and it's loosely bolted down at both ends.

Next step is to feed my hand into the miniscule gap to reach the end of the bolts inside the door cavity (there's not an opening under the black rail, you need to reach up from the one in the middle of the door, up around the latch actuator rods, door handle assembly etc, to thread washers and nuts onto the bolts then tighten the whole lot up.  Oh, and reattach the window catches.

The channel is at least reasonably straight, the old one was utterly mangled.

Hopefully this should vastly reduce the degree to which this door rattles and vastly improve the weather resistance.

Really not a fun job...even when it's a sane temperature.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Zelandeth
go away autocorrect!

[LightBulbFun]

27 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Next step is to feed my hand into the miniscule gap to reach the end of the bolts inside the door cavity (there's not an opening under the black rail, you need to reach up from the one in the middle of the door, up around the latch actuator rods, door handle assembly etc, to thread washers and nuts onto the bolts then tighten the whole lot up.  Oh, and reattach the window catches.

would dropping the nut/washer into the socket first, then attaching the socket to one of those flexible/bendy extension thingies then feeding the whole lot up through the inside of the door work?

 

27 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Really not a fun job...even when it's a sane temperature.

 

if it makes you feel better ill probably have to tackle this Job on REV at some point in time! I noticed that her sliding windows kept jamming up, at first I thought it may have just been some dirt or something in the runners, and then realised that was because the rubber channel they ran along itself was disintegrating and chunks of it where coming up and blocking the path of the window 

[Zelandeth]

Not a chance.  You have to use a spanner on the nut to hold it still, no chance whatsoever of getting a socket into the space involved.

The windows jamming is something that can most likely be sorted with liberal allocation of a pressure washer to blast all the moss and gunk out of the channels and then lubrication with silicone spray. Even if the felt had started to come off the backing, once the worst of it is extracted from the channel it should keep doing the job for a while.

This is mainly tackling the fact that the approach to weather proofing of the door from the factory appears to have been "just keep most of the rain out" and to try to reduce the rattles somewhat.

Anyone know what the window latches were from originally?  All four of mine are cracked and two don't work properly.  Now I'm getting the car back into regular use it would be nice to get those sorted.

[Slowsilver]

25 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Anyone know what the window latches were from originally?  All four of mine are cracked and two don't work properly.  Now I'm getting the car back into regular use it would be nice to get those sorted.

Any chance of a close up picture? They look to me like they could be the same as late Mark 1and Mark 2 Minis with sliding windows. In fact the bottom channel also looks similar to the sliding-window Minis. Maybe if the Mini ones are the same length or longer they could be used as replacements. Haven't checked but pretty much all early Mini parts are available.
 

[LightBulbFun]

34 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Anyone know what the window latches were from originally?  All four of mine are cracked and two don't work properly.  Now I'm getting the car back into regular use it would be nice to get those sorted.

IIRC the window latches are Mk1 Mini items  

(or at least Mk1 Mini's used them also, I dont know where they actually originated from!)

one thing to watch out for if the "this kit contains" bit here http://www.minispares.com/product/Classic/MSSK015.aspx

is anything to go by that they might be sided,

and they are listed individually in the parts manual

so make sure ya get the right ones

[Slowsilver]

Yes, IIRC they are all four different. The front of the front ones slope to match the angle of the front of the front side window glass and the back ones are vertical to match the vertical front edge of the rear glass. Then each side is a mirror image of the other. I don't know if Invacars ever had them but Minis also had a "fuzzy strip" seal which pushed onto the rear edge of the front glass to stop the draughts.