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

[LightBulbFun]

perhaps doing it outside may have been in order?

perhaps try  testing the setup on something you know for sure it can strip, to double check your setup is in check?

[Zelandeth]

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

perhaps doing it outside may have been in order?

perhaps try  testing the setup on something you know for sure it can strip, to double check your setup is in check?

I may as well have put up a notice asking the parents of the hellspawn attending the nearby school to heckle me if I were to use it outside.  I get enough hassle using the pressure washer to clean the path.

[dollywobbler]

I can't remember who told me, but someone did explain that some pulleys did have no springs! Might have been the place that I bought mine from (which I've forgotten the name of...)

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

I can't remember who told me, but someone did explain that some pulleys did have no springs! Might have been the place that I bought mine from (which I've forgotten the name of...)

Interesting.  Doesn't seem that far fetched given that the tension on the belt will always tend to pull the sheaves of the primary pulley back to the rest position. 

Does mean there's no tension on the rollers at rest though so it rattles!

[Zelandeth]

Today was our third visit with Star, the rescue dog we're looking to adopt.  Today we actually took her out for a walk, helping convince the foster that we weren't going to do something absolutely daft the first time we left the house.

Everything went well, and it's been agreed that we will be adopting her.  She will be coming home on Sunday morning.

A few photos from today - though they all seem to convey seriously huge levels of derp!

Wasn't deliberate...they just came out looking utterly silly!

Obviously nothing to show car wise as this took up pretty much the whole day.  However I've a few things planned for tomorrow all being well.  Given FotU is only a few days away I need to get my tail in gear to get TPA ready!

[Zelandeth]

Have made an executive decision regarding the paintwork on TPA.  Simply that I've had enough faffing about.  I'm getting things into a vaguely flat state then throwing paint on it.  I could spend weeks (or months) trying to get a mirror smooth surface, but I think that's a task for another time.  The most important thing I need to do with the car at this point in time is simple: Drive it!
 

Okay...step one.  Remove all the residue from the soda blasting experiment.  Just a bit left to deal with...

Gave the van a quick wash too while I had the hose out as it was getting difficult to see through the windscreen again.  The joys of brick wall aerodynamics.

Have had another shot at clearing the fuel tank breather, I've tried several times so far but it's only in the last few weeks I've had access to compressed air, so could try zapping it with this.

Will remain to be seen if it's actually made any difference.

Back to the Invacar paintwork. Worst bit of the car was this wheel arch I think.

I just went after it with the sander to get it vaguely smoothed out, then set about chucking some primer at things.

Followed by some top coat.  Still obviously needs a few more coats (and in fact covering the remainder of the car), but I think it will wind up looking better than it started out.

Really do need to get hold of a spray gun for the compressor though...this is costing an absolute bloody fortune in rattle cans!  Hopefully will get it to a state which would classify as "inoffensive from ten paces" in time for Saturday.

Had a brief moment of worry when I was just packing up when I spotted this under the van.

Despite the engine being a little oily, she never usually actually leaves anything behind so the leak definitely required investigation.

The oily residue I think is mainly leftover from the leaky cam box cover.  She doesn't seem to use a drop between services (granted, there are nearly eight litres of oil in there!)...and this didn't look to be oil.  First thought was brake or clutch fluid...however there was no visible source in the engine bay, and hydraulic fluid was still sitting happily on the max mark.

Eventually  I tracked down the source - that vertical tube to the left of the alternator.  Looks to be a drain from the heater intake box, so just a bit of water draining off from the earlier wash... nothing to worry about thankfully.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Zelandeth
Correcting autocorrect

[plasticvandan]

aside from the madness of using expensive halfrauds aerosols.... get some high build primer,i guarantee that that piss thin grey halfords stuff will end up making the car look worse than it did before.If you can get a nice thick layer of primer on,you can then sand that down a bit and get a smooth base.

[Zelandeth]

I'm going to have to resort to the internet to source things in that case.  There's only one other motor factor than Halfords in my immediate area I'm hazard of which carries a reasonable selection of paints, and they're even more expensive.  It was their high build primer which resulted in me trying to strip a lot of the old paint off as it reacted with the original paint on the vehicle and dried all crinkly.

I'd probably have taken a different route from square one if I'd correctly guessed how much paint I'd need - obviously I underestimated by a couple of orders of magnitude!  Not sure if the cans have shrunk or it just doesn't cover as well as when I last really used them to cover any large area.

[Zelandeth]

Spray gun has now been sourced.  Had it in my head that the entry level was way more expensive.

I've been pointed to a local paint specialist as well so I'll drop by there tomorrow and see what they say.  Hopefully they should be able to get me set up with some *decent* high build primer and a good chunk of paint. 

Tomorrow I absolutely need to throw the lights, number plates back on and remove the masking from the windows and go for a drive.  She needs to drive 15 miles to and from FotU on Saturday, and has barely turned a wheel in the last month!  So I reckon I need to do a thorough test tomorrow to make sure she's fit to make the journey.  The new pulleys have only been round the block a couple of times so far...and they're kinda critical components!

[Mrs6C]

8 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I'm going to have to resort to the internet to source things in that case.  There's only one other motor factor than Halfords in my immediate area I'm hazard of which carries a reasonable selection of paints, and they're even more expensive.  It was their high build primer which resulted in me trying to strip a lot of the old paint off as it reacted with the original paint on the vehicle and dried all crinkly.

I'd probably have taken a different route from square one if I'd correctly guessed how much paint I'd need - obviously I underestimated by a couple of orders of magnitude!  Not sure if the cans have shrunk or it just doesn't cover as well as when I last really used them to cover any large area.

If you aren't fixed on the cellulose route, you could do worse than use household exterior primer (around £11 for 2.5 litres from Wilko, comes in grey and white and is good stuff) and then top coat it with a decent brush and household exterior gloss (B&Q colour match). Not sure that Rylard boat paint (£18.95 from Willowbrideg Marina) comes in teh right colour blue, but that's good, tough gloss paint for outdoor surfaces. My GRP boat is being painted with WIlko primer and Rylard top coat; both are kind to fibreglass.

[Mrs6C]

4 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Tomorrow I absolutely need to throw the lights, number plates back on and remove the masking from the windows and go for a drive.  She needs to drive 15 miles to and from FotU on Saturday, and has barely turned a wheel in the last month!  So I reckon I need to do a thorough test tomorrow to make sure she's fit to make the journey.  The new pulleys have only been round the block a couple of times so far...and they're kinda critical components!

You could take the back lanes if you want to avoid the main road...

[Zelandeth]

8 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

If you aren't fixed on the cellulose route, you could do worse than use household exterior primer (around £11 for 2.5 litres from Wilko, comes in grey and white and is good stuff) and then top coat it with a decent brush and household exterior gloss (B&Q colour match). Not sure that Rylard boat paint (£18.95 from Willowbrideg Marina) comes in teh right colour blue, but that's good, tough gloss paint for outdoor surfaces. My GRP boat is being painted with WIlko primer and Rylard top coat; both are kind to fibreglass.

The thought of household primer hadn't even really occurred to me to be honest... Definitely worth a think about.  Something brushable would be particularly useful for some of the really rough areas.

Don't imagine there's any reason you couldn't spray with household gloss, though you'd probably have to let it down a bit to get it thin enough.

It's cheap enough that it seems worth a shot...even if it all flakes off after a week it's not a huge gamble really.

[LightBulbFun]

9 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I've been pointed to a local paint specialist as well so I'll drop by there tomorrow and see what they say.  Hopefully they should be able to get me set up with some *decent* high build primer and a good chunk of paint. 

 

if you have time, can you please show them this paint sheet and see if they can make any sense of it? supposedly its Invacar paint info  and id be very interested to hear what an official paint place makes of it!

 

can you also ask them if the paint code "GL1300" also means anything? apparently also a paint code for invacar blue

[Mrs6C]

They still manufacture it... just looked it up on their system

http://phoenix.spieshecker.com/en/Formula.mvc

[Zelandeth]

15 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

if you have time, can you please show them this paint sheet and see if they can make any sense of it? supposedly its Invacar paint info  and id be very interested to hear what an official paint place makes of it!

 

can you also ask them if the paint code "GL1300" also means anything? apparently also a paint code for invacar blue

I doubt it.  They pretty much just poke a scanner at your example object and feed that into a computer controlled mixing rig.  Took roughly five mouse clicks last time I had them mix some paint up for me.

[LightBulbFun]

so a case of find the 1 spot on TPA thats unfaded and has not been painted over 100 times?

[Zelandeth]

2 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

so a case of find the 1 spot on TPA thats unfaded and has not been painted over 100 times?

Easy...inside of the doors or the transmission cover.  There's no sign of her having been painted inside (save for the front bulkhead as that was painted from new).

Not sure if I'll go down that route or if I'll just get the blue I've been using up till now matched... though if I am going to the lengths of getting paint matched anyway I may as well do it right I guess...

[LightBulbFun]

Yeah fraser did something very similar with JPA268N IIRC  

and yeah I agree, if your having the paint made at a proper paint shop then you may as well get it properly matched

if they do have any presets on hand, it would be interesting to see what the closest match is to the colour the scanner picks up

(can they also save a profile in case you need more paint in the future?)

[Zelandeth]

I think they give you a receipt.  The system just works on a 0-255 value for white, black, magenta, cyan and yellow if I remember right.

Last time I used it was a few years ago to match the colour of the starter cover of the Mazda Netaline in my room, as my eventual plan is for the walls to be all white in there with the same colour of red to match it for the door/window frames etc.  Ideally a matching carpet if I'm really lucky, but I don't reckon that will ever happen.

 

[LightBulbFun]

interesting  

how close did it match the original colour? I have wondered how accurate these scanner type thingies are

(your making me want to install one of my Neatalines! id need a good stash of usable 40W T12s before I do that plus it would not really save any electricity vs my current setup, for now ill source some 2D lamps to use with my Thorn 2D lamp adapter, at least ill be saving energy when it replaces the 100W Halogen I use currently as a small protest against everything going LED  )

 I really wish I picked up an entire case of Philips 830 40W T12s from a local lighting store before they closed down a good few years ago, mind I know ebay has been flooded with Homebase T12s so thats an option maybe

and like that iv gone horribly off topic LOL

[LightBulbFun]

15 hours ago, Mrs6C said:

They still manufacture it... just looked it up on their system

http://phoenix.spieshecker.com/en/Formula.mvc

oh neat! not sure how i missed this comment last night

[Zelandeth]

Spray gun: Acquired.

Colour Matched Paint: Acquired.

Time to even open the garage door so far today: Nope!

[LightBulbFun]

how does the paint look at least?  

(did you also get that primer you wanted?)

[Zelandeth]

So I'd really hoped that I'd have time to give the Invacar a proper shakedown prior to the trip to FotU tomorrow.  However I ended up with next to no time to do anything car related today.

However I did pick up some paint.

This actually looks a lot closer in person than the camera makes it look.  It's also matched to the transmission cover which is slightly lighter than the doors.

Couldn't resist splashing a bit onto the car in the interests of curiousity.

Does show how far off the mark the blue I'd been using actually was.

This was at like 2200 though...so no test drive.

Tomorrow morning will be the first real test, heading over to Buckingham.  If things go well, you'll see her at the Festival of the Unexceptional.

If things don't go well, I'll probably be there with a scruffy Mercedes camper instead.

 

[Zelandeth]

Never had a chance to do an update yesterday, won't be able to make this a long one either.

No test run had been possible...so I felt I had two plans open to me.  Get up really early and do some gentle testing around the block before heading to the event...or saying "I'm confident in my work" and just running with it.

So I pointed TPA towards Claydon House and opened her up.  This marked the first time I had ever driven her out of town too, in addition to being the drive system test.

Knew I had the van as a backup if anything did go awry.  Having booked in to the show ages in advance I was determined to get something there.

So...did we get there?

Of course we did!

On the way there I was almost entirely stuck behind modern traffic doing 35-40mph.  On the way home however I had a clear road...and all I can say is that I'm staggered by how well TPA drives.  She's more than happy to cruise at the legal limit.  Way better than you'd expect for something so tiny and antiquated looking. 

The crosswind issue is far less pronounced (even at 70mph) than I was expecting... definitely found driving a lot less unnerving than expected.  Not sure if that's in some way due to the change from 12" to 10" wheels with wider tyres...but it's definitely nowhere near as bad as expected.

No car stuff today courtesy of collecting this idiot who has now officially joined our family.

She seems so far to be settling in fine.

Did get another bit of interesting kit handed to me at the FotU, which has been on my wishlist since 1999.

Yep... finally have a RiscPC.  It's a bit sick just now due to a leaking battery and won't even POST yet, much less boot...but before I even look at that in depth I felt it necessary to fix the flaps over the drive bays!  Priorities of course!  Looking forward to reviving and experimenting with it.

[LightBulbFun]

very happy to hear TPA is running well with the new pulleys (and also is handling better then expected) 

cant wait for the vmax run

star is looking very cute, especially how she is always smiling for the camera  

I really need to read up on the RiscPC given how ARM powers all the things these days

[Zelandeth]

So it's been officially too damn hot to do much here this last couple of days.  It was 32C in our lounge at one point today.

I used to love the hot weather in years gone by until I was put on medication which basically turned the acceptable temperature envelope for me down by about 20C.  It's a royal pain in the tail in the summer I tell you that.  Anything beyond about 25C ambient and I progressively just start to stop functioning.

Think Star has had the right idea, she's spent most of the day as a fluffy little pancake in front of the AC.

 

The high temperature though has well suited one job: paintwork.

I've made a decision regarding paint.  I'm sticking with the light blue Ford colour I've been using (Bermuda Light Blue if you wondered).  I just personally prefer it...I realise that the greener shade is probably closer to how it left the factory but I'm not so keen on it and the paint I've had just hasn't gone on well.  The Ford colour I can get relatively inexpensively in cellulose (not enamel which I'd got in my head from somewhere), which should spray nicely with the equipment I've got here. 

My plan here is to get the car painted all one colour and with a half reasonable shine on it, then I'm going to step back and try to leave the bodywork alone for the most part and just concentrate on using, enjoying and functionally improving the car for a bit.  Next year I'll maybe look to get it into a body shop to be properly stripped back to bare fibreglass and to have a couple of my repairs tidied up by someone who actually knows what they're doing.

My trip over to the Festival of the Unexceptional was quite a revealing experience for me, being the first properly real drive in the car rather than just trundling around town.  That showed me how well she actually drives...even with a drive belt in need of adjustment, a thoroughly bodged throttle cable and more rattles than you can shake a stick at.  Oh, and a carb which periodically still plays up now and then for a few seconds now and then.

I'm really looking forward to getting some proper miles covered and un-bodging some of my bodges.

For now though I figured that taking advantage of the warm weather to get a few bits painted made sense.  Figured I still had about enough paint in stock to get the engine cover done before I go to get my next stock of paint in next week.

The engine cover aside from a bit of pitting in a few places wasn't all that bad and I figured would look all right with fresh paint on.

Didn't come out half bad actually.

Annoyingly I did get one run when my concentration wandered at one point.  Luckily it will be covered by the number plate, so I'm not too worried about it.

The lock is also totally seized so will need to be changed, which is why I didn't bother masking it off.

I quite like the fact that some of the surface fractures are still visible through the paint as I think it suits the honesty of the appearance of the car.

Given the weather forecast for tomorrow I can't see me leaving the house to be honest!

[LightBulbFun]

Like for Model 70 TLC

not Like for wrong shade of blue, if you hear my grumbling under my breath next time I see TPA you know why 

its going to bug the crap out of me like it does with TJN352R LOL

perhaps when you take her to get some professional body work done, maybe find a place with a good paint shop and see if they can match/make the original colour a bit better then currently and have that thrown on?

(LOL at fluffy little pancake ) 

[Zelandeth]

It's a tricky one...the colour DOES match what was already on the car in several places - including where there was only one layer (door frames immediately spring to mind), so it was definitely used by the manufacturer at some point.  Okay, it's very slightly off, but only enough that you'd notice if you had two right next to each other.

I'm pretty sure the almost peppermint green colour I had paint matched to (which dried horribly) can't be right...so I do wonder if the blue pigment has faded more quickly through they years, leaving the car looking greener than when it left the factory.  Most of the photos in colour seem to show car bluer than the paint I got looks...so I'm not sure what's right!

As it is though I like the blue...so I'm sticking with it.  At least you shouldn't have as much of that to worry about with REV.

[LightBulbFun]

tricky indeed I think the reason your colour choice makes me grumble so much is because its just that touch too blue without any green to it

my baseline for what colour should a Model 70 is, is the colour of GPG721K as GPG721K was withdrawn from Service in 1978 (or well has been untaxed since then) so I doubt has been painted over in 50 shades of blue

(and to some degree ATW722L as that one was painted according to the official colour sheet that stuart has)

in regards to fading, I find generally its actually the green pigment that fades first leaving the cars looking bluer overtime, hence why the inside is greener than the outside as the inside is less exposed, (the insides also being painted less often I imagine)

although not always the green fading first,

I noticed for example RRE20L (a private Model 70 last taxed since 1981 so again probably not been painted a million times) is still quite green despite clearly being open to the elements for many years

another one of the problems is, it is a turquoise colour, so from one angle/lighting condition it can look quite blue and from one other it can look quite green

 

I will agree that yeah the paint you got from that paint shop was quite poor quality, although closer to what id  like to see then the ford stuff, I dont think its meant to be its own 50 shades of turquoise!

its exactly what your trying to avoid/fix here

 

I recommend checking out my Surivours list https://autoshite.com/topic/32723-invacar-model-70-acquired-and-general-ramble-thread-index-on-page-1-multi-person-multi-day-multi-invacar-multi-collection-caper/?do=findComment&comment=1753903

it contains 41 different Model 70's all their own shade of turquoise/blue might help you figure something out 

 

in the end its of course your car  I just wanted to mention it, as seeing a Model 70 painted the wrong shade of blue is one of those things that Irks me and I wanted to get it off my chest LOL

and I still look forward to seeing TPA in one uniform shiny coat of paint