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

[LightBulbFun]

2 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

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.

always good to know  (I know you sorted DW back in late 2017 early 2018 or so) good to know you still do them

out of curiosity do you know what other vehicles is the master cylinders shared with?

[Angrydicky]

Off the top of my head no, but its only a 5/8" Girling CV (centre valve) unit, used on loads of British cars at the time. They did them in integral (metal) reservoir and remote (plastic) reservoir versions and also in several different bore sizes. 5/8" was the smallest but they also did that style in 3/4" (very common) 7/8" and a cast iron version of 1" bore.

Very good little cylinder. Very basic and as long as bore and seals are ok they never really give any trouble.

My work can also resleeve in stainless steel, and rebuild an original invacar one for about the price of a new pattern.

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, Angrydicky said:

Off the top of my head no, but its only a 5/8" Girling CV (centre valve) unit, used on loads of British cars at the time. They did them in integral (metal) reservoir and remote (plastic) reservoir versions and also in several different bore sizes. 5/8" was the smallest but they also did that style in 3/4" (very common) 7/8" and a cast iron version of 1" bore.

Very good little cylinder. Very basic and as long as bore and seals are ok they never really give any trouble.

My work can also resleeve in stainless steel, and rebuild an original invacar one for about the price of a new pattern.

Awesome Thanks!, the guy with MPH759P and the guy with VES108S is having some issues there I think, so ill point them in the direction of your website/company

[LightBulbFun]

Oh BTW Zel I was catching up on your Retro rides thread on TPA

you so need to post this picture there

[Zelandeth]

6 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

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.

That's probably where I'll be getting stuff from shortly.  I want to pull the cylinder on there to bits and see what's up with it.  I'm reluctant to immobilise the car though so wanted to have a spare I could chuck on in the meantime.  The replacement I've ordered was essentially free due to gift credit that's been sitting in my Amazon account for a couple of years.  Shows you how often I use them.

Once I've ascertained whether the cylinder I have is repairable I'll look to get the necessary bits in.  Just wanted to be able to prove the rest of the system with a known working MC rather than one that's been sitting in a scruffy box for 40 years.

 

7 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

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  

I think having looked at them side by side the 12" wheels do have a slightly larger diameter, albeit not massively different.  The biggest effect on driving though is due to the tyre profile.  The 10" tyres are significantly wider than the 12" ones which probably helps the straight line stability.  The larger sidewall area of the tyre should help with ride compliance too as it should be more flexible.  Didn't really notice a massive difference there, but it was a very short drive.

[LightBulbFun]

Yeah

I was also wondering if the adjustable gas shockers where adjusted differently on the 2, but its the coil springs that set the ride hight right?

[Zelandeth]

Had a pretty full day today so didn't have much time for cars.

One thing which I'm rather paranoid about both in the home and cars is fire.  There were a couple of things around the fridge which were bothering me.  Simple really in that it chucks out a LOT of heat, especially from the area right by the burner when on gas and around the rectifier/water separator.

The proximity of that to a plywood wall covering polystyrene insulation bothered me.  When I first got it the wiring was melted into the water separator too.  In addition to fire hazards the fact that the water lines to the kitchen run within a couple of inches of the burner and that makes me uncomfortable.

Some of that is unavoidable to some extent, but I could do something to improve matters a bit with a bit of insulation and rerouting of wiring.  I want to do this now as before too long the compartment it lives in will be getting closed in, so there will no longer be a whopping great hole in the wall of the living area.  Need to fit a vent in the floor so we can get some decent airflow through the heat exchanger too.

First up was some foil attached to the wall that's nearest to the hottest areas.

Not pretty but it doesn't have to be... it'll be behind the fridge.

Also wrapped the wiring which has to run up behind it and tethered them to keep them from actually sitting on the water separator.

Will get the gas hooked back up, do a leak and CO escape check then get the thing boxed back in as it should be.  Once that's done I can button up the gas locker...once that's done I can do the cupboards.  Just need to do stuff in a very specific order for the sake of access.

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Wound up digging around in the locker under the sofa in the van so took the opportunity to install the battery gauge which has been rattling around for months.

The reason I really wanted this installed was because the one in the main control panel appears to have issues.  This photo was taken about twenty seconds after the one above.

Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get that sorted.  It's a ways down the priority list though.

I had it in my head that there was a local classic car get together here this afternoon...however when I got there it became apparent that I'm utterly useless and had the wrong day - that's actually tomorrow.

So I suddenly found myself with a couple of hours to kill.  Figured it was time to throw some more filler at TPA.

Still a bunch more sanding to do, but we're getting somewhere.

Nearside quarter looking almost smooth.

The huge gouges on the nose have been smoothed out.  I felt this was quite important given how prominent the area is.

Bonnet hinge area is almost resembling flat again and I've built up the corner of the bonnet which I'd clearly missed on the first pass.

Finally got the hole in the roof filled.  Meant the duct tape there can finally go.

This corner is actually starting to look passable.  This is as far as I got with the sander.  Even with the dust extraction set up the process still makes a godawful mess!

The biggest pits around the rear of the car have been filled.

The chunk taken out of this wheel arch has also been patched up.

Will spend a bit more time with the sander then throw some paint at it.  May have a shot at remodelling my original work on the offside front corner first though as the state of that makes my skin crawl...

At least matching the original level of finish on an Invacar isn't too strenuous, though even that's horribly time consuming!

 

Edit: TP is now officially booked into the Festival of the Unexceptional (20th July), Classic Stoney (2nd June), and the van for the Luton Festival of Transport (9th June).  Just wanted to actually get some shows in the diary as I utterly failed at that last year and made it to two or three in total.

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome stuff! with this amount of work going on, Might be time at getting a better match paint wise?

[Zelandeth]

16 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Awesome stuff! with this amount of work going on, Might be time at getting a better match paint wise?

Not worrying too much about that...this is a perfect match to one of about five shades of blue that were already on the car.  It's apparent where I've done some of the sanding that she has already been painted a bunch of times in several places.

[mrbenn]

The work going into TP makes me happier than it ought to, given I know neither the owner nor the car.

Dumped uncerimoniously in a damp field for years, then retrieved only to have her engine stolen by a man with a beard and an adventure hat - but look at her now!

Good work.

[Zelandeth]

I reckon that I will probably be sticking with the Ford blue colour I've got here.  It's an almost perfect match to at least some of the existing paint on the car, and sticking with a readily available modern colour just makes sense I think as it will make any future touchups far less of a pain in the tail.  I reckon using a close "off the shelf" match is in the spirit of how the cars would have been looked after in their day.

 

This morning I made an absolutely godawful mess in the garage by attacking TP with the sander and some paint.  I swear I will be finding filler dust for years...the bloody stuff gets everywhere.

Does look like we're moving in the right direction to me.

The rear could do with a lot more sanding, though I was running out of both time and patience by the time I got there, so it will be revisited of course.

The reason I really wanted to get a basic skim of paint over there this afternoon was that there was a local show this afternoon which I wanted to get TP over to for her public debut at an event other than just driving around.  Especially given I arrived yesterday to find I'd got the date wrong.

Did we make it?

Of course we did!

Here's a few snaps of some of the other motors that were there.

Plethora of Astons.  Not really surprising given the proximity of their factory and that one of the organisers is apparently in the owners club.

Don't think I've seen an MGB in this colour before.

Normally a BMW wouldn't get a second glance from me (635 excepted), but seeing an i8 up close always feels special.  They're still a gorgeous looking car I think.

The level of attention to detail is just crazy.

Oddest coloured car of the day award goes to this Ford Prefect.

Somehow that colour works better on this than a Seat Arosa...

Lovely Javelin...am I right in thinking we've got a Jowett enthusiast on here somewhere?

One of those cars which somehow manages to just look "right" somehow.

Hard not to like a Scimitar.

I just love the degree of colour in this photo given we live in a world of silver, grey, white and slightly off white cars these days.

While Astons are a bit rich for my blood, this thing is lovely.

Tail fins for the win!

There were a few Sevens there, this one is a really early one though if I'm not mistaken.

Still need to actually drive an actual Mini at some point!

It would have been downright rude to not take a bunch of photos of this.  There's no angle it doesn't look fantastic from.

As usual I never actually took any close-ups of my own car. 

Definitely need to make up an information sign to put with the car, as the number of questions I wound up answering was very surprising...and most people didn't even know that they had been rendered illegal and had mostly been scrapped.

Importantly TP ran perfectly both to and from the event, even managing an overtake on the dual carriageway on the way there - cue one very puzzled looking Zafira driver.  Afraid I didn't have a camera running at that point to capture that moment...maybe next time (this is why I really need get a proper camera mount so recording video isn't such a pain).

[Mrs6C]

^^^MK Museum is a brilliant place and even better with a car show! It would make a fine venue for an AS meet...

[Amishtat]

Looks like a good turnout, I reckon that Seven is a fairly late model. Nice to see one with its original plate still 

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome stuff, happy to see another Model 70 thats getting out and bout regularly now, and with minimal issues 

although I do "gnash my teeth" LOL when you say "made illegal" as they where never made illegal, its just a big misconception they where just mass withdrawn by the government in 2003-4, they few examples that where privately owned from new, or had already escaped the government grasp continued to pootle around.

much like when a Bus operator withdraws a certain bus type, just because they where withdrawn does not suddenly make that bus type illegal

[somewhatfoolish]

The Javelin was Yorkshire's answer to the Lancia Aurelia, both are handsome beasts from an era when most cars were dowdy looking rehashes of pre-war things.

[Skut]

The Ford Blue is nice, looks brighter than anti-septic original blue.  I only just realised this dollywobblers old car. Nice to see a parts car live again. Normally I'd cynically expect a spares car to have a butterfly lifespan once robbed. 

[PhilA]

The Prefect is painted in what my eye calls "Austin salmon primer".

Looks like it was a fun day.

 

 

--Phil

[Zelandeth]

Yeah, my words were a bit mangled there - the sodding editor had eaten my reply twice while I was trying to sort the images out, so my patience for re-typing everything on my phone was running out!

Think I'm seriously just going to ditch uploading images here and do a copy/paste from elsewhere with them externally hosted as trying to wrangle them on a mobile device now is just such an utter nightmare.

 

[Zelandeth]

Given we had a clear weekend we decided it was a good excuse to take the van away for the weekend.

Only an hour from home, but still nice to get away for a bit.

[SiC]

9 hours ago, chadders said:

The MGB is in citron, a fairly popular colour at the time if I remember correctly, but has been fitted with the wrong grill.  

This is true. It should not be fitted with a BBQ

Anyway it either should have the honeycomb grille like mine or rubber bumpers. That year is the change over point for Chrome and Rubbers. But I'm not enough of an MGB expert to really tell from the outside. 

[Zelandeth]

Obviously as we've been having a quiet weekend away haven't really been doing any car stuff save for living in the van.

The sun actually decided to appear for a while this afternoon, so took a couple of photos of our quiet little corner of nowhere.

Back home tomorrow so normal service should be resumed as of tomorrow evening.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

you need to fabricate a trailer for TPA so he/she/it can go on hollibobs too- you know it makes sense

[Zelandeth]

Now safely home.  Glad to report the van didn't miss a beat.  The relative ease with which 70mph can be obtained for overtaking on the motorway now still surprises me a bit.

Did make one upgrade when I got home.  The little 10" TFT (fitted I'm guessing around 2000-2005) was essentially useless.  The image quality was basically on par with the little screens you get on airliners about 15 years ago, except with even worse contrast.  Input was limited to analogue RF, DVD, composite video or an SD card supporting only a handful of mostly obsolete file formats.

It was however attached to a standard VESA mount, which meant I could easily swap it out for something else.

Just like this.

Which can still fold away out the way during transit

Which is necessary as when facing the top of the bed it does stick out a bit.

It was free though, so willing to forgive a fair bit. 

Had to make a quick run out this evening to pick up some more fluid for the toilet, and of course going out was simply an excuse to take the Invacar out for a run.  Nothing else to report there - still seems to be running well in general, and I'm still waiting on the new brake master cylinder to arrive from wherever it's being sent from.

[Zelandeth]

Been fighting with the garden all day today, so only a 30 minute dash into the garage today.  Nice easy target on the to do list was start getting the Invacar wheels painted.  Patchy red oxide primer wasn't exactly a good match to pale blue to my mind.
 

Hammered metallic black should look period appropriate and will help make the hub caps look shiny.

Hub cap will obviously be reinstated once the paint is fully dry.  There are a couple of runs, but equally there are already some in the paint already on there and I'm not wasting time just now getting them blasted back to bare metal for repainting.  That might be a detail job for a decade or so in the future.  For now this will do.

Annoyingly I do appear to have a slow puncture on that wheel, I need to top it off every week or two.  Couldn't see anything obvious, so most likely is leaking around the bead somewhere...will get the leak detection spray out once the paint is fully dry and see if I can find it.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I look forward to seeing the finished results, I think its the first Model 70 on 10 inch wheels iv seen with them painted black  (the 12 inch wheels where always black however)

(from what i can tell in service the 10 inch wheels where silver or unpainted im not quite sure which)

how do the hubcaps attatch exactly?, are they just thwacked on or is there some sort of retention mechanism?

[Zelandeth]

If you look at the central portion of the wheel hub there are three "lugs" which are a friction fit inside the circumference of the hub cap.  There are no clips or anything involved, but the 10" ones at least are a very snug fit - prising these off usually results in the thing pinging off and bouncing off the garage wall when it eventually lets go.

 

Hub cap has now been refitted to the wheel that was painted earlier.  Don't think that colour/finish looks out of place at all.

If time permits I'll get the other one done tomorrow, though it's looking like the garden will be eating up most of my free time this week at the moment.

[mat_the_cat]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:57 PM, Zelandeth said:

It was however attached to a standard VESA mount, which meant I could easily swap it out for something else.

Just like this.

 

What voltage does it run on? We bought an el cheapo TV in 2011 or so, and as it came with a 12V PSU, simply ran it from the leisure batteries via a cig socket on the wall behind. This TV died mid-holiday in 2017 and it proved impossible to find one running on 12V at the usual electronic department stores (probably would have been able to find something overpriced at a specialist caravan suppliers!) Seeing as we had a tunnel crossing to catch settled on one with a 15V PSU, which seems to work OK - although sometimes shows a faint horizontal line if the voltage is a bit low. I could just run it from the supplied PSU from the inverter, but that seems inefficient!

[Fumbler]

Been dormant for a while so reading this was certainly interesting. Looking forward to more updates!

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

If you look at the central portion of the wheel hub there are three "lugs" which are a friction fit inside the circumference of the hub cap.  There are no clips or anything involved, but the 10" ones at least are a very snug fit - prising these off usually results in the thing pinging off and bouncing off the garage wall when it eventually lets go.

 

Hub cap has now been refitted to the wheel that was painted earlier.  Don't think that colour/finish looks out of place at all.

If time permits I'll get the other one done tomorrow, though it's looking like the garden will be eating up most of my free time this week at the moment.

very nice stuff

reminds me of the wheels on @captain_70s dolomite

 

1 hour ago, mat_the_cat said:

What voltage does it run on? We bought an el cheapo TV in 2011 or so, and as it came with a 12V PSU, simply ran it from the leisure batteries via a cig socket on the wall behind. This TV died mid-holiday in 2017 and it proved impossible to find one running on 12V at the usual electronic department stores (probably would have been able to find something overpriced at a specialist caravan suppliers!) Seeing as we had a tunnel crossing to catch settled on one with a 15V PSU, which seems to work OK - although sometimes shows a faint horizontal line if the voltage is a bit low. I could just run it from the supplied PSU from the inverter, but that seems inefficient!

if you dont mind hacking around, all flat panel TVs, just take mains voltage and via an internet PSU step it down to a lower voltage

if you can find one thats runs off 12V internally, then you may be able to just bypass the mains PSU and connect your 12V source directly to where the PSU plugs into