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

[LightBulbFun]

Happy to see continued Jag improvements, love all the small attention to detail bits 

 

BTW I was thinking on the Model 70 hub issue, have you thought about updating your FB post to also ask for if anyone does have any stock fiat hubs lying around? (for you to then modify of course)

the Fiat 500/126 does count as a microcar so a few people there might have something kicking around  

(as a side note im guessing the Model 70 hub that was for sale a good while back on this forum is no longer available?)

[LightBulbFun]

31 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Invacar:

Heater is less than useless, though I do have plans afoot to improve that...not actually a defect though so not sure if it counts.

this reminds me

curiously enough the Villers powered invalid vehicles actually did have a blower a smiths 05332/04R to be exact (according to the spare parts manual, google is turning up nowt)

I have wondered why they never elected to fit one to the Model 70, but I wonder if one could be retrofitted to improve things?

[Zelandeth]

My guess is that there just isn't any available spare airflow from the engine cooling fan on the Villiers engined cars.  The Model 70 heater does okay provided you've got some revs going...but around town it's useless.  Which is why I've added an additional electrically powered blower to mine.  Though a centrifugal blower would be a much better fit I reckon, couldn't find one at the right price when I was looking though.

 

With regards to the hubs, if we don't get anywhere in the next week or so I'll start digging more determinedly for Fiat ones. 

[Mr Pastry]

16 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

 

 

With regards to the hubs, if we don't get anywhere in the next week or so I'll start digging more determinedly for Fiat ones. 

How badly damaged is the thread you drilled out?  For example how well will it accept one of your BSF bolts?  If I make you some overlength studs which will project behind the hub face, can you get a blob of weld on there to retain them without dismantling? 

[LightBulbFun]

23 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

My guess is that there just isn't any available spare airflow from the engine cooling fan on the Villiers engined cars.  The Model 70 heater does okay provided you've got some revs going...but around town it's useless.  Which is why I've added an additional electrically powered blower to mine.  Though a centrifugal blower would be a much better fit I reckon, couldn't find one at the right price when I was looking though.

yeah I had figured thats why they stuck one in the villers cars, just curious they never stuck one in the Model 70, guessed they deemed it "good enough" without as you say

would it be worth visiting a local scrap yard or "pick n pull" place and have a rummage around for a suitable blower from another car?, or are they all too "integrated" these days to be of any use outside their original intended model?

(reminds me of the blower housing/air direction thingy that Bad obsession motorsport made out of cardboard LOL)

[somewhatfoolish]

What kind of thundering poltroon stains teak? If the colour was the important thing why not use cedar or some other equally durable timber that's not wildly expensive and doesn't require denuding a tropical jungle?

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

What kind of thundering poltroon stains teak? If the colour was the important thing why not use cedar or some other equally durable timber that's not wildly expensive and doesn't require denuding a tropical jungle?

It's a crying shame.  The timber looked like this all the way up originally.

The woodwork was stained black, fences were painted black, window frames were painted black, staircase was painted back, the panelling and railings around the landing have been painted black, all the interior doors were painted black...you get the idea.

I'm still surprised that the interior panelling in the conservatory didn't suffer the same fate!

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

or are they all too "integrated" these days to be of any use outside their original intended model?

 

Pretty much all modern ones would be far too integrated really...plus getting the blower out of most cars is a job which requires no small amount of dismantling of the interior.

I believe the "snail" style blowers were used in the Austin Healey and MG Midget among probably other things.  Those would probably flow better than the axial fan I'm currently messing with and obviously would look more in keeping with the rest of the car.

[LightBulbFun]

31 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The woodwork was stained black, fences were painted black, window frames were painted black, staircase was painted back, the panelling and railings around the landing have been painted black, all the interior doors were painted black...you get the idea.

even bits of the interior in TPA and her wheels got painted black!  

10 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Pretty much all modern ones would be far too integrated really...plus getting the blower out of most cars is a job which requires no small amount of dismantling of the interior.

I believe the "snail" style blowers were used in the Austin Healey and MG Midget among probably other things.  Those would probably flow better than the axial fan I'm currently messing with and obviously would look more in keeping with the rest of the car.

yeah I figured such sadly, but good shout on the MG or such blower unit tho  

tbh id not be surprised if the blower from the villers machines cross references with one of those! you can see one here in the top left of a Model 67's engine bay

 

[somewhatfoolish]

Inline blower is what you want to boost the wheezy heating.

[Zelandeth]

6 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Inline blower is what you want to boost the wheezy heating.

 

That's pretty much exactly what I've fitted.  Which is definitely better than the stock setup but still isn't great.  Axial fans just don't do particularly well where there's any back pressure involved, a centrifugal one would probably cope better with that.  We'll see how it manages once the car is back on the road though.

[egg]

13 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I believe the "snail" style blowers were used in the Austin Healey and MG Midget among probably other things.  Those would probably flow better than the axial fan I'm currently messing with and obviously would look more in keeping with the rest of the car.

I thought those Smiths blowers were fitted to quite a few things as typical Brit parts bin fodder - Wobbler's Reliant van has one doesn't it? It's one of the jobs I really want to to on my one, wrestle it off the rusty floorplan and give it a re-build.

[somewhatfoolish]

3-speed-squirrel-cage-heater-fan

 

squirrel-cage-heater-fan

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

3-speed-squirrel-cage-heater-fan

 

squirrel-cage-heater-fan

 

one thing to watch out for is the Bosch Dynastart on the Model 70 is only rated for 240W, so you have to watch out you don't exceed that

(I was wondering if thats one of the reasons they omitted the blower, but the villiers machines have one, and the Siba dynastart on those are even weaker)

[somewhatfoolish]

Need to put a timer on the auxiliary blower then.  

[Zelandeth]

Driver's door on the Jag has been reassembled.  After I reinstated the waterproofing sheet behind the trim.

Nice to have a stereo I can actually use now.

The wood trim will probably get several more coats of lacquer at some point but it will do for now.  It looks massively better than it did.

Passenger door will get the same treatment shortly.

[Zelandeth]

As noted a few posts back a few of the coolant lines on the Jag are showing signs of failure.  The left hand top radiator hose in particular was ballooning quite alarmingly.  While this is probably at least in part just due to old age, it felt like the system was maybe pressurising more than it should.  I'd also spotted a couple of drips from the outer seal on the expansion cap.

I had a sneaking feeling that these would prove to be connected.  This is because the expansion setup on the Jag is a bit strange (no surprise there...the whole coolant system is a bit strange), with the overflow tank buried inside the nearside front wing.  It's totally inaccessible without removing the wheel arch liner...and you could be forgiven for not even knowing it's there.  Through this tank is the only route for pressure in the system to vent.  Fine...except for the fact that the line between it and the cooling system is a thin rubber hose which is bent through a tight 90 degree bend right after it disappears from view from the engine bay.  As such this hose is very prone to kinking.  The bottle itself is also a cause of trouble as of course being totally hidden from view it never gets cleaned, even if the cooling system gets serviced regularly (let's ignore the fact that Jaguar *recommended* that two tins of Barr's stop leak be added after each coolant flush for now!).  So it tends to end up full of horrible organic slime.

Each enough to check though, just disconnect the hose from the header tank overflow line and see if you can blow through it.  It should be easy to do, accompanied by a gurgling noise from the dip tube in the hidden tank.  There shouldn't be any real resistance.

Oh.  We actually had this up to double that reading without any movement of air. 

Well that won't have been helping anything then!

Play was stopped at this point by marble sized hail.  However I've cobbled together a temporary solution to allow me to drive the car for the next few days while minimising the risk of blowing coolant hoses.

Have also wrapped some cable ties around the hoses which are bulging to hopefully help keep them together until the replacements arrive (a full set has been ordered).

Any guesses on how many inches of solid mud I find in the bottom of the expansion tank when I get to it?

[Broadsword]

I’m loving reading about all the intricacies of the V12. There really is so much to it in terms of basic maintenance to keep on top of.

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, Broadsword said:

I’m loving reading about all the intricacies of the V12. There really is so much to it in terms of basic maintenance to keep on top of.

It is a fascinating mix of over-engineering that the aerospace industry would be proud of and jury-rigged nonsense that looks like it's part of a game of Mousetrap...all in one engine bay...

[Zelandeth]

Noticed today that the reversing lights on the Jag are sticking on again...so until such time as I have the opportunity to investigate the switch, we've disabled them.

Will deal with that properly later when I've more time to look into it.

Something I had also spotted was the voltmeter sitting a bit lower than it had when I got the car at idle.  I know it reads a bit low anyway due most likely to voltage regulation issues in the instrument panel, but seeing the point it sits at changing seemed worth investigating.

I have been doing quite a few short journeys so it may be the battery is just getting a little low, I may let it spend a night on the charger shortly.

At natural idle, everything off: 13.1V.

Fast idle: 14.1V.

Natural idle, everything on: 12.1V.

Everything on, fast idle: 13.8V.

So it does look a little weak, though the idle speed being on the low side probably isn't helping either.  I'll give the battery a charge, tweak the idle speed up to the correct 750rpm and see where that gets us.

With how smooth the V12 is the idle can be ridiculously low without it being obvious...it was showing 400rpm sometimes when I first got the car without even the slightest hint of vibration.

[Zelandeth]

Yeah, think I need to tweak the idle speed upwards a little.

That might be a job for tomorrow.

Today's task was to see if we could restore sanity to the reversing lights.  A quick search on Google revealed that the switch is on the gear selector assembly inside the car rather than outside... surprisingly sensible!

It lives on the left hand side of the selector towards the front. 

It just screws into the side of the selector mechanism and there's no need to strip that down to remove it.

It was very obviously gummed up, requiring the plunger to be manually pulled back out rather than snapping back out under spring pressure.

Turns out all it needed was a good clean and a dose of fresh lubricant.  Ten minutes later everything was back together and the lights behaving as they should.

Tiny little task in the grand scheme of things but nice to have it ticked off anyway.

Fuelled up again this morning...9.8MPG and £92!

[Broadsword]

More good progress, but 9.8 MPG is enough to make one’s teeth itch. Quite how it can burn so much petroleum is a real accomplishment! It’s all good though, because you drive a Jaaaaaaaag!

[Zelandeth]

I've been driving relatively gently most of the time too!

I think one of the biggest killers with the V12 is that it uses a ridiculous amount of fuel as long as it's running, whether or not you're moving...so any time spent sitting in traffic absolutely hammers the averages.

I'll bet that with an even vaguely heavy right foot I can get the average down to sub 5MPG...

[LightBulbFun]

25 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I think one of the biggest killers with the V12 is that it uses a ridiculous amount of fuel as long as it's running, whether or not you're moving...so any time spent sitting in traffic absolutely hammers the averages.

time for a DIY homebuilt stop start system involving 24V worth of batteries and a starter motor from some sort of bus?

[PhilA]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Yeah, think I need to tweak the idle speed upwards a little.

That might be a job for tomorrow.

Psh.

You and your modern high speed high stressed engineering.

 

Phil

[SiC]

Tim is turning very slowly 

[PhilA]

4 minutes ago, SiC said:

Tim is turning very slowly 

Very important to know the rotational speed of your Tim.

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

No stop start nonsense here...aside from anything else the starter motor can give heart attacks from 500 yards...

 

 

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, PhilA said:

Psh.

You and your modern high speed high stressed engineering.

 

Phil

How low can you go?  Could you get it to idle below 100rpm?

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, PhilA said:

Psh.

You and your modern high speed high stressed engineering.

Phil

id join in on this, but unlike your fancy pancy posh cars

mine doesn't have a rev counter... (ironic given the number plate)

on a more serious note, Id actually be quite interested in seeing someone hook up a Rev counter to a Model 70 and observe how the revs behave from idling to driving through the CVT range etc