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

25,515 · April 5, 2019

Yes. The doors will be getting painted in the summer. May as well wait for the hot weather for that. The whole underbody as well - for all the stock rustproofing has done a downright phenomenal job, there is now some surface rust in a few areas.

She's living in a warm, dry well ventilated garage though so I'm not worried about it as a matter of urgency.

If we have another couple of days of testing that go like this I might well get the confidence up to make a run over to my usual garage. They unfortunately don't actually do class 3 MOTs, so anything from them would be informal - though just seeing the tester's expression on seeing the car would be worth a lot.

44,388 · April 6, 2019

Drivetrain grumble does just seem to be a thing. It comes and goes depending on speed. What I'm really looking forward to is a hillclimb. TWC is still not brilliant at it. Worried she's lost a few horses...

6,180 · April 6, 2019

Fibreglass is a very forgiving material to work with,have to admit when I first saw the rear bumper I thought "he's done it the wrong way round!" Least you have got a fairly good match for the original shape,you could easily cut it out and use it as a mould,cover it in tape,then furniture wax, gel coat,matting,then bond it in,but if filler and paint and should look great

25,515 · April 6, 2019

Encouraged by the success of the let couple of runs I figured it was time to start working on getting TP looking slightly less like an escapee from Scrapheap Challenge. The huge chunk of duct tape on the nearside front had to go.

While I was at it I finally got some matting down over the huge crack in the offside rear quarter with a view to actually tidying it up at some point.

On the subject of cosmetics I also figured that it made sense to get the infill strip in the gutter put back in. The original one had turned to plastic so atomised when I removed it. However I have tens of metres of the stuff for the van, so nicking a couple of feet wasn't an issue.

This actually does a lot more to tidy the car up than I expected - which shouldn't have surprised me given the visual impact of doing the same on the van.

The original fire extinguisher was a huge point of concern for people. As a result I have made the decision to swap it for a modern one.

It's a shame that whoever fitted the original extinguisher just drilled holes in the vehicle build plate. I will probably move the extinguisher at some point as I really don't like it there. It looks messy and gets in the way whenever you want to get the service hatch out. I reckon in the footwell on the opposite side of the car to the washer bottle would be better. Easier to grab in a hurry too I reckon.

This lot done it was time to get some more miles done. My aim for today was to get ten miles done in one run...doing the math when I got home...nine miles! Blast! Oh well, just have to try again tomorrow!

First step was Halfords to pick up some more paint as I ran out halfway through throwing some colour on the bodywork I had just done.

Man this thing is tiny.

Unsurprisingly she generated a bit of a crowd and several people took photos while I was walking back across the car park.

Given she seemed to be behaving pretty well I decided to take a slightly roundabout route home to give me the opportunity to get a couple of photos somewhere slightly more photogeniic.

Got slightly confused looks from the guy who runs the burger van in that car park...

Back home with more paint I was able to throw some on the bodywork I had just repaired.

Definitely getting there. Really looking forward to getting her out of the garage for some time on the road tomorrow.

Backing the van back into the drive (I have to do some automotive Tetris to get to/from the garage) the exhaust suddenly became louder - didn't take long to discover why.

Interesting. Especially interesting in that the engine feels far more responsive now...so I do wonder (especially in light of where the silencer is split) if something has collapsed in there causing excessive back pressure. Will see what I can do about this shortly. On the plus side, having separated this join will make getting the main silencer off though. It's heavy enough to be almighty awkward even so.

Hopefully tomorrow will include confusing even more people by driving around in a tiny blue car.

18,422 · April 6, 2019

Encouraged by the success of the let couple of runs I figured it was time to start working on getting TP looking slightly less like an escapee from Scrapheap Challenge. The huge chunk of duct tape on the nearside front had to go.

IMG_20190406_145108.jpg

While I was at it I finally got some matting down over the huge crack in the offside rear quarter with a view to actually tidying it up at some point.

IMG_20190406_145127.jpg

On the subject of cosmetics I also figured that it made sense to get the infill strip in the gutter put back in. The original one had turned to plastic so atomised when I removed it. However I have tens of metres of the stuff for the van, so nicking a couple of feet wasn't an issue.

IMG_20190406_154702.jpg

This actually does a lot more to tidy the car up than I expected - which shouldn't have surprised me given the visual impact of doing the same on the van.

The original fire extinguisher was a huge point of concern for people. As a result I have made the decision to swap it for a modern one.

It's a shame that whoever fitted the original extinguisher just drilled holes in the vehicle build plate. I will probably move the extinguisher at some point as I really don't like it there. It looks messy and gets in the way whenever you want to get the service hatch out. I reckon in the footwell on the opposite side of the car to the washer bottle would be better. Easier to grab in a hurry too I reckon.

This lot done it was time to get some more miles done. My aim for today was to get ten miles done in one run...doing the math when I got home...nine miles! Blast! Oh well, just have to try again tomorrow!

First step was Halfords to pick up some more paint as I ran out halfway through throwing some colour on the bodywork I had just done.

Man this thing is tiny.

IMG_20190406_172216.jpg

Unsurprisingly she generated a bit of a crowd and several people took photos while I was walking back across the car park.

Given she seemed to be behaving pretty well I decided to take a slightly roundabout route home to give me the opportunity to get a couple of photos somewhere slightly more photogeniic.

IMG_20190406_173115.jpg

Got slightly confused looks from the guy who runs the burger van in that car park...

Back home with more paint I was able to throw some on the bodywork I had just repaired.

IMG_20190406_145108.jpg

IMG_20190406_180004.jpg

Definitely getting there. Really looking forward to getting her out of the garage for some time on the road tomorrow.

Backing the van back into the drive (I have to do some automotive Tetris to get to/from the garage) the exhaust suddenly became louder - didn't take long to discover why.

IMG_20190406_180749.jpg

Interesting. Especially interesting in that the engine feels far more responsive now...so I do wonder (especially in light of where the silencer is split) if something has collapsed in there causing excessive back pressure. Will see what I can do about this shortly. On the plus side, having separated this join will make getting the main silencer off though. It's heavy enough to be almighty awkward even so.

Hopefully tomorrow will include confusing even more people by driving around in a tiny blue car.

very cool stuff!

not going lie I do look forward to making people go "wtf" when I do finally get myself an invacar and drive it out n about

I diddent know that something was supposed to go in that bit of metal running above the doors. definitely smartens things up

love the outside shots, theres a Model 67 pictured on a similar ground surface too

speaking of images I think you accidentally posted the before photo instead of the after photo on the corner repair painting?

and speaking of repairs, very well done they look good to me (espically given how you had none of the original curve left to work with)

(funny you should mention scrap heap challange, they rather brutally cut up an intact Model 70 for its mechanical bits, literally sawsazlled the body to bits, it was quite painful to watch especially knowing how easily the body unbolts from the chassis)

25,515 · April 6, 2019

Don't remember seeing that episode, I used to be an avid watcher in the early years of the show anyway.

I think I've fixed the images in there now...not sure how I'd managed to mess the embed code up quite that badly.

There will be a good sliver of filler needed before it's done (especially to get the lower lip profile right), but presentable from ten paces is my target here at the moment. I may well look to get more dimensionally perfect repairs from moulded pieces done at some point - but not this year.

44,388 · April 7, 2019

It was a later format, with Dick Strawbridge leading a team to build a chariot - the Invacar being the horse. Didn't enjoy it much!

25,515 · April 7, 2019

Not a big report from today.

One tool I had been missing for a while was my little sander - which finally surfaced today hiding in a box in the shed. Not the foggiest idea how it got there, but it's back where it lives now.

Main reason I had been looking for this was so that I could get working on smoothing out the surface of my newly made bodywork. As you can see looking closer, it does need it!

Not going for a Rolls-Royce mirror finish here, but hoping I will be able to get it reasonably flat with a bit of work. The above image shows just some of the high spots sanded a bit.

Quite clear with a very quick spray of paint that even a few minutes of work has improved things.

Unfortunately while I found the sander - I did not find the sanding discs to go with it save for the pretty fine one attached to it.

Of course because it's Sunday and in England everywhere was closed by the time I got to working on car stuff, so that will need to wait until tomorrow. I still keep getting caught out by that...

The latter part of the afternoon was spent changing the obviously fried capacitors on my old PC motherboard...

Full gas tank in soldering iron, solder present, flux pen present, caffeine present... let's go. I am very glad to have found *real* Mountain Dew (different to the more recently introduced energy drink under the same brand) in the Jamaican (no, I don't know why either) section at Tesco. This has been a favourite of mine since my first visit to the US and I've always been sad that it's not available here save for from specialists at like £2 a can. £0.85 each I will stand for though. Neon green caffeine infused goodness - with actual sugar in it so I can actually drink it, unlike most soft drinks these days which have now switched to Sucralose (which tastes revolting to me) or Aspartame (which gives me crippling migraines). Last three times there I literally cleared the shelf in the hope they will keep stocking it if it sells rapidly! It fills a similar nice in my pallette and energy source list to Irn-Bru - which I still miss as that was my absolute favourite soft drink, but can't drink any more due to the aforementioned recipe changes.

Twenty minutes later the offending caps were swapped out.

Did this resolve the problem? Of course not. Went back and changed all of them in the power supply section of the board in addition to the ones that were visibly cooked, still nothing.

It appears that there's a deeper problem as there is still a lot of current being drawn from the additional 12V ATX connector, yet absolutely no signs of life from anything. I have a sneaking suspicion that the CPU isn't even running given the lack of heat being produced...It is also obvious thtt the usual "bik!" from the internal speaker that you used to hear the moment you pressed the power switch or hit reset isn't audible (not actual audio, just an artifact produced on power up of that bit of the board)...and the hard drive activity light remains on steadily, even with reset held down...that should extinguish under that condition.

I've tried...but it's time for a new board now methinks. Twelve years ain't a bad run really by today's standards. At least quite a bit of the hardware will be retained for the rebuild, hopefully including the CPU cooler as that was not exactly cheap at the time...and say what folks may about Corsair and liquid cooling, it does the job it was designed for really well. Knocked a good 20C off the CPU core temp when flat out compared to the stock fansink - without making it sound like there was a hovercraft in the case.

Will definitely need to have a look into that machine you've mentioned LBF and see what I can do with it before I go and spend a few hundred quid on bits for this...Activa and van will both be needing tax this month too...Ouch!

18,422 · April 8, 2019

Like for invacar and PC work

but not for it not working! (cant say iv ever had mountain dew before)

if theres current being drawn from the 12V rail, then I would grab a finger and start prodding at various chips and see if anythings getting unusually warm

its not unknown for onboard devices say the onboard ethernet controller to die taking down a major voltage rail, de-solder the ethernet controller from the board and system will come back (minus ethernet of course)

im also pretty sure I do have a CPU compatible with that motherboard, tis always worth trying another CPU, so we can try that at some point if you want too

as for the machine iv mentioned, heres a quick run down of its specs

its a MacPro1,1 that I have flashed to MacPro2,1 Firmware and upgraded to Dual X5355 CPUs, so thats 2 Quad Xeon CPUs at 2.66Ghz for a total of 8 cores, it might be from 2006, but it can still crunch numbers very well, and is a hell of a lot faster then anything you have AFAIK

it currently has 16GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM ECC RAM installed, max RAM is 64GB which you can get for just £50 because 10 year old Sever ram is worth fook all thankfully

its a Mac, so obviously meant for running Mac OS X, and with the right graphics card, can be coaxed to run up to 10.11.6 unofficially, (officially its Maximum supported OS X is 10.7.5)

but obviously, its still an X86 PC, and can run Linux no problem since i know thats your OS of choice. it can run Linux in BIOS mode no problem (so you should be able to just slide your existing HDD in no problems), and can also be coaxed to boot linux in EFI mode, however due to the MP1,1/2,1 being an early intel mac it has a 32bit EFI implementation, which makes things a bit tricker then usual when it comes to booting OSs in EFI mode.

and obviously being a workstation machine, its actually designed to run flat out crunching numbers for weeks at a time

(this machine was my daily driver from December 2015 to Feb 2017, when I got my current MacPro5,1 machine )

25,515 · April 8, 2019

To be honest people have been making noises about wanting to get into some more communal gaming, so I'd have been needing to do some fairly major upgrades anyway - so not going to lose too much sleep over getting this board going again...one thing I may try tomorrow will be unplugging the CPU and seeing if the current draw goes as I have had one go short internally before (albeit a P133!).

There is nothing getting obviously warm - which is surprising given the amount of power being drawn...shame we don't still have access to the thermal camera from Darren's old work...that thing was handy! I'm not getting into any further component level work though - just have too many demands on my time to chase this fault further down the rabbit hole.

I'll definitely be curious to give that machine a whirl, it will end up running Linux, probably Debian as it's the one I know my way around the best. Given folks keep making noises about gaming I'm not discounting the idea of winding up with a separate more dedicated machine for that. An additional box isn't a problem as I have a huge head-height shelf over the workstation.

I remember those old Mac Pro machines being so well made as to be almost a work of art, so definitely like the idea of rocking one as a "daily driver" I think.

25,515 · April 8, 2019

Every time I do any work on an exhaust I swear that it will be the last time. Today was no exception.

The van's exhaust consists of four main assemblies.

[] Manifold, downpipe and Flexi.

[] Expansion box.

[] Silencer.

[] Ridiculously long tail pipe.

Both the expansion box and silencer one mine are stuffed. The silencer has a heap of holes in and the expansion box suffers from a broken hanger in addition to one of the baffles having come loose so it buzzes like crazy at idle. Pretty sure the main silencer had collapsed internally as well, making the system far more restrictive than it should be.

The expansion box came loose without much protest. The silencer on the other hand...

After roughly two hours of swearing, hitting things with hammers, heating stuff with a blowtorch then burning my fingers on it, I finally wrestled the main silencer off.

I really want to get a better designed stainless system fitted with the tailpipe venting to the side of the van well clear of any air vents, but may just have to settle for a stock system until the MOT is out the way.

The Invacar was out and about again today, confusing people in central MK.

She does a pretty competent job of being a local runaround it seems.

Having a check over when back though it looks like something has been touching the sidewall of the nearside rear wheel.

Having a quick look didn't reveal anything obvious, so I'll pull the wheel off tomorrow to check. At least there should hopefully be an obvious mark to show where it's been happening. Most likely a loose bit of bodywork that thirty seconds with a drill and rivet gun can fix. Will report back when I've had a chance to fully investigate. Other than that she's continuing to run well so far...need to take a brave pill and venture more than a mile or two from home soon...

18,422 · April 8, 2019

if it helps any the exhaust Job you on the Invacar a good while back looks nice and spiffy

I wonder on the van could you just straight pipe it out the back for a quick MOT bodge or is that too loud/not allowed?

its cool to see some frontal shots of TPA out n about

25,515 · April 8, 2019

if it helps any the exhaust Job you on the Invacar a good while back looks nice and spiffy

I wonder on the van could you just straight pipe it out the back for a quick MOT bodge or is that too loud/not allowed?

its cool to see some frontal shots of TPA out n about

It actually sounds decent with just the expansion box on - I'd happily just stick a pipe out the side from there. Problem is that by the time I've faffed about making things fit it's not worth it. For all there is a lot of open space under the van, there's also a lot of stuff to go around. I can't for instance take a pipe straight off the expansion box outlet (flipped 180 degrees with the rear facing corner hacked off) because the fuel tank is in the way. Straight out the passenger side would be easier (if longer) but I'm pretty sure that you're not allowed to have it venting to the nearside of the vehicle so as to avoid blasting pedestrians with hot exhaust gases.

I did record a quick video when I tested it with the main silencer removed, I'll throw that at YouTube at some point in the future. Sounds nice I think, not quite the bark you get from a big AEC or Gardner engine, but more that end of the spectrum than what you'd expect from a car.

Will just get a couple of new sections ordered in with a view to getting a proper job done in the future.

Hopefully plenty more photos of TP out and about as things go, at least with the duct tape gone from the nearside front corner I'm a bit less embarrassed to be seen driving her now! I really need to attack the offside front again too as my original repair was shockingly poor and I know I can far better replicate the correct profile now. Still won't be perfect, but far better than it currently is. Going to try to concentrate on getting things mechanically properly ship shape first though, and I think use is the best thing for that at the moment.

17,569 · April 8, 2019

I did record a quick video when I tested it with the main silencer removed, I'll throw that at YouTube at some point in the future. Sounds nice I think, not quite the bark you get from a big AEC or Gardner engine, but more that end of the spectrum than what you'd expect from a car.

I was really tempted to straight pipe the LT when I last changed the exhaust:

Just realised that's 11 years ago, how time flies! Still, the system has lasted well.

25,515 · April 8, 2019

I have a sneaking suspicion that with a full straight pipe on this thing would be *loud* being normally aspirated so with no turbo to muffle things...

I've not listened to this on anything other than phone speakers so not sure how well the sound has been captured here.

[YouTube]

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That godawful squeak is probably next on my list of stuff to investigate...I have a feeling given the rhythm it has to it sometimes that the belt itself may actually be to blame, it is quite perished and polished...

One thing immediately obvious is that the engine is way more responsive from idle than it was, this seems to suggest that the original silencer was quite choked up.

4,269 · April 9, 2019

I have a "fruity" exhaust on my GT 86. I like it, although apparently it's a bit loud at 6am reversing on to my drive. According to the wife, never mind.

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

25,515 · April 9, 2019

Investigation this afternoon in the one hour of actual time I had was for the rub mark I had spotted on the offside tyre inboard sidewall.

Pulling the wheel off made it pretty clear that something had been touching, albeit not particularly hard.

Looking in at the wheel arch helpfully there was a nice clear witness mark where the tyre had been rubbing.

Turns out that the whole body moulding there had a good 3/4" of wobble because the tiny 1/4" bolt (no washer used on it) at the top of the wheel tub meant to hold everything in place had pulled through the body. This affected pretty much everything from the rear of the door to the tail light.

I drilled three holes to the rail behind there and using nice big washers riveted the back of the wheel tub to the chassis. Whole area is rock solid now, and it looks like we have more clearance. While I had the wheel off the ground I also took the opportunity to adjust the handbrake again as now fifty miles have been covered the shoes have bedded in a bit as you would expect.

One thing I had noted on all my previous high speed runs had been a very noticeable smell of hot rubber, will be interesting to see if this turns out to be the culprit rather than the CVT belt that I had automatically been blaming...

Given that they never seem to have used a load spreading washer on that bolt it was only a matter of time until it failed, so I'll be taking a look at the nearside shortly to try to ensure the same thing doesn't happen there. Despite the damage to the wing there it is solid though, so it seems likely that someone has already done a repair in the past...

25,515 · April 10, 2019

Having a closer look at the area where the bodywork was originally rubbing on the wheel (having figured out I could use my phone to get a better look rather than standing on my head) shows we now have reasonable clearance.

Taking a look at the opposite side shows that it seems to be fine too.

I will probably add a couple of rivets to this side though as there's quite a bit of wobble there, given it's a five minute job it just seems to make sense and is likely to help prevent issues in the future.

Never really got a decent photo of the badge when it was refitted a couple of days ago so fixed that today.

Yes I do realise how utterly pointless details like that are given the cosmetic state of the car!

In honesty though the badge is far safer on the car, it would have been very likely to disappear into one of the bottomless boxes of bits otherwise, probably never to be seen again.

Had a few errands to run today so they were of course an excuse to get the Invacar out.

Looks comically tiny in the B&Q car park...

Next up I needed a few things from Toolstation...this however involved having to brave the dual carriageways. This was nowhere near as terrifying as you might have expected and we arrived in one piece.

Sorting the wheel arch has definitely noticeably reduced vibration at speed so the wheel rubbing definitely played a part there. She's still not exactly refined, but far better... there's also no longer an obvious burning rubber smell entering the cabin as soon as speeds head north of 30mph.

On the way home though we did see further signs of the drive system not being entirely happy with life. Any real attempt to get above 45mph resulted in obvious slippage in the drive system with it shunting between "gears" so I just dropped to 40 and took it easy back home.

I'm not really surprised by this given that save for a couple of experimental belt tension adjustments I've not touched the drive. The secondary pulley in particular has a badly pitted surface...so I'm going to pull them both off tomorrow and give them as thorough a clean as I can with the equipment I have to hand. I'm also going to give the belt a careful check over and will replace it with one of the spares I have in stock. For all they're old the rubber seems to be in perfect condition.

Given I know new pulleys and belts are readily available at not unreasonable prices I'm not going to persevere too far beyond giving things a good clean and resetting the belt tension (which after 60 miles may well need attention anyhow), any further issues and I'll just get replacements on order.

44,388 · April 10, 2019

Dry graphite lube is recommended for pulley lubing, just in case you weren't aware. Other stuff tends to fling absolutely everywhere, and coat the belt.

16,829 · April 10, 2019

To be honest people have been making noises about wanting to get into some more communal gaming, so I'd have been needing to do some fairly major upgrades anyway - so not going to lose too much sleep over getting this board going again...one thing I may try tomorrow will be unplugging the CPU and seeing if the current draw goes as I have had one go short internally before (albeit a P133!).

There is nothing getting obviously warm - which is surprising given the amount of power being drawn...shame we don't still have access to the thermal camera from Darren's old work...that thing was handy! I'm not getting into any further component level work though - just have too many demands on my time to chase this fault further down the rabbit hole.

I'll definitely be curious to give that machine a whirl, it will end up running Linux, probably Debian as it's the one I know my way around the best. Given folks keep making noises about gaming I'm not discounting the idea of winding up with a separate more dedicated machine for that. An additional box isn't a problem as I have a huge head-height shelf over the workstation.

I remember those old Mac Pro machines being so well made as to be almost a work of art, so definitely like the idea of rocking one as a "daily driver" I think.

I remember the G5 Mac Pro in the recording studio at University. I took it apart a couple of times when no-one was looking and it really was an amazing bit of industrial design. The way it all fitted together and came apart was wonderful and the attention to detail was staggering. I could have it in bits and back together in under 5 minutes without any tools.

18,422 · April 10, 2019

glad to hear (smell? LOL) the rubbing body work issue has been resolved, I wonder if DW should check out TWC there? because TWC is on skinnier tires it might end up going unnoticed

on the pulley front, I do wonder if its worth giving the bits that let the sheaves move in and out a lube?, because I could see the belts slipping, if something like some corrosion on the shaft everything rides on from preventing the sheaves from fully extending.

if you do get new pulleys for her, will be interesting A to see what the insides of the old ones look like and B if she also has her final ratio moved from 45Mph to 55MPh like in TWC

(im still trying to figure out why thats happened in TWC)

im surprised you have not shone up the badge like the rest of the bright work

25,515 · April 10, 2019

Dry graphite lube is recommended for pulley lubing, just in case you weren't aware. Other stuff tends to fling absolutely everywhere, and coat the belt.

I've got some of that from the bike toolkit floating around...useful to know!

I had the brainwave as to how to clean the pulleys up today...

Clamp drill in vice, "bolt" pulley to the drill, turn drill on, use a nice sharp chisel to carefully reface the pulley.

I've never actually had them off yet, so that will be an interesting voyage of discovery...assume it's just a case of undo bolts, tap them off the spindles if necessary with an appropriately soft faced mallet.

25,515 · April 10, 2019

glad to hear (smell? LOL) the rubbing body work issue has been resolved, I wonder if DW should check out TWC there? because TWC is on skinnier tires it might end up going unnoticed

on the pulley front, I do wonder if its worth giving the bits that let the sheaves move in and out a lube?, because I could see the belts slipping, if something like some corrosion on the shaft everything rides on from preventing the sheaves from fully extending.

if you do get new pulleys for her, will be interesting A to see what the insides of the old ones look like and B if she also has her final ratio moved from 45Mph to 55MPh like in TWC

(im still trying to figure out why thats happened in TWC)

im surprised you have not shone up the badge like the rest of the bright work

The chrome on the badge is worn away, so polishing it will not get me anywhere. It's got a nice patina to it. Nothing has been polished yet!

Most likely cause for a change in the gearing on TWC will just be the spring ratio in the secondary pulley being slightly higher I'd think.

Reckon my issues today are going to be down to rust and crud on the central area on the secondary pulley. It's the worst looking one by far, and this is the first time she's really been pushed to this sort of speed for more than 1/4 a mile.

25,515 · April 11, 2019

So not much car stuff to report other than the Activa having done another hundred plus change miles.

Nice awkward, heavy pain of a thing transported down to London...I will not miss having to move this machine.

...Should have been an hour and twenty trip down there - right up to the point that the M1 turned into a car park. Two and a half hours later I arrived.

Return trip was a similar story...well over two hours.

Tomorrow I will be playing around with this.

Has been a few years since I last saw one of these things up close, and had honestly forgotten how nicely put together they are. I'm not a big Mac fan, but there is no denying that these things are nice bits of kit.

It will be getting a thorough de-dusting tomorrow then will throw some software at it and see what happens.

Couldn't resist replacing the two expansion slot blanks that were missing. No they're not anodised the same colour as the case like the original ones, but better than being missing.

18,422 · April 11, 2019

"Cheese gromit!"

Zel very kindly gifted it to me, im quite happy to get this machine, its an Xemplar Power Macintosh ONE (Ill grab a picture of the front at some point when im feeling less completely broken)

a rebranded Apple Power Macintosh 5500/225, made for the UK educational market and distributed by Xemplar, and as such is very rare

but the main reason im happy to get it, is its a well support PCI based 603ev macintosh platform with enough ram (IIRC!)

to finally allow me to properly test/debug this https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os-x-tiger-on-a-603-604-cpu.1908276/ on a 603 CPU

(it uses the same logic-board as the PowerMac 6500 and the twentieth anniversary macintosh)

I also look forward to using it for general OS Shenanigans, ill probably try at least getting it to run linux (I think it can run BeOS too)

(up until this point In regards to 603 based PCI Macs I only had a Power Macintosh 4400, which is the red headed step child of the PCI PowerMac world, and is horribly supported by pretty much everyone, I do have a couple PowerBook 3400's but none of em have enough ram and those use proprietary ram)

as for slot covers, I should of given you some matching ones! iv got plenty kicking around as i never put them back into the computers i pull them out of when swapping expansion cards around!

ill try and remember that for next time along with your sun glasses whoops LOL

I hope the Mac Pro serves you well, its the least I could of done for you given all that you have helped me out with so far

44,388 · April 12, 2019

Removing pulleys -

Each has a lock tab washer, so knock that back. 17mm spanner. You can insert a screwdriver into the rear of the drive pulley to lock it. Leave that in place and put the handbrake on and you should be able to release the driven pulley too. Expect to drop the shaft keys. You have to remove both pulleys together.

Your biggest problem will be pushing the sheaves apart on the driven pulley. There was a special tool to do this. I found it's just about possible to pull them apart and wedge a bit of wood in to get access to the pulley shaft.

I have been warned that the belt has a different profile on each side. Not sure about that, but the belt currently fitted to TWC definitely has a preferred direction of travel. I'd try to keep an eye on the orientation now and aim to match it.

5,295 · April 12, 2019

I'm not a big Mac fan....

No I hear Burger King do better food but imo can't match McDonalds for milkshakes.

22,150 · April 12, 2019

pulleys

That's what I like about this place. The sharing of the most obscure knowledge.

Phil

25,515 · April 12, 2019

Well I'm glad to report that my new workstation is back up and running.

Need to figure out how to get this thing to boot from a USB device so I can get a fresh install on there (as unsurprisingly a few things are a bit cranky given iveI taken the hard drive from one PC and dropped it into a different one with a significantly different architecture - it's enough of a surprise it works at all!), but we are up and running again.

Granted...I did nearly kill myself getting the darned thing up onto the shelf.

I reckon that thing must weigh 30kg or so, easy enough to carry, but far trickier to haul up to shoulder height, especially with a less than stellar spine factored into the equation.

Have to admit that the silent running is nice...hadn't realised how noisy the old machine had got.

Probably back to your regularly scheduled car and camper mayhem tomorrow you will be glad to hear.

2,394 · April 13, 2019

Your office chair looks cool - is it a Jaguar seat?

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

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