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

[Zelandeth]

The Partner actually saw a bit of attention yesterday. One of the primary annoyances I'd had since the car was bought were a plethora of rattles and squeaks from the tailgate. I knew one of the main culprits here was the trim as you could see it bounce every time you closed it. Two random self tappers into the frame suggested that someone had previously had a go at dealing with this. Removing them and pulling the panel revealed several broken clips.

That won't have been helping our case. Thankfully I did have suitable replacements in stock so swapped those out. This helped, but the panel was still able to flop around a lot in the middle...I think just by virtue of it being the boot trim in what is essentially a van. So I followed the example of the previous owner and added a couple of machine screws where the worst flex was (albeit properly drilling and tapping the holes), which has helped massively.

 

I found another huge amount of rattling was being caused by these grills in the frame.

I did faff about for about half an hour using several methods to try to shut these up, but eventually just opted to delete them for now. I just couldn't get them to not rattle.

Next step will probably be to seal them in place with some flexible sealant. That's a job for another day though.

Again, a great improvement. Still rattling though. Plus squeaking.

The squeak was very clearly coming from where the tailgate was touching the guards on the tail lights.

This was something I'd been meaning to look into for a while, as the whole clusters were clearly not sitting properly.

The reason for this turned out to be a previous owner failing an IQ test. When they couldn't get the clusters out, rather than consulting the handbook to look for the clips they had missed, they just reverted to brute force and snapped both outer clips on both clusters.

Given that the first three matches I found on eBay for second hand clusters clearly also have snapped clips this is apparently a common issue. I'll clearly need two replacement clusters though to get them properly installed not fouling on the tailgate. Removing the guards has got us clearance for now at least. I want to give them some fresh paint on them anyway as they're pretty scruffy.

They're far heavier than I'd expected. I really thought they would just be really flimsy things but they're a good deal more weighty than I'd expected.

Last obvious rattle source is actually the trim on the outside of the bootlid. As evidenced by the witness marks from where it's been moving.

Sure enough, of the four mounting points I can see three are broken. I'll add that to the shopping list then.

I've also adjusted the stop buffers - and improvised a replacement for the missing one which has further helped. That has vastly improved how positively it closes if nothing else. Not expecting silence in the cabin, but I'd like to get rid of as many unnecessary squeaks and rattles as I can.

[Noel Tidybeard]

god help you if you were to travel in a wilker conversions pts ambulance- they're seemingly designed to rattle🤣

[Zelandeth]

3 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

god help you if you were to travel in a wilker conversions pts ambulance- they're seemingly designed to rattle🤣

We had Mellor bodied minibuses when I was back at the Council.  They made the old LDV Convoys feel solidly built and highly refined!

[RichardK]

9 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

We had Mellor bodied minibuses when I was back at the Council.  They made the old LDV Convoys feel solidly built and highly refined!

I am astounded anyone who has travelled in a Merc 208D Autotrail camper has any rattle sensitivity left 😂

(It hit 75mph on Sunday - well, indicated 75mph - and the rattles found an eerie silent harmonic spot. It scared me and I slowed back down to normal rattle levels)

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, RichardK said:

I am astounded anyone who has travelled in a Merc 208D Autotrail camper has any rattle sensitivity left 😂

(It hit 75mph on Sunday - well, indicated 75mph - and the rattles found an eerie silent harmonic spot. It scared me and I slowed back down to normal rattle levels)

You would not *believe* how much less than van rattles than when I first got it.  Though I always forgot to remove the grill and grill pan from the oven - for about the first ten minutes of a journey.  I did give it a bit of slack though given it's basically a house crammed into a plywood and ally box bolted to the back of a van chassis, so expectations need to be realistic!

I noted as well that everything goes oddly quiet at higher speeds as well.  

[Zelandeth]

Have definitely vastly improved the number of cabin rattles in the Partner.  I've been running round like a headless chicken last couple of days trying to get everything I need to before I head away for the weekend tomorrow, so have done quite a few miles in it last couple of days.

Once I'm back I think I really do need to get shopping for a new axle, it really is pretty miserable on anything other than a perfect surface now, with the rear end being really crashy - which is just exacerbating any rattles.  Knocking 5psi off the tyre pressures has helped a bit, but that's a sticking plaster rather than a solution.  

Having largely shut up the tailgate has highlighted the next most obvious source of knocks and rattles, and that's the nearside rear door.  My money is on wear on the locating pin or the bush it slots into when the door closed.  If it's anything more involved than that it will likely be it ored for a while as bugger getting deeply involved in sliding doors.  Plus their tendency to rattle is probably the biggest drawback they have aside from weight.

Something I have started eyeing up though is exactly how much of an utter pain in the tail it would be to swap out the tailgate for a set of conventional van doors.  The answer I'm gathering is "a not insignificant amount." It absolutely can be done, but there is welding involved as a couple of bracing plates it sounds like aren't fitted to the versions with the single piece tailgate.  Which is a shame as that would be a nice quality of life improvement.  The giant single piece tailgate is probably the single thing that annoys me the most about the car.  

Had hoped to get time to clean the Trabant today.  However just ran out of time.  So it'll just have to make the trip absolutely covered in pollen.

Doesn't look like it will be raining where we are over the weekend so have chucked the carpet and trim back in the boot.

Not sure why that to my mind makes the car feel far less shoddy, but it does.  Here's the before photo from the carpets there being cleaned.

Not perfect, but absolutely good enough and way better than it was.

Aside from looking tidier, having the carpet and trim in there does make a huge difference to the noise levels.  The boot seems to act like a big resonance chamber without it in.

I had planned on swapping out the plugs for a new pair as the ones in there are the wrong heat range according to my reading.  However the cross referencing for the right ones apparently didn't work as the plugs that turned up are too large a diameter to fit.  Need to double check my notes and whether what arrived is what I ordered (this was an eBay seller so that's not guaranteed).  That's a job for future me though.

For now I've checked the tyre pressures, fan belt tension, and that nothing seems in any more imminent danger of falling off than usual, so that's probably as far as the prep work will be going.  Trip is only sixty odd miles but it always seems longer in my mind because I only do it once a year I think.

Wonder if I'll end up parked next to anything interesting in the car park this year.  These were last year's contenders.

That P4 is definitely going to be one of those cars I always look back on fondly.  Definitely one of those cars which I reckon is drastically under valued in the classic circles, and I'd definitely not discount owning another one one day.

[Zelandeth]

Arse.

Expensive arse. 

Something major appears to have let loose in the bowels of the engine.  Was running absolutely fine, bumbling along at about 45, there was a single cough, then about five seconds later it sounded like all hell broke loose.  Immediately shut the engine off and coasted into this lay by.  Engine now hits a hard spot when you try to turn it by hand.

Best case?  A piston ring has broken up.

Waiting for recovery.  Then I'll need to leg it down to MK Central and find a train to Birmingham I guess!

Abby needs the Partner over the weekend, the Rover I don't trust to make it for a second as it's still having fuelling issues, and TPA sadly is still buried in the garage, and currently missing a fuel pump as that's just about making the Rover currently run.

First "there's no way we're fixing this at the side of the road" I think I've ever had in one of my own cars.  We didn't try to sort the issue on the Saab as I was literally about a mile from home and I'd flagged down an RAC patrol so it was just easier to stick it on the recovery bar than faff about in the rain.

This ain't getting fixed here though!

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Arse.

Expensive arse. 

Something major appears to have let loose in the bowels of the engine.  Was running absolutely fine, bumbling along at about 45, there was a single cough, then about five seconds later it sounded like all hell broke loose.  Immediately shut the engine off and coasted into this lay by.  Engine now hits a hard spot when you try to turn it by hand.

Best case?  A piston ring has broken up.

Waiting for recovery.  Then I'll need to leg it down to MK Central and find a train to Birmingham I guess!

Abby needs the Partner over the weekend, the Rover I don't trust to make it for a second as it's still having fuelling issues, and TPA sadly is still buried in the garage, and currently missing a fuel pump as that's just about making the Rover currently run.

First "there's no way we're fixing this at the side of the road" I think I've ever had in one of my own cars.  We didn't try to sort the issue on the Saab as I was literally about a mile from home and I'd flagged down an RAC patrol so it was just easier to stick it on the recovery bar than faff about in the rain.

This ain't getting fixed here though!

Eeesh! really sorry to hear its gone bang! glad you managed to get to a lay by! its a shame TPA is missing her fuel pump, I do admit would of been fun to see her rescue the day so to speak  how quickly can you rob it back out of the Rover and lash it back into TPA?

I guess its a good excuse to build a Wabant? that is a Trabant with a 3 cylinder 2 stroke Wartburg engine fitted  

[Zelandeth]

Recovery was on the scene in about half an hour.  Can't really complain at that.  Yes there's a £25 excess, but again absolutely can't complain about the service provided by AutoAid.

Soon enough we were bouncing our way back to MK.

Dear...God...that Mitsubishi thing has to be the worst riding vehicle I have ever been in.  The reason you got no updates while en route was because it was so bouncy I literally couldn't read my phone for more than about ten seconds at a time.

Lovely driver as well, we had a great natter on the way back.  Even if it did take for bloody ever because of an accident on the M1.

Car now deposited at home.  Confirmed it is indeed still the same now cold.  Rotates absolutely fine through about 2/3 of a rotation, then hits a hard stop.  Will dig into it once back from ConFuzzled.  

Now sitting on the platform in MK Central waiting for the train we sprinted here to get...which is of course running 40 minutes late.

Hard to say what exactly will be done until I've dug into the engine to see what's actually happened and how much damage there is.  Given the noise it made there definitely will be some carnage.  The original air cooled twin setup will be staying though.  If the engine is completely smoked, a question will have to be asked as to whether the replacement gets rebuilt to standard spec (as I'm obviously not just going to drop an unknown unit in), or whether some go faster bits get added.

[LightBulbFun]

glad to hear you have been recovered safely home  as for the poorly engine, theres a great youtube channel called Aging Wheels, one of the star cars of that channel is a Trabant, and the chap has done a series on completely overhauling/rebuilding both the engine and gearbox well worth a watch at any time, but in your case I think it would be a good way to familurise yourself with the road that lies ahead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq5jTB9S5GU&list=PLzV2uljPvyAeEgAEgwYNfKKoFGx2LSejt

(that should be a link to a playlist of the rebuild series) forgive me if your already well familiar with the channel just thought i'd make this comment just incase  

[Zelandeth]

Aaaand I'm on the wrong damned train, courtesy of the PA system erroneously claiming that the train on platform 6 was the delayed 1852...No, it was the next damned train which doesn't stop until bloody Crewe. Great...so I'm going 40 minutes in the wrong sodding direction.

[Zelandeth]

At Crewe.  Now waiting on a train back the way I've come to Wolverhampton, then change there before finally getting on the last train to Birmingham International.

And a can of Iron Bru has exploded in my case.

PS. I hate rail travel.

[Zelandeth]

Okay... hopefully last leg.  Then I drag myself from BHI to the hotel, collapse into a puddle and sleep for a week.

Now nine hours into an hour and a half trip.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

At Crewe.  Now waiting on a train back the way I've come to Wolverhampton, then change there before finally getting on the last train to Birmingham International.

And a can of Iron Bru has exploded in my case.

PS. I hate rail travel.

"Oh Mr Porter, what shall I do..." 🤣

[Zelandeth]

Aaaand collapse.

Ten hours almost to the minute door to door.  To do 58 miles!

[LightBulbFun]

I am glad to see your finally at your destination and at a place of rest at long last! and this is exactly one of the big reasons why I as a person of limited mobility have a large anxiety about public transport, and why I am so looking forward to having REV on the road and finally having my own means of personal independence  

 

 

[TrabbieRonnie]

Bad luck there Zel...  There's not too much to them at least, should be re-buildable.  Trabantwelt used to do whole engines for cheapz, but probably more now...

At least it lasted long enough to get under your skin, glad she's going to get repaired 👍

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, TrabbieRonnie said:

Bad luck there Zel...  There's not too much to them at least, should be re-buildable.  Trabantwelt used to do whole engines for cheapz, but probably more now...

At least it lasted long enough to get under your skin, glad she's going to get repaired 👍

Yeah, a full rebuild kit is the best part of €1000 it looks like.  Ready to go engine sans ancillaries is €1500 - though if you're already spending that much I kinda figure why wouldn't you just go the extra €200 and get the 30bhp 700cc one.  When you're already that deep into it, the extra couple of hundred really isn't going to make a huge difference in my mind.

To be fair, no it's not pocket change money - but for a ready-to-fit engine from a reputable source, that really does seem bloody good value.  There's a big difference between something being cheap and being good value.

Not going to be trying to count the cost yet though until I know what's broken.  I do think it's something that has come apart rather than a bearing failure (unless one of the needle rollers has just totally disintegrated I guess, especially if it was one of the piston end ones), as there wasn't any increase in noise or loss of power prior to The Event.  Whatever it is there's going to be very much a two part question: What has broken?  But equally importantly: What collateral damage has it caused?

The engineer in me is extremely curious to start pulling things apart to find out what has happened.

[SiC]

On 24/05/2024 at 00:09, Zelandeth said:

That P4 is definitely going to be one of those cars I always look back on fondly.

So do I. I miss it but I don't regret having the Spitfire replace it. 

I keep looking at mundane British saloons and really fancy one because of the P4. The P4 is much more refined and advanced than stuff like the A60 but I guess slightly more of a liability.

They're at that age where the P4 was replaced not much soon after by the much sexier P5. The classic price booms of 90s onwards had the generations that would prefer the P5. 

[Zelandeth]

On 26/05/2024 at 21:39, SiC said:

So do I. I miss it but I don't regret having the Spitfire replace it. 

I keep looking at mundane British saloons and really fancy one because of the P4. The P4 is much more refined and advanced than stuff like the A60 but I guess slightly more of a liability.

They're at that age where the P4 was replaced not much soon after by the much sexier P5. The classic price booms of 90s onwards had the generations that would prefer the P5. 

I'd love a shot of a P4 110 with power steering that's been retrofitted.  The steering being both so heavy *and* low geared made for quite hard work around here.  In day to day driving that really was the only downside I found with it.  Otherwise it really was an easy car to live with, and absolutely could have been a classic daily.

Well it's been a good weekend of escapism, but back home this afternoon and back to normality.  

Absolutely knackered now, and been kinda busy unpacking and catching up with boring household nonsense from having been away for several days.  

I managed to find ten minutes to examine the Trabant though.  

Plugs out and we have immediate evidence of some issues with the number two cylinder.  There has clearly been something bouncing around in there.

There's definitely some impact marks on the plug and the gap has closed up a bit.

Both pistons are moving though, so it doesn't look like we have a broken rod.  So something has made its way into the combustion chamber, and my guess based on how it's behaving has got itself wedged in the exhaust or induction ports.  The question of course is *what?* Bit of a piston ring which has come apart (which is my current favourite theory), a needle roller from a bearing that's come apart, or some completely foreign matter from somewhere?

That's probably a decent starting point though.  We might not need to completely dismantle the bottom end.  Maybe, if we're lucky.

[Zelandeth]

Great.  One of us has now tested positive for COVID.  I'm still negative, but have a bit of a scratchy throat now - not surprised really, stuff 2881 people from all over the country (and world) into a hotel for five days and ConCrud is going to be a thing.  Hoping I can dodge COVID again though, we're all quarantining from each other just in case, which is really awkward.

 

Car wise I've quite a few things I want to do this weekend/next week.  Writing a list out here not least to get it clear in my head and can hopefully remember it all!

-> Rover.

[] Rebuild mechanical fuel pump and reinstall.  

-> Invacar.

[] Return TPA's fuel pump to it's proper home.

[] Consult my records to see if she's due an oil/filter change or whether I did that before the winter.  

[] Pull her out the garage and give her a check over.  I'm sure at the very least the handbrake pivot will have gummed up again.

-> Renault.

[] Replace the rotted off fuel line.

[] Fit the drop links which have been rolling around in the garage for months.

That should get her back mobile again.  Which is needed as I want to put the Trabant where she's currently parked.

-> Trabant.

[] Pull head of cylinder number 2 to assess damage, and hopefully get a shopping list started.

[] Remove boot carpets again to save them getting soaked again.

Let's see how far we get through all of that.

[Oi_Oi_Savaloy]

Sorry to hear about your woes Zelandeth - always enjoy our thorough updates..........but this one (or these ones)........not so much.  Hopefully it's a bolt or something that you can fish out and hey presto......back to normal and not something catastrophic (and expensive).  Keep your head up, onwards!

[Zelandeth]

6 hours ago, Oi_Oi_Savaloy said:

Sorry to hear about your woes Zelandeth - always enjoy our thorough updates..........but this one (or these ones)........not so much.  Hopefully it's a bolt or something that you can fish out and hey presto......back to normal and not something catastrophic (and expensive).  Keep your head up, onwards!

Thanks for the kind comments.  It's nice to know folks find it interesting.

I'm not really upset by this failure, it's just one of those things which is going to happen from time to time running old cars, especially if working them hard on a regular basis.  To be honest I've had a really good run without any real catastrophic failures.  This is the first time I've ever had something really "go bang" in probably several hundred thoudand miles of driving pretty much exclusively in cars 20+ years old.  One of the reasons I'd just not consider being without proper breakdown cover.  You never know when you might need it.  I was just lucky there was somewhere safe to immediately shut off the engine and pull over when this happened.  Hopefully this has helped minimise the damage.

Unless it's something that has been rolling around in the crankcase for god only knows how long (not impossible) I don't really see how something could have got ingested, but we'll see.

Sadly I've definitely come down with something so am feeling distinctly rough now so not sure how productive I'm actually going to be, still on a definite downward trend as well.  Given we're all essentially quarantining from each other just in case it does turn out to be COVID in addition to the one confirmed case it also makes doing anything involving getting around the house kind of awkward.

At the very least I'd like to get the Renault up and running again so I can shuffle the Trabant over into a better position to work on it (and so I can give Chris his usual parking spot where it's currently been ditched back).

[Zelandeth]

Suffice to say, this has rather dented my productivity over the weekend.

Today I had enough energy to actually try to do *something* for an hour or so, so decided to go see if I could ascertain what had happened on the Trabant.

I'd seen evidence of something in the combustion chamber on number two, so off with the head.

Not unlike what I was expecting to see to be honest.  Something has obviously managed to get itself ingested by the cylinder. 

This is evidently what was causing the lockup, as once the head was removed the engine could be rotated normally.  I was kind of expecting the jug to have been absolutely trashed based on both what I heard and seeing this.

Evidently not.  Yes there's a bit of wear there, but this doesn't look any worse than the other cylinder did when I changed the head gasket on that.

This is what was floating around in there.

Answers on a postcard as to what these bits of metal used to be?  It's ferrous, but can be bent with pliers, so it doesn't seem to be hardened like I'd generally expect the rollers from a bearing to be.

The engine rotated just fine by hand, and spinning it over on the starter didn't result in any unusual noises.  So I did the obvious thing, cleaned it up as best I could, threw a new head gasket on and bolted it back together. 

Didn't sound odd with compression either...So I hooked the plugs up, turned fuel on and went for a start.

Sounds...Pretty much exactly like it did before to me!  A little louder here because there's no cowling on obviously, but really doesn't seem any more rattly...in fact if anything less so.  Goes without saying I only ran the engine for a minute or two tops like this so it didn't overheat.

My gut feeling is that piston needs to be changed no matter what our prognosis is, as the rough surface will cause hot spots.  Probably likewise the head - though I'm willing to listen to experience from those who know these engines better on that. 

This is where I had to leave it today as I was thoroughly out of energy by the time I'd got here, for all it was probably half an hour's work if that.

The next question of course is what's our next step? 

Does that little bit of metal look like something that's been ingested by the engine from external possibly at some point in distant history?  Or does it look like something that's escaped from the internals, and is likely to be the first bit of many if we let the engine run longer? 

Basically...Do we stop here, or do we continue digging deeper?  I'm inclined to pull at least one of the jugs and take a peek down into the crankcase and see if it's full of bits of metal.  I do have all the gaskets necessary to put things back together after that.  Hmm...

[beko1987]

Something lurking in the bowels of the sump/a pickup pipe that got dislodged? That's been my thought since it all went bang and given how that's not and probably wasnt an nut or small bolt... 

[plasticvandan]

28 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Something lurking in the bowels of the sump/a pickup pipe that got dislodged? That's been my thought since it all went bang and given how that's not and probably wasnt an nut or small bolt... 

It's a 2 stroke.there is no sump

[plasticvandan]

A common cause of self injestion is a piston circlip,comes loose,gets trapped in the port holes then gets mashed or jammed,though from your pic looks like a bit too much material for a piston circlip.

[Mrs6C]

33 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Answers on a postcard as to what these bits of metal used to be? 

A crimp-type wiring connector? The shape and size are about right and is that a tiny cylinder of chopped off wire in the middle of it all? Is there any wire missing it's end, that may have dropped into an air intake?

[Zelandeth]

9 minutes ago, plasticvandan said:

A common cause of self injestion is a piston circlip,comes loose,gets trapped in the port holes then gets mashed or jammed,though from your pic looks like a bit too much material for a piston circlip.

That or a broken ring were high on my original list of suspects.  Though as you say there seems to be too much material for that.  Plus it just seems like bog standard steel rather than anything hardened or springy.  No scarring next to any of the ports I can see.

11 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

A crimp-type wiring connector? The shape and size are about right and is that a tiny cylinder of chopped off wire in the middle of it all? Is there any wire missing it's end, that may have dropped into an air intake?

Not a bad thought.  No wiring really anywhere near the air intake, though with how far down the front of the engine it is, if the intake hose was on anything could get dropped into the carb throat without being noticed.  There have been plenty of wires disturbed over the years it looks like too.  No wire in the debris, though it does kind of look like it from the photo.

[Mr Pastry]

I think you have to look at the pistons, I'm wondering if that is a bit of piston ring.  I can't see how anything that size could have been sucked in through the carb, though you never know.

You can get the cylinders off quite easily although istr it was a 2 person job to put them back, needed 2 pairs of hands.  Having done so, you can't see much in the crankcase as it is all full of crankshaft.  I would not worry too much about the pitting in the combustion chambers.   The bore does not look great, but would reserve judgment until you see what the pistons are like which will be interesting.  

Utterly hateful things, best avoided in my opinion, although I seem to be the only one here who thinks so.