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

[Zelandeth]

After a long long period stuck in development hell, the Invacar webpage is now finally live.

Webpage over here.

Of course I've immediately spotted a couple of typos...I'll address those in the morning.

This is a subject where I'll really need to put together a supplementary history page as it's just too complex to fit into one general page without it ending up just completely unreadable.

At least updating it going forward will be easier rather than trying to put together a potted history, three years of use and the recommissioning story all after the fact.

[Zelandeth]

Ran out of steam before I could get it uploaded, but the webpage for the R25 is complete up to where we've got with it.  Won't really be anything on there you've not already seen here save for some higher resolution photos.

It's now booked in on January 4th to have the front suspension looked at to hopefully get rid of the knocks and clonks coming from there.

Tasks I'd really like to get done in the next couple of days weather permitting:

[] General service.  Caddy is due an oil change too if memory serves.

[] Inspect the timing belt.  I'll probably change it (or have it changed) in the spring anyway as it's due by time, though it's only done ~600 miles since it was fitted.  I'd feel more at ease if I've had a look at it I think.

[] See if I can get the stereo out to check for unplugged/damaged cables.

[] Clean the damned thing...

...Try not to come up with yet more excuses to drive it somewhere.

[Zelandeth]

Today on "random coincidences spotted while out shopping..."

I did not park in that spot deliberately.  Well, I did but purely because it was the one with the least other cars around.

A little present arrived in the mail today.

Which has confirmed a couple of things.  Firstly is that the Monaco is indeed an up-specced GTS.  Second is that the colour was in fact unique to the Monaco, and was referred to as Oak Bronze.  This is useful to know for cross referencing purposes when I come to actually try to buy paint for the car.

Here's the contents of that foldout brochure.

Page 1 full resolution scan.

Page 2 full resolution scan.

Page 3 full resolution scan.

Page 4 full resolution scan.

Page 5 full resolution scan.

Page 6 full resolution scan.

This is a 1987 brochure, so predates the switch to fuel injection.

In addition, the webpage for this vehicle is now live over here.

Yesterday's comment: "I really should stop coming up with excuses to drive the car..."

Today: Manages to do 50 miles of local running around.  Sigh...

Has the novelty worn off yet?  Nope.  Yes there are issues, but I'm still standing by the original assessment I made when I had that really quick drive of my original one 19 years ago.  This car just really, really suits me.

[Jenson Velcro]

Every time I see those seats…… just wow.

Are they as comfy as they look?

[Zelandeth]

27 minutes ago, Jenson Velcro said:

Every time I see those seats…… just wow.

Are they as comfy as they look?

If anything they're more comfortable than they look.

[Zelandeth]

I'd been waiting on some silver cable ties turning up so I could apply some additional security to the wheel trims on the R25.  Slightly irked when they turned up and are actually just dark grey.  Meh, will do for now.  At least I know the trims are going to stay put.

I originally thought these were secured by the wheel bolts but they're not.  Nor do they clip onto the wheels massively securely - especially with the modern zinc wheel weights being rather chunkier than the old lead ones.  Combined with the number of pot holes that there are around here I could just see one of these frisbeeing itself off into the sunset one day and really don't fancy trying to find a replacement.  So slightly ugly cable ties it is for now until I come up with a better solution.

None of my cars gets to live a completely sheltered life...They all need to earn their keep.  While I'd draw the line at carting dirty waste in the back of the R25, I'm absolutely not beyond using it to cart a whole bunch of cardboard and an old bookcase to the recycling centre.  Plenty of space once the seats are folded down.

The rear seat folding mechanism definitely gets a mention...I've never seen anything quite like it.  As you fold the backrest down the base is attached to a linkage so you just need to give it a little lift to get it started then it folds itself up out of the way as the backrest drops - the reverse happens when you fold it back up again.  The forward section of the parcel shelf remains attached to the seat back.  I'll need to record a video to show how it works, as it's really quite clever...and more the sort of thing I'd have expected to see in the Merc S123 than an 80s Renault.

Made it look like there wasn't very much in here at the end of the day.

It took me a good 20 minutes or so carting stuff out of the house and dumping it in there though, there's a lot more in there than it looks like.

You remember me mentioning that repair tape on the exhaust?  I have a sneaking suspicion that "about this far" may have been the limit of its durability, as I'm pretty sure the exhaust has got louder.  It is neither obtrusive nor unpleasant, just a nice purposeful growl on acceleration - but I'm sure it's louder than when the car arrived.  I mean she probably hasn't had a decent run in forever, so that may just be I've now blown a load of crap out of the system...but that sounds like wishful thinking.  Exhaust may wind up being first up after the front suspension is sorted then.  Especially as there's a godawful rattle from it somewhere up front-ish at certain revs which is incredibly annoying...

No, I wasn't kidding about how annoying it was!

The exact source of which has thus far eluded me...It kind of sounds like it's coming from inside the front silencer.  Though it's quite hard to get a good look - ground clearance isn't something this car has a lot of so I'd really need to get it up in the air to have a proper look I think.  Especially as the front silencer runs right to left across the car more or less under the front seats I think rather than down the middle front to back on most cars.  It's a bit of a ridiculously complicated setup for a car of this age with no less than five sections.

I know that (from the front) parts 3, 4 and 5 don't look to be in their first flush of youth, 4 is the one which has currently got tape on I believe - and I don't give good odds on any of those bits coming apart intact.

That is not going to be cheap to have made up in stainless...but I see this car as a long-term keeper so may well just go down that road.  I don't fancy the odds of cheap aftermarket systems (if I can even find one) fitting properly.  Which is moderately annoying when you're trying to get two bits of pipe to line up and have some wiggle room - but the third section sits about an inch away from the inner sill and 4 actually passes *through* the rear chassis rail, so the potential for my descending into madness trying to fit an aftermarket system here is very high I reckon.

[Asimo]

10 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

The rear seat folding mechanism definitely gets a mention...I've never seen anything quite like it.  As you fold the backrest down the base is attached to a linkage so you just need to give it a little lift to get it started then it folds itself up out of the way as the backrest drops - the reverse happens when you fold it back up again.  The forward section of the parcel shelf remains attached to the seat back.  I'll need to record a video to show how it works, as it's really quite clever...and more the sort of thing I'd have expected to see in the Merc S123 than an 80s Renault.

Makes up for the inexplicably dumb and annoying rear seat antics of the Renault 20 / 30.

[Zelandeth]

Today started with a bit of car Tetris and ensuring that all the bits and pieces that go with it were in the Cavalier ready for it to be picked up.

Yes the Caddy is absolutely filthy.  It's just that time of year.

Then I started poking around at really quick tasks as I was expecting the car to be collected around 1100.

Quick and easy one was swapping out the air filter in the R25.

I do need to look out for a new lid for the air box though as there's a crack through into the clean side of the filter.

Patched for now with some aluminium tape, but I'll clean it up and deploy some epoxy as a more long term fix shortly.  At least I know it's sealed now though.

Then well...a whole lot of thumb twiddling happened.  Sadly after being chased by the buyer a bunch of times the transporter failed to turn up.  Apparently they will be here 0830 tomorrow morning...fingers crossed.

[Tommyboy12]

I sat in twiddling my thumb's a lot today too 🥲

[Zelandeth]

This transport company apparently aren't the best at timekeeping.  Turned up a full 32 minutes early this morning, despite being given a very clear window.  Thankfully I was actually available at the time.

Anyhow, the Cavalier was safely loaded up and sent on its way.

I am sure that @Tommyboy12 will keep us appraised of their progress with the continued resurrection of the car.

[Zelandeth]

Things I discovered today:

You can't just pull the stereo out of the dash in a Renault 25.

It doesn't clear the dash above, even with the removable bit of trim pulled out.  So I think the whole centre console needs to be pulled out.  Oh well, that's a job for later then.

Seats are looking healthier now after half a dozen passes with the leather feed.

Now feeling a good deal less like cardboard.

This evening's entertainment: Dismantling our oven to see if I can ressurect/bodge it to work tomorrow.  

[High Jetter]

6 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

This evening's entertainment: Dismantling our oven to see if I can ressurect/bodge it to work tomorrow.  

Fan or element misbehaving?

[Zelandeth]

4 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Fan or element misbehaving?

Timer having a fit and killing power to everything.  Eventually traced (we hope) to a very tarnished edge connector on a ribbon cable.  Absolute madness cramming something like an oven full of that amount of electronic nonsense...and a daft choice of connector for an environment like that.

[High Jetter]

Sounds like you've sorted it, but surely a timer could be by-passed. Who needs timers on ovens anyway? We haz clocks, watches, and a countdown digi Salter thing when needed.

[Zelandeth]

13 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Sounds like you've sorted it, but surely a timer could be by-passed. Who needs timers on ovens anyway? We haz clocks, watches, and a countdown digi Salter thing when needed.

Issue is that everything in this is under microprocessor control.  There's no actual separate power feed between the timer and "oven bits" - just a ribbon cable to allow the separate circuit boards to talk to each other.  It's an overcomplicated, overpriced disaster.  It's a built in thing we inherited with the house though so not our choice really.

[Zelandeth]

Well the oven is still working so hopefully I have got to the bottom of the issue with it.

I had really hoped to get quite a few things done today as our guests headed home in the early afternoon so I could quit the awkward socialising.

Then the weather absolutely nose dived.

I eventually gave in after about half an hour of trying to ignore the sleet.  

Only thing I managed to achieve was replacing the bit of tape on the R25 airbox with some chemical metal.

Will slap a bit of paint on it once the rest has been cleaned, will be less obvious then.  Also swapped the 10mm nut holding the lid on for a thumbscrew so I no longer need tools to open/close the air filter housing.

There's a local classic car show on the morning of January 1st which I'm going to take the Renault along to.  I'd *really* like to have at least had the opportunity to have washed it before then...

[Jifflemon]

15 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

There's a local classic car show on the morning of January 1st which I'm going to take the Renault along to.  I'd *really* like to have at least had the opportunity to have washed it before then...

Shall look forward to seeing it there!

[Zelandeth]

12 hours ago, Jifflemon said:

Shall look forward to seeing it there!

We'll see!  I've tried attending this show twice so far and they've been full by the time I got there both previous occasions.  

Whether the weather is better at all tomorrow or not I'll be doing something by way of washing the R25.  I just can't take it to a show looking like this, it just looks utterly uncared for...

[Zelandeth]

It was breezy and cold today but not really too bad so out came the pressure washer.

This car really needed it.  I'm pretty sure this is the first time this poor car has had a wash since at least 2017 when it was put back on the road, possibly longer.

Just horribly ingrained dirt and green crap everywhere.

Of course being 5C outside meant that the hose absolutely didn't want to cooperate.

It wound up being put away still a tangled mess - hopefully it will be something resembling flexible again once the weather warms up a bit.

An hour or so later it's a lot cleaner.

Came out looking almost black to the camera with the sun where it was today.

This is probably the worst of the most obvious grime before that showed on the camera.

Still needs a lot of tidying, but looks a little less neglected at least.  Getting some treatment on the plastics will help a lot too.  

We did have one grumpy cylinder after the engine bay cleaning, so will check back in on that tomorrow.  I did manage to blast the distributor pretty well courtesy of me tripping over the hose.  So it might want drying out.  HT leads do feel a bit petrified too so I'll probably get a set on the shopping list.

All my cars get their engine bays washed at least once or twice a year.  Firstly I hate working on a dirty engine bay.  Secondly, if something is going to protest at getting wet I'd far rather it happened on my driveway rather than when I hit some unseen puddle in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.  Yes, that included the V12 Jag.  No, water in engine bays is nothing to be afraid of so long as you use some common sense and are confident in doing a bit of gremlin hunting if something does get cranky.  

[Zelandeth]

Never ceases to surprise me how much difference having the bumpers be actually vaguely the right colour helps make a car look so much tidier.

It's raining so will be a bit of a patchy job I'm sure, but better than it was.

[hairnet]

to quote sctsch

fucken broon

always thought the wheels were alloy

 

[Zelandeth]

For once a simple job which was precisely as simple as it should be.

These two switches were lacking in working illumination.

Unlike a lot of switches these are actually dead easy to change the lamps in.  Only proviso is that you need to have wire ended bulbs with leads of about an inch or so long on hand.

Stock number 360-7913 from RS will do just fine.

The cap pops off the switch easily.  After this point keep it upright or bits will fall out.

You're presented with the working bits of the switch (white things) and a combined lamp holder/diffuser (green thing).

The lamp holder is a friction fit and should be pretty easy to lever out with a screwdriver or similar.

The lamp is simply held in place by two notches that the leads go through, and they're then wrapped around a post on the sides of the holder.  These are held against a contact in the switch body so provide the electrical connection.

Old lamp out, new one in.  The new lamps are somewhat physically smaller but I don't see that causing issues really in this application.

Then reassembly is literally reverse of removal...slot the lamp holder back into the switch body, clip the switch cap back on and put it back in the car.

Camera makes that look brighter and whiter than reality, the brightness matches the power window switches pretty much spot on.  

All in this took about ten minutes.

Noe, the one that's out in the rear window demister switch on the dash, that I'm expecting to be a bit more of a challenge as I'm not sure you can get the switch out without a degree of taking the dash apart.

[Zelandeth]

Following on an identical theme to yesterday I decided to have a closer look at the trio of push switches.  Only the fog light switch illumination worked reliably.  The hazard switch would usually wake up if tapped, rear screen demister was dead.

I had visions of having to dismantle the dash to get these out, but no.  Turns out if you remove the little storage cubby immediately below you can then push the switches out of the dash from behind.

Actually extracting the switches requires a little patience as the wiring connectors have a very firm hold.  Especially the hazard switch which has about 38274619 pins.

Which allows you to retreat out of the torrential rain into the house to tackle these.  

I had no idea going in whether these were going to be an absolute pain to re-lamp, a lot can be.  I think a lot of manufacturers just assume the lamps will last "the life of the vehicle" with no provision for replacement other than swapping the switch.  PSA, I'm looking at you...the ones in Series 1 Xantias are a massive faff to re-lamp.

Turns out these just like the rocker switches are easy.  A little more fiddly and you'll need a pair of tweezers.  Not difficult though.

The switch cap can be pulled off easily.  There are tabs at the top and bottom so wiggling it up/down while applying gentle tension will make them click free.  Really not much force needed.

Poking a small screwdriver or similar in through the holes will allow the diffuser/filter to pop out.

Now the fiddly bit.  Actually getting the lamp out.  This is especially a pain in the rear on the rear screen demister switch as it doesn't latch in, so you need to keep the white plastic portion pressed fully in while trying to fish the lamp out - and it fits quite firmly.

They take normal capless 1.2W 12V lamps.

 

New ones just slot in.  Which is precisely as, if not more fiddly than getting the old ones out.

Then clip everything back together.

...Then put them back in the car.

Sorted.  Again, took about 10-15 minutes all in.

[Jifflemon]

Your Prep work far exceeds mine - Which was to simply leave the car out in the rain!

I tend to rock up around 8:30, generally no queues to either get in, or to grab some breakfast!

[somewhatfoolish]

You want a lamp extractor, AKA a short piece of rubber tubing.

Lamp extractor

Lamp extractor

[Zelandeth]

12 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

You want a lamp extractor, AKA a short piece of rubber tubing.

Lamp extractor

Lamp extractor

Noted for next time I'm doing a job like this...never thought about that before.   Little bit of vacuum hose would probably work perfectly...

[Zelandeth]

First trip out to a show for the 25 in my ownership over to the annual New Year's Day show at Stoney Stratford.

Was quite pleased to come back from my first wander to find a DS parked next door.  The Seat SUV on the other side of me, not so much.

Definitely will need to make an information sign to go in the window.  Virtually everyone thought it was a 21.  Guessing that's because the headlights and grill are more similar to those on the 21 than on the facelift cars - and this is I think the second pre-facelift 25 I've ever actually seen in the metal...so the general public at a glance can be forgiven I think.

She's definitely still a bit cranky about the engine bay washing.  I've got one cylinder dropping out under heavy throttle at lower revs, which to me says weak spark on it feels like just one cylinder.  She started up initially off one so that tracks.

Looking at the distributor cap revealed two things.  

1. I need to add "replace distributor shaft seal" to my to do list.  No particular stranger to this issue from my Saab days.  

2. Well this definitely won't have been helping our spark.

Yeah, have got a new cap on the way.  Taking that off revealed that the HT leads are completely and utterly petrified.  I suspect they may well be the original ones.  A new set is on the way.

I'm not going to worry too much about that oil seal immediately.  This thing has done so few miles over the last few years and the oil isn't great so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.  I've had oil leaks like this on long dormant engines vanish on their own once there's good oil in the engine and it's back in regular use.  Not often, but it has happened!  The oil I'm hopefully going to get changed tomorrow.  It and a filter are in the boot.

Have cleaned the cap up a bit and put things back together.  I've also left them off at the engine end when it was hot.  The plugs sit in deep recesses in the head with boots which are meant to plug the whole recess - my money is on there being some moisture trapped under one of those.  We'll see I guess.  She's obviously due an ignition system overhaul so that's now happening.

While I was looking for those bits on Autodoc I found that a few things I'd not really expected to be in stock were there - crankshaft position sensor, air intake temp sensor, ignition coil and both coolant temperature sensors.  Given these are only going to get harder to find and we're only a few quid each for the sensors and £11 for the coil I just decided to order them on the spot.  They can just live on the shelf as insurance that I won't need them.  They're the sort of things that are likely to be right buggers to find in a reasonable time if I do come to want them.  Especially the crankshaft position sensor - which is the one that provides the timing signal to which both the ignition and injection systems are referenced.  So you lose that, you lose the lot.  The spare for that will be living in the boot.  At least it's dead easy to get to on this.

I'm not bothered that she's got a bit cranky following washing the engine bay.  It's clearly signposted to me that there's a weakness there, and I'd rather find it this way than hitting a big puddle halfway up the M6 in the middle of the night during a road trip.

Here's a few photos from yesterday at Stoney.  I didn't actually take many photos.  It was really busy so hard to get a good line on anything.  So I just concentrated on actually looking at what interested me and enjoying the show, and snapped what really interested me.

This...thing...definitely fitted the bill.

I mean...look at it!

I was thoroughly expecting this to be something purely to be trailered to the odd show for amusement value only until I walked round the corner.

It's only bloody road legal.  Taxed and tested too.

Obviously built before the current IVA rules came into force which would render building something like this today totally impossible for road use.  Though irrespective of when it was built I suspect using the rear engine on the road would be rather frowned upon!

Yes, that rear engine does appear to be functional, and if I'm not mistaken is a Rolls-Royce Gem - so about 1000hp worth.  Something this small would shift...rather well I suspect with that much shove.

I'm not usually one for wacky one off things built just because they could be...but this one really appeals to me.  It must be a royal handful to drive irrespective of power source, especially as there's no linkage between the bars and front wheel, so cornering lock is basically limited by how far you can lean - and with that size of a tyre up front with no small amount of weight on it I doubt it's light.  

I am very jealous of the owner and slightly in awe of them if they do actually drive it more than a few miles a year.  Irrespective, I really want a go!

Until the last five years or so I had relatively little interest in pre-war stuff, but lately I've really been finding myself drawn more and more to it.  This one in particular drew me in like a month to a flame.

Not sure if it's unrestored or just been done sympathetically done (no idea on what colours you could originally get one of these in), but irrespective it's obviously used and not babied and polished every other day.  I doubt anything we're driving today will look half that healthy after 107 years.

I'm really surprised how expensive Model-Ts aren't.  Yes I know they're not exactly something you can use every day, but given the age of them and historic importance in the story of the car they just seem a lot cheaper than I'd expect.  Always have done.  If I had a decent sized covered storage space I'd really be tempted by something like that as a weekend toy.

The little details are so nicely thought out and so different to what we'd consider normal these days.  Your temperature gauge for one.

I have been lucky enough to drive a Model-T, albeit only once.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Best advice to anyone else: Don't try to think "this is the equivalent to that control..." - Just try to forget everything you know already and listen to your tutor who is telling you "this control does..." And hopefully you should be fine.  Around 40mph has never felt quite so fast though!

While I may be able to middle my way through driving a Model-T, I'm not totally sure where I'd start with this!

Dating from 1896 this really is from the dawn of the motor vehicle when most people would probably have still assumed steam was the way forward and that the new fangled internal combustion engine would never catch on.

This thing is fascinating.  Here's the engine.

I wouldn't even know where the heck to start driving this...looking at it just for a few minutes there are a bunch of controls I've no idea of the purpose of!

It's interesting to see that the Model-T above dates to 1915, this thing from 1896, and in the middle in 1903 Oldsmobile produced this.

Which very much ticks the "horseless carriage" description really.  Underneath where the luggage rack normally would be there is an engine, albeit barely recognisable by today's standards.

I think looking at the controls though that I could figure out how to drive this though given a bit of time and a nice big area to experiment.  I saw this pull in though and it sounded lovely.  I know plenty of stuff built in the last ten years which don't run half as smooth - and given this only has a single cylinder that's saying a lot!

I don't know if I'll ever own a pre-war car, but I have absolutely come to the conclusion that I need to spend some proper time around them sometime.  

There were a few more relatable things there though.

I swear I recognise this XM for one.  It's not the Six-Cylinder one, despite being the same (or at least similar) colour.

The reg number seems really familiar.

This pristine looking Primera was lovely to see.

Primeras of any description seem to be one of those cars that just vanished overnight.  Imagine they cared poorly on the scrappage schemes given they'd have been right at the bottom of the depreciation curve around then.

Likewise early Mondeos...

Not to mention this lovely little Fiat 500 estate.

I didn't actually even know these existed until I saw this one.

I know it's not very Autoshite, but it would have been rude not to snap this Rolls-Royce - back when the name still actually meant something.

Gorgeous in every way.

I'd have liked to stick around a bit longer but it was bloody cold - but not freezing.  So you didn't really realise it was chilly until after a couple of hours you realise you were bloody frozen.  It took me hours to get warmed back up again.  Plus I was flagging a bit energy wise by that point after an early start.

[Tommyboy12]

I spotted the Renault at the show while wandering round too. Im pretty certain the jet engine on that trike was plumbed up to actually do some spinning.

[Noel Tidybeard]

14 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Not to mention this lovely little Fiat 500 estate.

I didn't actually even know these existed until I saw this one.

 

a navy blue C- reg was our family (of 4) car for a couple of years

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, Tommyboy12 said:

I spotted the Renault at the show while wandering round too. Im pretty certain the jet engine on that trike was plumbed up to actually do some spinning.

It definitely looked like it was.  Only obvious thing I could see that was missing if my plumbing deciphering is right was the fuel feed line to the afterburner - though that absolutely wouldn't be needed for it to actually run so long as the control was suitably locked out and the feed blanked at the pump side.

Do have to wonder how much that cost to build...and how many hours went into it.