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

[MT606]

aye, I know the rubber grips are slightly different sizes but I meant with regards to the bar ends like in the photos. 

[Zelandeth]

I think the outer end of the grip is *slightly* proud of the end of the bar, as the position is dictated by the bend towards the centre, as obviously I need the whole thing fitted on the straight portion of the bar.  Never really looked to be honest and with the rubber sleeve on it's hard to tell now really.

[Zelandeth]

Package arrived this morning to allow me to finally hopefully properly sort the throttle cable on TPA.

I know I probably still have a load of cable somewhere in the garage...but this was all of £0.88 a metre so I wasn't going to lose sleep over trying to find it.  The important bit is the cable end being the right size to fit the twist grip.

Which is one of these.

I fed the cable through from the cabin end as I've always found it behaves better doing it that way.

Then trimmed the cable once it was attached to the cable end.

Then basically just put things back together before securing it and trimming the excess at the carb end.

For the first time I have a throttle which is bodge free and has a nice smooth action through the full range.  Nice.

While I was in the garage I tackled something else I'd been meaning to do for a while - finding somewhere out of the way to stash a spare CVT belt.

That will do nicely.  Despite what it looks like in the photo it's sitting clear of the brake lines to frame right, it's resting on top of the master cylinder at the rear.  I'll be finding a spare 17mm spanner shortly and leaving that attached to the belt, meaning I'll have everything I need to change a belt at the side of the road if I ever have one fail out of the blue again.  Not really expecting it as I'm sure that was down to me using an ancient belt that had been poorly stored, but it's an easy eventuality to prepare for so just seems smart.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Zelandeth
Corrected Autocorrect

[Zelandeth]

Had a chance to throw some more of the service items onto TPA today. 

New set of points fitted.  These and the rotor arm were still the parts fitted when KPL was originally dragged out of the field goodness only knows how many years ago!  As the ignition system just worked when I first got KPL I just left the system alone at the time.

The contact pads on the old points looked like this:

 

New rotor arm fitted.  This is a bit taller than the original one, which judging from the wear pattern was only contacting the very lower edge of the contacts in the distributor cap.

New distributor cap (the correct one did eventually escape customs!) and air filter were also fitted.  The air filter has only done a thousand miles but has been on the car through all the painting etc so I figured could probably do with changing.

Only the best OEM parts of course!

I haven't had a chance to go out for a drive anywhere yet, but it's definitely noticeable how much smoother the idle is.

Really do need to adjust the fan/dynastart belt tension though - just need to figure out where in my disaster area of a garage the impact gun has got to as everything else I've tried to get the nut on the cooling fan free has failed.

Think the next project in that engine bay though will sorting out a proper battery clamp.  The bungee and zip-tie solution was fine when TPA was primarily held together by duct tape and hope, but those days are past us now and it's seriously bugging me now!

[barrett]

Hey @Zelandeth I am currently working on organising a Very Special Present for one of your cars. Where abouts in the country are you based??

[R1152]

Where do you get your condensers from, Zel? I ask because a mate of mine seems to have perpetual trouble with his Minor pickup eating the things.

Of course, we're not entirely convinced that somehow he's put a 6V coil on it, but...

[Zelandeth]

12 minutes ago, R1152 said:

Where do you get your condensers from, Zel? I ask because a mate of mine seems to have perpetual trouble with his Minor pickup eating the things.

Of course, we're not entirely convinced that somehow he's put a 6V coil on it, but...

I've given up on automotive ones.  I've fitted proper 1000V rated polypropylene film ones here - too big to fit on the distributor itself, so they're now in a remote enclosure mounted over by the coil.

I didn't have any 0.22uF caps in stock so just paired up two 0.1uF ones...as I had figured out I was mounting them remotely by that point the size wasn't an issue.

Inside the enclosure I used (I took the opportunity as I had room to spare to add a remote engine start switch as it's sometimes handy).

The caps themselves are from RS Components - I use these a bunch in vintage tech restoration as the high voltage rating makes them an ideal replacement for the old wax-paper caps in valve radios, TVs etc.

31 minutes ago, barrett said:

Hey @Zelandeth I am currently working on organising a Very Special Present for one of your cars. Where abouts in the country are you based??

I am intrigued...Based in Milton Keynes.

[barrett]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I am intrigued...Based in Milton Keynes.

Okay, leave it with me. It's something you will really, really appreciate (I hope)!

[GeorgeB]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Really do need to adjust the fan/dynastart belt tension though - just need to figure out where in my disaster area of a garage the impact gun has got to as everything else I've tried to get the nut on the cooling fan free has failed.

 

It's not a left hand thread is it?

 

[R1152]

34 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I've given up on automotive ones.  I've fitted proper 1000V rated polypropylene film ones here - too big to fit on the distributor itself, so they're now in a remote enclosure mounted over by the coil.

I didn't have any 0.22uF caps in stock so just paired up two 0.1uF ones...as I had figured out I was mounting them remotely by that point the size wasn't an issue.

Inside the enclosure I used (I took the opportunity as I had room to spare to add a remote engine start switch as it's sometimes handy).

The caps themselves are from RS Components - I use these a bunch in vintage tech restoration as the high voltage rating makes them an ideal replacement for the old wax-paper caps in valve radios, TVs etc.

 

Yes, I recognised them - and polypropylene dielectric is ideal for the steep rate of change (dV/dT) that they'll experience in an ignition system. I only use use them across output transformers and as tone controls from anode to earth in valve sets for that reason - polyester's fine for just ordinary coupling and decoupling purposes.

Thing is, I got him some 0.22uF @ 1000V (and again, PP dielectric) for that Minor... and still he managed to kill them!

[Zelandeth]

29 minutes ago, GeorgeB said:

It's not a left hand thread is it?

 

Honestly can't remember!  I did check that at the time though!  KPL spent a long time without an engine cover on so things like that were quite badly rusted up.  Which is another reason I *really* should get it apart so I can properly clean the pulleys themselves.  My inner HVAC tech hates me for what that's probably doing to the belts.  I'd never have been able to show my face again if I'd left a blower assembly running with pulleys in that state...

 

28 minutes ago, R1152 said:

Yes, I recognised them - and polypropylene dielectric is ideal for the steep rate of change (dV/dT) that they'll experience in an ignition system. I only use use them across output transformers and as tone controls from anode to earth in valve sets for that reason - polyester's fine for just ordinary coupling and decoupling purposes.

Thing is, I got him some 0.22uF @ 1000V (and again, PP dielectric) for that Minor... and still he managed to kill them!

Goodness, managing to kill these caps takes some doing!  Yeah, I'd think something must be far wrong there then.  Should be easy enough to check if it's the wrong coil by checking the primary resistance - most (non-ballasted) 12V coils I've seen have been around an ohm or more...anything less than that I'd think would point to it either being a 6V or ballast type coil.  I'm not an expert though!

They're probably overkill for a lot of the applications I've used them in before, but I have to admit to slight component-stockage-laziness!  Means I only need to have one and a half rows of capacitor drawers in the component shelf rather than a plethora of them...Plus they're about the same size as wax-paper caps so don't look too out of place (well, aside from being near neon yellow anyway).  I really do need to do a restock though, getting low on them.  Not that I've touched anything on the properly vintage tech side of things in a few years now...

1 hour ago, barrett said:

Okay, leave it with me. It's something you will really, really appreciate (I hope)!

I am very curious!  Sure I will be exceedingly appreciative whenever whatever it is turns up...

[Zelandeth]

While it was a bit breezy really for driving tiny three wheeler vehicles with a kerb weight roughly equal to that of a postage stamp today, I wasn't about to let that get in the way.  I wanted to see if the last few jobs I'd done on TPA had any impact on the way she drove.  So she was the chariot of choice for today's errands.

Short answer is yes. 

I definitely wasn't getting quite full throttle before.  Most noticeable when cruising at 60 now, there wasn't a huge amount of travel left (it was very mushy anywhere beyond about half throttle) whereas cracking it open at 60 now results in a very distinct additional bark from the intake and the pace being picked up quite a bit quicker.  Wasn't doing any real higher speed testing though today as the roads were too busy and it was too windy.

She is definitely running smoother too...which is nice even though I didn't really realise there was any improvement to be made there beforehand.

By complete random chance when I pulled up back home today the odometer stopped showing 427 - appropriate for an AC built car!

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

While it was a bit breezy really for driving tiny three wheeler vehicles with a kerb weight roughly equal to that of a postage stamp today, I wasn't about to let that get in the way.  I wanted to see if the last few jobs I'd done on TPA had any impact on the way she drove.  So she was the chariot of choice for today's errands.

Short answer is yes. 

I definitely wasn't getting quite full throttle before.  Most noticeable when cruising at 60 now, there wasn't a huge amount of travel left (it was very mushy anywhere beyond about half throttle) whereas cracking it open at 60 now results in a very distinct additional bark from the intake and the pace being picked up quite a bit quicker.  Wasn't doing any real higher speed testing though today as the roads were too busy and it was too windy.

She is definitely running smoother too...which is nice even though I didn't really realise there was any improvement to be made there beforehand.

By complete random chance when I pulled up back home today the odometer stopped showing 427 - appropriate for an AC built car!

given how performant she is these days, its apt as she sounds like she is the 427 of Model 70's  

[Zelandeth]

Not even set foot outside so far today, but have managed to get the page for the BX live on my website.

I really wanted to get caught up on there as my intention is to keep updating it as things progress...which is far easier when I'm not playing catch-up!  Nothing on there you've not seen on here as far as I'm aware aside from full resolution versions of all photos used.

Have also applied a bit of common sense and rearranged the list on the cars page so that they're listed by manufacture date rather than completely randomly (think I'd just added each new addition at the top originally) before.

Invacar will probably be the next one to go live - though my earlier comment about trying to get caught up applies there as there's a lot more pre-existing story that I need to get caught up on!  Reckon I'm about 60% of the way through it so far.

[Minimad5]

On 3/11/2021 at 8:28 PM, barrett said:

Hey @Zelandeth I am currently working on organising a Very Special Present for one of your cars.

When Lord Barrett goes to such lengths, it can only be something of interest. 

# Watching this thread now # 😅

[Zelandeth]

Was meant to be sorting the shed roof today...right up to the point where I wasted nearly two hours trying (and failing) to find a smegging claw hammer to remove the old nails with.  There are two in this house, couldn't find either of them.  Eventually gave in and ordered another one from Amazon.  Fine, that's tomorrow's job.

So turned back to the Beige Wonder to have a quick look to see if I could actually definitely see where the LHM leak was coming from. 

Step 1.  Remove wheel.  Yeah...that took about half an hour and eventually required a six foot breaker bar to crack off the wheel bolts. 

I'd hoped that I'd be able to clearly see where the leak was coming from, sadly not it seems.

All I can see is a finely atomised LHM bouncing off the floor roughly directly above here.  It's proven pretty much for certain it's on the axle to caliper line though rather than on the chassis side of things which was what I really wanted to know.  Access to replace it is going to be fun, though hopefully the other end isn't too horrendous to get to.

At least it gave me an opportunity to confirm that the back of the sill and boot floor over the wheel arch doesn't look bad.

Previously has had welding done here, but it looks perfectly serviceable.  Good clean and thorough dousing with Dinitrol should keep that fine for a good while.

So not a big update yet.  Next steps will be to get either a pre-made replacement line in or pipe and fittings to make one (not sure how doable that is with the fancy Citroen fittings), and find which boot I need for the steering rack.

Once the brakes are sorted and that boot is changed I'll probably get her booked in for an MOT and see what we find.  I know there's one small welding repair needed on the nearside sill but I'd rather confirm we don't need any other sparkly stick action so I can either get it all done in one hit, or farm it out depending on how things look.  I'm no expert welder so if anything involved is needed I'll probably be looking to get someone else involved on that side of things.

Also been looking at possible new driveway/front garden layouts.  If we can make something like this work I'd be over the moon as I'd be able to get TPA out of the garage without needing to move a minimum of two cars, one of which has to be left on-street while shuffling is underway.  Especially as the van goes on SORN over winter.

Fact is that the path needs totally gutting and re-laid, the area where the trees to the right will need to be bulldozed to level it, and half the driveway is wrecked...so we may as well take the opportunity to sort things and improve them at the same time.  The drainage is a mess at the moment too as it pools in front of the garage.

[adw1977]

Bear in mind that if you need two new dropped herbs your local council will want £££.

[Zelandeth]

56 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

Bear in mind that if you need two new dropped herbs your local council will want £££.

Hopefully that won't be an issue as the whole street is dropped here - as are all of the streets in this neighbourhood.

Would be worth it at the end of the day anyway - it's probably going to be a five figure job I reckon anyway.

-- -- --

A nice little package arrived today from a user on another forum which should hopefully be a step towards getting decent onboard video.

No, not the Sony Mavica FD85 in the background...

Will need to do a bit of experimentation, being older I've got a choice of 1080p at 30fps, or 720p at 50fps.  I imagine the higher framerate will be worth the loss of definition.  I don't have the full attachment kit with it, but the Akaso bits and pieces seem like they'll do the job.  If I still have wobble issues I'll look at getting a proper good quality window mount for it - but hopefully this camera should have a better inbuilt mic than the cheapy Akaso.

I really can't complain too much about the Akaso though.  The video quality from it is far better than it's got any right to be for the £30 or so I paid for it (especially given the plethora of accessories it came with), it's just the microphone that lets it down.

[bobdisk]

@Zelandeth, have you seen this site, looks good

https://www.bxparts.eu/en/

[R1152]

I'd experiment, but in reality I'd go for frame rate over vertical definition.

[Zelandeth]

Experiment was carried out today while I was out with the GoPro.  While it's not exactly hi-fi the audio is massively better than from the Akaso.  It's usable at least.

I will need to get a proper window mount for it though, cobbling together bits to attach it with the Akaso one results in an arm the best part of a foot long so much wobble.  Not helped by the GoPro being about twice the weight of the Akaso.

I'll get a proper one actually designed for this camera ordered then see where we are with it.

For those curious, here's the footage.  Disclaimer is that this was purely a test - primarily of the audio side of things - and consisted of me literally pointing the camera vaguely out the windscreen and pressing record. 

Edit: Having watched it again with the headphones on, yeah that's still pretty awful.  Though at least this camera does have the facility to utilise an external microphone so that's half the battle. 

[PhilA]

That's not bad though, considering the dynamic range it's attempting to capture.

The cvt really helps that little car, watching you come away from a standstill up to 50+ is impressive- that's a rate of acceleration that would be foot to the floor in the Chieftain.

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, PhilA said:

That's not bad though, considering the dynamic range it's attempting to capture.

The cvt really helps that little car, watching you come away from a standstill up to 50+ is impressive- that's a rate of acceleration that would be foot to the floor in the Chieftain.

 

Phil

It does surprise me how well she gets moving for a car with only 20bhp on tap, though hills are still not your best friend it has to be said.

 

Today I have...mostly been writing, picking, scaling, renaming and linking to images.  Writing up two plus years of automotive history for the webpage for a car takes for bloody ever.  That was why I was determined to get the one for the BX up early!  Updated are quick.  Writing it all up in one hit isn't!

[MT606]

jhc! Did I just see an audi driver indicate at the 1:10 mark and crackin drivin at 9:42....

 

[Zelandeth]

Today would have been a great day for getting work done on the cars...Instead I wound up spending the entire day faffing around replacing the weatherproofing on our shed roof.

Would have liked to get it a bit flatter, but despite messing about for well over an hour this was the best I could get it. The whole structure isn't entirely square which doesn't help.  The old roofing felt had started peeling off last time we had any real wind (having been patched a couple of times already), so it needed done. Have put an EPDM membrane on there now, so it shouldn't need touching again in the remaining life of the building.

Really just hasn't been much going on in the last week to report on! 

[] BX is waiting on a new brake pipe.

[] Xantia is being a working car, though it desperately needs spheres.

[] Invacar seems to be running well, just needs the brake adjustment tweaked now the shoes have bedded in again.

[] Jag is waiting on the proper arrival of spring before I start dismantling 80% of the engine bay to sort the oil leak and replace all the fuel lines.

[] Van is still in winter hibernation...Undecided when I'll get it back on the road - or to be honest if it's even worth doing this year. Though getting it out for a good run would probably be a good thing, even if it is just to the MOT station and back. 

Do have a few things lined up for this week though so should hopefully have an actual update soon. 

[Zelandeth]

Not a huge amount to report, though with the weather being decent today I decided that was a sufficient excuse to get TPA out to play for today's errands.

Fuelled up again today at 35.1MPG, so the "mid 30s" estimate seems to be holding pretty solid.

No photos (because I was an idiot and left my phone inside), but I've pretty much got a carb and inlet manifold from the Six-Cylinder household dismantled now ready for a run through the ultrasonic cleaner.  Getting a few of the bolts out involved a certain degree of swearing and definitely would have been easier with the manifold still attached to something heavy and relatively immovable like an engine.  Situation number 339287263 where I've really wished I had a workbench with a vice.  In particular the one manifold to carb nut which was *stupidly* tight.  Got there eventually though!  Hopefully should have time tomorrow afternoon to get the last couple of bits apart and get it dumped into the cleaner.

Had the Jag out yesterday for a gentle amble just to keep things free and aside from nearly being scared to death when a lorry had a tyre blow out next to me, she seems to be happy enough.  My charging issue does just seem to be a weak alternator - it's absolutely fine when the weather's like this.  It just collapses when you've got heavy loads like the headlights, heater and rear window demister all on together. 

[dollywobbler]

If you can be arsed with syncing, one idea might be to record sound on your mobile and pics on the GoPro. GoPros were never great for sound. I borrowed a few over the years and ended up mostly horrified. 

[Zelandeth]

 

5 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

If you can be arsed with syncing, one idea might be to record sound on your mobile and pics on the GoPro. GoPros were never great for sound. I borrowed a few over the years and ended up mostly horrified. 

To be fair, that's probably precisely what will end up happening at the end of the day.  It just multiplies the amount of effort involved by about seventeen times.  So it'll definitely not be something I mess around with until we're out of lockdown so I can spend enough time faffing about with the cameras to ensure I've got things at least reasonably framed etc...and actually have somewhere to go.

[R1152]

7 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

If you can be arsed with syncing, one idea might be to record sound on your mobile and pics on the GoPro. GoPros were never great for sound. I borrowed a few over the years and ended up mostly horrified. 

@dollywobblerWhat's happened with your recent videos where the sound seems to dip markedly at the beginning of each take before rising in level, but then with much noise? They never used to be like that? 

[Zelandeth]

Modern cars are just so ridiculously huge!

Stopped to grab a couple of better photos on the way back.

The curse of that bloody streetlight strikes again - got a shadow on the roof this time. 

...And reflection on the lens from the back of the phone case in the other photo.

I'd honestly forgotten that I'd ordered a replacement for the horn that I fitted way back when I first resurrected her as it's proven very intermittent.  Fact is the electrical system just isn't up to an air horn...It'll work fine if you're blatting along at 60, but trundling along at 30 it's 50/50 whether the compressor will run fast enough to actually sound the horn or just make pathetic croaking noises.

Arrived with a load of needless plastic tat over it to try to make it look "modern" I assume.

Thirty seconds of levering with a screwdriver later...

Far better!  Will get that fitted next time I'm in the garage.  Half the size and about a quarter of the weight of what's in there just now.

Yes, I could have taken the Xantia today, could have taken the Jag...Nope, I wanted to take TPA because we're honestly at a stage now where she's just a fun little car to drive.  Overtook several cars on the A5 on the way back home - much to the surprise of the drivers!  I was making a deliberate point of holding her at an indicated 70 (honest...) for a good few minutes as I wanted to see what the temperature did.  On a very slight uphill gradient (which let's face it is about the best we can expect her to maintain it on...The fact this car can DO 70 is enough of a surprise for most people) it peaked at 165C, which is pretty much smack on 1/2 way on the gauge - which I'm absolutely happy with.  I'm measuring this from the left hand cylinder head, which being shaded by the oil cooler should always be the hot one.  Given blatting down roads at motorway speeds wasn't really in this car's design brief was why I wanted to make sure the temperature wasn't slowly creeping up when travelling at higher speeds.