Zel's Motoring Adventures...Volvo, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 07/05...

[Zelandeth]

22 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Feel your pain. I had to pick my daughter up and opposite there was a lady who wanted some vacuum wands, and I said I'd drop them off (sold her the hetty last year and did put shit wands on it then, fair enough).

Guess what I realised I'd forgotten when I parked up and eva jumped in 😡 Back across thame, didn't even turn the car off, ran inside, grabbed the wands, back across thame , up and down the gears as it's all tiny local roads. Probably used the fiver I'd charged her for the stuff just in diesel cos I'm an idiot and forgot to pick them up despite leaving them in the way of the front door... I just moved it out the way without a 2nd thought and into the car 😂

Go put the o ring in the car NOW . Then when you forget tomorrow you won't have done.

This plan does involve you jumping in the same car as the o ring tomorrow though 🤔

Way ahead of you.  It was chucked in there about 30 seconds after I wrote that post.

Unfortunately as I had kind of expected it very much is not a standard size (or at least not one that's currently made - 60 years ago might have been a different story).  Smallest thing that either Pirtek or Beeline could find the in the catalogues with the same cross section was more than double the diameter we need.  So most likely that Wadham's had a batch of specials made up.  What hacks me the hell off is that if they had to do that anyway, why the fluff didn't they do it in an appropriate material so that the part could be a "fit and forget" solution rather than typical modern crap rubber that starts disintegrating before it's even been moulded...I'd far rather pay £5 for a part that does the job properly than £1 for one which means I need to pull the fscking head off again in a year to replace the damned thing.  I've no real confidence that buying the same part from the other usual suspects for P4 bits will be any better quality.  Though given that my choice looks to be either to try theirs or get a batch made up myself (which would be talking about a minimum order of at least a few hundred pieces) I guess that should be step one.  Well no...Step one will be emailing Wadham's and asking "WTF is this shit?" about the part that's failed after being in place for about two months and seeing what they say first.

I don't dislike the idea of getting a batch made up in a suitable material to be honest as I really doubt that I'm the only P4 owner to be running into this.  However if there's a solution that doesn't involve me spending hundreds more pounds and waiting a couple of months I'd rather pursue that first.

[Andyrew]

I was talking with someone today at a company in stacey bushes and I mentioned your trabby, and i said " you may see it around here as the owner is local" 

As I go to leave I'm talking with a mate who works there and you pull up over the road leaving beeline.

 

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, Andyrew said:

I was talking with someone today at a company in stacey bushes and I mentioned your trabby, and i said " you may see it around here as the owner is local" 

As I go to leave I'm talking with a mate who works there and you pull up over the road leaving beeline.

 

It's both a small world at times, and a pretty distinctive car!

[GlenAnderson]

What’s the part number, do you know? It might be worth cross checking against Land-Rover parts as a variant of that engine was used up to the early eighties in 109”s. 

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, GlenAnderson said:

What’s the part number, do you know? It might be worth cross checking against Land-Rover parts as a variant of that engine was used up to the early eighties in 109”s. 

I have scribbled down 09170 on the notepad on the desk when I was digging around earlier...not sure if that's actually it though.

[GlenAnderson]

Looks like the equivalent part on a Land-Rover 2.6 is RTC1975. 

https://britcar.com/product.php/391833/0/sealing_washer__water_pump_to_cylinder_head_2_0l___2_6l___series_1___11___111

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295612923646?_skw=RTC1975&hash=item44d3e73efe%3Ag%3ArDIAAeSwFd1pmLN0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338481839&customid=&toolid=10049

Although Craddocks are cheaper on their website than eBay if you are going to get anything else from them to offset the shipping. 
 

https://www.johncraddockltd.co.uk/rtc1975-rubber-seal-thermostat-to-water-pump-1948-58-and-2-6-litre.html

[GlenAnderson]

L/R parts book page. 

[GlenAnderson]

If you are ever in need of any engine parts that might be the same as those used on Land-Rovers, then I would highly recommend this website for finding and cross referencing part numbers, and hunting down the best suppliers. 
 

https://www.lrworkshop.com

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, GlenAnderson said:

Looks like the equivalent part on a Land-Rover 2.6 is RTC1975. 

https://britcar.com/product.php/391833/0/sealing_washer__water_pump_to_cylinder_head_2_0l___2_6l___series_1___11___111

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295612923646?_skw=RTC1975&hash=item44d3e73efe%3Ag%3ArDIAAeSwFd1pmLN0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338481839&customid=&toolid=10049

Although Craddocks are cheaper on their website than eBay if you are going to get anything else from them to offset the shipping. 
 

https://www.johncraddockltd.co.uk/rtc1975-rubber-seal-thermostat-to-water-pump-1948-58-and-2-6-litre.html

Cheers for that.  Gives another couple of suppliers to try at least.  Though what's the odds of them all having come from the same factory in China and all being as bad as each other...guess we'll see.

[GlenAnderson]

Britcar have it listed as a genuine part rather than OEM or aftermarket, so that would be my pick.

[Zelandeth]

Just now, GlenAnderson said:

Britcar have it listed as a genuine part rather than OEM or aftermarket, so that would be my pick.

Yeah, and it costs more than £1.  Though hopefully "OEM" in this case doesn't mean "Has been on a shelf since 1958!"

Will grab one and report back.

[Zelandeth]

Funnily enough when I went back on a different day and there was a different guy on the parts desk, Volvo were vastly more helpful and had all my parts there less than two hours later.  Much better.

I have discovered that I've made a blunder with this car though, apparently the MOT ran out at the start of the month.  I'd have sworn it was in July or August, but couldn't see it in the calendar so checked.  March 1st.  Oops!  Guess I'll be running over to Steve tomorrow with my tail between his legs and see when they can fit me in.  I need to get the Trabant booked in too though it's not actually due until the latter half of April so less urgency there (and it's exempt anyway I just see no reason not to have it tested).

Second attempt at an O-ring for the Rover's head has arrived.  It looks and feels exactly the same as the previous one, but that really doesn't mean anything!  Not really much I can do aside from fit it and cross my fingers.  Getting a custom run done is going to run well into the hundreds of pounds it looks like so not something I'm really inclined to do with how little free time I currently have.  If things were less hectic I'd be more game for it and make my extras available for folks through the owners club at cost price just to be helpful.  I just don't have the time at the moment though.  So let's cross our fingers this one is better quality.

[GlenAnderson]

Yes, fingers crossed. 🤞 

[mk2_craig]

Papped 

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Papped 

Of those four two even work!

Whereabouts has that popped up then?  

Given the number of people I see taking photos of the Trabant (way moreso than anything else I've ever owned) I'm always kind of surprised not to stumble across it more often.

Need to at least wash the poor Renault as she's starting to turn green (well they all are, including the Trabant despite being in daily use!).

[Zelandeth]

Off we go again...

The man from the Ministry he says...

I'll take that given I did absolutely zero prep!

Edit: Oh, and this morning while being closely supervised by an overly interested puppy I did finally manage to reunite the inlet manifold and cylinder head from the Rover so they're ready to go back on the car.

This is a job that really calls for a set of skinny ring spanners if I'm honest.  Would involve a lot less cursing with one anyway.  Is done now and *hopefully* they won't need to be separated again for a good while. Hopefully.

[dean36014]

What's happening with the Renault? It's been out of MOT a few years. Had one years ago and loved it.

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, dean36014 said:

What's happening with the Renault? It's been out of MOT a few years. Had one years ago and loved it.

It's being taken on by another forum member.  They're just stuck overseas at the moment so we haven't been able to pin down an exact date for collection.  It will be getting sorted though.

They are glorious things to drive, this one just needs a few too many things for me and I ran out of patience with what a mission getting parts for it was quite quickly.  The fact that Autodoc (and the 293735183936 other websites that are actually them under a different name) do not distinguish between the 2.0 carb and injection models in their catalogues so things don't cross reference correctly was probably the final nail in the coffin that just made me run out of patience.  Especially given Renault's decision to change a whole bunch of random bits throughout the entire car when the only things that needed to be different were the inlet manifold, the actual fuel lines, pump, an ECU and a handful of sensors.  But no, we'll also change the anti roll bar, drop links (which are made of pure, forged unobtanium) and brake pads...because Renault.

The guy taking it on though is well versed in the peculiarities of French motors though and has plenty of Renault savvy contacts so should be far better placed to deal with it than me.

[Zelandeth]

Okay.  Free couple of hours.  Let's get the head back on the Rover.

The most difficult aspect of this is caused by the fact that the top of the block sits at an angle and there aren't any dowels or anything that locate the head - so trying to manhandle the head into place, line the gasket up and secure it all at the same time while the head tries to slide off.  Sticking a couple of bolts in at the upper edge and hanging the gasket off it makes it a bit easier - but it's still kind of awkward to manhandle the sandwich into place.

Reassembly is the reverse of removal basically.

It was all going well. Distributor back in, and was about to start on the carb when I realised something.  I'd missed a small, simple but critical step hadn't I?

Excuse me while I find every curse word I could think of.

I get the impression that forgetting to put that bastard O-ring in place before fitting the head is kind of a right of passage if you work on these engines with any regularity.  I am not the first to forget it and definitely won't be the last.

Incredibly annoying though!

So I need to pull the blasted head back off again to put that bloody thing in place.  Thankfully I bought two head gaskets last time in case I needed a backup... I'd planned that to be for in a few years rather than...tomorrow, though.

Really annoyed with myself.  The one thing I'm really short on just now is time, and I've just wasted somewhere in the region of four hours by the time I've sorted this.  

I am totally buying an electric ratchet before I go back to this.  I am now thoroughly fed up of fitting/removing and refitting this damned cylinder head!

[captain_70s]

The Triumph slant-4 has a tiny brass pipe with a pair of O-rings twixt the water pump and inlet manifold/thermostat housing.

Chance of assembling everything correctly without missing or nicking an O ring and causing a massive coolant leak? Slim.

[Yoss]

7 hours ago, captain_70s said:

The Triumph slant-4 has a tiny brass pipe with a pair of O-rings twixt the water pump and inlet manifold/thermostat housing.

Chance of assembling everything correctly without missing or nicking an O ring and causing a massive coolant leak? Slim.

That's a fun* thing to remove as the two rows of studs are at different angles so at least one complete row of studs has to be removed before you can get the head off. Plus of course, steel studs through ally head so none of them want to move.

I'm sure somebody had a good reason for this but thirty years later it's a pain in the arse. Fortunately I've only had to do it once. 

[Zelandeth]

Oh that sounds a barrel of laughs... thankfully I've only ever had to have the Saab incarnation of that engine apart and it lacks such "interesting" features as far as I can remember.

[Zelandeth]

We are officially now back to where we were a couple of weeks ago.

With one major difference.

It looks like it's sitting off centre, but that's just how it is.  It sits snugly around a post, so there's no wiggle room in terms of positioning.

Out of time today so didn't get as far as reattaching the additional bits needed to run the engine, but at least the head is back on.

It better bloody not still leak after this!

Much as I dislike how over used the term is, the power ratchet really is a game changer. 

Especially when dealing with stupidly long threaded things like the nuts that hold the rocker shaft in place.  I reckon it probably saved me somewhere in the region of 15-20 minutes - which on a job that took an hour (including a 10 minute period of head scratching looking for the new spark plugs) that's an appreciable amount of time.

Kind of kicking myself for not getting one sooner...as I expected I probably would!

[Zelandeth]

Same day update.

Had me going initially as I still had a dead miss on 5.  However it was just a tight intake valve.  I'll go through and set them all properly when I next have a chance, likewise the oil will be getting changed as it's obviously water contaminated from last time round - I wasn't doing it until I'd confirmed the engine was actually going to run though and end up wasting another couple of gallons of oil.

Got a weep from the thermostat housing, the fuel feed to the carb needs a tweak, I can't find the throttle return spring, and it's obviously tappy as all hell because the valve clearances have been set by nothing more than Mk I Eyeball, and I've not a clue where the timing is actually set.

However it's running.  It's running on all six.  It doesn't appear to be pressurising the cooling system any more.  I'll take that as a win at this point.

[Zelandeth]

Does anyone make a spin on oil filter conversion for these engines?

I only ask because this is the second time I've pinched the damned seal putting a new filter element in and ended up with several pints of oil liberally distributed all over my driveway before I could kill the engine (and get an almighty belt from the ignition system as yanking the king lead off was the nearest available option).

I even *thought* that I should probably make sure the drain pan is under there just in case...however never got as far as actually putting the damned thing there.

Edit: Using a search engine not fully of Google AI BS and ignoring half my search terms, looks like I found one.

https://www.flexolite.co.uk/products/fa059-rover_p4_-_bolt_down_into_filter_bowl_-fa059

Will probably order one of those shortly.  I'm all for originality, but this is an area where we've come up with better solutions to the problem and will just be a nice quality of life upgrade at service time.

Getting the existing housing back into place is a giant faff as the chassis rail and exhaust downpipe are right in the way.

[Zelandeth]

Second time round we got it sealed.

Nobody will ever know...

A spin on filter will really make this far easier.  It's a right faff to get this filter together.  I'm pretty sure my previous P4 had a bolt that went up through the bottom of the canister up into the housing, so you could do it all from underneath.  This one, the (quite short) bolt threads down into the canister from the top.  So you need to try to hold everything together with about one and a half fingers against the rather strong spring in the canister and somehow use your third hand to get the bolt started.  The canister really wants to tilt when you're starting it off, which is what had happened the first time.

Small environmental catastrophies aside, the oil now appears to be staying inside the engine.  It's five litres of 20W50 mixed with what was left in four random bottles in the garage, which was enough to get it to about 3/4 on the dipstick.  It will be getting changed again after a couple of hours run time to hopefully get the last of the moisture and emulsified slime out of the engine.  I'll properly refill it with 20W50 at that point.  Wasn't worth wasting a bunch of good oil for a sacrificial fill.

Having oil which resembled oil rather than a grey milkshake in there meant I was happy to let it run a bit longer.  

The weep from the thermostat housing yesterday seems to have mysteriously self healed itself.  Though I'll still change the gasket to be on the safe side.  

Looks like I need to add a carb overhaul kit to my shopping list.

I could just change the bowl gasket, but I have already had issues with the float needle sticking, so just makes sense to do the lot while I'm in there.

We had the long, anxious wait for the temp to come up and see if the thermostat would open properly.

Which it appeared to about a third of the way up the white section of the gauge.  No notable pressure present at that point.  If you opened it at that point before there would have been a pretty spectacular geyer.

She's definitely running way too rich, and ignition wise it's definitely a bit on the advanced side as it's kicking back against the starter occasionally.

Sadly I ran out of time before I was able to do the valve clearances given the oil & filter change turned into rather more of a debacle than I'd hoped for.  I'm really hoping that doing everything twice isn't going to become a running theme on this car!

This one definitely has a deeper exhaust note than my previous one.

 

Does sound rather good.

Not too bothered by the smoke there, I know she's running quite rich and I'd left a good coating of oil in the cylinders while the head was off.  Also hasn't had a proper run in a long time.

At least feels like I've made a little bit of progress now.  Just need to work on...well...every other system on the car as well now!

[Zelandeth]

Today has been less productive.  

Though I did finally wash the Trabant.

First time since...uh...probably May or June.

When I say "I washed" I do of course mean that I did it myself... definitely didn't just chuck some money at my local hand car wash.  Nope.  Definitely not.

Yes, it really was as filthy as the windscreen made it look.

I hadn't realised quite how bad the rear windscreen was until it was cleaned.

Really wants going over with the polisher at some point, but goodness only knows when I'll have time for that.  I remember being quite surprised by how well the few panels I got to last time around came up.  Probably be this time next year before I get to that!  MOT is later in the week though, so figured blasting off at least most of the last year's worth of grime was probably worthwhile.  I do need to have a crawl over it and just make sure there's nothing daft going to cause issues before the test.

[Zelandeth]

Couple of Rover bits turned up this morning.

The conspicuously missing item from in here.

Now replaced.

Also a replacement clock of the correct type for the car.

Needs to be serviced and I'll need to figure out if it can be converted to negative earth or not.  The one in the car is both the wrong type and the innards of it have melted.

[Zelandeth]

Oil filter adapter is now here.  That will go on when the oil is next changed.

Got a couple of other things on order.  A proper set of HT leads which should actually reach properly and are a less garish colour.  I would like to go back to the proper original style ones as they are so much tidier - but it's like £200 for all the bits I need.  I just can't justify that for something that's purely to satisfy my OCD.  So that ain't happening right now.  They need changing though - the king lead in particular is way too short so can near enough be plucked like a guitar string, and I have already knocked it off at least twice.  

Likewise I'd like to go back to the proper double ended fuel pump to reinstate the reserve function - but they're nearly £400!  So again, nope!  I'll wait until a secondhand one turns up somewhere down the line and rebuild it.  Or modify the plumbing and just fit two standalone pumps.  I suspect the fact that they're shared with the S2 and S3 Land Rovers is why they're so bloody expensive.  I do need to find out where the feed for the reserve pump even is as it's not present inside the car.  I'm *hoping* it's just been capped off at the tank and isn't just floating around under the car...the main pump at least is a proper SU one rather than some random Amazon special that I'd trust about as far as I can throw it.

Carb overhaul kit, new fan belt, and finally a replacement for the missing starting handle make up the rest of the basket.  The latter isn't so much for starting the car so much as making turning the engine over while adjusting the valve clearances less of a faff.  

We are now working against the clock somewhat.  I would like to take this to an event at the end of May.  However that means that I need to have it up, running and reliable enough that I trust it enough to drive to Birmingham by the end of May!  Ideally by just jamming it on the motorway and heading up the M1/M6 as it's soooo much less of a faff than the A5/A45 way while less terrifying to break down on, takes absolutely foreeeeeeever...

[Zelandeth]

In we go again.

Third test in my ownership, which very rarely happens!

Result: Fail.

However it's a really easy fail - brake light switch has died.  We tested the theory by bridging it and yes it is just the switch.  New one has been ordered.  Should be the work of a couple of minutes to swap it out.

I'm absolutely happy with that result to be honest.

Good demonstration of why exempt vehicles getting a test is still a good idea.  I check all the other lights reasonably frequently, but the brake lights are more of a faff without a helper so I tend to rely on checking the reflection when backing into the driveway - which only really works when it's dark!