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

[Uncle Jimmy]

Great buyage, those Benzes were very prone to rust, never seen one that good!

[Zelandeth]

Great buyage, those Benzes were very prone to rust, never seen one that good!

Oh, there is quite a bit of rust. The MOT history clearly shows it's had quite a bit of attention over the years, and there's one nasty bit of grot below the windscreen and in the heater intake. That will be a particular pain to fix I suspect as at the very least it will probably need both the dash and windscreen out.

[Zelandeth]

Finally...

 

Fixed the throttle cable in the Lada.  Hopefully actually fixed this time rather than just bodged.  Still a bit messy, but short of actually fabricating a bracket it will do the job.  Seems to work well enough, and has finally sorted the notchy pedal which has been a continuous niggle ever since the injection system went in, that should hopefully make it far nicer to drive and less prone to comedy kangaroo moments in stop/start traffic.

 

Somewhat amusingly, it was the stash of Invacar spares which yielded the actual cable I've used.

[Zelandeth]

Discovered yesterday afternoon that the seats in the van weren't actually retrimmed in velour by Autotrail, they're just slip-on covers.  Just the most convincingly factory looking ones I've ever seen.

 

The driver's seat was also filthy...so they're coming off for cleaning.

 

Definitely has been a bit of fading going on in the last 28 years unsurprisingly!

 

 

Cover off reveals something that we already know.  Nobody did plaid quite like the Germans did in car interiors in the 80s...

 

 

Also made a quick run over to Motorserv to grab oil and a filter as those will be getting changed in short order as I've no idea when they were last done.   I did briefly try to get it from GSF given their 50% off sale - but lost patience with their website after about 20 minutes of arguing with it.

 

 

Air filter's not bad (unsurprisingly given it's only done a few hundred miles in the last five years), I haven't dared open the radiator cap yet...Coolant will be getting changed as a matter of course shortly anyhow.

 

The non-working windscreen washers were quickly resolved by actually putting screenwash in the tank...The missing cap of which turned up in the glovebox oddly enough.

 

EDIT:  Seat covers have come out of the wash and happily don't appear to have disintegrated. 

 

 

Looks like most of the grime has come out at first glance.  Be interesting to see if there's a visible difference back in the van.  At a glance it certainly looks like the colours are more vibrant.

[Zelandeth]

Now cleaned seat cover back in place. It was predictably a massive faff to get back on.

 

 

It does look massively better though, and now means the cab smells of clean laundry. I'll probably take the rest off for the same treatment when time permits.

 

Completely by random I stumbled across the electrical nerve centre...

 

 

...and it's been got at like everything else. Yay.

 

 

Yep...my decision to not let mains anywhere near it anytime soon appears to be sensible.

 

The stray mains lead I assume must have gone to the fridge, though there must be a load of DC wiring for the lighting, water pump and extractor fan hiding somewhere...

 

I've found one bundle of wires in the corner of the kitchen, but not the other end of the bundle to which they are intended to attach yet.

 

There's a task for next week.

 

 

Noticed when out today that the nearside front indicator wasn't working. This was pretty quickly traced to the lampholder willing around in the inner wing. Reinserting it into the lamp housing sorted things. The offside repeater isn't working now, but it's taped together (lens is cracked) so that's a job for another time.

 

I have noticed today that it's performing far better than the day I collected it. Not surprising a few cobwebs needed to be blown out given she's done barely any miles in the last five years.

[Amishtat]

Your journey home was further than it had been in the last couple of years

[mat_the_cat]

Loving the van! From the era where they were built to last, if not for speed. The Sprinters felt built down to a price by comparison!

[Zelandeth]

Probably the biggest surprise regarding the running is how clean it runs. I've honestly not come across such a clean running diesel before.

 

Nor a non DI diesel that starts so quickly for that matter. It's literally touch the key to start and she's away.

 

So, this evening I decided to investigate whether I could make heads or tails of this mess.

 

 

Trying to figure out where this bundle went, I decided to dig the cooker hood/extractor fan out of the cupboard. ...at this point I discovered something.

 

This ain't no ordinary household cooker hood...

 

 

It also was bristling with crudely cut wires. Wires which matched up perfectly with those dangling out the ceiling! I wasn't looking for another end to the cables...I was looking for a control panel!

 

Cue an hour of faffing around rewiring it. Only had two wires unaccounted for. One green and one red (later found the origins of that).

 

However having reconnected everything, connected up the leisure battery (hereby named the aux battery to tie in with the labels on the control panel), aaaaand...

 

 

(Okay, it was actually connected to a bench top PSU for that shot - used that initially to reduce the odds of anything going bang as I set the current limit low)

 

Life! Let's have a dig around and see what works...

 

Main saloon lights...

 

 

Check!

 

Spotlights...

 

 

That switch which I assume is the light outside the door...

 

 

Check!

 

Bathroom? After forcing my way far enough in to reach the switch.

 

 

Check!

 

Likewise the one in the front locker.

 

How about heater...

 

 

Yep, that works - at least seems to as best I can tell without a gas supply hooked up (that's been crudely snipped off too).

 

The water pump made rumbly - and then gurgly - noises before I abruptly turned it off given there's neither a water tank or any pipework connected to it at present.

 

TV seemed to work too.

 

In fact, everything seems to be working (fridge excepted, but it's not wired up just now).

 

The odd thing though was that it seemed to happily run set to the main battery, but not from the aux one. At this point my attention turned to the one random red wire that had obviously been added later. On a bunch I swapped that for the one to the aux battery...bam. It indeed does appear to have been added to resolve a break in the original feed.

 

I'll investigate that shortly - after I've made some sense of the mess under the driver's seat. The wiring there looks to have been done by Homer Simpson himself. The second set of battery terminals, they've been added because they ran out of room to attach wires to the original ones! They're all connected together...so having any two connected leaves the others floating around in the metal box that is the battery box, live!

 

Suffice to say that lot got pulled out - I'll start trying to work out where the heck the four separate positive lines disappear to later. Shedload of grounds too, but that's less of a surprise in a vehicle with a largely wooden framed body.

 

This is what I started with - plastic bags were added by me as I'm not certain that they're not in some way connected to the vehicle charging system when the engine is running yet.

 

 

This will be rather tidier by the end of the weekend. For the time being (ran out of evening) I've simply terminated it all safely. A schematic showing why there are four positive lines would help too...

 

I get the impression that most of the work I'll be doing on this van is trying to put nonsense like this right.

 

Definitely progress though!

[Zelandeth]

Loving the van! From the era where they were built to last, if not for speed. The Sprinters felt built down to a price by comparison!

Thanks!

 

Know what you mean. Have to admit that the Sprinter isn't one that has ever held any real interest for me. It did the job, but never had the same character that the TN series had.

 

If you're ever over this way we totally need to get a photo of the two vans together.

[Exiled_Tat_Gatherer]

Said it before, I'll say it again....... no sodding clue how you work it all out. I'd have fried, zapped or blown up myself, the van and any nearby combustibles just by looking st that lot.

Must go learn this wizardry via the teachings of t'internet......

 

Top result on everything lighting up and showing you the way......

[Zelandeth]

Ah, that moment where you suddenly notice your indicators are not working then smoke comes pouring out of the general vicinity of the indicator stalk under the dash...

 

Okay, that's one to investigate on Sunday.

 

Disconnecting the battery once home as a precaution.

[Noel Tidybeard]

do you think the extra batt wires are for a 2nd aux battery for moar capacity rather than buying a mahoosive expaensive larger one?

[Zelandeth]

No, there are distinct supplies for the main vehicle battery and the leisure (aux) battery. A stinking great brand new one came with the van.

 

There's no way you'd fit two in the battery box, and the leads are so closely tied together that never would work.

 

 

The indicator oddity has been traced to a short on the offside circuit. Figures as that's the one buried under the washer bottle. First suspect though is the repeater on the wing given it's smashed and has obviously had water in at some point...

[Zelandeth]

I had a hunch that the indicator issue would turn out to be something to do with the faulty repeater.

 

Cover off, and that continued. Never mind dodgy, there's no bulb or trace of the lamp holder.

 

 

More to the point, there's no trace of the positive post either. Let's have a look.

 

Oh that's *lovely* access!

 

 

A bit of blind rummaging though quickly dragged this out of the void behind the wing.

 

 

That would be the positive contact from the repeater...which was floating around in the wing. Let's put the fuse back in and see if the indicators work again. Yes, they do! Excellent!

 

The only casualty being this.

 

 

Which initially got fried when I turned on the hazards while backing out of the parking space at the train station.

 

New repeater assembly is already on the way - but the other indicators are all working fine again.

 

 

With that little drama sorted I decided to reattach the cooker hood/DC control panel before it slid off the worktop and wrenched all the wiring out.

 

Fiddly but simple enough.

 

 

 

Does need a good clean though.

 

Have also screwed the oven in because I got tired of it sliding halfway out of its space. The fridge will get the same once I track down its mounting hardware.

[LightBulbFun]

very nice work what does the rest of the household make of this 1980s house on wheels? 

 

I noticed in the cooker hood light was what looked to be a brass capped* 8W T5 do you have any more info on that tube? brass capped T5s generally indicate 1960s Philips tubes it would be a shame to use it up (esp if the inverter does not drive the tube properly as is often the case with 12V Fluorescent lighting)

 

(* it looked brassed capped from the photo on twitter but it may of just been the lighting/photograph...)

[Zelandeth]

Think it was just the photo. Just a no name "white" tube. They're all 535 whites at the moment which looks horrible against the uniformly warm decor.

 

They'll all be getting swapped for 827 tubes shortly (I've a stack floating around somewhere) which will match better and hopefully give a bit of a brightness boost. If any that come out are worthy of note, expect them to appear on ATL/TLR obviously.

 

Long term I'll need to think about what to do about the drivers in these lights...the housings will be staying though as they look the part, have a nicely integrated switch and work well enough. Hmm...will probably do a test to see how long the tubes last in the real world before thinking too far into it.

[LightBulbFun]

Cool yeah 827s should really turn up the 1980s vibe  (at least your not sticking in some Generic daylight tube like I see in a lot of these low voltage Lights... god that would be awful LOL)

 

as for checking out the Drivers, since you have a scope on hand you could measure the current with that via a current probe or simply using a small resistor and measuring the voltage across the resistor then doing some quick maths to check the drive current for an 8W T5 tube your looking for about 130-170Ma. (you could also simply measure the current on the DC side and figure out the power going into the driver but you would also have to take into account the unknown losses of the driver it self)

 

BTW if you dont mind me asking I know you mentioned that this vehicle has been a long term want, did you want specifically this camper config or any Mercedes TN? is there a story to share behind it?  

[PhilA]

Needs bluish purple lamp up front.

 

The rest need to be driven hard on DC so they get mercury drift to one end of the tube. One needs a badly balanced resonant circuit so it flickers crazily when the voltage drops.

 

Perfect 80's ambience.

 

 

Phil

[dollywobbler]

Impressive progress. Sorry for not helping with it. My body decided that collapsing in front of the tennis was a far better idea!

[Zelandeth]

So the Activa and Lada were out to FotU today - Lada in particular getting a load of attention.

 

 

 

A little later in the afternoon after a brief stop at home to rehydrate, I took the van over to see the folks who had got together at the Field of Dreams.

 

 

 

Which went fine right up to the point when climbing into the van I caught the accelerator pedal, and it went *clonk* and straight to the floor.

 

This was quickly traced to being due to the little plastic bushing in the throttle arm on the fuel pump that located the cable having cracked.

 

Stuffing a bolt in next to the cable took up the slack for now.

 

 

Anyone know what the actual description (or even better the part number) for that bit is?

 

...or should I just fabricate something horribly ugly and forget about it for ten years...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

.... I caught the accelerator pedal, and it went *clonk* and straight to the floor.

 

This was quickly traced to being due to the little plastic bushing in the throttle arm on the fuel pump that located the cable having cracked.

 

Stuffing a bolt in next to the cable took up the slack for now.

 

IMG_20180714_183330.jpg

 

Anyone know what the actual description (or even better the part number) for that bit is?

 

...or should I just fabricate something horribly ugly and forget about it for ten years...

 

Could you not just Araldite it back together again?

[Zelandeth]

Could you not just Araldite it back together again?

Sadly a good 50% of it is outright missing, so not really an option.

 

I've seen what looks like an identical bit listed for several models, so looks like it shouldn't be too hard to find.

[PhilA]

Those unfortunately go by the very unhelpful name of "cable ends".

 

Phil

[spartacus]

Loving the camper. I used to drive a delivery van version of these, with no power steering, it was a bit of a test!

How many will yours sleep, it looks good for six?

[Zelandeth]

Loving the camper. I used to drive a delivery van version of these, with no power steering, it was a bit of a test!

How many will yours sleep, it looks good for six?

This has really been optimised for two, though that could be increased quite easily I reckon. You could choose two, four or six berth configuration when these were ordered.

 

No power steering on this either, though it's really not needed to be honest. It's not any noticeably heavier than that in the Lada, probably lighter when actually moving to be honest.

[Zelandeth]

Had a quick dig around just now, my main mission being to actually empty the bathroom to find what was stored in there.

 

Actually a bigger room than I'd expected.

 

There's obviously been an issue with damp in there at some point, hence the wall having been removed. Looks like all the hard work has already been done for me though.

 

Damp also appears to have come from the bathroom rather than the outside world.

 

I believe this would have originally had a folding sink to maximize use of the space, however that's not present so I'll need to figure out an alternative solution (or try to find something like the original).

 

There was a box of random bits in there too which helpfully contains the brackets for the waste water tank, all the taps, shower, a shedload of bits of trim and the reflectors from the rear bumper corners among other things. This makes me happy as their absence was bugging me.

 

I've also found a bunch of brackets and spacers which I think we're originally for holding the fridge in.

[Keymaster]

Don't assume it was internal damp! Would be wise run a hose over the external rails just to be sure it isn't letting in any water before reboarding and covering that wall.

 

Re folding sink - contact Simon at www.customcampersuk.co.uk, he will almost certainly have something in stock in the right shade of 80's yellow

[jonathan_dyane]

Your Merc is excellent. It's heartening to hear that the steering isn't too heavy; one fault these brutes have is the kingpins seizing if they aren't greased regularly. Make sure you get some grease through them regularly and you'll avoid a world of pain.

[Zelandeth]

Noted on the need for regular kingpin greasing.

 

I'll be giving the whole thing a thorough soaking as there's a heap of moss that needs blasting out of all the gutters, rails and around trim.

 

Would be stupid not to check thoroughly while it's all accessible. I've got some suitable sealant in stock, and think I'll basically assume every seam is leaking unless proven otherwise.

 

Have pulled the fridge out today for a thorough clean and a test on all three power sources.

 

 

 

Hasn't scrubbed up too bad actually. Hopefully it will work, as it would be nice to be able to start screwing some stuff back into place ticked off as done.

[mat_the_cat]

Think it was just the photo. Just a no name "white" tube. They're all 535 whites at the moment which looks horrible against the uniformly warm decor.

 

They'll all be getting swapped for 827 tubes shortly (I've a stack floating around somewhere)

 

Obviously tubes that you already have are cheaper than those you have to buy, but I've got some nice Osram 930 tubes in the iLoad - lovely light if like me you're bothered about such things A shame not to meet you yesterday; I was loitering by your Lada but didn't want to interrupt your coversation, and then never saw you again.