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

[Noel Tidybeard]

it always amazes me that MB managed to design a vehicle that always looked like it has a bent chassis!

[Mrcento]

5 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

it always amazes me that MB managed to design a vehicle that always looked like it has a bent chassis!

In the mid 2000's, they also managed to design an S-Class that always looked like the design department had forgotten about the need to fit door handles.

 

Neighbours used to have one, nice car, pissed me off looking at it side on just how wrong it looked. not only are they squint, they're not even level with each other.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

7 hours ago, Mrcento said:

.... S-Class that always looked like the design department had forgotten about the need to fit door handles.

Neighbours used to have one, nice car, pissed me off looking at it side on just how wrong it looked. not only are they squint, they're not even level with each other.

Probably used MS Paint to graft the door handles on at CAD stage.....

[Zelandeth]

Couldn't resist getting the Invacar out for another run today.  Previous to this the furthest I got in one day was 9 miles (having aimed for ten but miscounted).

 That's 17 miles today in one afternoon.  Doesn't sound like much, but it's progress and is a step towards actually going somewhere beyond this corner of Milton Keynes.  Most importantly today that was seventeen miles WITHOUT anything misbehaving or falling off.  That is why it's progress.

Because it seems to have become a thing now what I take photos everywhere she goes, did the same today.

B&Q was the first stop (looking for some sticky back plastic to tidy up some of the cabinet facing in the van).

This was the first time that I had a proper crowd of people turn up while I was in the store who wanted to know what it was and the story behind it was.  One of the folks there did remember them who was very surprised at the complexity of the car beneath the very 50s looking bodywork.

As they didn't have what I needed, wound up at Homebase (who did have it once I'd walked round the whole store five times looking for it).  Bonus Lotus in the car park.

Next stop was Morrison's - though the photo from there for reasons best known to the gods of tech has vanished into the void.  So you will just have to trust me. 

The difference in the drive system is night and day compared to before I started cleaning the pulleys up, she is now quite happy to cruise at 50mph.  60 is definitely on the cards but she's obviously more comfortable at 50.  I do have a video of this (with a better camera than the last one), however so far it's being stubborn - once I kick YouTube into behaving I'll get it added here.

It is noticeable that the judder when pulling off has become more noticeable today, though it wouldn't surprise me if the belt tension needed a tweak now she's done a few miles.

I may well get the secondary pulley back off tomorrow and finish cleaning it - I'm hoping the drill will be able to spin it fast enough to get the pulley sheaves to open up as that will make it a lot easier.  We'll see I guess...

One thing which is really obvious now looking far better is the state of the PCV system.  There was a lot of mayo in the oil filler originally, but after the run out today that's looking *far* better.

That's more like it.

[LightBulbFun]

Happy to see TPA out and about once more, and running well again

(Loving the pictures of TPA out n about  im not sure if its the camera doing it or not, but its amazing how much more blue she looks in sunny wether!)

I look forward to seeing the video  as well 

[Zelandeth]

After a somewhat protracted battle with Google Photos refusing to show me a video that I knew was in my library I finally managed to get this uploaded.

 

The brakes need adjusting again as the free play has started to get silly again, that's on the to do list tomorrow.  Terrifying though it may look there is more than enough braking force available to lock the wheels.  I had been planning to buy a new master cylinder to hopefully put a stop to this issue this month...but after the horrendous bill for the van's MOT that might have to wait.  I have pondered whether a rebuild kit might be worthwhile...

[Noel Tidybeard]

one wonders if TPA would kick sand in TWC's face after watching the vid!

[LightBulbFun]

10 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

After a somewhat protracted battle with Google Photos refusing to show me a video that I knew was in my library I finally managed to get this uploaded.

 

The brakes need adjusting again as the free play has started to get silly again, that's on the to do list tomorrow.  Terrifying though it may look there is more than enough braking force available to lock the wheels.  I had been planning to buy a new master cylinder to hopefully put a stop to this issue this month...but after the horrendous bill for the van's MOT that might have to wait.  I have pondered whether a rebuild kit might be worthwhile...

that video put a nice grin on my face, I especially love despite the uprated Air? horn you fitted she still "toots" like a small car would

also yah the travel in the handle bars looks like fun*, I can imagine the first time you get it all properly adjusted up, going to push down on the thing expecting much more travel only to lock the brakes up in some 50Mph Skid/Brown trowser moment!

[Zelandeth]

The horn is a heck of a lot louder than it sounds in the video.  I usually try to avoid using it at moments like that - but that driver needed to go find somewhere else to sit and mess with their phone.

The brakes look far worse than they feel, though looking at earlier videos they definitely have got worse again.  Ties in with the handbrake having lost some bite too, so my theory of things just having bedded in seems valid.  They've actually got pretty decent bite to be honest.

The clatter halfway through was my windscreen mount used for the last video launching itself from the parcel shelf.  It's currently hiring under the seat...where I'll probably forget about it until several months later when I next wonder where on earth it's gone.

 

Worth noting for those who are after performance figures, that's not a wide open throttle run.  Not doing that until the belt has a few more miles on it yet.  That's just "enough to feel like I'm not holding everyone up" throttle, so I think there's more to give.

[dollywobbler]

Jeepers. TPA is a flying machine! TWC is quite brisk to 30, but the revs are far lower with the new pulleys. 

[LightBulbFun]

6 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Jeepers. TPA is a flying machine! TWC is quite brisk to 30, but the revs are far lower with the new pulleys. 

well that explains the hill climbing issues?

in that although you sorted out the pulleys, you have also by the sound of things "moved up a gear" so even tho the pulleys are good hill climbing is going to be just as much of a chore as it was before if that makes sense

I do still wonder why the revs are so much lower with the new pulleys however

[Zelandeth]

Apparently teaching the dog the command "through" to walk through a tunnel was a bad idea.  He has now realised that he can squeeze under stuff which he previously saw as impenetrable barriers.

Hence this greeting me when I got home from taking him out for a run round our local dog park earlier.

Apparently I'm going to need to add some additional bars...

The question of "which sticks better?" between duct tape and self adhesive aluminium foil tape has been answered.  The original patch I stuck on the air intake resonator on the van was duct tape, it was blown off in a matter of minutes.  The ally foil tape repair is still there and still quiet 240 miles later.  It's hard to believe how much quieter this makes life in the cab!

It will do for now, at least until I find a replacement air box.

Speaking of tidying stuff up...anyone got one of these light switches (or even just the knob) floating around?  While this one works fine it looks like somebody has used the knob as a chew toy and it really bugs me.

So far the dealer and eBay have turned up blank.  The latter though doesn't mean much given that pretty much the entire search result list is "promoted" content which appear to have absolutely nothing to do with my search therm...

 

Have pulled the secondary pulley back off TPA ready for cleaning though met a slightly impasse

It's clear from the deposition of belt material that it's the secondary pulley that is responsible for shredding it.

What I had failed to take into account is that the bolt screws into a shaft which passes most of the way through the pulley...not straight into something level with the back.  So I need to get some threaded rod to make what will essentially be a really long bolt to attach the pulley to my drill.  Will get that done tomorrow and hopefully get everything back together for another test.

[mat_the_cat]

Is there a part number on the old switch you can Google? I've found parts that way, often abroad in which case a description search would have been fruitless.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, mat_the_cat said:

Is there a part number on the old switch you can Google? I've found parts that way, often abroad in which case a description search would have been fruitless.

Possibly.  However the switch comes out the back of the dash, so it will have to wait until I can next summon enough willpower to pull it all to bits. Again.

 

I had a spare hour (ish) this afternoon so made another pass at the "clean the secondary pulley game" on the Invacar. 

A metre of threaded rod was all of £1.85 from Toolstation.  That, a couple of bolts and a few washers allowed me to create this potentially lethal contraption out of my poor innocent workbench and even more horribly abused (yet apparently indestructible) power drill.

It's actually infinitely less terrifying than it looks courtesy of the pulley (as you would expect) being really well balanced.  It wobbles a bit at around 500rpm, but then smooths out totally up to the free running speed of the drill.  What is scary is that *stopping* from that speed takes the best part of a minute thanks to the rotational inertia!

I only did that once though, more out of curiousity as to how well balanced stuff was, while being ready to leg it at a moment's notice. 

This is the pulley surface we started with.

 

An hour or so of working at it with a combination of a chisel (ooooh...sparks!) and several grades of Emery cloth resulted in the surface looking like this.

 

While there's still a lot of visible tarnish there the pulleys surface is now smooth to touch across the full surface.  Whether this will help things or not I will hopefully find out tomorrow.  It's hard to express quite how much smoother that pulley face feels than it looks in the photo.

Realistically, this is as good as the pulley surface is going to get without being able to throw it onto an actual lathe with a suitable cutter to reface the running surfaces properly.  It just ain't going to get any better in my hands...so if it still eats belts I'll probably need to get a machine shop involved.

The last thing I did before packing up this evening was throw (not literally of course) a load of filler at the bodywork.

The area behind the nearside wheelarch should benefit a lot from this.  I'll hit it with the sander and some paint tomorrow (or another coat of filler if needed - I'm going for presentable from twenty paces here) to tidy things up a bit.  Obviously will be a fair amount more needed, but it's the first time I've used this exact stuff so I wanted to start simple.  Plus to be brutally honest I'm more interested in driving this car right now than making it pretty...

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Having had a think about it further this morning I went to confirm the identification of my brake master cylinder so I could get either a service kit or new cylinder ordered.

Nice to see that the fluid level hasn't moved in the slightest since I've started driving it, I know there's no reason it should have, but it's still nice to see the fluid staying where it should be.

Yep, there's the number which I couldn't remember or find written down anywhere.

Doing a bit of digging around on the internet to see what I could find.  When did the search function on everything become so utterly useless?  Why when I type in "Girling 625 master cylinder service kit" are the first five items for Lockheed cylinders or totally different complete cylinders before anything starts to turn up that's useful?

Anyhow...eventually managed to track down some rebuild kits.  They're a good bit more expensive than I'd expected...not far off the same price that genuine Girling cylinders seem to go for (£60 or thereabouts).  Though there are a plethora of off brand ones for £20-30 out there.  Though quite what sort of quality to expect at that point I'm not sure.  

I did however decide to grab one.  Basically because A: I've had gift money sitting in my Amazon account for about two years now so it's essentially free.  B: Because it will at least let me prove the rest of the system behaves or not.  If it does behave perfectly then I at least know that the MC is the issue...if I can't then make one good cylinder out of the two or am actually satisfied with the one from Amazon that turns up, I'll get a proper new Girling one ordered up.  As the one I've ordered is essentially free it seemed worth a shot though.

Bodywork wise I've given things over the back a sand down (man I'd forgotten how much dust that creates!) and blew a quick bit of paint over it.

Definitely heading in the right direction... here's the same panel when the car arrived on my driveway.

Will want another coat or three of filler, but we're definitely making progress.  I'll make sure I actually have enough on hand next time!

She's never going to be a concourse show winner, but hoping that a finish that's presentable from ten or twenty paces should be doable.

What I was really interested in seeing though was whether my messing about with the CVT secondary pulley yesterday had actually done anything useful.

The answer is a definite yes.  While I've only been able to do testing up to 30mph today courtesy of rush hour, things have obviously improved.  The pickup from a standing start is smoother and changes to throttle setting are far more quickly responded to now.  It's also way quieter.

Have a *really* shaky video showing how things are behaving now.  I'll hopefully make a run out onto a faster road tomorrow to see how it behaves.

While I was on Amazon earlier this afternoon a better phone mount was also ordered...so hopefully any future footage recorded on that will be something resembling stable.  I can only apologise for how awful the footage  here is.

DW, I've deliberately done the best I can to go up and down hills here to give some comparison for you - however it's the biggest hill in this corner of town so it's the best I can do!

Feels like we're getting quite close to a car which is actually usable now

 

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome stuff! that rear end is really starting to come together proper nice now

and nice to see the pulley work has improved things once more, I noticed in the video, you can actually quite distinctly hear the transmission and the engine noise as 2 separate entities, and hear as the engine revs stay the same but the transmission noise change

[dollywobbler]

Brilliant.

On TWC you can now hear the two as separate units. But, she's revving far lower down the rev range, which may explain why she's still struggling on hills. She can't access all the power of the engine. I guess that's just because the pulleys are not actually designed for a Model 70. I'm sure it's possible to swap springs to get a different result, but that clearly isn't happening before I set off on Monday...

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

Brilliant.

On TWC you can now hear the two as separate units. But, she's revving far lower down the rev range, which may explain why she's still struggling on hills. She can't access all the power of the engine. I guess that's just because the pulleys are not actually designed for a Model 70. I'm sure it's possible to swap springs to get a different result, but that clearly isn't happening before I set off on Monday...

the one thing im trying to figure out is the setup in the Model 70 torque or speed sensitive,

all the salsbury documentation i can find, says that the 795 set of pulleys is Speed sensitive, however its worth noting the Model 70 workshop manual says the pulleys hold  the engine at 3500RPM which happens to be when peak torque happens (all 22 foot pounds of it LOL) so make of that what you will

is there any chance you could rig up a tachometer? it would be quite interesting to see what RPM the engine is actually running at

if im reading and understanding things correctly, you have fitted currently a 790 Driven pulley which is Torque sensitive rather then speed sensitive of the 795 pulley, however the documentation shows the Torque sensitive and speed sensitive pulleys looking rather different, but IIRC your 790 and 795 pulleys looked pretty much identical?

iv included a few PDFs that might yield some useful info

http://www.pinrepair.com/minibikes/salsbury1970_cat.pdf

http://www.pinrepair.com/minibikes/salsbury1970_service.pdf

comet-howitssized.pdf

 

(it looks like salsbury became comet or was bought out by them, and comet is still around, might be worth giving them a call?)

[brownnova]

It’s amazing how far you’ve come with TPA! 

[Zelandeth]

Did a bit of experimentation with my existing camera mount to see if it could be improved while I wait for a better one to turn up...nope.  Still shaky as ever...so the video from today is equally as unwatchable as the one from yesterday.  If anyone actually wants to see it anyway let me know and I can chuck it at YouTube.

Another 16 miles covered.  Was actually tempted to keep going but ran out of time.

The run out today was uneventful.  Even if I did utterly confuse the poor folks at the fuel station.  Speaking of fuel - average fuel consumption on the first tank (well, about half a tank) was 28.1mpg.  Given the fact that during that tank we've had sickly carb, plethora of neglect issues in the CVT and have only left the block on a couple of occasions that's a reasonable starting point.  Hoping we can expect to see mid to high 30s.

The CVT is very obviously far, far happier.  50mph cruising is almost comfortable, and the judder when moving off from standing still is very much reduced.  Had 60mph on the speedo on a couple of occasions.  The other thing which is conspicuously absent now is the smell of burning rubber which had previously accompanied any attempts to venture beyond 40mph or so.  Obviously I'll need to get a few more miles on the clock to see if we've got things back into a stable and reliable state.

One thing which was made abundantly clear this afternoon was that not having a sun visor is *really* annoying.  I've had the trim panel to which it is attached sitting around waiting to be reinstalled for a couple of months now, but finally got around to putting it back in this evening.

I had hoped to get the control box for the heater and choke out to paint it...however it was utterly unimpressed with that idea, so just gave it a coat of paint the old fashioned way with a brush in situ.  Not perfect by any means but is at least a bit less scruffy.

While on the subject of tidying the interior I figured it was time to throw a bit of paint on the handlebars and some rusty bits of the seat frame.  This has definitely helped make things look a bit less derelict.

Slightly out of order as this was earlier in the day, but I've also given the offside wheelarch a quick skim over with the paint.  It had weathered away here to nothing so even though it's not a perfect colour match or all that smooth, it's still an improvement.

Have picked up a load of filler today too, so will hopefully get a few of the scruffy bits of body sorted this week.  At least most of it is small patches rather than outright rebuilding like the rear valance...

While I was playing automotive Tetris to put the Invacar away I snapped this photo.

This is a good one for the "what year was this photo taken?" category I think.

[LightBulbFun]

very cool stuff! happy to see she is accumulating the miles now with minimal issues  also yes please on the video!  (I mean is any one really surprised? if it has an invacar in it I want to see it LOL)

cool to see the sun visor has been fitted, I noticed it was missing in the last video still, and very nice on the other touch ups  

loving the photo too, even if the modern head lights on TPA give it away slightly  it will be quite interesting to see how she does after dark

[Zelandeth]

The best thing for her right now has to be getting miles under her wheels.
 

The sun visor and the panel it attaches to has been done for a while now.  It had to come off initially because the fabric covering on it was rotten and disintegrating.

I think the hammered black finish I've gone for should look in keeping with the interior at least.  The trim panels on the windscreen pillars are pretty scruffy too and may well get the same treatment at some point down the line.

 

[Zelandeth]

First task for this afternoon was to get again replace the throttle cable on the Lada.  Out of everything to do with the injection conversion the throttle linkage has been by far the biggest recurring headache.  Today involved quite a significant re-engineering of things.  It's not 100% perfect (foot down is about 90% open at the throttle body) but far better, and for the first time since I started the conversion it no longer sticks about 1% open when returning to idle.  Has made it way more pleasant to drive.  Have to wonder how long it will take me to remember that I don't need to tap the pedal back fully up whenever I come to rest...

Bit of a milestone passed while on the test run.

(Ignore the check engine light.  It's a wiring issue to the vehicle speed sensor and doesn't actually affect anything in the real world, just tends to ping the light up if you coast for more than a few seconds).

Feeling optimistic having got that sorted out I thought I'd look into seeing if I could do something about the clutch on the Xantia.

This has been a bit of an issue as long as I've had the car.  The clutch works just fine, no judder, no slip no snatching.  However the bite point is about an inch from the floor, which gets quite tiresome around town.

Not knowing for certain if there was any way to adjust the cable I figured it would just make sense to find it and have a poke around.  I've managed to convince supposedly self adjusting cables to tension up better with a bit of violence before.  Now, the engine bay in the Activa is somewhat "busy" to be honest.  Nothing obvious there, but I figured it would likely be easy enough if I pulled the air cleaner out.

Hmm...nope.  Still can't find it.  Let's pull the rest of the air intake elbow and look closer.

Plenty of obvious cables for the gear change...no obvious clutch gubbins.  How about taking a look underneath?

Nothing (aside from a minor LHM leak - one of the return line weeps slightly at the reservoir).  It looks horrendous in the photo but she's never used a drop of oil, water or LHM and doesn't mark her territory.

Turns out I'm an utter idiot.  The Activa in 2.0T form (all we got in the UK) has the ML5 gearbox...which means hydraulic clutch!  That had never even crossed my mind...once that gem of information crossed my mind the fact that there must be a fluid reservoir for it (unless it uses LHM...though apparently not) also joined the party.  A tip from a fellow Citroen enthusiast has me now knowing where to look.  Turns out I'd looked at it a hundred times and never given it a second thought.

I'd always assumed that was the interia switch as that's what it looks like.

So I'll check it there's fluid in it in the morning and see about bleeding it.  Fingers crossed that might help a bit as there's no adjustment possible and it's been bugging me this last week (it's the van's fault as the clutch in that is lovely now).

Invacar has been seeing a bit more cosmetic work continue.  Bit more filler has been thrown into the equation to help smooth things down before I throw some more paint at it.

Small (but to my mind disproportionately annoying) chunk missing from the offside door.

Top of the nearside front wing where it's had a knock at some point.  I'd already applied matting and resin from behind the panel.

Worst panel on the car though was the front service cover, so we'll see how that looks after some sanding action.

Will just be a quick sand and splash tomorrow morning which will make things look a little bit more presentable.

 

Edit: for those of you who enjoy watching horribly shaky video of me trundling around MK in an Invacar, here's the shaky onboard footage from a couple of days ago.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Bonus 60mph run at 04:00.

I reckon once we've got the new brake master cylinder in place she will actually be quite happy to get some proper miles covered if that day's testing was anything to go by.  Definitely hope to take her along to the Motors at MK Museum event on Wednesday afternoon.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Zelandeth
Added additional content

[LightBulbFun]

ah so it does have a hydraulic clutch!

it was one of those things I always found a bit amusing, everything is hydraulic on the car apart from the clutch LOL

looking forward to seeing how the filler work turns out

[Zelandeth]

It varies depending on the engine and gearbox fitted.  The vast, vast majority of them we used to see through the garage were 1.9TDs (XUD9TE engine), which is cable operated.  The clip holding the cable to the pedal there is the invention of the devil himself.

Does amuse me that while it's hydraulic it uses normal DOT3/4 fluid rather than LHM.  Not really sure of the logic behind that.

[dollywobbler]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

It varies depending on the engine and gearbox fitted.  The vast, vast majority of them we used to see through the garage were 1.9TDs (XUD9TE engine), which is cable operated.  The clip holding the cable to the pedal there is the invention of the devil himself.

Does amuse me that while it's hydraulic it uses normal DOT3/4 fluid rather than LHM.  Not really sure of the logic behind that.

Presumably whoever makes the clutch hydraulics couldn't ok the rubber components for LHM. "We can do it, but it'll cost this much." PSA accountants say no.

[Daviemck2006]

The previous owner of your activa had to manufacture a bleed screw on my activa when he did my clutch. It may be worth having a word with him, even though he does not drive or repair cars any more. It is documented on the thread he created on the FCF about the clutch change if I remember correctly.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[Zelandeth]

The Activa has definitely taken the award for the car with the most absurdly stupidly placed clutch fluid reservoir I have ever seen.
My guess yesterday was wrong.  That rubber cap covers a button that's something to do with the alarm.  The actual reservoir is way more buried.

Yeah, that's going to be fun to check.  I decided that was a task for later in the week as I lacked the patience for it today!

Instead I concentrated on finishing off the work I started on the Invacar yesterday.

There's going to be some more filler needed, but it's definitely moving in the right direction.  Annoyingly I ran out of paint before I finished the nearside wing.

Interior was covered in filler dust and finely atomised rust, despite my best efforts to clean it out the heater is still shedding rust, so it was given a quick clean.

Also while I had the paints out I gave the engine cowl a quick spray over.  The paint was flaking off that and it was bugging me.

 

This brought us up to being as ready to greet TWC and Dollywobbler when they arrived.

Which of course brings us to our little meetup.  Nothing much that you've not probably already seen on his thread, but these are a few of the photos I took myself while we had the pair out for a juice sunny afternoon drive.

 

It was really interesting to have a brief shot of TWC to compare to TPA.  The immediately apparent differences between the two I noted were:

[] The 10" wheels and wider tyres make her more stable in a straight line.

[] TPA has a far louder exhaust.

[] TPA generally feels more eager, good 10mph difference passing by the bus stop just before you turn into our neighborhood.  Hard to tell whether this is a gearing difference or power output being a bit lower.

[] TWC seems to have a quieter engine, the noise from that feels much more distant than in TPA.

[] TWC has shown me how horrendous my brakes are in terms of free travel.  Actual stopping power is much the same though.

[] I really need to find an indicator stalk without a cranked arm as that's really awkward.

[] TPA has a stuffed throttle, though given the currently bodged cable in there it's not really surprising.

Really nice seeing the photos of them on the move in convoy over on DW's thread.  Hopefully not the last time we'll see them out and about together.

[LightBulbFun]

very very awesome stuff!

I find the 10 vs 12 inch wheels thing interesting, as I was told at one point the 10 inch and 12 inch tyres have the same outside diameter, i guess thats not the case (I always thought the 12 inch tyres looked bigger myself)

im happy to see you both got something out of driving each others Model 70's  

[Angrydicky]

Bit late now but we've got rebuild kits for those master cylinders at work (Past Parts) for about a tenner. We stock new cylinders too.