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

[Paul-l]

On 11/23/2020 at 8:24 PM, Zelandeth said:

Given how terrible the quality of most automotive replacements these days I'm not even going to bother with them.  These condensers almost always seem to be in the 0.1-0.3uF range that I've seen values stamped on, so as I've got good quality polyester film caps in stock in 0.22uF/1kV I'll just be fitting one of these

Don't suppose you have the RS stock number for those caps?  - I can't find any at 1000V and 220uF and was thinking these would work well but more difficult to fit in a can: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/polyester-film-capacitors/6224959/

It sounds like a useful thing to get in just incase

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, Paul-l said:

Don't suppose you have the RS stock number for those caps?  - I can't find any at 1000V and 220uF and was thinking these would work well but more difficult to fit in a can: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/polyester-film-capacitors/6224959/

It sounds like a useful thing to get in just incase

0114610 looks to be the current version of the same product.

These caps are polypropylene film types, I may have said polyester earlier in error somewhere... mainly because I last ordered them in excess of ten years ago!

[CaptainBoom]

On 23/11/2020 at 21:59, Zelandeth said:

Funny you should mention vintage radios...that's what I have these caps in stock for!

I had to chuckle at this.  I've been using RS at work for years, and only last week worked out that the company's original name was 'Radio Spares', so your choice of cap is very apt.

Like the repair/replacement to the condenser, as you say there are just too many poor quality parts around these days.

[Zelandeth]

I'm a blithering idiot.

Note that the cap I've linked to above is correct.  The one I have *used* however isn't...

The one I've used is a 0.022uF rather than 0.22uF.

Because I'm an idiot and didn't actually think to check that what I'd pulled out the drawer matched the label on the drawer.

Do I have any 0.22s in stock?  Not a chance!

Have a choice of 0.1uf or 0.47uF...or sticking two 0.1uF caps in parallel and mounting them remotely.  Which is what I'll probably go with.  Just hide them away behind the distributor.

EDIT:

So remember that nice tidy capacitor replacement I did...Yep, as indicated above I'm an idiot and used the wrong cap...Resulting in a car which would die as soon as you even looked at the throttle.  Not having any 0.22uF caps in stock as it turned out I had to get inventive.  The nice invisible repair is now less invisible.

This is just a temporary solution until I have the correct capacitor back in stock, but has got the car running properly again as best I could tell on the driveway.  Didn't go any further afield as the temperature had dropped below dew point which meant this was all I could see of the world.

The lack of any meaningful demisting system is definitely one of the bigger winter-weather shortcomings of this car.

I'll see if I can get a test done tomorrow to see if this has actually improved performance now I've got the right capacitance in the circuit.

[SiC]

On 11/24/2020 at 5:05 PM, Zelandeth said:

Especially as the void in the can has now been filled with hot glue to provide mechanical support to the cap.

If I have problems with it going gooey due to heat I'll revisit things and use epoxy.  I just don't have any in stock right now.  Reckon it'll be fine though.

You'll want to support that leg coming out, otherwise vibration will work harden it and it'll break off. Also it'll corrode pretty quickly too if not covered, given its an external condenser. A bit more hot melt glue on it would suffice.

[Zelandeth]

41 minutes ago, SiC said:

You'll want to support that leg coming out, otherwise vibration will work harden it and it'll break off. Also it'll corrode pretty quickly too if not covered, given its an external condenser. A bit more hot melt glue on it would suffice.

Yeah, had already planned on going back to add a bit more support, just wanted to make sure it actually worked though before sinking too much time into it - though it's become a slightly moot point now given that I've used the wrong capacitor!  Given that the *correct* sized one is larger than the original I'll need to rethink mounting arrangements.  I may well cut away a portion of the original can and just fasten the new cap to that as a bracket.  Will need to have a think once I've actually got it in my hand so can visualise things better.

[dollywobbler]

On 11/24/2020 at 10:29 PM, Zelandeth said:

The curse of the CVT and a relatively torquey engine I guess!

20 has been less of an issue for me as any of the roads around here that are 20s also have speed bumps or cushions every three and a half feet.

Ah yes! Speed cushions and three wheelers really do not go together well. Mind you, the rear track is a bit narrow for straddling them too!

 

[Zelandeth]

At least the suspension is soft enough you just kind of bounce over them comically rather than crashing over them in a way that shatters your spine into a million pieces - as in most of Chris' company cars.

I do have to remind myself to avoid them when in the Xantia as both the van and Jag are wide enough to drive over them without touching.  Xantia ain't...it also has about an inch of rear suspension travel at the moment which doesn't help.

Didn't get a chance to get TPA out today but did reattach my now horribly hacked together condenser arrangement to the distributor.  It was just dangling by the wires yesterday.

Told you it wasn't pretty!

I did trim that cable tie after this photo was taken.

Engine definitely seems happier, at least when standing still the throttle response seems cleaner. Not sure of I'll have the opportunity to get her out at the weekend or not yet.

[Zelandeth]

Towards the end of the summer the oil pressure warning light stopped working on the Jag.  Given that the oil pressure gauge doesn't work this was less than ideal and was not something I was willing to leave unfixed.

By the standards of a V12 XJ-S it's not particularly difficult to get to at all.

Thanks to the sheer amount of stuff in the way this did require a certain amount of inventive use of two extensions and a universal joint to get to it, but not too bad to be honest.

The offending item.

With the new one fitted correct operation of the warning light was restored.

Fingers crossed it lasts longer than the previous one which was only in there for about a year.

Earlier in the day I had reason to do a bit of an audit and clear out of the chest freezer in the back of the garage as we had a large delivery of frozen snacks etc for Christmas and New Year arriving today (basically when we found we could actually get a delivery slot from Iceland we grabbed it!).  This meant backing TPA out, and while I had some room I decided to do a bit of a clear up.  Not bothering about the piles of junk around the periphery...I just wanted to pick up all the bits of finely atomised rubber floor mats and and sweep up the year's worth of accumulated leaves - and omnipresent film of soda blasting media that I reckon I'll still be finding a couple of decades from now.

Looks a bit less unpleasant at least.

Note the complete lack of any oil puddles...Since I sorted the sump plug washer TPA's engine has remained completely oil tight.  She weeps a bit of gearbox oil at speed from the gearbox top cover (reckon I'm missing a gasket), but that's it.  Not bad for a 47 year old car.  Bet if the engine was British she'd leak!  Most of the discolouration of the concrete there was there from before we moved in.  Aside from the stripe left to right near the door - that's spilled resin from when I was rebuilding the rear apron.

There will be a MAJOR clear out and rearrangement happening in the new year.  Basically everything forward of the space the car parks in will be getting kitted out with ranks of shelving across the width of the garage (leaving just enough of a gap to be a walkway along the left hand side) to finally give me decent storage.

Getting rid of the clutter along the sides here will be a massive improvement as I'll be able to actually get to both sides of the car, and have the permanent equipment like the Sun engine analyser set up in an actual home.

The black paint at the threshold is an experimental test to see if I can stop the little bit of water that tends to get in from doing so.  The garage door closes about 1/2" in from the edge of the concrete slab so water tends to "wick" its way under the door through the grain despite there being a slight downhill grade to it...so I want to see if the finish being less porous helps stop that.  It's not a big issue, but I'd just like to sort it if I can.  Especially as there will be a floor covering of some description going in at some point to make it a nicer place to work.

There's more clutter than usual in here at the moment as well as we've got a crew coming tomorrow to spend the week to permanently deal with the rampant bamboo in our back garden, so there's a bunch of garden furniture and cushions from it etc buried at the back too.  By the way...if you're looking at a house where the previous owner has been daft enough to plant bamboo outside, not in a properly shielded container, run away.  Getting it eliminated is going to be costing us the best part of £6000.  Yes, six *thousand* pounds.  The work does come with a ten year guarantee at least. 

I've also made a bit of a change to my parking arrangements.  The Xantia has now moved to the bit of ground under where that huge Spruce tree used to be.  The ground there is really hard packed and there's no grass or anything there so it's not going to get churned up.  Plus it's just scrub land so couldn't care less really if it did make a cosmetic mess of it.  Unlike the bit of lawn right out the lounge window which I'd been using as the overflow space before.  That wasn't too much of a problem A: In the summer when the ground is like concrete, or B: When the car there wasn't being used much.  However with the ground now being flat and everything pretty much in regular use I was starting to chew the grass up.  I also really, really didn't want the Jag parked long term in damp weather over grass given their tendency to rust.  So the Xantia is now to the left of the driveway, the Jag has taken up the position behind the van, and nothing is on the lawn.  Well, the Xantia will for a couple of days when the landscaping crew arrive tomorrow as they'll be using that space as their entry/egress into the rear garden, but not on a long term basis.

We might well actually extend the driveway over towards the fence, where the tree used to be as it should gain me two spaces - but that will involve quite a bit of ground work to remove the stump of the tree, to flatten it all out etc...so not a job for this year.  I really would like to be able to actually park all my cars on proper spaces though...and not have to dump something on the street whenever I want to get TPA out of or into the garage as that wastes a lot of time - and basically means I can't do it between 0830-0930 and 1430-1530 every weekday due to the school rush.

Having this as a proper parking area would definitely be really useful.

That bit of actual driveway is usually occupied by Chris' company car by the way...and it's not quite long enough to get two cars in one behind the other.

[Zelandeth]

It's always fun when you take a car in for its first MOT in your ownership.  Doubly so when you really haven't had time to check anything beyond that all the lights work.

Never mind when it's on a 35 year old British motor and the test is effectively six months late thanks to COVID (granted the car was off the road for the bulk of that time).

Anyhow...in we go.

Twenty minutes later:

I'll take that.

Usual issue noted with the daft steering rack mounting bushes meaning the whole rack can move, which I was already aware of.  Might look to sticking some improved bushes in there at some point.  That didn't go on as an advisory as it's more of a stupid design than a fault due to wear or age.  Only other thing noted was a tiny bit of play in the lower pins in the rear hubs.  Nothing major and I've always told my tester I'd rather he told me of any issues rather than just issue an "easy" pass.

He admitted to being pleasantly surprised by the overall condition of the car and was complimentary of the standard to which the usual welding repairs had been done.

[SiC]

On 11/29/2020 at 11:38 PM, Zelandeth said:

By the way...if you're looking at a house where the previous owner has been daft enough to plant bamboo outside, not in a properly shielded container, run away.  Getting it eliminated is going to be costing us the best part of £6000.  Yes, six *thousand* pounds. 

[Zelandeth]

5 minutes ago, SiC said:

I did suggest napalm...

Wouldn't have done any good though as the root system had got under everything and spread out for miles.  The whole rear garden is basically now just looks like a ploughed field, where there was once a huge raised patio etc.

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, Zelandeth said:

The whole rear garden is basically now just looks like a ploughed field,

Mini FoD, complete with Invacar

[Mrs6C]

18 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Mini FoD, complete with Invacar

You were saying?

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

You were saying?

when you said you might have somewhere undercover to put REV and Dolly

Burying them is not what I had in mind!

(I can just picture @Six-cylinder's Joy* as you do work on the new barn and unearth a 3rd Invacar someone buried there back in the 80's or something LOL)

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Mini FoD, complete with Invacar

Given the mini digger was threatening to sink when they picked it up this afternoon, that would be a bad idea!

I gave up about 20 minutes into the second stint.  The soil here is just so clay rich that once it gets wet it's like glue.  You wind up with a few kg stuck to your boots in about 20 seconds.  Dragging stuff through that and then having to haul it up to shoulder height to chuck it in the skip is just hell.  Would have been nice to get it properly full but it just ain't happening.  We did probably get a Xantia sized pile of stuff shifted though so progress has been made.

Reckon our next step on that count will probably be to hire a similarly huge skip in the spring along with the most manly wood chipper we can get hold of.

 

[spartacus]

5 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

It's always fun when you take a car in for its first MOT in your ownership.  Doubly so when you really haven't had time to check anything beyond that all the lights work.

Never mind when it's on a 35 year old British motor and the test is effectively six months late thanks to COVID (granted the car was off the road for the bulk of that time).

Anyhow...in we go.

Twenty minutes later:

I'll take that.

Usual issue noted with the daft steering rack mounting bushes meaning the whole rack can move, which I was already aware of.  Might look to sticking some improved bushes in there at some point.  That didn't go on as an advisory as it's more of a stupid design than a fault due to wear or age.  Only other thing noted was a tiny bit of play in the lower pins in the rear hubs.  Nothing major and I've always told my tester I'd rather he told me of any issues rather than just issue an "easy" pass.

He admitted to being pleasantly surprised by the overall condition of the car and was complimentary of the standard to which the usual welding repairs had been done.

'Liked' for the MOT pass and the TI scientific calculator photo bombing, reminds me of school.

[Zelandeth]

There are four calculators which live on my desk or within arm's reach of it.

The Casio fx-451M probably being the most unusual of the bunch.

Really elegant solution to how to make a fully featured scientific calculator that's no bigger than a standard pocket one I think.  This thing saved my sanity at several points in college by virtue of having binary, hex and octal modes and the ability to do polar to Cartesian conversions with one button press.

Several of my classmates hated me for the fact that their fancy pants graphical ones lacked features I took for granted.

The little LC-826 was found on the floor of a garage years ago, clearly having been run over many many times...aside from a slightly mangled back panel it's totally unscathed!

The TI-30 is a nice calculator, only slightly marred by the fact that it (like most of that line it seems) has serious contact bounce issues on some of the keys.  7 in particular.

[spartacus]

Wow, the Casio calculators with the little solar panel seemed space age compared to the massive TI models with the LED displays, although I'm sure school recommended the TI for maths 'O' level and beyond.

That's a great little collection, I wonder if they were made with such an extended lifespan in mind. I'm guessing they must be nearly 40 years old?

[Six-cylinder]

I reckon I bought this new 1977/8 when I was at collage.

What do you think the input voltage is and I will try and find a charger?

[spartacus]

Can't you just add up the voltage of however many cells it takes, or an I over simplifying things?

 

[Six-cylinder]

2 minutes ago, spartacus said:

Can't you just add up the voltage of however many cells it takes, or an I over simplifying things?

 

The case is screwed shut with a jack pin for charging.

The model number is SR 41908 and on line info says 6V.

[spartacus]

Ah! Let's hope the internal cells haven't leaked. You can buy universal power supplies, although the last one I bought was from Maplins.

@Zelandeth apologies for the thread drift.

[Isaac Hunt]

That condenser rebuild, very clever, like that 

[Six-cylinder]

14 minutes ago, spartacus said:

Can't you just add up the voltage of however many cells it takes, or an I over simplifying things?

I have just found the original charger for it.

I have plugged it in but after 10 minutes nothing.

[spartacus]

You could probably take it apart and fit new cells if it hasn't been damaged by leakage.

[Six-cylinder]

2 minutes ago, spartacus said:

You could probably take it apart and fit new cells if it hasn't been damaged by leakage.

I have  been looking on line and it seems 3 X AA rechargeable cells as a pack.

[SiC]

Hopefully the cells haven't leaked. Sometimes the cells need to work otherwise it'll frazzle the insides on some stuff. 

I wouldn't leave it plugged in in the hope it'll work personally. 

[Zelandeth]

That's right up my street...let me know if you want me to take a look at it.

No need to apologise about thread drift I feel, the tangents are often where the most interesting discussions happen.

[Six-cylinder]

Wow!