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

[Mr Pastry]

11 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Love clocks, watches and gadgets like this, but no electronics in my clock...

Is that an Atmos?  

[RichardK]

Yes, Roughly 1952; generally well-ish behaved but it doesn't like the cold much.

[Mr Pastry]

Next question was going to be how well it worked.  I guess it has a manual winding facility?

A relative worked for a gas and electric company in the USA in the 1950s.  He was in charge of the gas side,  and when he retired there was no way they were going to give him an electric clock, so an Atmos was the nearest they could get to a gas clock!  It was very similar to that one.

[RichardK]

I think there are very few real variations in the design - and it's 'perpetual' thanks to the exceptionally slow movement of the balance wheel and tension from the pressure variation chamber whatsit. No winding, but you must always lock it before moving it and never change the hands when it's running (mine has been mistreated in the past).

As to how well it works - if they're unworn/undamaged they are exceptional. Once you mess with the advance/retard it takes WEEKS to know if you got it right, but they're like a hibernating bear, just softly breathing and working, keeping time until spring arrives, the clocks change and you have to mess with it and risk it sulking again. Trick is to stop it with the escapement where it won't stick - spring forward is okay as it's just an hour, but fall back is 'move forward 23 hours' and you need to stop about 40 minutes before you want the time setting, unlock the weight without shaking the clock, then advance the last bit to kick start the mechanism a little. GENTLY. Otherwise it feels like it jumps a tooth (the escapement catches).

[Zelandeth]

Oh boy...

This means I'm going to finally have to get to grips with Blender then...

Good thing I just made a bunch of desk space available!

[LightBulbFun]

11 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Oh boy...

This means I'm going to finally have to get to grips with Blender then...

Good thing I just made a bunch of desk space available!

Yeah now you can finally 3D print some new bodywork (or moulds/formers?) for TPA!

[Mr Pastry]

19 hours ago, RichardK said:

As to how well it works - if they're unworn/undamaged they are exceptional. Once you mess with the advance/retard it takes WEEKS to know if you got it right, but they're like a hibernating bear, just softly breathing and working, keeping time until spring arrives, the clocks change and you have to mess with it and risk it sulking again.

I have a 400 day clock from about 1907 with of course a torsion pendulum which behaves a bit like that.  Fascinating mechanism, but best left alone as far as possible.   The chap who had it before me lived at the top of a tower block, and you could see the pendulum swaying as the tower swayed in the wind....

[Zelandeth]

Someone has been enjoying this afternoon!

Getting to destroy the wrapping paper is pretty much his favourite thing in the world.

[dozeydustman]

You’ve got some cracking retro tech there Mr Zelandeth.

Fran Blanche has been doing a few videos on NASA display tech. Really interesting stuff. I’d love a rank of Bina-view alphanumeric displays

[SiC]

On 12/24/2020 at 4:00 AM, Zelandeth said:

Never had a chance to play around with those memory LCDs, though I did look into using one for a project years ago.  It just didn't make sense though unless the display spends a huge amount of time static as the power required to actually flip the state of each pixel was higher than for a bog standard TN display - for which the power requirements are pretty much negligible anyway.  I'm sure there are applications where they'd be very well suited though. 

I worked on a product putting one of those Sharp displays into a Smart Watch. The screens were crap tbh. Highly reflective and a very narrow viewing angle, so really hard to read unless in intense sunlight. I think I still have got a engineering board of one around somewhere here.

Afaik those displays were never really used commercially elsewhere and seems to have become a bit of a dead end technology. 

[Zelandeth]

Would have been nice to get to set up the 3D printer this evening...however life had other ideas.  Before we'd even tidied up from dinner it became immediately apparent something was amiss with the fridge.  It was 15C and the lower veg drawer was stuck in place.

Fine...everything out and start pulling it to bits.

Became immediately apparent we had a defrost issue - not lease because the lower moulding there (which is the airflow duct covering the evaporator) was completely frozen in place.

As it was clearly stuck to the evaporator I couldn't be too rough with it - but eventually I got it free.

That fan hasn't been doing anything for a while...

Yes... definitely looks like the defrost heater has died.  The inch and a half deep block of ice immediately below the heating element tends to suggest it's not been doing much.  The heater is the black thing below the silver coils.

Also...the bits of a fridge you can't get to to clean become utterly disgusting.

After some attention with a hairdryer I got the fan freed from the ice cube it had turned into and it seems to have survived.  I chiselled the block out of the condensate drain tray, blasted the drain clear (no idea if it was clogged before it froze up or not), and reassembled everything.

Sadly this fridge is intelligent enough to know if anything is unplugged so will just throw error codes if you try to power it up in bits...so I had to put it all back together before I could test things. 

I also had to dismantle the door hinge to find and defeat the switch so I could ascertain whether the fan was working...as it only runs when the door is closed.

Fan is running, cool air is being circulated...good.  Everything can go back in. 

I'll need to investigate why the defrost heater isn't working but that can wait until tomorrow.  I can easily test whether voltage is being supplied to the circuit from the control box.

I've done work on this board before as the relay that controls the compressor burnt up a year or two ago.  Was pretty painless. 

Credit where it's due to Samsung, by the standards of modern white goods this thing isn't bad from a service perspective.  Everything is held together by normal Philips head screws (all of which are identical) with no daft clips, and even the pin headers in the control unit are labelled.  It's also 18 years old so isn't doing bad to be honest!  Especially given the abuse the kit in this house took before we moved in...The dishwasher for one was scrap!  I do question why such control circuitry is needed for a fridge freezer though!

Given the freezer seems to be working normally my money is on a dead heater element, in which case it should be a pretty simple fix.  Which is appreciated as American style side by side fridge freezers are bloody expensive!

Seriously though...Christmas day?!? 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Zelandeth
correcting autocorrect

[Mrs6C]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Given the freezer seems to be working normally my money is on a dead heater element

Check the defrost sensor too as if it isn't working properly, it won't be asking the heater element to switch on. Replacements sensors are cheap.

Also, whether or not the sensor needs replacing, change its location to the bit of copper pipe coming in on the top left hand side of the back wall; clip the sensor onto the diagonal bit of pipe there.

I had to do this on ours a few years back. It has been fine since.

Did you know there is a diagnostic code routine for these refrigerators? Push in the top left and top right buttons at the same time and hold for about 8 seconds. The screen will go blank. If any errors are found, one or other of the little segments that make up the digital '8' will start to flash. The error codes are here for my model; I suspect they will be the same for yours:
https://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/help/fault-codes/refrigeration-fault-codes/4279-samsung-rsh-series-fault-codes
 

[mat_the_cat]

Five years (and a day) ago it was the oven - fortunately just the thermal fuse which had failed, and even more fortunately I had a similar spare. Then two years ago it was the boiler! Again, another simple fix of unlocking the (oil) nozzle, but they really do pick their moments!

Well fixed anyway, and hope you enjoy the rest of your Christmas. 

[Zelandeth]

This evening I wanted to turn this box of bits into something useful.

Everything laid out on the desk where it's going to live.

Something definitely has to be said for delta style printers...there's far less bits to them!

Linear rails need to be attached to the upper housing where all the control hardware and power supply lives.

Three screws in each, dead easy.

There are two wiring connectors to the stepper motor in each of the legs.

Then flip it over and attach them to the base as well.  Next step is to attach the actuating linkages to the frame and then the extruder to those.  You can probably do that either way round but I figured this way you'd not have a bunch of linkages flailing around.

Hook up the wiring connectors to the extruder (they're colour coded so you can't really get them mixed up) and the power lead to the heated build plate, and the filament guide tube.

Once that's done it's time to power it up and see what happens.

Excellent.

Now the part which on conventional 3D printers with a moving build plate is a chore - levelling the build plate.

In this case you press a button on screen...

...plug in a little module...

Then watch it go.  It goes off an gently "pokes" the build platform at a few dozen points to build up a picture of where the level line is.  Once you're done the levelling doodad is unplugged and you're on to the next step.

Final initial setup step is to set the precise zero location - by placing a sheet of paper on the build platform and manually lowering the extruder until it just nips the paper.

In theory that's it!  Well aside from loading filament anyway...but that's also a matter of pressing one button.

The only prior experience I've had with a 3D printer was watching a friend trying to set up their Makerbot Replicator.  Which worked...after a not insignificant amount of faffing around.

There were a couple of demonstration models on the SD card they supplied...so I picked one and pressed "print."

Then left it humming away to itself for a while.

I wasn't expecting success on the first attempt.  Especially with the pretty awful quality filament they supply in the box (I've got a decent quality reel on the way).

I came back after a while to see this message...

...and more surprisingly this on the build plate.

Which hasn't come out badly to be honest...the thread works properly and there aren't any issues really.  The stray bits of filament in the background aren't attached to it.

Can't complain about that for a first try!  Next up will be to try something of my own (or more likely something interesting found on the internet), once the better filament arrives.

Ten out of ten for ease of construction... anyone with a vague semblance of engineering know how could do it without looking at the instructions for anything other than how to do the levelling procedure.  The X, Y and Z rails are clearly labelled and nothing else can go in the wrong place.  Only one type of screws involved... you'd really have to try to get it wrong.  Makes an IKEA bookcase look like something from the Krypton Factor!  Time will tell if it behaves well going forward...but a 3D printer working first try straight out of the box was a surprise for me!

[egg]

I'm sure you'll be making unobtainum car parts in weeks!

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, egg said:

I'm sure you'll be making unobtainum car parts in weeks!

Not so sure about that...I've got a steep learning curve ahead of me I suspect!

Just finished putting together the second box that was gifted to me.  A proper dual monitor mount for the right hand two monitors to get them up off the desk and clear me a substantial amount of space.

Before:

Annoyingly I did have to pay extra for some adaptors as HP oh-so-helpfully decided not to include VESA mounting points on the Pavilion 24XW monitors.  Given how much better the image quality was than the others I was considering I'd probably still have bought them even if I had spotted that...but it would have made me pause.  HP want £40 a shot for the adaptor plate! 

Helpfully you can get a pack of two on Amazon for £15...which still stings for a bit of stamped steel which as far as I'm concerned there's no excuse for HP not just including in the box with the monitor - especially given these things cost the best part of £250 each when I originally bought them if I remember right.

Work in progress...

The end result:

It's hard to convey on a photo quite how much of the desktop it has cleared.  I'll get an additional single arm for the left hand monitor shortly as well. 

The original stands for those HP monitors weren't exactly sturdy either so they used to wobble quite a bit when I was typing, glad to report that's now a thing of the past.

[bezzabsa]

i'm looking at purchasing an  ender 3 , 3D printer...but the thought of 3d modelling software has me panicked 

[Zelandeth]

On 12/27/2020 at 11:31 PM, bezzabsa said:

i'm looking at purchasing an  ender 3 , 3D printer...but the thought of 3d modelling software has me panicked 

I think there are simpler packages out there...I'd probably suggest taking a look around and seeing what decent tutorials are around for.  Blender is not what I'd recommend as it has a steep learning curve.  Main reason I'm looking into it is that it is a very versatile tool, plus I personally know a couple of folks who use it professionally so have a bit of a safety net if I get stuck on a specific task.  Oh, and it's free.

I played around with Sculptris about 20 years ago and found it really easy to use...was a long time ago though!

It's worth noting as well that if you're not wanting to actually create or edit models that you really don't need to get involved in the complex model creation side of things - there are thousands of pre-existing models out there and printing those is a simple matter of running it through a slicer package like Cura and then sticking the G-code that spits out on an SD card/usb stick, loading it on the printer and pressing print.

[Zelandeth]

Had a chance to play around with the 3D printer today. 

First was installing the proper reel of filament, which even just to hand feels far better quality.  Looks more the part with a full size reel on the holder now.

I ran the same "in the box" test print just to make sure there weren't any issues...there weren't.

I wound up with clear filament quite simply because it's what the order page defaulted to...and I had no real preference.  I *did* come to regret that choice later and have now ordered some in blue.

Next was getting the few bits of software I needed installed.  I've already got Blender, but also needed a slicer (which takes the 3D object in a variety of standard file formats) and as the name suggests, slices it into layers and spits out the G-code the printer expects.  Cura seems to be the go-to choice for that, and it seems to do the job fine.

In addition to slicing the file into layers is also does the work of addition of support structure for overhangs, infill webs and suchlike.

Then I grabbed a few random models which piqued my interest in Thingiverse.  First up was a little model of Serenity, the ship from the sci-fi show Firefly.  Which still stands up as one of my favourites of all time.

Finished!  Took about an hour and a half to print which I didn't think was bad at all.

At this point I came to regret having bought clear filament.

It's damned near impossible to tell what's surface detail and what's the support structure you want to peel off!  It also makes it hard to see surface details.  Nevertheless you can clearly tell what it is, even after fifteen minutes of picking the support structure off.

There's a lot more detail there the camera just can't see because it's translucent.

Anyhow...it was still really just a test so I'm counting it as a success. 

Leaving it be while I wait for some solid coloured filament to arrive.  The clear will definitely have uses for some projects (already have a couple in mind), but for general purpose use it's not a smart choice due to the loss of visible detail.  Oh...and how maddening it makes the cleanup.

This used something like 35g of filament, so the 1kg spools should last okay.  I reckon I can probably drop the infill percentage down a bit for things like this too.

Already seeing uses for it though!   Oh, and yes it's pretty inevitable that one of the first things I try to create a model of will of course be the members of my fleet...imagine they already exist for the Jag and Xantia, but I'll probably have to make them myself for the van and Invacar.  They're not especially complex shapes though so it shouldn't be too tricky I'd think.  Especially for the Invacar where there's already a pretty clear 2D diagram in the handbook, so long as the (relative) measurements and curve radii are correct the rest is just joining the dots really.

Items I can think of off the top of my head that I want to make are a blanking plate for the gear lever slot in TPA's dash as it bugs my OCD.  I will probably add an additional warning light there for a neutral indicator.  I've come far too close to nearly launching her into the garage on startup far too many times.  May even end up printing the bracket for the switch too...Plus I'd like to make a a cup holder/oddment tray to clip over one of the door pockets, kinda in the same vein as the ashtray in the original Fiat Panda.  Not having anywhere other to put small items down where they don't immediately vanish from when you're driving other than the seat pocket (which you can't reach with the seatbelt on) is one of the few things which annoys me.  Another simple but useful one would be a proper bung for the heater/choke cable bulkhead passthrough which is currently basically a 1" hole into the engine bay.

Also pondering a phone holder to sit under the dash when it's in navigation mode as it bugs the hell out of me sticking it to the windscreen, not least due to the inevitable marks and fingerprints which are then left behind.  Might look into making one to sit elsewhere for camera duty too, probably borrow one of the demister duct mountings to have it somewhere over my left shoulder... though suspect shake-o-vision will continue to be an issue.  I think realistically the only way I'm going to get non jittery video in that car is to attach the camera to something heavy enough to provide a decent amount of damping - most likely me. 

Now thinking I could make an infill to sit behind the fire extinguisher to stop it wobbling (and therefore rattling) quite so much too...you get the idea though.  The moment the ability to make little bits and pieces like this becomes available your brain starts to immediately populate the wish list of things to make.

[Zelandeth]

I thought I'd sorted the issue with water getting into the boot of the Jag.  Evidence today suggests otherwise.

Okay, back to tracking that down then.  As the main ECU lives in the boot I kinda need to deal with this water ingress issue sooner than later.

[SiC]

Easiest way to sort the water ingress?

https://www.markrobinsvehicles.co.uk/pages-carstorage.php

https://savvystorage.co.uk/vehicle-storage/

Then get it back out in Spring. In the meantime, the drive is freed up for something else......... 

(Rinse and repeat, until you have many cars)

[Zelandeth]

9 hours ago, SiC said:

Easiest way to sort the water ingress?

https://www.markrobinsvehicles.co.uk/pages-carstorage.php

https://savvystorage.co.uk/vehicle-storage/

Then get it back out in Spring. In the meantime, the drive is freed up for something else......... 

(Rinse and repeat, until you have many cars)

Sounds like actually fixing the leaky boot would be cheaper though!

 

I think I might die of shock...I actually just uploaded an update to my website!

First since late 2017 I think!  Hopefully one of many as I've quite a few things I actually would like to get online.  It does occur to me that I just copied that straight across to the server without actually proof reading what I spent the last hour or two writing...Ah...it'll be fine!

I need to do a further update to it tomorrow to add the alt-text to the photos anyway, I just ran out of patience for that today!  I'll do a spelling and grammar sanity check when I do that.

[Zelandeth]

Not been much going on really as with lockdown and Christmas have had little need to go anywhere and between patchy time availability and it being bloody cold outside, I've mostly been staying inside.

3D printing experimentation has been ongoing.  Think I've had a few of the favourite issues now.  Yesterday we had the first print failure, due to adhesion failure between the print and build plate.  Announced to me by a "clonk" and the half finished print rolling across my desk after being punted out of the printer by the extruder.

Attempt number 2 of that print after I cleaned the build platform instead shifted to the other extreme...with it absolutely welding itself in place.  The print sadly didn't survive the removal process, and identified a few shortcomings in the setup of the slicing software.

Version 3.0 went better after switching to a raft base, though I need to play a bit with the filament retraction settings as we've got a lot of stringing going on between separate print areas.

I reckon I will be finding bits of PLA for decades.  It goes bloody everywhere when you're removing the support structure.

The model to the left of frame used to be encased in the pile of bits of plastic in front of you.  I heard at least one bit "ding" off the tube of the overhead light.

To give an idea of how much needs to be removed, here's the previous version immediately after the print finished, right before I discovered it was welded to the build plate.

The white/clear version is one of the original ones I printed before deciding to try something larger.

All things considered it didn't come out too badly.  I might have a poke around to see if alternative packages give any better control over the support structure options as removing several from this were an absolute pain.  Must have taken me over an hour.

Haven't really done any cleanup, just removed as much of the support additions as I could with a scalpel, side cutters and tiny scissors.  Hand here is for scale.

Having increased the wall thickness and changed the infill settings seems to have made things a lot more solid.

With that working I decided to retry to print I did of Serenity a bit bigger.  That came out really well I think.

Original attempt in clear in the background.

I've always enjoyed a good sci-fi show, but Firefly really hit the spot.  The ship was every bit as much of a character as any of the crew too.  Artificial gravity for the sake of making it possible to film, she felt massively more believable than anything we've generally seen.  More recent possible exception being things from the Expanse...but they've really gone to town trying to make the physics and such work there so that's to be expected.

I may well paint that one and have it sit somewhere in here in display.  I intend to have a dig about for some car models this week to do some test prints of.  Things like that are several orders of magnitude easier than organic things as they tend to have far less awkward angles and unhelpful overhangs requiring messy build supports!

[Zelandeth]

Should hopefully have some car work this week as I've a few minor jobs lined up for this week, weather permitting. Need to make a trip out to a pharmacy one day this week too and am fully intending to take the Invacar out for that. It's been weeks since I drove the poor thing.  We had the first actual not immediately explainable 3D print failure today. This was going fine, right up to point where the printer decided that it would be a wonderful idea to jump to Z=0 - which would be fine if there wasn't about 40% of a model in the way.

No idea why that happened. Guessing there was something awry in the G-code, so I went back to the model and rebuild it, tweaking a couple of settings I'd forgotten to save the previous time.  Moved the printer across to the other side of the room too. Firstly so it's not in the way of the paper tray on the normal printer, but secondly to keep it clear of the window. Having a draught over it sounds like a recipe for warping that does.

It's off on attempt 3 of this model now. The first failure was due to a failure of build plate adhesion, which was brought to my attention when I heard a clonk, followed immediately by the half finished model rolling across my desk after it was punted out of the printer by the extruder.  If we get through the next hour without it going haywire again we might be in business this time.  Main job for this afternoon was a quick one but something that's been on the to do list since 2005. Well, kinda. Sorting out the very, very dead NVRAM batteries in my old Toshiba laptops.  They use lithium thionyl chloride batteries for the NVRAM backup so they very, very rarely cause issues with leakage. However after 20+ years they're generally utterly dead. The T5200 has had this issue since 2005 meaning I need to reset the clock every time I start it up. However it's been the T3100e I've been using a bit more lately as it's more portable. So it's the one I'm sorting first.  This is the error I get every time it's powered up. Sorry for the image quality, plasma screens and digital cameras are not good bedfellows.

Followed by:

Step 1 is to flip the machine over and remove the three screws under the keyboard front edge.

You can then release the two little clips that are hidden in the screen catch recess. 

This allows the keyboard to be lifted up and laid down in front of the computer. The ribbon cable is exactly the right length for this.

Two further screws need to come out at the rear of the keyboard recess then the RF shield can be withdrawn.

You can then get to the keyboard connector. You don't *need* to remove the keyboard, it just makes things easier though as it gets in the way otherwise. This has one of those connectors with a raised collar you have to pull out before you can remove the ribbon cable. 

There we go, access to the area we need. If I had a memory upgrade to go in this is where it would be done. Sadly the T3100e uses proprietary memory so I can't just stick any old 36 pin memory in. If I had an 80287 math co-processor it would be fitted to the empty socket roughly central towards the rear.

 

Here's our target. 

The trickiest bit of this process to be honest is getting the power connector off the motherboard as there's very little clearance beneath one of the case retaining lugs. 

Still only about a 2/10 though, just a bit fiddly.  The battery holder itself is held in place by a bit of velcro. 

While the battery is a standard AA in terms of form factor a bit more work is needed than dropping a new one in, as the connections to the original are spot welded on.

The eagle eyed among you might have spotted there's a tiny little diode in there too. I think that's a holdover from an earlier design which used a NiCd battery and had charging hardware on board. Because of the spot welded connections there are no actual terminals in the battery holder.  I figured rather than messing around trying to solder to lithium batteries, for the sake of £0.75 apiece I'd just get a new battery holder with standard connectors in.

I remember when I first got the T5200 that these batteries were really hard to find...however now you can just get a pack of 10 from Amazon or eBay for less than £20.

The T5200, T3200SXC and T1200 will want this job doing as well, hence the larger pack I picked up.  I just snipped the leads off the old battery so I could reuse the connector etc. For a change I did remember to put the heatshrink in place before soldering the wires together!

I bundled up the extra length of wire with a couple of small cable ties. Not pretty but it'll do the job.

Luckily for me the glue on the old velcro rectangle was still sticky so I was able to peel it off and put it on the new battery holder.

Convenient as that's not something I had in stock.  From this point on reassembly is the reverse of disassembly.  New battery holder etc shown in place before putting the covers back on.

Note when the keyboard goes back in that there's a lip at the back so it has to go in at the rear edge first. 

On the first startup it will of course still be complaining so you'll need to set the date and time one last time in the BIOS setup screen.

Date correctly set...no Y2K issues here on a machine from 1988! 

I do enjoy the ARE YOU REALLY SURE YOU WANT TO DO THAT?!? nature of the confirmation screen it gives you before saving the settings. 

Rebooting a few minutes later gave no error messages, and checking the date once we'd booted into DOS...

Yep...it's saved the date settings and the clock seems to be running properly.  Very simple job really but nice to have something that was quite annoying ticked off after several years.

 

[Zelandeth]

There we go...Second update on my website update in three weeks!

The Kovac K-80D from 1973 is now live in the vintage technology section.

[Zelandeth]

Finally got around to building up the enclosure for the distributor condenser for TPA today.

The 0.22uF caps still haven't arrived, so I've just made up a dual 0.1uF cap.  As it will be living in a large enough enclosure there's really no issue with this.

Given the application vibration was something I was wanting to put a stop to, so the innards of the box have been well and truly secured in place with plenty of hot glue.  The capacitors are actually a nice snug fit between the outer of the case and the posts that the terminal strip sits on anyway, so it's just belt and braces really.  Under no circumstances should the capacitor leads have any load placed on them.  I've also tried to ensure that anywhere that the wiring in the box is touching anything that it's held in place so we can't have any issues with things rubbing through over time.

The lead that you can already see connected is the ground connection, which is just going to a ring terminal which will be secured under one of the mounting bolts.

You can also see that there's more than just the condenser in here - that's because I'm also using the enclosure as a convenient location to fit a remote engine start button for use when I'm doing testing in the engine bay.

If I find I have issues with the plastic enclosure cracking I'll replace it with a metal one.  It just seemed like plastic was less likely to dissolve the first time it got wet.

Drilled and tapped a couple of holes for it to attach to in the engine bay (okay...Three holes because I totally fouled up the location of the first one and the enclosure would have had to be halfway into the space occupied by the voltage regulator) and hooked it up.

Still need to install the wiring for the starter button but the distributor side is all hooked up now.  I had planned to get the starter hooked up as well but by this point I'd completely lost all feeling in my fingers so retreated back inside!

It's a small detail but it's really nice to have got something on the car side of things ticked off again as it's been a while.  Plus this gets rid of my cable-tied bodge from a few weeks ago and is far tidier.  It looks a bit new and shiny in the engine bay at the moment but once it's got a bit of road dust on it it'll blend in just fine.  Plus I'm more interested in long term reliability and things which make it easier to live with than absolute originality.

I really do need to rebuild the rear of that wheel tub sometime too...

[bobdisk]

Have you thought about electronic ignition? Theres a thread about it on the Daf Forum for the 2 cylinder engine
dafcars.proboards.com/thread/3815/coldstart-problem?page=1&scrollTo=36573
Theres a points system which might work, or I have a system in my Reliant Kitten that is an inductive pick up from the cam, no points. (I am going to try to identify it)

[Zelandeth]

14 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Have you thought about electronic ignition? Theres a thread about it on the Daf Forum for the 2 cylinder engine
dafcars.proboards.com/thread/3815/coldstart-problem?page=1&scrollTo=36573
Theres a points system which might work, or I have a system in my Reliant Kitten that is an inductive pick up from the cam, no points. (I am going to try to identify it)

Given how simple the original system is I can't see a huge reason to switch.  The condenser is the only component likely to be prone to unexpected failure - and having replaced that with a far more robustly rated polypropylene film type it shouldn't be an issue again for the foreseeable future.

The points, rotor arm and distributor cap on here are all still the ones which were on KPL when she was dragged out of the field as far as I'm aware. 

The only real thing I'd like to add to the system would be a vacuum advance, but that would require a substantial amount of re-engineering.  Unless the Steyr-Puch engined Fiats had vacuum advance, meaning I could just swap over the distributor (if it would come out of the block anyway)...haven't ever researched it to be honest.

 

EDIT: Wiring up of the new enclosure is now complete.  I have remote engine start capability now (though the ignition still needs to be turned on normally).

I thought that I'd sorted my battery charger (which went bang in a spectacular manner a few weeks ago) by replacing the mains filter cap which had failed.  However it's apparently nuked something else on the board as well as the charger has actually sucked power OUT of the battery rather than charging it.  The joys of modern electronic battery chargers.

I do have three conventional ones floating around somewhere, but could I find one today?  Not a chance.

Then I went and locked the keys in the van.  That's a problem I'll need to solve tomorrow as of course I only have a partial set of spare keys - and one for the van bit isn't among them.  Nor could Timpsons etc cut me a spare as they couldn't get a blank.  I never got around to chasing that up further.  Looks like my method of access will be opening the gas locker (which I DO have a key for), unbolting the kitchen sink drainer from underneath, climbing into the gas locker and then reaching up through the resulting hole into the work top to where I *think* I put the keys down.  Of course all the window blinds are closed so I can't even confirm the keys are where I think they are!  It's been one of those days today.

[Zelandeth]

Yep...one of those evenings.  I've had enough of the outside world.

Cup of hot chocolate, dog snoring in the corner, I'm hiding in bed and working on my website for a couple of hours.

Really liking the T3100e now I've started to build up a decent library of DOS software (Borland Sprint currently running in the photo above).  You can't do this with the T5200 as it's just too damned heavy and unwieldy.  It's a great portable desktop replacement and by the standards of the time was bloody powerful - but using it anywhere other than at a desk is just painful!

T3100e might only have a 12MHz 286 and a megabyte of memory to play with but for most DOS applications that's absolutely fine.

Oh...and that thing I said about cutting it out with buying any more vintage tech for a while...

Oops.

May have just bought that.  To be fair I've been an Amiga fan since the early 90s, so it's about time I had something from the CBM stable in the calculator collection.  Even if they're not exactly going to win any prizes in the styling department!

[Zelandeth]

Yesterday garage work ended depressingly when I realised I'd locked the keys to the van inside it...and lack a full set of spares.  Something I need to address in the near future.  Have had issues getting hold of a blank which is why it's not had one made for the actual van bit yet.

The only useful thing I could get into was the gas locker.

From there I figured that I could unbolt the sink drainer, then reach up into the cabin to grab the keys from where I thought I'd left them.

Of course all the window blinds were closed so I couldn't easily check that!  Second grump...the 8mm spanner I needed to unbolt the draining board wasn't where it lives...

Last time I had it was working on the Jag's windscreen wipers...in the van.  Ah. 

After a not inconsiderable amount of time fumbling with adjustable spanners, success.

The 8mm spanner I'd been looking for literally bounced off my forehead at this point.

Looking to the nearside...

Thank goodness for that!  I was *just* able to reach them at maximum stretch.

Sorted.  Have got everything reassembled now and tidied up the mess I made by decanting everything I'd left stacked on there all over the floor.

Also meant I could dig out the backup backup battery charger that lives in the service locker under the wardrobe to give the batteries in other fleet members a bit of a boost.  Infrequent use and winter mean they're all a bit low.

There are another two buried in this garage somewhere...but I've no idea where!