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

[Zelandeth]

On 10/11/2020 at 11:06 PM, LightBulbFun said:

well there was an actual denoted Model 70 Mark A and a Model 70 Mark B (Mark B being introduced in July 1974, starting with WPC751M for AC and RTW695M for Invacar)

(but for some reason the Mark Section on Chassis plates on the actual cars never got filled out, but it was there on official DHSS paperwork etc)

but there never was a Denoted Model 70 Mark C when there really should have been LOL 

the Model 70 Mark B had several chassis strengthening and crash safety improvements and a whole bunch of other changes,

but then  in Late March 1976 the finial revision of Model 70 was introduced, which included a bunch more changes like the addition of the rollover bar the headliner and the revised dash board /instrumentation but parts for these Model 70's are just marked Mark B but  with an asterisk mark  and a note saying "fitted to vehicles from AC MPD477P Chassis No xxxx, and Invacar NVW205P Chassis No xxxx" (when they really should have just made it Model 70 Mark C from that point onwards LOL)

 

there where also a bunch of smaller changes throughout production after the Mark B update which are also noted in the same fashion by Reg/Chassis number in the parts list

for example the Model 70 did not switch to 10 inch wheels until GPL351N/JAR185N respectively (so the Early Mark B's where still on 12 inch Dunlop LP 591 wheels)

(but MPD477P/NVW205P is the last time any difference in parts where noted in the parts manual)

 

 

 

At some point I'll get TPA's page put together for my website, and there will be a linked page from there which will be an outline of background on the Model 70.  You're so going to get drafted into fact checking that!

I noticed last time I was out in TPA that there seemed to be a bit more wobble in the top of the nearside door when I closed it (you need to give it a good old slam, and that puts a lot of strain on the top of the door because of where the pull handle is - usually I open the window and pull on the door top for that reason, but it was raining hence not wanting to open the window!).  A quick check today revealed that the rearmost bolt through the window runner into the door top was loose.  Not sure if I just didn't tighten it enough of if it had just worked loose.  For good measure I added a shakeproof washer before I put it back together today.  I will need to try to convince everyone for the next few days that I've not been self harming...Just reaching one of the most awkward fasteners on the Invacar!  You can see why they used rivets originally.

Left some nice scrape marks which are still well visible six hours later.

Now the interior of TPA is looking so much tidier it's really starting to show up some of my earlier bodges.  Especially the "repair" for the split in the top of the nearside door. 

I'm open to suggestions for the best way to repair this.  I was reluctant to use glass fibre/resin at the time as this goes right down the hole for the rear latch, and is directly above the latch mechanism and the last thing I want to do is goop that full of resin!  Especially as this is the door that I actually use as the other one has issues with the runner.  If it was on the other side I wouldn't be quite so bothered!

Yes I fouled up the measurement on the bit of carpet at the base of that door.  I've got another piece cut out in the right size (actually measured with a tape measure rather than eyeball) waiting to go in.  I didn't realise how bad it was until I saw the photos.

I stumbled across a box of things I bought a few weeks ago for the van and promptly forgot about.  Some little self contained rechargeable lights which have IR sensors so they can detect when doors in front of them are opened.  These have been deployed in the kitchen cupboard and a couple of lockers which are kind of black holes without illumination.  The results speak for themselves I think.

They have magnets in the back and just attach to metal plates which stick or screw in place where you want them to go.  The package quote something like three months of runtime on one charge.  I've little interest in that, this is the sort of thing that we'd just make a point of charging them before we were actually going out to use the van for camping. 

Under sink cupboard is probably the biggest gain.

Really quite impressed with them to be honest.  £11 for the set of six I think it was from Costco.  As with most things from there, they feel really well made.

[LightBulbFun]

24 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

At some point I'll get TPA's page put together for my website, and there will be a linked page from there which will be an outline of background on the Model 70.  You're so going to get drafted into fact checking that!

Im quite looking forward helping out with that, it will be good to finally have a factually correct web page about the Model 70 I can link people to etc  

 

(side note, I find it quite fitting that TPA's re-trimming finishing coincides with Page 100 of this thread ) 

[Zelandeth]

Had virtually zero time to do anything today as I've been running around all over the shop.  Did spend five minutes when I was "released" from other duties to get a couple of small things done.  The new fuel filter arrived for the Invacar this morning, so got that fitted.

Bit blingy!

Might give the retaining clips a bit of black paint to try to tone it down a bit.

I also had a bit of a thought about the doors.  Invacar doors rattle like a washing machine full of marbles being dropped down a flight of stairs.  That is just a fact of life.  One of the biggest issues with mine were the interior door handles though, I'm guessing I was missing a spacer of some sort because of the amount of play in them.

Wonder if I can have a dig around in the drawer of washers, fasteners etc to improve that...

 

Well that was worth five minutes of time!  Will hopefully see how much difference it makes actually driving tomorrow.

[Zelandeth]

Having thought about it for two seconds I realised that the position I'd mounted the fuel filter in was going to be massively in the way...All I needed to do however was flip it around to the opposite side of the support bar it's attached to.

That should be far more out of the way.

We then had a run over to the Six-Cylinder's place to assist with a bit of technology wrangling.  The weather forecast was checked before I went out, and was showing 0% of precipitation.  Yeah...about that.

Yeah...I wound up driving back through near monsoon conditions (twice).  The windscreen I'm glad to report doesn't seem to leak any more, at least when driving.  Only visible water ingress we had was a little getting into the nearside door cavity through the window runner.  Aside from the windscreen demister still being about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike below 50mph, she handled it absolutely fine.  I know a lot of people have been saying that the Camac tyres will kill me the moment I look at an even damp road, but they seemed to handle everything absolutely fine today, up to and including quite a bit of standing water.  No complaints.  I'm not exactly going to try chucking it around in the wet anyway...Not that sort of car!

Needs a clean again now.

Having been out for a longer run though, I'm glad to report that between the reduction in door rattles from yesterday and the general trim installation, noise levels at speed are *massively* reduced.  Cruising at 55 feels honestly comfortable now and 60 isn't an issue.

The Xantia decided it hadn't had enough attention lately so decided to pop up the low oil level warning when I started it up.

Had a look and the level is absolutely fine, so just the usual "once every three months" false positive.  The occasional false positive or not, I'd still far, far rather have this warning light than not.

Of slightly more concern however was that in the last couple of days I've been becoming very much able to hear the dump valve from the turbo again.  That was last heard back in November 2018 when the intake line between the air filter and intake ducting split.  This was repaired at the time using self amalgamating tape, duct tape and cable ties.  No great surprise it's failed again...astonished it's lasted this long!

Just fell apart when I touched it.  This is a problem that basically all TCT engined Xantias are running into now as the pipe just turns to plastic then splits.  The parts have been NLA new for years, and the vast majority of secondhand ones are just as bad...Having had a quick look at it, the hose is a 70mm inside diameter, so a generic silicone elbow will be ordered in to replace this.  In the meantime a bit of random ducting and a cone filter have been deployed.  The soundtrack now is frankly ridiculous.  To say the dump valve is "obvious" when you come off the power would be an understatement.  Hopefully shouldn't be too hard to sort with a bit of off-the-shelf silicone pipe.  Should be enough flex available that it can accommodate the kickback.

[Zelandeth]

I think this means that I have officially started "sorting out" my garage...

Having got fed up wasting half an hour trying to find any of the regularly used tools every time I went into the garage, I've started attaching the things I use most often to the wall of the garage.

The black socket set is the thing I use by far the most regularly, so that went right by the door.

It's still an awful mess...but this should save me a good deal of time and annoyance anyway.  I'll need to get some actual hooks so I can add the screwdrivers and such as well.

The air receiver taking up a huge chunk of the space by the door is something that will help hugely once I move that elsewhere (it's likely going to be attached to the wall above the garage door frame and piped in remotely).

[dollywobbler]

My headliner sits too low. I think I'm going to have to remove it as it's a bit of a pain.

Doors - I find the striker plates are very prone to movement. An adjust and tighten generally sorts things out and minimises rattling.

[Zelandeth]

Half of the stuff I'm waiting for the Xantia arrived today.

Nice new silicone elbow to replace the cracked factory induction hose.  We've stuck with black as once everything is back together and it's dulled down a bit you won't even notice it's been changed unless you specifically know the engine bay of a TCT engined Xantia.

Annoyingly, while the elbow has arrived, the straight bit hasn't...which leaves the hose about 2" too short to reach the air filter housing.  Fine.  Back on goes the cone for now.

I have to admit to childishly enjoying the ridiculous induction growl and dump valve noises in the interim.  Pretty sure it's actually costing me horsepower given the lack of a cool air supply.

Once the new straight section arrives I'll get the air box reinstated and hooked up properly.  I may trim the hose down a little yet to try to reduce the tendency to rub against the lines to the LHM reservoir.

[Zelandeth]

Chris takes his company car back for changeover tomorrow (yay, we're finally rid of the TTRS... without exception the most uncomfortable car I have ever sat in), so I had to give it a clean.

Oh...my...word. That is by some margin the most godawfully fiddly car to even wash I have ever crossed paths with.

Gave the Xantia a quick wash as well while I had things out and cleaned the windows.

Removing these stickers really felt like absolute vandalism and doing so broke my heart as they feel like part of the car's story. Sadly the sun over this summer had done a number on them and they were disintegrating.  Shame as until this summer they were standing up to the weather absolutely perfectly fine.

Will just need to start earning some more now I guess!

[Zelandeth]

Okay, let's try this again.  The editor ate yesterday's update and I couldn't be bothered retyping it at the time.  On the desktop now so if it happens again I can at least just hit ctrl+Z.

I had quite a few errands to run yesterday and as it seemed a little breezy I was initially just going to take the Xantia.  At the last minute though I changed my mind and took TPA. 

Turned out the wind obviously wasn't strong enough to have any really noticeable effect, so was a good afternoon to take her out for a spin.  Thanks to some extremely poor forward planning on my part, 30-40 miles worth of driving ended up being something like 80.  Anyhow, it was a nice afternoon for it and I wasn't on the clock for once, so no issue really.

It's really hard to convey how much more pleasant it is to be in this car at any real speed now compared to before the carpeting went in.

Now the weather has turned a bit cooler and I've managed to lock the windows closed with a couple of clamps it's making it quite obvious that I do need to look at the door closure a bit more.  The nearside door in particular sits quite proud at the front (you can see it in quite a few photos I think), and both makes a racket and causes a bit of a draught.  I'll need to see if I can adjust it to a better compromise between actually closing properly without needing to be body-slammed (like the offside one) and sealing.

We also made a trip out to pick up a box of some random computer bits and pieces during which TPA was making some friends.

The only missed beat during the entire day was just as I was leaving Buckingham (for the first time) when she suddenly jumped out of gear.  This however coincided with me having to tighten the seatbelt, so I reckon the belt had just wrapped itself around the selector.  I've noticed them getting tangled on a few occasions before, so might need to look at a guide of some kind to stop that from happening.

So in 80-odd miles, including trundling around town and blatting down the A5 (including several overtakes), no issues to report aside from a draughty door.  I'll take that.

Fast forward to today, the second hose I had been waiting for for the Xantia arrived so I was able to get the air intake put back together properly and do away with the ridiculous looking cone filter.

I think once there's a bit of engine bay dust on those hoses you wouldn't notice that they weren't standard unless you were really knowledgeable about Xantia engine bays!

Yes, I did get one of the hose clips the opposite way around first try.  I then had to go back and fix that as it would have driven my OCD round the bend.

[LightBulbFun]

happy to see TPA is out and about once more and is continuing to provide good service  

do you still get baffled and bemused looks from other motorists and pedestrians as you sail on by?  

[Zelandeth]

Had only a brief bit of time to look at car stuff today but decided to see if I could improve my door situation a bit.

I think one aspect is that the door sits a little low because the rollers are knackered.  I will deal with that at some point...but that point is not now.  The issue is that because the door is sitting slightly too low the curve at the top of the panel bottoms out too early when you close the door.  Guessing the documentation we've got access to doesn't state what the dimensions of those rollers should be...

There was no additional adjustment possible on the front striker plate, which tied in with that being the one which rattles the most.  So I took it off and drilled two new holes to give me another 1/4" or so to play with.

I think this is the best we're going to get until I completely rebuild the door rollers to lift it up a bit.  Any tighter and you'll not be able to close it - and I don't want to put too much strain on the door itself.

Not perfect, but if you look at the last exterior photos above you can see this is *way* better.

The door too does actually touch the seal now without needing to add extra foam strips or anything, so it's definitely helped.

We'll find out if it's actually helped on the move shortly.

As far as the rollers to, I've got an idea in my mind of getting hold of a set of skateboard wheels and attacking them in a lathe...open to better suggestions!

[Zelandeth]

Package arrived for the Xantia this morning.

Hopefully these are the right bits.

Will arrange to get this fitted soon.

Slightly alarmed by how skinny the belt is...but I guess it is only an SOHC engine.  Have to confess to knowing little about belt driven engines as the vast, vast majority of my cars have had chains.

[SiC]

Possibly of interest to you? I know you've expressed an interest in them before. Seems very reasonably priced for a chrome bumper car.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233758749889

 

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, SiC said:

Possibly of interest to you? I know you've expressed an interest in them before. Seems very reasonably priced for a chrome bumper car.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233758749889

 

Interest, definitely.  However this is probably about the worst time it could show up.  We're currently down one person's income and there's no room at the inn.

I do find myself wondering what horrors that rattle can paint job might be hiding though given the truly exciting tendency these cars have to rust...

[Zelandeth]

We've taken a brief interlude over the last few days as I suffered a critical loss of patience with the state my bedroom/office was in and decided that enough was enough and I needed to do something about it.

It's actually two rooms joined together.  One smallish bedroom, then off to one side one very narrow room that's more like a walk in wardrobe than a room.  It's about eight feet long, but only about four wide - you can comfortably reach both sides standing in the middle.  The main room is eight feet plus a couple of inches square...so it's a smallish room but not tiny.  It is however square.  You know what I've come to realise over the last couple of years?  A square is a sodding stupid shape for a room!  Have a look around your bedroom...What's the prevailing shape of your furniture?  Rectangular isn't it...So you tend to arrange things in one main axes to make best use of the space.  Things are made worse by the fact that the door is smack in the middle of one wall and the window is smack in the middle of another - so that's basically two sides of the room that are 70% spoken for before you've even moved any furniture in.  The Annexe as we tend to refer to it was never really originally intended to be a room - it's where the monitoring systems for the various heating and energy harvesting systems that were tested out here by the BBC in the first couple of years of the life of this place (including a combined heat & power system based around a Fiat 126 engine) were housed.  Sadly aside from the end of a stinking great three phase power cable in one corner of the garage all evidence of that is long gone. 

Originally when we moved in I set up the main room as the bedroom, with the Annexe as we tend to call it set up to be my office.

Bedroom looked like this.

The office ended up laid out like this after quite a bit of messing around.

It turns out that this really wasn't the best solution on either counts.

I think the main reason that I originally put the bed where I did is that my room at least in the early days of us moving in here was the default guest room - and that bed can fold out into a double.  However it doesn't work...as once the bed is deployed then you literally can't open the door to the room.

The office really doesn't work well either, for all it looks like it's making good use of an otherwise very strangely proportioned and not particularly useful space. 

Firstly, it just always feels cramped.  Secondly there are no windows in there, and no matter how much light you throw at it it just always feels dingy.  There are something like 300W of LEDs and 150W of metal halide lighting going on in that picture, and it still felt dimmer in person than it looks.  Turns out that having no windows is another issue, in that once you've got the computer doing anything vaguely strenuous, it gets real warm in there real fast.  Generally it was just an unpleasant place to be.

As neither room really worked particularly well, I just tended not to spend much time in there - which is partly why it became something of a dumping grounds for otherwise homeless items in the house.  I was used to generally having free reign of the house while everyone was at work, so didn't really highly prioritise work on better sorting out my space.  Right up until Lockdown happened anyway!  Suddenly with everyone on seemingly endless teleconferences I have ended up hiding in here a good deal more.

So it was time to have a proper think about things and to see if I could improve on matters.  Knowing that the bed doesn't work with both sections set up next to each other eliminated one of the original major constraints...so I decided to flip the main purpose of the two rooms.  The Annexe being a somewhat cramped, dark, dingy sensory deprivation chamber really isn't an issue if all you want to do in there is sleep I reckon.  With the bed out the way that then frees up a huge chunk of floor and wall space for a decent sized workstation.

Now actually rearranging things was quite a task in its own right simply because A: Both rooms are pretty small and B: I have FAR too much stuff.  I describe the process as being somewhat like trying to complete one of those slide puzzles that were popular when I was a kid, where you've got tiles that you can move around to make up a picture...but where you have to repeatedly dig out enough space to make the hole to allow you to move the tiles around.  Leading to scenes like this.

This was what happened when I dragged all the vintage computers in the room into one spot!

That's not nearly all of them I own either, that's just those which were in this room to start with!

After the best part of a week, an unfeasible amount of swearing and a very sore back, we've ended up with this.

Where there used to be a very cramped desk in the Annexe...

There's still a shedload to be done obviously!  The desktop is temporary, I'll be replacing it with something without a huge step in the middle in due course, and all the stuff on the shelves has basically just been randomly shoved there to get it out of the way while I've been working.  A lot of the lights will come off the wall too - I just got utterly fed up of moving a lot of the bulkhead fixtures around in circles that I just stuck them on the wall as it was out the way to be honest.  The one to the left of the door at least is actually a functional emergency light though.

There will be a full length bookcase going in to the left of the door (in the image where you're facing the window) which should hopefully allow me to properly find homes for a lot of the things in the Pile o' Crap (TM) in the corner so I can finally get rid of that.  Something like a set of IKEA Kallax shelving will probably then go in on the other side of the door - The desk will then be extended right up to where it would meet that shelving.  A decent sized chest of drawers will then be added at the foot of the bed (replacing the ancient Argos £12 bookshelf there that's been missing a shelf since 2008) so I can finally store clothing without having to cram it down to subatomic sizes to get it into the current drawers.  In the bedroom I'll also be adding probably two shelves running the full length of the room above the bed for storage of things that I use less regularly but would rather not shove totally out of reach in the loft.

The radiator is buried under the desk (it's directly under the window), but honestly I'm not bothered.  We've been in here since 2014 and I have not once switched it on because of how well insulated this place is, so I really don't see that as an issue.  Getting heat OUT of this house is always far, far more of a challenge than getting it in.  Air conditioning is definitely going to be happening in the next couple of years.

I don't think I've ever actually had what I'd describe as a "roomy" workstation before...I think I could get used to this!

I can even actually get at the big scanner without having to precariously balance it on things.

I've very deliberately kept that corner seemingly excessively deep (not *just* because of the ancient scanner) as I want to be able to set up a CRT in that corner when working on old computers where that's needed without having to dismantle half the room.  In this case I just scoot the printer over to the left and stow the scanner under the desk and I've got a nice deep corner to accommodate a monitor as needed.

Speaking of monitors, I want those off my desk.  I really want to get them mounted on wall arms as that would then completely clear the desk in front of me.  Unfortunately that involves me having to buy £80 worth of adaptor plates as I totally failed to clock when I bought the right two monitors (which was based on the image performance alone) that HP were utter idiots and didn't include any direct provision for attaching to a VESA mount.  You need to buy a special adaptor from them at £40 a shot.  If I'd known that I may well have gone for something else...which is a shame as they perform really well.

I'm also really pleased to finally have somewhere to actually use that old Dazor fluorescent desk light - I dragged that thing all the way back from the US back in 2014 I think it was, but have never managed to find anywhere for it that wasn't hugely in the way...until now.  It now lives on and usefully lights the drawing/crafting/electronic repair area.

Today has mostly been sorting this.

Then starting to sort out some of the other things that were displaced by my original workstation being removed - the network switch and our main wireless access point to name two things were left dangling by their Ethernet cables for most of the week so I've spent most of today sorting that out.  Only got the first few things hooked up yet but we're getting there. 

Speaking of things that I hope Future Me thanks me for one day...Yes I'm being OCD and labelling everything.  I have learned enough times now that this can save so many headaches down the road it's hard to believe.

Praying I'll get the cable routing finished tomorrow as it gets boring real quick!  Especially as making Ethernet cables doesn't get any less fiddly no matter how many thousand times you've done it I find!  I'm trying to keep things tidy here so am mostly making up new cables so they're actually the correct lengths.

I'm absolutely bloody knackered, but it does feel like I'm finally getting somewhere.

I've got so many stalled art, craft and electronic projects that have been waiting for some attention that I've just not had the will to touch for *years* simply because I've had no decent space to work on them...I'm hoping that once I've got things finished here that might change a bit 

Once I've more or less decided where everything is going to live I'll be getting a little more decorating done.  I've always planned to use a deep red to pick out details in the room (the ceiling light fitting - which while it looks like a contemporary design to my eyelids even now is a Mazda Netaline from the early 70s - providing the colour swatch).  This colour.

 I'd really like to get both parts carpeted as well as I'm not a fan of hard floors, especially in bedrooms.  If I could get a close colour match to the aforementioned red that would be really good in my view.  The Annexe is already carpeted...but in a dirty brownish grey and it's utterly worn out in several areas so needs changing anyway.  I think if I got the carpet running seamlessly through between the two areas it would help increase the perceived space by removing a visible boundary.

There's too much in the way of muted tones in decoration these days... what's wrong with a bit of colour?

Edited October 31, 2020 by Zelandeth
Added a few more comments/thoughts and a photo of the Netaline mainly for Dez...

[beko1987]

I've made vesamounts with mdf and appropriate machine screws... 

They'd look nice set far back off the wall. With some angle wedges here and there you'd get a curve too! 

I'm also in the having 1 screen portrait camp... 

[LightBulbFun]

8 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Edited 6 hours ago by Zelandeth
Added a few more comments/thoughts and a photo of the Netaline mainly for Dez...

haha yeah given the slight* overlap we have when it comes to hobbies/interests 

I was having much fun spotting all the different things  

 

if it makes you feel better my room is also in dire need of such a clean up/sort out (with much the same problems of not being able to do projects id like to do due to lack of a suitable workspace)

although I am quite proud with just how many computers I have managed to cram in here, a fun game I like to play is ask someone to point out all the computers they can see

then once they are done doing so, point out the 20 or so others they missed  

 

 

heres a quick POV picture I grabbed last night in bed when I was typing up a response last night, before I passed out

there are about 10-15 old computers in or buried in that shot alone  (not to mention the lighting gear...)

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, beko1987 said:

I'm also in the having 1 screen portrait camp... 

The Dell one has the facility to rotate.  Really handy sometimes!

[Zelandeth]

Today mostly consisted of me chasing this stuff around.

Then fitting loads of these.

The sockets in my room needed sorting because I pulled one out of the ceiling yesterday.  Needed to add an extra socket anyway as I wanted to bring Chris' network connection through here rather than being hooked straight into the router.  Also meant I was able to get rid of the network cable that's been trailing across the hallway upstairs for the last year and a half.

Before:

After:

Once this was routed (which required nearly two hours of Tetrising stuff in the loft so I could get to the tiny gap you need to feed stuff through to get it from the West to North "wings" of the house) and a couple of lines were added in my room I could then actually tidy up the wiring to the switch.  Originally this had just been a haphazard mess which made my teeth itch every time I looked at it.

It really doesn't seem fair that the bundle of grey wires running along the ceiling here represents almost an entire day's work!

Anothe few cable clips were added since I took that photo to tidy up a couple of bits that were visibly sagging a bit.

In other news relating to my workstation I picked up a nice little upgrade for my PC.  I've been keeping my eyes open for a new graphics card as the Radeon HD 5770 in there has been becoming increasingly glitchy of late.  Usually manifesting itself by the window compositing system getting stuck in a loop when drawing animations...but only on any two of the displays at a time.  The issue also popped up under Windows when doing 3D intensive things like running games, so pretty confident it's an issue with the card rather than a bug in Compiz or Mate.

Not exactly bleeding edge these days, but this should do everything I want it for.

At £65 it seemed worth a punt.  Just waiting for a power lead adaptor (this has an 8-pin PCI-E power socket rather than 6) before I fit it.  That should be here tomorrow though.  Fingers crossed it will give me a bit of a performance boost (and get rid of the random glitching).

Looks like I've got an extra display output too...that will be welcome as I've always liked the idea of using an additional one to one side just as a system status monitor.  I've got a little 14" Iiyama one which could fit nicely next to the clock.  After painting though as it's REALLY badly yellowed.

[LightBulbFun]

11 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

In other news relating to my workstation I picked up a nice little upgrade for my PC.  I've been keeping my eyes open for a new graphics card as the Radeon HD 5770 in there has been becoming increasingly glitchy of late.  Usually manifesting itself by the window compositing system getting stuck in a loop when drawing animations...but only on any two of the displays at a time.  The issue also popped up under Windows when doing 3D intensive things like running games, so pretty confident it's an issue with the card rather than a bug in Compiz or Mate.

Not exactly bleeding edge these days, but this should do everything I want it for.

At £65 it seemed worth a punt.  Just waiting for a power lead adaptor (this has an 8-pin PCI-E power socket rather than 6) before I fit it.  That should be here tomorrow though.  Fingers crossed it will give me a bit of a performance boost (and get rid of the random glitching).

Looks like I've got an extra display output too...that will be welcome as I've always liked the idea of using an additional one to one side just as a system status monitor.  I've got a little 14" Iiyama one which could fit nicely next to the clock.  After painting though as it's REALLY badly yellowed.

nice that should work very well in the system, and should be many times faster then the old 5770 and support newer API's  

although I dont think it will be a problem with the 1060 since the 8 pin connector on your card is more for show then because it actually draws a lot of power  (the 1060 has a total max power draw of 120W, which well within the 75W provided by the PCIe slot and 75W from one 6 pin cable and the reference NVIDIA design does just have a single 6 pin)

 

but if the adapter you have bought is not one already, at some point in the future  I would get another Apple mini 6 pin to full size 6 pin cable and make sure the adapter your using is a Dual 6 pin to 8 pin adapter

otherwise on a future higher end card you might end up tripping the OCP for one of the 6 pin lines coming from the logic-board (I think each 6 pin line has a 120W power limit before the SMC shuts the machine down)

it wont damage anything but might be a nuance if during an intense gaming session suddenly *click* as the computer turns itself off LOL

 

although a 1060 is about as high end as I would go in a MP2,1, anything faster really is bottle necked by the rest of the system (especially if the game/workload is not very well multithreaded)

(but that obviously depends on your exact workload of course, if your just doing compute tasks on the GPU then it wont matter what the rest of the system is LOL)

[LightBulbFun]

@Zelandeth just noticed on another forum that you had mention your not sure what dimensions of door roller you need due to how mangled your existing ones are

well theres a couple NOS ones in the parts stash (box 5) if you need something to measure up  

[MorrisItalSLX]

Re: Door rollers,

When you know what the dimensions are, post them up here and I’ll have a look in a catalog I’ve got at work of rollers to see if one will suit.

[CaptainBoom]

On 31/10/2020 at 02:22, Zelandeth said:

Today has mostly been sorting this.

I spy a Microsoft PS/2 mouse!  Nice hand shape on these.

Excellent office/room restructure, it gives me a bit of motivation to get my work area sorted out.  I can well sympathise with the slidey puzzle game.  Living with a chronic hoarder, my life is spent aiming for :

but not getting it...

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, CaptainBoom said:

I spy a Microsoft PS/2 mouse!  Nice hand shape on these

 

I think that one is serial actually... though I do have a couple in PS/2 form too...

The loft is ten times worse than the room, mainly because there's absolutely zero sense of order to it thanks to large volumes of stuff being dumped in there on two separate occasions.  I've honestly no idea what's in probably 60% of the boxes!

[Zelandeth]

Nothing much been going on with the fleet over the last few days really.  Only thing of note was me taking the Jag out for a gentle trundle to the pharmacy to collect a prescription.  The state of the front tyres means that I've been considering it basically "off the road" until they're changed due to the vibration at speed (they are still legal), but this didn't involve going above 30mph so that wasn't really an issue.  I knew that we were about to be seeing salt getting spread over here, so figured it was the last chance she was going to get for a run before the winter.

It's very obvious that this car has water ingress issues.  There's a load of condensation in there.  I know there's a bit of water getting in through the driver's door, a tiny bit around the windscreen (if I park with the offside down hill), but I think the biggest one is actually through the damned heater.  I thought I'd got rid of that one, right up until the first time I turned right out of the driveway and it decanted what must have been a couple of litres of ice cold water over my ankles.  Leaving the driver's footwell about an inch deep in water - The carpet thankfully was already in the garage because I know some water was getting in.  It was six degrees when I set out.  The water felt like it was about sixty below zero, believe me!  I let out a distinctly un-manly squeak when that happened.

Despite having sat for about a month and a half and being soaking wet inside and out, the Jag fired straight up.  Aside from the heating and ventilation system still stubbornly refusing to actually provide a decent amount of heat (I need to figure out which of the fifty servos is responsible for moving the hot/cold air flap and latch it in the hot position until I properly sort that out) and the brakes being a bit graunchy for the first couple of stops she drove just fine.

I really, really, really wish I had somewhere under cover I could store her over the winter though.  This really isn't a car which is going to weather a winter outside well I fear and I suspect I'm going to wind up with a fair to do list in the spring because of it.  In addition to the already pretty extensive to do list.

TPA hasn't been out this week, mainly because it's been bleeping windy.  Now it's calmed down a bit so I'll probably get her back out and about when I next need to make a run out - obviously just for groceries/pharmacy runs given the current situation.  I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms from not having driven her for over a week though! 

Not a huge amount of visible progress has been made with regards to the major workstation and room, a lot of the things which have been going on have been behind the scenes.  Cable management etc.

Did make one major upgrade though, having found a small offcut of board which was by complete fluke the exact size to fit between the right hand edge of the desk and the wall.

Finally...I can actually have a turntable set up in my own space.

That's actually a very sturdy base it's sitting on.  It's anchored securely to the wall on both sides, as is the (very heavy) desk, so I don't expect to have any issues with it jumping around if I'm walking around.

Turntable is nothing special, just an Audio-Technica AT-LP60USB.  It's nothing special, but in the same breath I've found there to be absolutely nothing wrong with it.  I can't hear any difference whatsoever between it and the Sanyo or Sony ones I've also got, or the horrifically expensive one that a friend has.  It does the job.  Just glad to be able to listen to my vinyl in here now too...silly little detail (and utterly pointless in a lot of ways given 99.9% of the music I have access to on Spotify anyway), but it makes actually using the workstation more pleasant.

I've been ignoring the fleet a bit...so I need to fix that this coming week.

[] Invacar.  Actually just wants some use now.

[] Xantia.  Desperately needs the rear spheres changing.  Timing belt is due.

[] Van.  MOT is now out, in hibernation till spring.

[] Jag.  Laundry list of things needing done (it's an 80s Jag, or course there is), but also basically in hibernation till spring.  MOT isn't up till January though, so I was planning to get it in for a test to see if there's another to do list there...however lockdown has scuppered that plan.  The thing I really want to take a look at in the very short term though is see if I can stop the blasted water getting into it...Then fix my dehumidifier and get the interior properly dried out again before it starts going mouldy (again).

[Zelandeth]

Decision made.  Jag isn't getting abandoned on the drive until spring entirely.

I can get a pair of general purpose Nankang tyres in the 205/70 15 size that's currently on there fitted for £65 each.  That will get the car back into a safe and drivable state - bearing in mind they're replacing 17 year old, unevenly worn and badly out of round Corsas I'm not going to quibble over the 10mm size difference to spec.  I'd not have known had I not looked in the handbook anyway.  I'll then get it stuck in for an MOT at either my usual or another known classic friendly garage and see if that leaves me with anything else other than my current known list.

In the spring, assuming everything else has been sorted without incident (and the MOT tester doesn't condemn the car!) I'll then look to get a full set of Vredstein Sprint Classics in the correct 215/70 15 size fitted.  I just really don't want to drop the best part of a grand on tyres until the car's got a year's ticket on it.  Especially knowing that if the rear brakes need any work that at today's labour rates you're probably going to be looking at a quote starting at £500 before they've even picked up a spanner.

Once it's got some serviceable tyres on and the front discs/pads changed she can come out on the occasional dry day through the winter.  Given that I don't have any covered storage that's probably honestly better than just leaving the car sitting for the next three months.

I do need to dry the damned interior out though and try to resolve the water ingress issues!

[Zelandeth]

All right...time to quit procrastinating and actually attack the to do list.

Biggest urgent item is to try to stop the Jag filling up with water.

This has been a pretty sunny day, it's obvious there's standing water in there.

While I had pulled the front carpet out on the offside I'd not touched the rear.

Oops.

Yep... that's been holding on to a bit of water.

I punched out the plugs in that vicinity to allow the water to drain from the car for now.

I wanted to take a closer look at the rear to make sure we didn't have signifiy amounts of water getting in through the rear window so pulled out the rear seat.

Mercifully bone dry (aside from a little bit if condensation).  I did peel back some of the sound deadening to make sure water wasn't hiding behind it.

The nearside floor was a little damp but not actively wet.  Nevertheless I've removed the carpets and taken them inside for now.

One of the main areas I knew water was getting in was via the heater.

I had it in my head that I'd already checked the scuttle drains though the evidence found today suggests otherwise.

Hard to see here but this drain is full of water.  A pint or so ran out of the heater intake box when I pulled this off.

When I went and blew it out with the hose it ejected a good 4" long plug of decomposing organic matter which I suspect has been in there for a good number of years.

Hardly surprising I was having water ingress issues.  Hosing down the heater intake once this had been cleared out didn't result in any drips inside the car, so fingers crossed this has solved that!

The other issue I had had with the heater were twofold.  Firstly was a stubborn refusal to reliably blow hot air and secondly a continual cold draugt oh my left knee.

I think there are two issues here.  Firstly is that something is amiss with the control logic  and/or the Heath Robinson collection of motorised cams and vacuum actuators which control the heater assembly.

The level of complexity and lack of access look like fun!

I was hoping to figure out what's where when it's blowing hot then be able to temporarily lock it in that position...however you just can't see or get at it well enough.  I'll need to fault find the control system I think.

I quickly discovered that the blue thing which is the plenum sitting between the heater blower and the box containing the heater matrix were not actually attached to each other.  You can see there's a good 1/2" of a gap at the end of the ducts.

The moment I touched this it just fell out.  Wasn't attached at the top either.

This turned out to be Rather Annoying.

Turns out getting his thing back into position is *really* awkward.

It needs to bridge the gap between the stubs arrowed in this image.

After somewhere between three and four hours of arguing with it while literally laying upside down in the footwell I gave up for the day.  I just cannot for love nor money get the plenum to fit over the rectangular stub on the blower.

All the guides to servicing or replacing the blower motors seem to suggest attaching it to the blower before refitting it.  So I'll probably need to get the whole blower out.  Yay.

I guess on the plus side it was going to have to happen eventually to sort the speed controller anyway...but I was hoping to make this a quick job!

Patience is definitely something you need working on these cars!

Edited November 7, 2020 by Zelandeth
Fixed some truly special autocorrect blunders...

[Tepper]

Heater boxes are the worst thing ever, I feel your pain!

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, Tepper said:

Heater boxes are the worst thing ever, I feel your pain!

Yep.  This I think has to be the biggest pain in the tail I've come across for just getting one sodding rubber pipe on.  I was under there for at least three hours fighting with it today.  If they'd just used a round rather than square connection it would be fiddly but fine.  With the square one it's just difficult for the sake of being difficult.

Thought I'd had a brainwave by taking the instrument panel out... however there's a stinking great wiring loom and a brace for the steering column in the way so it actually gains you precisely nothing.

I really don't want to have to mess around dropping the steering column etc.  Especially given Jag have an obsession with using fifty different types of fastener for everything.

[adw1977]

Wow, almost everything on the XJS looks frighteningly complicated and really hard to get at.  But it is a lovely looking car once it's all assembled!