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

[Zelandeth]

On 1/13/2021 at 6:50 PM, bobdisk said:

  If you thought the ITT was complicated, have you ever seen a DUAL STANDARD (405/625!!!!!) Bush CTV25, 25 inch crt colour tv? 

https://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10687270

 

Sorry, missed to comment about the Bush.  I've seen the innards of one in my friend's "Roundtuit" pile in the loft, but haven't worked on one.  I think for all the added complexity it's probably still the easier set to work on.  At least it's largely PCB based and there's some logic to the chassis layout, half of the headaches with the ITT were that it was almost entirely hand wired (wasn't it actually the very last set to be produced with a hand wired chassis?), meaning that trying to trace anything was a matter of delving into a three dimensional, high voltage jigsaw puzzle.  Especially as the layout seemed to have been entirely decided by the same team who designed the Jag XJ-S engine bay with stuff just randomly scattered l over the shop.  Let's not forget the PD500 EHT shunt stabilisers which after as a wonderfully effective X-Ray generator...nothing like discovering after working on the set for a couple of hours that some prior repairer has removed the shielding can and defeated the interlock that should shut the set down in such a situation...

I'd still happily have either in my collection.  The TV I really want to get back to is a Mitsubishi CT-2023B which was bought by my parents only a couple of months before I was born and has been in the family ever since.  It has always produced an absolutely outstanding picture, and aside from a faulty volume control pot never needed a single repair despite being used (heavily!) right through to 2006.  It only played up after being in storage for a couple of years.  I really need to get it going again.  It's a very ordinary mid 80s set in most ways, but did give as good a picture as I've seen on any CRT ever, and obviously having been a bit of the scenery for my entire life has significant sentimental value.

[LightBulbFun]

43 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

PD500 EHT shunt stabilisers

interesting valve, if im reading things correctly its a sort of load dump for the high voltage to go to when you turn the intensity down? almost Zener diode-esk with how it was there to clamp the EHT

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aah0027.htm

 

[Zelandeth]

9 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

interesting valve, if im reading things correctly its a sort of load dump for the high voltage to go to when you turn the intensity down? almost Zener diode-esk with how it was there to clamp the EHT

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aah0027.htm

 

Yep, from a functional perspective it is essentially the thermionic equivalent of a zener diode.

[Zelandeth]

Glad to report that the relocation of the distributor condenser on TPA to a remote location hasn't had any adverse effect on running.

I couldn't see any reason it would cause issues, but it's nice when the laws of physics behave.

Rapidly closing in on the 1000 mile mark now.

Only issue today was one of the bits of carpet coming away in the nearside door.  

I'll get that glued back in shortly.  I didn't give the glue in this side as long to set before removing the supports, so probably my fault.

Was really surprised how busy everywhere was today.

[Zelandeth]

Oops.  I did it again.

I have GOT to stop rummaging through eBay at 4am when I can't sleep.

[LightBulbFun]

12 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Oops.  I did it again.

I have GOT to stop rummaging through eBay at 4am when I can't sleep.

if it makes you feel any better!  

[LightBulbFun]

https://twitter.com/RoadworkUK/status/1350358547499020289

@Zelandeth you have been papped! just not quite how I expected you to be papped LOL (was expecting someone to pap you out about in TPA, still surprised thats not happened yet!)

made me double take thats for sure  

[bobdisk]

For those interested in old colour tv;

 

TV1277-2.PDF TV1277-3.PDF TV1277-cover.PDF TV1277-1.PDF

[Zelandeth]

New webpage now live over here.

The turn of the Casio PF-3000 this time.  Interesting little gizmo from back when the designers hadn't quite figured out what we came to know as the PDA would look like yet.

Definitely an interesting little time capsule.  The early 80s really is a fascinating area where portable technology is concerned. 

It's become blatantly obvious that using a primarily black mouse mat as a photo back drop is idiotic.  Makes getting the exposure right an absolute exercise in futility, irrespective of how much light you've got going on.  To resolve this I've ordered one which should be a more co-operative backdrop for photos.

The lack of direct vertical lines should make any photos that have to be taken at odd angles due to lighting will look less stupid.

[Zelandeth]

Very little to report.  It's just not been the sort of weather conducive to car work lately.  I do have a couple of jobs in the pipeline though. 

First up is changing some (or possibly just doing all) of the ball joints in the steering on the Invacar.  There's a little play in at least one of them and most of the rubber boots have seen better days.  We *think* they're Mini track rod ends, but I'll be taking a closer look next time I'm in the garage to try to confirm that.  If they are the whole lot will probably be done (there are four, one at each end of the two steering drag links) as they're not expensive and if one is worn it stands to reason they're all in a similar state.

Second task is replacement of the rear flexible brake lines.  While these passed a visual inspection and haven't shown any signs of degradation aside from some surface rust on the ferrules I'd just like to have them changed for peace of mind.  They're quite likely to be original to the car and know things like that can often at some random point drop off a cliff where they go from "fine" to "absolutely knackered" in next to no time.  The front one was a NOS replacement at least, but I may do that too.  The front one at least has the advantage of being easy to visually inspect, whereas the rears can only be properly seen with the car jacked up and wheel removed.  Originally I was planning to have hoses custom made using the originals as a template.  This doesn't look to be necessary as apparently they are the same parts as used on 1969-71 Triumph Vitesse front brakes on cars with disc brakes...so replacements are readily and cheaply available.  I have a set on order at the moment so will obviously update here when they arrive to advise if they are correct.  I'm toying with just changing the wheel cylinders on the rear as well.  The offside one has a mangled bleed nipple which made bleeding that side a pain...and given they're less than £15 apiece  I'm tending towards just changing them so I don't need to mess around in the near future if one does start sticking or something.  The fact that they're original cylinders (one from TPA, one from KPL after the bleed nipple sheared off TPAs original nearside one) which just started working again when I piped them back up still surprises me.

I've picked up a bunch of proper rubber lined P-clips to properly clip the front to rear brake line in place as well as I wasn't satisfied with the distance between them originally.  Last thing you want is that rubbing through against the chassis or something like that.

It's become pretty clear that I'll be using the car regularly going forward so I'm eager to get peace of mind things like that done to a standard my risk averse brain is happy with.  I don't need Murphy's Law getting involved with single circuit brakes.

The issue with the alternator on the Jag is something I need to take a closer look at before I decide what I'm going to do about.  I need to take a closer look to see where it falls in accessibility terms between "horrendous" and "impossible" before I form a plan of attack.  Unless the rear of the alternator is massively easier to get to than I'm expecting I don't think I'm going to mess around with the existing one.  I'll just buy a replacement whole unit and swap it out.  Given how poor access is to anything in that engine bay even if it costs me an extra £150 or so I'd rather just change something once rather than having to go back in there in six months time when something else in the alternator fails.

The question will be whether I change it or a garage changes it.  If it's as much of a complete git to get at as I think it is, I'm probably leaning towards the latter *IF* I can even find anywhere willing to do the work.  If (there's that word again) access will be vastly improved by the stripdown needed to replace the cam cover gaskets (where the oil currently dripping on the alternator and probably responsible for its demise is coming from) I may have a bash at it when I do that.

I've no excuse aside from not wanting to spend hours outside in the rain for not getting that done now either...all the parts I need are here (except spark plugs, but those I can just grab locally) and waiting.  I'm kind of half cautiously optimistic that it's not actually as bad a job as it looks.  A lot of what makes the job look daunting is just the amount of stuff in the way...but there being 2/6/12 of everything magnifies that appearance unrealistically, and I'm hopeful that quite a bit of it can just be removed still attached to the inlet manifolds.  I can then just take that whole lot inside to rebuild the injector flexible lines, replace the seals etc.  I know I have a leak from the offside inlet manifold gasket, so that definitely needs to come off anyway.  I'm *hoping* that will get rid of the occasional miss at idle from that cylinder bank as it bugs me.  Conveniently there's no gas in the air conditioning at the moment so pulling those lines is simple and removes the necessity to have the system evacuated first.

I'm sure the biggest headache is simply going to be that everything is in the way of everything else, because Jaguar.

Yes, I will replace the missing Jaguar badges on the cam covers while I'm in there obviously.

I have to admit that I find that engine bay far less intimidating to look at these days now I've learned what pretty much everything does, and have come to realise that it's nowhere near as complex as it looks.  Well it is and it isn't.  Firstly there are just a lot of everything because there are twelve cylinders.  The biggest culprit for it looking so bad though is just that Jaguar never really made any effort to make it look tidy.  There are a lot of things that could have been routed more sensibly to reduce the overall appearance of clutter. 

Having figured out how most of that stuff works however doesn't make it any less pig awkward to work on though!  Everything is in the way of everything, and you're always stretching to reach because the engine is so far away from the outside of the car.

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

The front one was a NOS replacement at least, but I may do that too.

have you managed to figure out what the front flexible brake hose is shared with?

while as you did, I found a few other cars which shared rear hoses (including amusing the Ferrari 330GT/GC)  

I was unable to turn up much for the front hose sadly (but the Invacar Mk12E and AC Acedes (Model 67) Mk15 shares the same hose for what thats worth LOL)

(do still wonder what the ones in the parts stash are exactly)

[bobdisk]

 @Zelandeth Hope you dont have problems like @dollywobbler did when he did the alternator on his Rover 75 ! 

 

[Zelandeth]

Oh I'm fully expecting it to be an absolute swine of a job.  Just replacing the alternator belt took me the best part of a day.

That's why I'm making sure to get a proper look at what's involved before making a proper plan.  If it's going to be half as awkward as I'm expecting I'll most likely just pay a garage to do the work.  

I've done plenty of jobs which involved that much gnashing of teeth and swearing over the years to know when it's worth just paying someone to do it for you.  At the end of the day it's better for my sanity.

[GeorgeB]

If you do it, you will do it properly, cleaning everything and replacing broken clips and tired pipes etc.

If a garage does it they will bodge their way in and out and leave it all as they found it.

Can't you get a gazebo or something to work under?

 

[Zelandeth]

18 hours ago, GeorgeB said:

If you do it, you will do it properly, cleaning everything and replacing broken clips and tired pipes etc.

If a garage does it they will bodge their way in and out and leave it all as they found it.

Can't you get a gazebo or something to work under?

 

To be fair the garages I'd consider using I trust to do the job properly.  They've either proven themselves to me by prior work done, or have been recommended to me by others having actual work done on cars, not just unplugging and replacing a black box as on most moderns.  I've also been able to hammer into them that I'm far more interested in a job being done properly than cheaply. 

The brake hoses I ordered a few days ago arrived this morning.

Unfortunately it was immediately apparent that these aren't what I need.

Both ends of the hose on the Invacar need to mate with a flared fitting, so both ends need to have the fitting on the right.  This is a result I think of a seller who just had a generic photo on the eBay listing, and no actual part numbers listed on the page.  My own fault for not digging further I guess.

A little more rummaging for cross references of other vehicles using the hose I actually need (Girling 64047355) shows that the Mk I & II Triumph GT6 uses these on the front brakes.  Typing that as a search immediately turned up an eBay listing showing a pair of these...

Which do have the correct fittings.  So I've got a pair of those ordered.  If for some reason *they* don't match we're just going to go down the "Get Pirtek to make me some" route.

[Zelandeth]

Well that's a break from the norm...

These were ordered from MEV Spares via their eBay store yesterday, at 16:34.  Arrived on my doorstep a few minutes past noon today.  That be some speedy service!

Now trying to decide if I can summon the enthusiasm to go work in the garage while it's snowing outside.  Though I can't drive the car until it's done (I deliberately didn't put things back together yesterday) so probably will just try to get the job done today.  At least then it's done and I won't always have the nagging worry that one of these lines might let go at the back of my mind.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

These were ordered from MEV Spares via their eBay store yesterday, at 16:34.  Arrived on my doorstep a few minutes past noon today.  That be some speedy service!

parts ordered for an invacar from a Place with the same name as one, fitting!  

 

On 23/02/2019 at 12:15, LightBulbFun said:

MEV419P, Invacar, Date of first registration: 3 December 1975. Current status: owned by Alan Hitchcock, Current tax, no MOT history, Date of last V5C (logbook) issued, 4 April 2011

 

[bobdisk]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Well that's a break from the norm...

 

These were ordered from MEV Spares via their eBay store yesterday, at 16:34.  Arrived on my doorstep a few minutes past noon today.  That be some speedy service!

 

They also do some Reliant spares, (for Tiddles!!)

[Zelandeth]

We're 50% done.

After nearly two hours of cursing I got the first hose off.

The retaining nuts fought me every step of the way.

At least this meant I could fully confirm the new parts matched.

Excellent.

Getting the new one on was merely "bloody awkward." Here's a before and after.

Doesn't that look better?  The hose isn't twisted, it's just slightly longer than the gap so bows out a bit.  The old one was just doing it towards the camera in the above photo so it's less obvious.

Still surprises those hoses show no signs of perishing, just crusty ferrules consigned them to the bin...and I'd probably still have changed then anyway for long term peace of mind.  You don't take chances with single circuit brakes.

Hopefully get the other side done tomorrow.

I really need to have a look at how much work is involved in removing the seat back.  If it's only a few bolts it's totally coming off before I do the other side.  Squeezing into the gap which is about 2/3rds as wide as my shoulders to do this job is bloody torture...and made it far more frustrating than the job really was.

Will just be a nice job to have ticked off and one less thing to worry about long term.

[Zelandeth]

Let's finish the job we started yesterday.

It's still cold.

Somewhere down the line once the garage is actually sorted out I'll have to think about getting some heating installed.

Step 1...Do what I should have done yesterday and spend ten minutes taking the seat out.

Today this is the corner we're doing battle with.

The first retaining nut came off without too much bother.  Was still a bit of a struggle, but nothing too dire.

Of course the last one decided to be an absolute pain.  Not helped by having to do everything 1/32 of a turn at a time and access precluding getting any serious leverage involved.

If I hadn't managed to wedge that one spanner against the chassis rail I reckon I'd probably still be there.

It felt like a LOT more than an hour and a half later when we finally had the old hose out.

Getting the new one in was only made slightly more awkward by virtue of the fact that the flare on the line to the wheel cylinder wouldn't spin on the pipe so I had to screw the pipe onto the union rather than the other way around.

By this point I could barely stand from my legs and back cramping so I called it a day.  Jobs for tomorrow will be to bleed the brakes, adjust the handbrake, clip all the lines back into place and do a VERY thorough leak check.  While I have the seat out there are a couple of minor jobs in that area I might attend to at the same time.  Looks like I might have a very slight blow from one exhaust to inlet manifold gasket, or it could just be a bit of dirt...I'll look more closely tomorrow.  I'd like to attach that fuel line to the chassis rail to keep it from sitting and rubbing against the top of the engine mounting cradle too.

I'm thoroughly glad that these hoses are fitted now...Not a job I want to do again!  Such a simple job made a million times more awkward because of the positions that you have to contort yourself into to get to anything.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Zelandeth
typo

[dollywobbler]

 Ball joints - Barry Lee has one STY balljoint. He had the stash of spares that he sold to Mark but has a few things left. He's trying to discover if there are any clues to what they were shared with.

[Minimad5]

We need more Jag updates.
Deffo on the WANT list

[Mrs6C]

Balljoints, I haven't looked at them in detail, but a passing glance at the photo suggests they could be the same as for a Triumph Herald/Spitfire. The Herald suspension and steering components were beloved of all kinds of car builders, both 'factory' and kit, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is what they turned out to be.

[GeorgeB]

20 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

Balljoints, I haven't looked at them in detail, but a passing glance at the photo suggests they could be the same as for a Triumph Herald/Spitfire. The Herald suspension and steering components were beloved of all kinds of car builders, both 'factory' and kit, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is what they turned out to be.

Only ball joint in a Herald is on the track rod end.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Minimad5 said:

We need more Jag updates.
Deffo on the WANT list

There will definitely be more Jag updates.  I've got a to do list for it as long as my driveway, it'll likely kick off properly once the spring arrives.  It's not likely to be seeing much of anything until the weather improves a bit though.  Aside from anything else, I'm obviously trying to avoid letting it near any more road salt than I can possibly avoid.  The most recent development with it was the alternator losing interest in providing a useful amount of charging current...Once it's slightly less freezing and soggy outside I'll have a closer look at it and decide whether I'm going to change it or if it's a hard "nope!" and it's getting chucked at a specialist.  It's largely going to depend on how horrendous access is.

[Mrs6C]

2 hours ago, Mrs6C said:

Balljoints, I haven't looked at them in detail, but a passing glance at the photo suggests they could be the same as for a Triumph Herald/Spitfire. The Herald suspension and steering components were beloved of all kinds of car builders, both 'factory' and kit, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is what they turned out to be.

A bit more internet sleuthing revealed a Swiss motor factors selling OE tie rod ends for AC and Invacar Model 70s, which were listed as Quinton Hazell (QH) part number QR1072. A look on eBay suggests these are used in a variety of models including Austin, Rover, Innocenti, Vauxhall, Morris and Talbot. Doesn't mention Triumph, but never mind!

[Zelandeth]

54 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

A bit more internet sleuthing revealed a Swiss motor factors selling OE tie rod ends for AC and Invacar Model 70s, which were listed as Quinton Hazell (QH) part number QR1072. A look on eBay suggests these are used in a variety of models including Austin, Rover, Innocenti, Vauxhall, Morris and Talbot. Doesn't mention Triumph, but never mind!

Excellent, having a common brand part number to go with makes all the difference!

Very first hit punching QR1072 into eBay..."Classic Mini - 1962-83 Track Rod Ends..."  Looks like we have our answer then.  For the sake of £13 I'll get a pair ordered.  Will let you know how I get on.

[Zelandeth]

Nothing really to report from today.  I didn't realise quite how much I'd broken myself by spending a few hours folded into the space between the CVT and bulkhead in the Invacar the last couple of days.  Right up till the point I tried to stand up this morning and my thighs and spine immediately made it known quite how unhappy they were with me.  So I took it easy today and have mostly been doing more behind-the-scenes website work. 

I have ordered some hardware though for TPA.

That's a Triumph Spitfire brake master cylinder.  I figure that while I'm messing about with the brakes I'd just as well actually get the dual circuit brake upgrade done.  Yes it's another eighty quid, but the improvement in safety is absolutely worth it I think.  The idea of a brake failure in TPA scares the hell out of me, especially given how much driving around here is at speed with zero runoff area available.  That price is for a brand new TRW part too...could have got a used one for half that...and probably ended up having to rebuild it so I just went with new.  A couple of people have told me separately that the volumetric difference between the circuits actually shouldn't be an issue in the real world - we'll find out soon I guess!  If it doesn't work at least I can pass that message on so others know.

 

So...website stuff.  Most things are now working, but there are still a few dozen issues flagged up with mobile usability through the Google Search Console, and as most are things I can fix pretty easily I've been working through that list.

Basically breaks down into a handful of issues.

[] Text too small to read.  Fair enough.  12pt made sense when I was viewing it on a 1024*768 display, but it *is* kinda tiny on either a phone or high resolution desktop display these days.

The default in my page template has been bumped up to 14pt.  

This is being caused to some extent as well by the way the page is zoomed - my tablet in particular handles things awkwardly in Chrome.  I've been using 800px as the standard image resolution for images (with the original size accessible by clicking the respective image), but this is *slightly* too wide as Chrome appears to scale to a page width of 980px...which would be absolutely fine if the navigation frame to the left wasn't eating (from memory) 150px.  So I've actually only got 830px to play with...and by the time you've accounted for page borders etc you suddenly find yourself having to scroll horizontally.  Easy fix, I'll change my "inline" image size to 700px.  You won't really see the difference but it should fix the glitchy zoom behaviour.  The full (usually 10MP sans any cropping) images will always be available anyway so I'm not worried by a slight loss of definition inline.

Easy enough to sort once I figured out what was going on.

[] Clickable elements too close together.

In quite a few cases this has tied in directly with the above issue as it was resulting in zoom settings that are suboptimal.

Biggest culprit though are the tables on my lighting pages - and yep, fair enough.  There's going to be a bit of a do-over to properly sort that.  I'll be separating the image thumbnail grid out from the specification table, making the thumbnails bigger and spacing them out properly.  Will probably use a hidden table for that as it will really help de-clutter things a bit too.

Will be tedious that one but worth it.  The pages will look so much better for it.

[] Content wider than screen.  Simple answer there is I'm an idiot and utterly failed to account the layout of a few tables - this ties directly into the point above - and the one before.

Hopefully once those issues are tidied up it'll stop complaining at me.

Some cosmetic changes will be in the works too.  The overall site colour scheme isn't changing.  Red on black has been Zel's colour scheme since the very inception of his character 25 years ago.  Well nearly...in his case it's actually red on a very, very dark blue...as demonstrated by a picture someone drew of him for me about ten years ago (immediately before vanishing off the face of the internet...which is sad as I'd have liked to commission more work from them).

So yeah...if you'd wondered what the deal with the black and red was, there you go.

The wallpaper will be changing for one thing.  The pattern is really distracting I find on high resolution displays.  Plus the dragony pattern really doesn't fit the theme of the site these days!  It will be replaced with a more subtle texture probably, lacking in bright highlights.

I've long forgotten precisely which typeface I used for the original navigation buttons...so I'm just going to make a full new set.  I've got the template so it's only a five minute job.  They're also going to be getting rearranged in the frame.  I may well change the home/back buttons red too.  The jade green colour was only ever originally meant to be for off-site links.  Haven't decided fully on that one yet.

It's been a very time consuming job, but we're getting most things sorted now, it is just tidying up loose ends like this.  A lot of the stuff I'm doing now is just actually doing a bit of thinking about it...the original thing never really got designed, it just sort of evolved!

[bobdisk]

Isnt the brake master cylinder on the Invacar mounted horizontally (I may be wrong..), putting that reservoir at an angle? Whereas, on the Spifire, it at an angle, putting the reservoir horizontal. The output nearest the pedal would go to the front circuit, the other to the rear, so if the rear lost fluid, the front would have most of the fluid still available. If the front broke there would not be as much available to the rear. I may be wrong??

[Zelandeth]

The cylinder does tilt back slightly on the Invacar.  The master cylinder on the Invacar is an identical design to the clutch master on the Spitfire, so mounting angle should be fine as they sit at exactly the same angle on the pedal box there.  Even if it's a little off level the reservoir capacity will still probably be nearly double that of the standard one.  If all else fails the tank could be pulled off and a remote reservoir plumbed in (pretty sure I've still got a Lada one floating around somewhere).

Whichever way things are set up loss of a circuit is going to be scary - but I imagine you would still have a lot more braking effort available than from the handbrake alone.

Switching to a plastic reservoir is a good safety measure in itself though, as it lives right next to the fuel filler you can do a visual level check so easily then.  The metal one on here just now you obviously have to actually remove the cap to check the level.