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

[Zelandeth]

Aye, that's correct Davie.

You were of course right on the nose with your guess, LBF... it's a bit spooky your knowledge of computers sometimes!

One thing's for sure...these machines haven't done many hours!

They are both downright spotless inside.

That's the total useful achievement for today...now off to go fall into bed.  Hoping to be in a better state to be a functioning human being tomorrow.  Fun fact, the common cold sucks.

[Fumbler]

You got some nice towers there. In fact, it might just be that the speaker inside them will also play normal audio, like my business HP machines do! You'll be surprised, the response from those is great.

 

Also mega like for mega great Polonez.

[LightBulbFun]

4 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

You were of course right on the nose with your guess, LBF... it's a bit spooky your knowledge of computers sometimes!

 

Dell optiplex 755s by the look of things

good for Core 2 Quad CPUs too, combined with a budget Graphcis card and you could have yourself a half decent budget gaming computer or something on the cheap  (Q35 chipset for those wondering so no LGA771 Xeon mods sadly otherwise you could of reused the X5355s from your Mac Pro in these 2 Dells)

[Zelandeth]

HP in this case actually.

I'll toss the whole lshw at you tomorrow sometime if I get a chance.

[LightBulbFun]

4 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

HP in this case actually.

I'll toss the whole lshw at you tomorrow sometime if I get a chance.

see im not perfect!

they looked like Desktop 755s at a glance, although looking closer im obviously wrong  (and I obviously missed the HP sticker on the PSU!)

dont forgot an lspci too if you get a chance to

however looks like its the same Q35 Chipset setup tho (with similar CPU support)

[Zelandeth]

Finally back in action after an absolute stinker of a cold.  Been ages since I've been knocked for six like that.

So...the Xantia decided that it would progress the clutch issue from "annoying" to "dead" day before yesterday.

Finally getting the lid off revealed no fluid present.  No huge surprise there given the behaviour.  Topping it off and liberal pumping of the pedal returned something resembling a working clutch.  Bleeding it will obviously be needed, though given the lack of any provision for that will make that job "interesting."

This is the point things got downright annoying.  Having returned the car to a usable if imperfect state, I decided to call it a day and put the lid back on the reservoir...and promptly dropped it straight down the back of the engine.  Did it drop all the way out the bottom?  Of course not...Can I reach it?  Heck...I can't even *see* the thing...Balls!

 Will get it on the ramps at the weekend and see if I'm really lucky and it's sitting somewhere accessible from underneath.  Not holding my breath...might need to find a new one...though I do have a spare Lada one which I'm really, really tempted to install somewhere actually sensible Inthe engine bay.  The current arrangement is just downright idiotic.

Have a sneaking suspicion that the original lid will be buried down there for ever more.

I'm just praying there's nothing wrong with the master cylinder...as I don't even want to think about the degree to which I'd need to dismantle the car to get that out.

 

The squeaking from the fan belt on the van had got to the point that it was driving me mad...so figured it was time to change it...picked up a new belt back with the £350 batch of bits from Merc before the MOT.

One of the main reasons for using a main marque specific dealer is that they have all the fancy parts lookup systems...therefore it's easy for them to track down exactly what you need.   Especially useful when there are a zillion different variants of the vehicle.  You should wind up with the correct parts...right?

Oh.

Annoyingly it's well outside the return window.  Anyone need a decent quality 6PK2000 belt?  Guess I'll be hunting down a replacement tomorrow.   So the van is still squeaking.  The Citroen is immobilised because I've dropped the clutch fluid reservoir lid down the back of the engine, and the offside front brake caliper on the Lada is weeping again...time for a new one. 

Think the Invacar needs to come out this weekend so something can go awry, then I can go for a full house of cars with issues!

[LightBulbFun]

you could look it this way: you know your doing Autoshite right when your only fully functional vehicle is an Invacar  (and a Sinclair C5?)

 

[Zelandeth]

The C5 really needs its brakes given a going over...so it's not without issues!

In fairness the van is perfectly driveable, just makes a godawful squeak at idle.  Likewise the Lada, it's not losing fluid at any appreciable rate.  Level in the reservoir has dropped about 3/4" in a month.  I'll try to get both of these issues sorted this week though.

 

The persistent rain over this week has made me shove sorting the laughably poor weatherproofing of the Invacar up the list.  Main issue was that both the front and rear windscreen seals have shrunk and perished.  The rear windscreen isn't such an issue as it doesn't get too much rain on it due to the reverse rake, and that any water getting in there just runs down the rear bulkhead - anything getting in around the windscreen drips onto your knees.

Long term plan is of course to source and fit new seals...however I don't have those on hand and would like to be able to actually drive the car if the weather is less than optimal...so time to re-seal the seals.

Including blocking off the 1/4" hole here on the offside of the windscreen too.

I'll be going back in about half an hour to remove the tape before the sealant has fully set.  That should give me a nice clean edge without ripping a bunch of it off.

Rear windscreen has been given the same treatment.

Also including blocking off the huge hole at the top.

Which looks far worse from inside.

So just waiting for that to partly set now before the tape comes off.

Hopefully this will keep at least the worst of the elements outside now.  I've always been a little worried about the security of the rear windscreen given how much the surround has shrunk, so this shoring it up can only be a good thing.

[LightBulbFun]

ahh, I imagine having a husky turbo boost would do that to your brakes

happy to see some more work being done to improve the Invacar, hopefully the seals are just standardised items that can be cut to the required length

but the better question is,  what happened to the defuser on that Popular pack and if its staying missing, it needs a proper T12 tube fitted  (T8 tubes in T12 sockets like that always looked quite naff to me)

[Zelandeth]

The diffuser that was on that one is now on the one in the Utility Room which was missing the diffuser when we moved in.

It's got a cheap and nasty T8 tube in because it gets short cycled a lot - and I've managed to smash two tubes in there since we moved in already so I'd rather stick with disposable ones... keeping the T12s for the SRS and QS fittings I run which need them.

[Zelandeth]

Tape is now off the Invacar.  Looks like I've got enough overlap on the edge of the glass to ensure it's actually sealed to the seal.  This is where most of the water around the windscreen had been historically getting in.  Can easy enough increase the overlap a bit of needed.

Top tip: panel preparation wipes (intended for use immediately before applying paint) will easily remove any PU sealant like this which hasn't fully set.  Handy to deal with the inevitable finger print or two.

...Plus one very black finger because I apparently nicked the glove I was wearing so one of the fingers wound up entirely full of the goop!  Thankfully it wiped off me as easily as the panel...will use sturdier gloves next time!

[Zelandeth]

Having done a bit of testing it does appear that both front and rear windscreens are now waterproof.  Haven't actually subjected it to sustained rain yet, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

Finally had a chance to do a bit more bodywork reconstruction this afternoon.

The foam based corner now looks like this.

Obviously some serious sanding action needed, but definitely heading in the right direction now.  Reckon I'll need to take a bit off the outer radius of the bumper, but I've kind of done that deliberately as it's far easier to take a bit extra off than to add extra material.

This stuff is *way* nicer to work with than what I was using before.

Will see how it sands, but in terms of application it's streets ahead of the stuff I've been used before...it actually holds its shape when upside down which was really handy when forming the lip along the bottom of the body.  This is definitely getting bought again in larger quantities as I get a feeling it's going to be a useful addition to the toolbox.

Have given the underneath of the service cover a skim over as well, hoping that will help strengthen it a little as it's suffered from being quite bendy so far due to the old damage.

 

[Zelandeth]

It seems that each time I do a bit of work on the body of TPA it comes out a bit better.

As of this afternoon it feels like we're actually getting pretty close to the offside front corner being built up to a suitable standard to be ready for finishing.

The work from yesterday was extensively sanded back (I'll be finding dust for years) to help define the profile before laying down another layer of paste over it.

The swadge line is still a little wobbly, and I've got a plan to tidy that up when doing the next stage of sanding.  Once that's done it will probably be a few coats of resin to toughen it up before throwing some paint at it.

It's not perfect by any means, but I think will qualify as "passable" once finished up and painted with a bit of care.  I still hope that at some point in the future I might be able to get a mould cast off a car with sound bodywork here to match the profile more precisely.

I've also started to build up the lower edge of the offside corner too.  It doesn't need anywhere near as much work to get it to a usable state thankfully.

Really wish I'd discovered this glass fibre loaded paste sooner as it's so much easier to use than the old school separate Matt and resin approach.  Having done a bit of anecdotal testing shows it to be more than strong enough for this job.

Hopefully I'll get time to get it finished tomorrow and start throwing some paint at it.

 

[LightBulbFun]

very nice work  

my only comment on it if you dont mind me saying, is I think the corner is meant to have a wider radius (is that the right word?) the other corner is not actually that far off

here's a couple pictures to hopefully give you a good idea on the shape of things

[Zelandeth]

Yeah, getting that radius correct seems to be the tricky bit.  It's one of those things that you only really notice once you look at the photos.  It's just foam under the fibreglass skin there so shouldn't be too hard to grind it back to the right profile.  I'm not too bothered about getting it millimetre perfect so long as it doesn't look a mile off.

Still kinda peeved that eBay fouled up the bidding on those NOS body panels the first time round!

[LightBulbFun]

aye its something I had noticed for a while now, but seeing how you have been continuously restructuring that corner I was a bit reluctant to point it out, especially given the amount of effort you have put into rebuilding that corner, I dont want to come off as down putting or anything!

indeed the whole body situation annoys me as well, from ebay glitching out the first time it showed up, to the person who won it, literally selling his Model 70 chassis before hand, and then complaining he does not have a chassis for his body, tbh at this point I feel sorry for KPL twice now that poor Model 70 has been deprived of a body 

the rest of this rant is probably best saved for next time I visit or something LOL

(at least I got a bunch of neat photographs from the second ebay listing, its very interesting to see how the body sections where constructed  ) 

[Zelandeth]

The radius of that corner being quite a ways off was bugging me...so out with the grinder again.

At close of play today this is where we were.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Still not perfect, but is close enough now that I think I can call it "good enough" given I started out with this.

 

I am going to be finding dust for months.

 

 

[LightBulbFun]

32 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The radius of that corner being quite a ways off was bugging me

ah goody glad I was not alone

very nice work its look much better then before and is very impressive given how you had none of the original corner to work with!

I wonder if it would be worth it in the absence of another Model 70 to make moulds from, for Dollywobbler to take a sheet of paper and make a 2D template of the radius of corner on TWC, and then scan it in for you to print out so you can then offer it up to the corner and sand according to it?

[Zelandeth]

I've got a sneaky plan for next time I'm in the same physical location as TWC, and it involves two of those self-inflating foam packing kits.  Basically take two of them and use those to make a rough mould for both sides of the panel.  It won't give me a mould that's perfect enough to stick a gel coat straight into, but it will give me something that's dimensionally accurate to work with.  As there's no direct contact between the foam itself and the surface it means that the poor state of TWC's paintwork (which is mainly what's precluded making a mould the usual way) isn't an issue.

[Zelandeth]

I had a feeling this morning that this was going to be one of "those" days, and indeed I was correct.  Spent the entire day running around all over Hell chasing my own tail.  As such was limited to about twenty minutes in the garage while dinner was in the oven.

This was however sufficient to move things along with the Invacar bodywork.  The nearside corner was now showing roughly the correct profile following the work a couple of days ago, however the surface was still quite rough as the underlying foam had been revealed in a few areas.  The resin there had ensured that it was structurally fine, but the finish was obviously going to need work before we could even start to think about paint.

To remedy this I managed to scrape just about enough filler out of the ancient tin I stumbled across the other day and slathered it on, trying to do as much as I could to ensure that it was worked into the surface to leave as few pockets of air as possible (the same was done for the slight void left around the crack just below the indicator).

Then once that had just started to harden I hit it with the sander.

Will want a little bit more sanding before a resin layer is laid down over it, however I had to abandon things at that point as the timer telling me dinner had to come out the oven was beeping at me.

Not sure how much time I'll have for cars tomorrow, but if I have some I'll get that given a resin coat so it's solid, then the whole area will want another light skim of filler so it's vaguely smooth before I start throwing high build primer and top coat at it.

 

[Zelandeth]

I suspect that tomorrow will involve lots and lots and lots of sanding.

Rear valance is a lot smoother now.

 

[LightBulbFun]

looking very awesome 

im guessing that orange/amber stuff is primer?

[Zelandeth]

Yep, it's a high build primer.  That basically means it lays down quite a physically thick layer of paint, which over the course of several coats with sanding between should help smooth out surface imperfections.
 

The game will be seeing where I decide to draw the line between wanting to make things tidy and calling it good enough...

 

[LightBulbFun]

26 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Yep, it's a high build primer.  That basically means it lays down quite a physically thick layer of paint, which over the course of several coats with sanding between should help smooth out surface imperfections.

oh cool   I heard that mentioned before and figured it was something like that happy to hear I was not far off the mark  (been finding out a bit more about car painting via @richardthestag Range rover videos  )

26 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The game will be seeing where I decide to draw the line between wanting to make things tidy and calling it good enough...

 

"ill just sand this one little spot here" 

*5 hours later*

"whoops!"

 

 

[Zelandeth]

That's basically what will be happening...the whole car will be getting paint - though the full on sanding should only really be needed where there's repairs needed.

 

...Oh.  Yeah, that means everything aside from the roof pretty much!

[Zelandeth]

Well that's been a less productive afternoon than I'd have liked in terms of Invacar bodywork.

The primer I applied yesterday appears to have reacted with the paintwork underneath it and had dried to a crackled finish - but hadn't actually dried fully.  So there's going to be a lot of work to remove that before I can move forward with that.  Kind of wish I just had some nice gloopy coach enamel to throw at it right now!

After a couple of hours of fighting with that I lost patience with it and moved onto other things.  The moment that my sander decided to expire with an almighty bang I decided to take as an indication it was time to move on to something else.  I'll drop by Toolstation tomorrow and pick up a more substantial sander...have a feeling that's something which I'll thank myself for in the long run.

Number one in "other stuff I need to do" was trying to track down the blasted clutch fluid reservoir cap which I'd in a spectacular show of hand-eye coordination dropped down the back of the engine.  Thanks to the "busy" nature of the engine bay in the Activa I couldn't even see where it had ended up, never mind being able to get at it.

Attempt number one to coerce it to fall out the bottom was by poking an air line down the back of the engine and blasting it in various directions.  No luck.  This was then upgraded to the hose pipe, equally unsuccessful.  Eventually I gave in and got the ramps out.

After a not inconsiderable amount of poking and prodding the cap eventually dropped out, not entirely sure where from actually as it just randomly landed next to my head from somewhere else.

Managed to get the thing back on this time.  I suspect there's still some air in the system somewhere as the pedal isn't great.  That will need some further thought as there's no provision for bleeding the system.  For now though it's driveable at least so I'm not going to worry too much.

 

Having finally sourced the correct fan belt for the van I figured it was time to see if I could get that on and see if it would resolve the extremely irritating squeaking at idle.  In addition to a very dry squeaking which I'd initially thought to be a bearing in something disintegrating until I discovered it stopped if you sprayed water on the belt, it would also periodically do the slipping fanbelt screech, especially if you had the headlights on putting some load on the alternator.  To be fair that's the only thing which really does pull power from the battery...glowplugs are usually on for <5 seconds and she usually fires first compression stroke so the starter motor doesn't really have time to drain any appreciable charge from it...I was pretty sure the belt was just old though.

For reference - here's the squeak we're talking about...not pleasant.

This took far longer than it really should have as it took me a good 45 minutes to work out how to release the belt tension.  This is a bit more involved than in some cases as there's an automatic tensioner which needs to be backed off.  That still doesn't give you enough slack though until you've also disconnected the vibration damper which is attached to the other side of the tensioner.  Then there's *just* enough slack to wrestle the belt off.

It isn't perished or frayed but it is quite badly glazed.

It was quite obvious when trying to get it off that anything you did that made the belt move resulted in ear piercingly high pitched squeaking - fair sign the belt was the source of it squeaking at idle.  Despite the new belt being 2mm shorter (according to GSF 6PK1015 is an obsolete size, nearest they could supply is 6PK1013) it slipped on without protest.  I then spent the next half hour trying to reassemble the tensioner. 

On the plus side, it will take me ten minutes next time I do it.  Not difficult, there is just a very specific order you need to do things in.  Hopefully I won't drop my socket set into the engine bay next time either.

So, after well over an hour...did we stop the squeak?

Hopefully that's actually embedded now...god I hate this new fangled editor...

Yes...we do now appear to have a squeak free van.  Exhaust still rattles a little at idle from time to time but there's not much to be done about that as it seems to be something actually internal to the silencer, it doesn't always do it anyway and isn't audible from inside the cab at least

Quick road test supported my initial assessment that indeed we do now seem to be squeak free.

Finally... that's only been on the to do list since September.

Last task for the day was a "period bodge" for the Lada. 

Yesterday we were in a hurry to try to get to a shop before they closed (we made it) and as such were "making good progress" at a few points, much to the bafflement of a couple of Audi drivers.   The car was quite happy to do this and actually feels a bit better for it - however the duct tape on the offside wing didn't survive the extreme velocities involved and started to disintegrate.

I'd never bothered messing with filler or anything as I'd always found it horrible stuff to work with and I reckoned I'd just make things worse.  Plus I know the wings will be changed long term anyway.  However as mentioned a couple of days ago this Fibral stuff is far, far more user friendly...so I figured we'd give it a shot.

Stuffed a couple of foam offcuts under there just to hold things in place while it sets, then set about filling the gaps.

End result (prior to sanding of course) was this.

I reckon once that's sanded back and painted we should be able to get a perfectly acceptable repair there.  If I can get it to a point where it's "inoffensive" rather than being the first thing you notice I'll consider that progress.

As far as the actual rust goes I'm not worried.  I've absolutely drowned the area in Dinitrol and there's no sign of it having got any worse since I got the car.  She's kept off the road when the salt is around too which I'm sure has helped too.

If this looks okay once I've tidied it up I'll probably do the same on the other side.  Oh...and I reckon this stuff should do just fine to repair the rear windscreen washer bottle...so I can fix that and get the rear window washer going... should please Dollywobbler at least.

Have a sneaking feeling I'll be roped into gardening all day tomorrow so probably won't be much to report then.

Edited June 22, 2019 by Zelandeth
Grammatical tweaking

[LightBulbFun]

happy to see repairings going relatively well on the rest of the fleet

I wonder what went bang in the sander, Universal motors dont tend to go Bang unless its commutator bars thwacking something at a great rate of knots LOL (usually when you have hooked the brushes directly up to a Variac  )

[Zelandeth]

Not sure to be honest.  The thing vibrates violently, so my guess is something has worked loose.  Currently guessing a power connection to either the switch or motor.  Will obviously pull it apart when I get a chance, as I will still need a detail sander.  A 1200W rotary one is probably rather more up to the job sorting out large areas though than my tiny little detail sander...

Glad to have put a stop to that horrible noise from the van.  I was 80% sure it was just the belt that was squeaking...but the thought was always nagging at the back of my mind that either the tensioner or water pump bearings were actually to blame.

I did check for any signs of roughness or excess play in the alternator, water pump and tensioner pulleys and everything seems fine to me.

Really do need to attack the engine with the degreaser though, the offside front of it is quite a state from the (fixed a few months ago) leak from the cam cover (pictured below). 

Just want to clean it up so that if a new leak were to appear I'd have a chance to notice it before the thing started to actually mark its territory.

[SiC]

7 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

happy to see repairings going relatively well on the rest of the fleet

I wonder what went bang in the sander, Universal motors dont tend to go Bang unless its commutator bars thwacking something at a great rate of knots LOL (usually when you have hooked the brushes directly up to a Variac  )

My experience of a lot of non-pro power tools is that the cheap bearings overheat/dry out/fail. When they let go, the shaft motor flails around inside and then jams with a bang. 

[Zelandeth]

As predicted had hardly any time at all in the garage today because this had to be sorted out.

Got started around 1000.  Eventually fell back in through the door about 1900.  Path still needs attacking with the pressure washer, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was.

I did get a couple of things done though.

Firstly was actually digging out a hole for the compressor to live in so I didn't keep falling over it every time I walked into the garage.

Long term it will go in the far end of the garage and I'll have piping installed to get the air to where it's needed.  For now though this will do.  It's a noisy sucker of a thing so I may well make a "shed" for it outside and just pipe the air in at some point.

Following the (violent) expiry of my detail sander yesterday I made a trip out to pick up something a bit more manly which hopefully won't go pop as soon as it gets worked hard.

That seems a bit more like it.  Didn't realise when I picked it up that it's got an adjustable speed control, but that's quite a nice feature to have.  It'll have a baptism of fire shifting that horrible undercoat that's been put on the Invacar!  Obviously will need to either fix my existing detail sander or get a new one to deal with the fiddly bits as this one is obviously not a precision instrument!

Edited June 23, 2019 by Zelandeth
typo