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

[bobdisk]

I always thought at neutral the (and the sprung 2nd - 3rd line) knob should be vertical, left or right hand drive. Is there an adjustment there?   BTW, @Zelandeth, lovely shine on that 2CV !

[dollywobbler]

No adjustment, the difference is in the bar itself. The crank angles depend on a few things, like interior and engine bay fittings - Dyanes differ because the rod has to operate within the spare wheel. I think. They're certainly different to 2CVs.

[Mr Pastry]

38 minutes ago, bobdisk said:

I always thought at neutral the (and the sprung 2nd - 3rd line) knob should be vertical, left or right hand drive.

Mine is a 1981 RHD, never been apart AFAIK.  The knob is at roughly 9 o'clock in first, 10 in neutral and 11 in top.   The only possible "adjustment" would be to bend the twisted connecting link between the gearchange rod and the lever on the gearbox, which may be what has happened on 6c's car.  Doesn't explain why RHD and LHD gear levers are different though. 

[Noel Tidybeard]

29 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

Mine is a 1981 RHD, never been apart AFAIK.  The knob is at roughly 9 o'clock in first, 10 in neutral and 11 in top.   The only possible "adjustment" would be to bend the twisted connecting link between the gearchange rod and the lever on the gearbox, which may be what has happened on 6c's car.  Doesn't explain why RHD and LHD gear levers are different though.

becos french & sitreon 🤡

[Zelandeth]

I'm not a professional detailer, but I think I can call this an improvement.

Regarding the gearchange...here you go.

Neutral.

1st.

2nd.

3rd.

4th.

Reverse.

With a bit of luck I should be able to drop it back off tomorrow afternoon, though it's looking like it's going to be a manic day so that may well slip to Tuesday depending how the morning unfolds.

[Six-cylinder]

No hurry for its return just when you are ready.

Thank you so much for all your hard work.

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

No hurry for its return just when you are ready.

Thank you so much for all your hard work.

Any time.  As I've said I've been really enjoying it.  It's always satisfying to give a car a bit of a tidy up.  Really does show what just a bit of polish and wax can do though!

So who's going to be the next patient?  See if we can coerce the AX into idling properly?

[Noel Tidybeard]

i wonder if Zel can manage to "borrow" one car a month off Cylinder & Cylinder?

[Daviemck2006]

If I bade beside Zel he could "borrow" my hilux or leon any time he wanted. The leon would be easy for him its pretty shiny anyway. Mind you these pics were taken by a professional retailer just after a clean and ceramic coating

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[Six-cylinder]

7 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Any time.  As I've said I've been really enjoying it.  It's always satisfying to give a car a bit of a tidy up.  Really does show what just a bit of polish and wax can do though!

So who's going to be the next patient?  See if we can coerce the AX into idling properly?

AX would be great.

It has not worked properly for more than an hour at a time in the 10 months I have had it.

Also in that time it has had no more than a bucket of water thrown over it because there have been no shows and it is always broken. 

[Zelandeth]

I do believe the throttle return spring in the 2CV just made a bid for freedom.  However it did it literally as I turned into the driveway of a friend's place where I was picking up the Activa for the MOT so no harm done.  I felt the pedal drop of its own accord and just immediately killed the ignition and rolled into the driveway.

Will investigate when I'm back from the MOT, can't see it being a major issue though.  Not as though the throttle setup is exactly buried on these.

[Zelandeth]

Yep.  The hook on the end of the spring towards the front of the car has snapped off.  Looks to be just old age.  A temporary solution involving cable ties to tether it to the headlamp bar has been applied for now and got the car back home without any issues.

I'll take a closer look and see if I can form a new loop on the end of the spring later on.  At least they're not expensive if it does just need replacing.

Oh, and the Xantia at long last has an MOT.

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, Daviemck2006 said:

If I bade beside Zel he could "borrow" my hilux or leon any time he wanted. The leon would be easy for him its pretty shiny anyway. Mind you these pics were taken by a professional retailer just after a clean and ceramic coating

 

What are your thoughts on the ceramic coating Davie?  It's something I was looking into for the Jag before the world got turned upside down.  Being black it's an absolute pig to keep clean so anything which might help is desirable!

[Daviemck2006]

It's absolutely brilliant Zel. I first got the leon done over a year ago, and have never had to wash it with a sponge since. It got a lot of work the first time on paint correction with a couple of minor dents and chips sorted, and a 3000 then 6000 trapezoid sand. It doesn't even get dirty, and you know how filthy the roads here are, especially the b9001, which is the one I use to Aberdeen. It just needs covered with snow foam then power hoses to take it up again. It was back to the retailers a few weeks ago for a decent valet and top up of the coating. It's the best money I have ever spent on a car, but I only did it because of my mobility problems making it difficult to clean the car properly. If my back and legs were ok I would probably never have had it done. When it rains the water just runs off it.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[Zelandeth]

Cheers Davie.  Will keep that in mind, just useful to have firsthand experience.

Yep...this would explain the throttle pedal issue in the 2CV.

I did have a shot at trying to get a new loop in there but it's gone totally brittle and just snaps with or without heat.  So I've redeployed a cable tie.

At least a new spring is cheaply available, Over here for one example.

[dollywobbler]

Here's a useful tip for the new spring.

Courtesy of Ken Hanna. Use a cable tie at the hook end, and move the carb connection to the pivot. Tend to stop any tendency for the carb spindle to over-rotate and seize at wide open throttle. 

[Zelandeth]

That's the 2CV back home...much though I'm sad to see it leave my driveway.  Has been fantastic fun.  Managed to average 39mpg over the last week, despite the MK grid road factor which murders fuel economy.

This has allowed me to get everything back off the street again though, as the Xantia would otherwise have had to sit outside.

Hoping to get the additional space where the tree used to be (to the far right of the frame) into a usable state this weekend or shortly as that will make things easier when the next patient arrives.  We're planning to put a reinforcing grid down on the main lawn where the Jag currently is so it can be used for parking when needed.  I'd like to be able to park the van behind where the Jag currently is when we're taking the Invacar out the garage as currently I have to stick that on the road.

I noticed when getting into the Xantia this morning that the rear wiper blade had completely disintegrated...but knew I had a genuine replacement in my parts stash so swapped that over.  Wouldn't usually be worthy of note but for the fact that it's actually got a Citroen logo printed on it.

I wonder how much of a markup that added!

I do have the trim for the end of the arm but it's not a very good fit so lives in the glove box as I've always been afraid it would vanish if I left it on the wiper arm.

Had honestly forgotten how rapid this car is once the boost arrives...

Few things still on the to do list for it.

[] Reset Activa system ride height, as unsurprisingly with the whole front end pretty much having been apart it's gone awry and the offside front is sitting about an inch lower than it should.

[] She's due a timing belt.

[] Rear brake discs & pads.

[] Do *something* about the paint.

We'll get moving on this lot soon hopefully.

[LightBulbFun]

yay happy to see the Xantia is back and with a fresh MOT  

[Zelandeth]

Having been out for a proper drive now I can vouch for the fact that these have hugely improved the Xantia.

For a start the slight vibration at 70 has totally gone.  Secondly the grip (which was already impressive because Activa) is now absolutely ridiculous.  Thirdly they're massively more compliant than the old Michelins which they replaced.  It's made the ride far better and vastly reduced the tendency for the car to crash over sharp ridges in the road surface (which has always been the biggest weakness of the oliopneumatic suspension).

Will be curious to see how it is once we've got a new set of spheres on as I know the rears in particular are very tired. 

I had forgotten how annoying the creak from the OSF was though...really might need to put some energy into seeing if we can resolve that.  It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the car is so quiet and refined otherwise that it puts many moderns to shame...it just makes the strut that does a passable impression of a creaky door in a haunted house seem so much louder.

Something I was particularly pleased to see from the MOT was the result of the emissions test.  Given that we've got pretty much every scrap of paper for this car, we're pretty sure that this is the original 26 year and 140K mile cat still in service.

Running on six month old fuel too!

[Zelandeth]

This afternoon I made a godawful mess, getting most of the old flooring out of TPA.

As expected given I could see daylight through it, the metal underneath the offside kick plate was largely missing.

I'll make sure a little plate goes in here to bridge the gap.  I did note that a few bits were hanging down there into the area of the door runner, I reckon this may have had something to do with why that door jams so frequently.

Quite a few of the rivets aren't actually attached to anything because they've dissolved, so I'll replace most of them.  I'll be adding a bunch across the floor panel anyway so it's held still against the chassis as currently it's totally free to move aside from at the edges.  That's going to involve drilling several dozen holes from underneath... that'll be fun.

Then we can start getting the new flooring installed and she will start to look a good deal tidier inside.

[Zelandeth]

Well I think we might have found a large reason for the floppy floor.  A significant number of the rivets weren't actually secured into anything because they were smaller than the drilled holes, some others were only secured to the floor panel itself, and several others had dissolved.  I reckon about 20% of them actually secured the floor panel to the chassis.  Oh, and most of those were loose.

After a brief period messing around with the rivet gun I lost patience and just grabbed the bag of nuts and bolts.

Just this has added about 70% to the rigidity of the panel.  A lot of the rivets holding the body overlap to the floor seem to be just as bad, so I'm going to drill out and replace them all with stainless bolts.  Just need to pick up some new big washers for the body mounting bolts.

While it's a bit tedious this shouldn't take too long.  Currently there's no attachment to the floor panel aside from the edges.  My intention is to have it bolted to each of the chassis rails/braces.  Here's what's under the floor for those who haven't seen underneath an Invacar floor.

If there are still problems with any areas being floppy I'll probably attach a couple of lengths of ally bar diagonally underneath just to stop the panel from being able to flex so much.  We're keeping things pretty simple though.  Not wasting months on this.

The seat needs to come out next though as it's just going to make everything far easier.  This isn't going to be a "take the whole car apart for six months" job though.  I've been enjoying using the car too much for that, but I decided that I needed to sort the flooring situation after I did actually fall over getting out last week and very nearly took my eye out on one of the hooks on the garage wall because the flooring was so slippery.

Even when it wasn't trying to kill me the flooring was really scruffy though and was bugging me.  While I'm not too precious about the outside I do like my car interior to be tidy, and having this sorted out will definitely help my enjoyment of the car.  Very curious to see if it helps take down the noise level at speed at all.

The original kick plates are quite rough so I'm probably going to replace those, I've got some nice aluminium extruded pieces (they're actually stair tread plates) which will do the job nicely and as the return is a little less deep will make cleaning/greasing of the door runners less fiddly.  Think I bought those back when I first got KPL for this very purpose as they were completely missing on that car.

I'm probably not going to get much time to work on the cars this week.  Sadly a friend passed away from cancer at the end of last week so we're pretty busy both looking after their other half and generally helping out with the resulting admin and trying to get their house back in order.  They've not really been able to put any effort into housework for the last six months so it's in a bit of a state.  Obviously looking after them is priority one though, sorting the house comes later.  Not a huge amount we can do until Tuesday when all the hospital gear is picked up anyway. 

 

[bobdisk]

@Zelandeth, Are you going to use metal, or marine ply for the new floor?

(My ,and all Shiters, sympathy to the family who have lost their loved one)

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, bobdisk said:

@Zelandeth, Are you going to use metal, or marine ply for the new floor?

(My ,and all Shiters, sympathy to the family who have lost their loved one)

I only need to make a small strip to patch up the one edge here so it will just be aluminium sheet.  Wouldn't have been necessary if they'd bothered to remove the kick plates when they fitted the replacement floor panel goodness knows how many years ago.  However they just butted up against them rather than extended the new floor for the whole width.

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I only need to make a small strip to patch up the one edge here so it will just be aluminium sheet.  Wouldn't have been necessary if they'd bothered to remove the kick plates when they fitted the replacement floor panel goodness knows how many years ago.  However they just butted up against them rather than extended the new floor for the whole width.

depending on how it was done, that might not have had any choice if they just ordered the new floor from the DHSS stores then it may have come to them like that, although its something so simple that im surprised AR's where not just instructed to make it themselves

interestingly going by this letter it sounds like they might have? but then where added to the main DHSS stores in Heywood (STY79 and STY80 are written in by pen in the parts list so was clearly added afterwards) or maybe floor panels where only supplied by other means or with some other part? (worth noting that Cover plate must be something else, as the Tread plate/Door Sill/kick plates are listed separately) 

I do have this picture of a supposedly NOS Model 70 floor resting between/on 2 Model 70 body sections, that might help figure out what was what

 

the one thing im curious about is, what is TPA's floors made out of? iv heard rumour that in about 2001, the instruction went out to replace the floors in Model 70's with Ally ones, but I have never come across solid evidence of this (and curiously I think the above floor pictured was made of stainless, but I cant quite recall, sadly the ebay listing it was part of is long gone)

and I wonder about TPA as 2001 is when she came out of ministry service right when they where maybe fitting Ally floors

[Zelandeth]

It may well be stainless, there's no signs of oxidisation around the rivet holes etc and it's a lot harder to drill than I'd expect ally to be.

[bobdisk]

Try a magnet on it, Stainless is non magnetic. (as is aluminium, but I am sure you would recognise soft aluminium, against hard stainless.)

[mat_the_cat]

To be pedantic, only some grades of stainless are non-magnetic. But if it's too hard to be aluminium, and hasn't gone rusty then realistically it must be some kind of stainless!

[dollywobbler]

Pretty sure TWC has an ally floor. Certainly no rot in it.

[Zelandeth]

I'm pretty sure that if this was ally I'd have seen signs of oxidisation around the rivets (which I know are ally and HAVE dissolved, one of the mains reasons the floor is wobbling around so much), but the entire floor panel is absolutely spotless.  I reckon the floor panel is actually stainless.  It's certainly a LOT harder to drill through than I'd expect for ally.

If I have a bit of spare time tomorrow I hope to have all the rotten rivets replaced.  I was pretty low on stocks of appropriate fasteners so did a bit of a restock today.

Should hopefully be everything I need to get the floor properly attached to the framework for the next couple of decades.

 

[Zelandeth]

I appear to have managed to fail to take a photo...but not a huge issue given there's not much to see!

All of the rivets to the left of the seat in the floor of TPA have now been drilled out and replaced with stainless bolts.  The vast majority just disintegrated the moment I touched them with the drill so clearly weren't doing much useful.

The difference in rigidity of the floor panel with only that done is huge...you can still make it move, but it has resistance and doesn't just flop around.  Thumping it with a first now makes a solid sounding thud rather than a hollow rattle. 

I definitely want to make a point of changing all of the fasteners involved here as they're all clearly shot.  So the seat needs to come out next as there are half a dozen buried underneath it that I can't get to any other way.

Goes without saying that I'll be looking closely at a few of the other body mountings where rivets have been used in case they're in as bad a shape - though the water being trapped under the floor mats for years probably made the issues here so much worse.