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

[Marm Toastsmith]

15 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Uncanny Valley did you say?

Bloody hell, that's weird, last night I dreamt my dad had bought a VW jetta with the front and rear end reversed... 

@Zelandethfantastic work on Trabi improvements. I'm torn between wishing I'd bought it and thinking it went to the right person. As an ex MZ tinkerer it's nice to see so many of the little details that make these German vehicles so enjoyable to work on.

[grizz]

This is really evolving nicely. 
 

Small jobs. 
 

Big results. 

[Zelandeth]

Another hopefully quick and easy one now the part has arrived.

This is the changeover relay which toggles between dip and main beam.  

Undo two bolts, unplug wiring after noting what goes where, out comes what's left of the old one.

I also removed the one bolt that holds the fuse box in to give better access, though you don't technically need to do that, just makes your life easier.

That would indeed explain why I had no main beam, and why the relay wasn't clicking.  The whole armature being gone would do that.

New one in and fuse box re-secured.

I can now confirm that the headlights are now fully functional and toggle correctly between dip/main now. 

Just need to find tune the beam adjustment a touch then can call that system done.

A few seconds over seven minutes from stepping outside to back inside.  Long enough though as it's chilly out there!

[High Jetter]

What's the ?pull-handle next to the fusebox for?

[Zelandeth]

1 minute ago, High Jetter said:

What's the ?pull-handle next to the fusebox for?

Bonnet release.

[bobdisk]

Isnt that headlight relay the same as '60s/'70s VW Beetle?  I remember our 1967 Beetle 1500 (vertical headlights) pull indicator stalk to flash, or if headlights on, change to main or back to dip

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Isnt that headlight relay the same as '60s/'70s VW Beetle?  I remember our 1967 Beetle 1500 (vertical headlights) pull indicator stalk to flash, or if headlights on, change to main or back to dip

Wouldn't surprise me given how physically close the factories were, or at least an East German clone of the part.  I've basically zero experience with Beetles so wouldn't know myself.

That relay is a surprisingly simple solution to toggling between two fairly high load circuits using a single fairly low current impulse.  

[PhilA]

Looks like it just see-saws the contacts with each impulse?

[SiC]

Basically a latching relay?

https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/p/12v-latching-relay

 

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

Basically a latching relay?

https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/p/12v-latching-relay

 

Looks like.  That seems to work much the same way. 

Only ones I've personally used before have had a separate set/reset coil though rather than just cycling using the one.

-- -- --

Today's job was seeing if I could do something about the amount of water still getting into the boot.  At least it's pretty obvious where it's coming from there - through two body seams where the sealant has failed.

Same on both sides.  Not helped by the fact that the design of the roof/rear screen means that basically all of the water running off the top half of the car is routed via the channel around the bootlid.

Hopefully now water tight.

Pretty?  No.  Do I care?  No.  Hidden in the closure and you'll not notice it once there's some paint over it.

Also went over the grease points on the front hub swivels and the steering rack.  Based on how much grease they all took it's been a while.  The steering feels appreciably lighter so it's definitely done something.

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, PhilA said:

Looks like it just see-saws the contacts with each impulse?

Sorry, missed this comment.  

Yes, it connects two pairs of diagonally opposite terminals using essentially just a rocker switch with a cap that's shaped like a more flattened out letter W.

The way it's arranged is that the centre peak is shifted over-centre in either position, so each time the actuator arm comes down it pushes the switch into the opposite position.  Very simple using the bare minimum of components really.  Unlike one of the push buttons that lives on my desk which does something similar, but using a drum, spring loaded ratchet mechanism and a cam to operate four micro switches.  I really need to actually use that for something one day...

[Zelandeth]

Partner *really* wasn't impressed with the idea of starting this morning. It did crank over just about fast enough to splitter into life, but the cold snap has clearly spelled the end of days for the battery.  New one has been ordered from Tayna.

The one fitted isn't correct anyway and is significantly undersized for the diesel variant so I've been wanting to correct that anyway.

The amount of people driving around with tiny portholes scraped in the frost, or indeed nothing whatsoever done to deice the car this morning defies all belief...why are people so stupid and/or lazy...

[Zelandeth]

Ordered yesterday, on my doorstep this morning.

Tayna up to their usual standards of efficiency.

Was going to fit it this afternoon plus new wiper blades...however had cause for pause when encountering whatever the hell this modern nonsense of a clamping arrangement is.

How exactly does that release from the post then?  I only had a few minutes available today so just closed the bonnet and walked away.  Especially as I'd managed to also buy the wrong wiper blades...so felt pretty defeated!

I was seriously about 20 seconds away from just hacking that nonsense off and fitting a conventional battery terminal.

On the plus side, the garage did manage to drill out and replace the snapped wheel bolt without wrecking the hub, so that was an £80 rather than £250 job to sort and the car is now back in service.

[dozeydustman]

53 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

How exactly does that release from the post then?

Would appear to be a flip up terminal.

Not my heavy breathing.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

Would appear to be a flip up terminal.

Not my heavy breathing.

Cheers for that.  Really makes me realise quite how out of my element I am working on anything made this side of the 90s when I have to think about how to even disconnect a battery.  

I really do need to try (again) to get the cover for the positive terminal too, I did buy one a while back from eBay but it apparently vanished in the post along with my replacement for the scabby interior door handles.

[RayMK]

20 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Would appear to be a flip up terminal.

Not my heavy breathing.

Bloody hell!  All that just to get at a battery.  The number of different style plastic 'press to release' tags on covers and connectors on recentish cars  drives me up the wall,  particularly when a manual just says 'disconnect connector.'  Some clues as to HOW would save me hours.

[Zelandeth]

Didn't get as far as dealing with the battery today, but did get the new wipers fitted.

I despise seeing these fitted to older cars, but this is modern enough that they could absolutely have been OEM equipment so I don't mind.  I do have to admit that so long as you don't have a heavily curved windscreen that they do work better.  Both wiper arm pivot's were quite badly bound up so we're properly lubricated and freed off.  Sure that probably wasn't helping the performance of the wipers either.

Wipers on this are one of the things that do bug me.  Not sure if it's an issue with all Berlingo/Partners or if it's an issue with lazy RHD conversion of the design, but the nearside wiper sweep really needs to extend a good 4" or so further.  As it is it leaves a triangle of doom that you can land a small aircraft in, which unless you're on the open road invariably leads to water dribbling right down across your field of vision every time you wipe the screen.  It's a small detail but really is bloody irritating, not helped by this being quite a big and tall screen.  The speed sensitive intermittent setting is also bloody annoying - above 50mph it wipes so frequently that you may as well not even have an intermittent setting.  I get the feeling that it's really intended to have an adjustable delay, but that's not something fitted to my car sadly.  Kinda feels that they should have defaulted it to the long rather than short end of the scale on cars without the adjustment.

I *think* I have found a suitable COM2000 unit to get me (in conjunction with a Diagbox session) working cruise control.  Which given we have a run to Glasgow coming up at the start of next month would be really nice to have for the trip.  This was also why I made a point of getting the wipers swapped...squeaky wipers is one of those things I have absolutely zero patience for and if it had happened to be raining on the trip it would have driven me insane having to put up with the driver's side one squeaking on and off for six hours.

The Trabant has gained approximately 4.5kg today in the form of rust proofing for the interior of the floors (after a further coat of rust converter over the last week).

Will need to touch in a few areas with a smaller brush, but most of it is now protected at least. Feel better about that than bare surface rust covering about 80% of the surface. Two coats of rust converter did go on there before the sealant today so I've done what I can.

Telling my OCD that I *really* don't need to apply something near to body colour over that once it has dried as 100% of this will be hidden under the carpets so nobody will ever see it...Well aside from the bottom of the B pillar just ahead of the doors, that will need to be painted because it's visible.  The floor though really doesn't matter visually...nobody will ever know.  Except for me.  I hate my brain sometimes (read: nearly all the damned time).

Curious to see if that makes any difference to the noise levels, not really expecting so.

[Noel Tidybeard]

re "triangle of doom"

i would up the drivers wiper by 1" or 2" and lose 1" off the pas side

but then i'm sad like that!

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

re "triangle of doom"

i would up the drivers wiper by 1" or 2" and lose 1" off the pas side

but then i'm sad like that!

Already did this by adding 2" to the driver's side one.  Here's the size of triangle we were talking about prior to me swapping blades around.

Apparently this is indeed down to lazy RHD conversion.  The LHD version has good overlap.

Armed with information from the internet I was able to release this battery clamp.

Yes, you do just lift the red tab up.  Though precisely why is still beyond me if you're not going to equip both terminals with that facility as it doesn't actually save you having to get the tools out.

Anyhow, as mentioned the old battery was both struggling in the cold and had previously been identified as undersized anyway.  Here's the old and new for comparison.

Ten minutes, job done.

I really do need to sort that power feed to the horn, it is bugging the hell out of me.

Engine spins over WAY faster on the starter now, so yeah I think the old one was actually struggling even when it wasn't so cold - it was just more obvious then.

In other news, some fancy Western luxury has now been fully installed in the Trabant.

Will have to see how accurately it tracks.

Also found enough of the little plastic clips to properly resecure the little rubber shield over the cooling fan so it doesn't rattle any more.

[Noel Tidybeard]

9 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

 

capitalist pig!

 

 

the battery difference is moderately significant!😲

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

capitalist pig!

 

 

the battery difference is moderately significant!😲

The 140A difference in rated CCA shows it I think!  Though I'd be curious to actually test the old one to see what it is actually delivering now.

[SiC]

Not tempted to fix and reinstate the Mauskino?

[Zelandeth]

19 hours ago, SiC said:

Not tempted to fix and reinstate the Mauskino?

There's only one hole in the dash, and a realtime display of what is actually in the tank is more useful to me for how I use the car.  What I have left of the original kit will be stashed away in a box so if someone else wants to reinstate things there's nothing to stop them.

While the water ingress issues have been greatly reduced since I got the car, we still have quite a bit getting in on the passenger side.

The door itself seemed to be a major contributor there, with the bottom of the door card never drying out and the door pocket filling up with water every time it rained.

A quick look inside the door clued me in onto a likely cause, and a bit of an insight into why that window rattled so badly.

That thing in the bottom of the door, that's the rail that the window should be sitting on.  Also acting as a gutter to direct water running down the glass to drip off at either end, away from the door card etc.

The glass was essentially just balanced on the metal rollers that the rail should run on.  How it hadn't fallen off or been damaged I've no idea.  The rail is in pretty rough shape, but I wouldn't have condemned it.  The very ends are a bit crispy, but I've seen far worse.  The biggest issue (aside from the window glass having escaped) is that it's been bent quite substantially.  I've straightened it as best I can, but it's still not right.  A new one is €30 from Trabantwelt, so hardly the end of the world.  While the glass isn't sitting as deeply in the channel as it ideally should be, I have managed to coerce everything more or less back to where it should be.

I suspect there would have been some sort of sealant to help bond the glass to the carrier originally as well.  

I will need to pull a lot of this apart when I change the window rubbers anyway so I'm not worrying too much about it right now.  I've just made a mental note note to open that window again if I don't have to until I've had a chance to get things properly secured again.  There's no chance of it actually falling apart on its own now though and the door doesn't rattle anywhere near as much.  Will it help keep the rain out?  Remains to be seen.

[vulgalour]

A moisture membrane would help considerably too, I was astonished how much rain water got into the back of the BX because of a moisture membrane not being fully sealed on a back door.  Bin bags and gaffer tape do just fine and you might find the bottom edge is best tucked into the door rather than taped down so all the water that splashed in there from the window opening is encouraged to drain out the bottom of the door instead of into the cabin.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

A moisture membrane would help considerably too, I was astonished how much rain water got into the back of the BX because of a moisture membrane not being fully sealed on a back door.  Bin bags and gaffer tape do just fine and you might find the bottom edge is best tucked into the door rather than taped down so all the water that splashed in there from the window opening is encouraged to drain out the bottom of the door instead of into the cabin.

Yep, it's on the list.  I've already added a (bad) drip shield to the driver's door.  I'll add one this side as well in due course.  I know I'll be taking this apart again though so didn't make sense to do it today.  Especially as there wasn't one from the factory, so it shouldn't NEED it.  The way this is designed, anything running down the outside of glass should be diverted by the seal on the lifting bar and drip off right at the front/rear extremes of the cavity.  It's hard to see in the photos, but there's a large lip on the rubber that the bottom edge of the glass locates in on the outside side of the glass to act as a gutter.

I want to change all the window rubbers, the lifter bar and to rust treat and seal the inside of the door frame yet, so adding more stuff today to just take out again didn't make sense.

Tell you what though, I do appreciate a car design where opening the door up takes 90 seconds!  Four obvious screws and pop out a bunch of actually sensibly designed clips and you're in.  Far too many cars it's a job in itself just to gain access to the innards of the door.

[Zelandeth]

Well that looks a lot better.  It's been raining on/off quite heavily most of the day today.

Few drips of Cpt. Tolley's have found their way right through wherever it is that stuff is getting through a seam on the bulkhead, but no actual water observed in the cabin at all.  Door in particular is bone dry...so between attacking the bulkhead with Cpt. Tolley's and reconstructing the innards or the door yesterday we've definitely made a huge step forward in terms of weather proofing the car.

Additional:

Well guess I know what my first job tomorrow is then.

Nearside dip beam headlight is out.  Time for a new pair of lamps then.

[Zelandeth]

Fairly convinced I've stopped the water getting in from the rear offside of the engine bay, I've now gone belt and braces and double-sealed the area in question.

I still don't know *exactly* where the ingress point was, but I'm pretty convinced we've now sealed it.  I will be painting over this all in body colour in due course so it will look tidier.  In the interest of preventing future rust I will probably go over the whole engine bay.

The remaining bolt from the bodged together bonnet latch has now been removed as it's no longer needed as it's been thoroughly glued in place now.  I've filled the hole as well, hopefully once a bit of paint goes on that will be a bit less obvious.

Ideally this really does want a new bonnet long term though.

Had the car out and about this afternoon and was glad to see I didn't end up with fuel pouring over the top of the fuel tank from the sender I fitted a few days ago.

I had a look at the headlights on the Partner to see how much of a pain it was going to be to change the bulbs.  The answer is going to be "quite a bit" it looks like.

Driver's side I can turn and release the cap...however can't actually remove it.

Passenger side I can just about turn, but it's not coming off, the fuse box is just utterly in the way.

Hopefully if I remove the top mounting bolt I'll be able to tip the headlights forward enough to give me enough clearance.  Thankfully this just uses H4s rather than anything awkward and expensive, and something I just had in stock.  Will try to get those actually swapped tomorrow. 

Or just decide it looks awkward so take the Trabant out instead like I did today!

[Zelandeth]

Turns out that removing the one visible fastener on the headlights does absolutely nothing - so swearing and scraping of knuckles was the order of the day.

I really do need to get a new front number plate...

It's absolutely possible to change the lamps without dismantling anything aside from removing the lid of the fuse box, but it's fluffing awkward.  Especially trying to get the cover back onto the nearside one which must have taken me twenty minutes and a couple of dozen attempts to get both lugs to latch properly.  It's not even so much being able to get your hands in there which makes it awkward in this case (though that doesn't help), so much as there being a chunk of immovable wiring loom blocking the lower inch or so of the cover on the nearside and a coolant line doing the same on the offside.  If those had been routed fractionally differently it would be a 30 second a side job to change those bulbs.

Can't really complain about those lamps themselves needing replacement though, judging from the date code on them they're the ones fitted by the factory eighteen years and 121K miles ago so definitely haven't done bad.  

Working on the headlights has reminded me that one of the number plate lights falls out every third time I close the tailgate because both of its clips are broken.  So rather than having it randomly refuse to be shoved back in place in a couple of months when the car goes in for the MOT I figured this was a good time to order a replacement.  They both are full of rust as well so clearly have long since ceased to be weather proof - they're only a few quid so I've just ordered replacements for both.

Despite having sorted the headlights on the Peugeot I still wound up leaving it on the drive and taking the Trabant out to run the day's errands.  It's just such a fun thing to drive in a way that only such simple, lightweight cars can be, especially now I've got properly comfortable with driving it.  On the subject of familiarity, we have now ticked over 1000km since I picked the car up.  Have to wonder how many of the 500 or so that are in the UK do that much in a year...

With the weather seeming content to stay outside the car now I wanted to think about putting the carpets back in - though before doing that I wanted to clean them as they really did need it.

The front section in particular had a very distinct tide mark where the water had been running down the bulkhead.  Plus was just generally grubby.

The rear carpet wasn't quite as dirty, but had a good amount of rust staining from where there was standing water in the footwell for a long period of time.

I gave them a bit of a scrub down with a solution of hot water and washing up liquid before blasting as much of the gunk as possible out using the 20 degree nozzle on the pressure washer.

Have to see how they look once they're fully dry, but judging from the amount of gunk that came out it can't have been a bad thing to do!

[Zelandeth]

A very large box arrived this morning containing more goodies for the Trabant.

The little bags contain 20 door trim retaining clips, 5 rubber buffers the bonnet sits on, and finally 5 securing clips for the engine jacket.

You can't really see any difference!

However in replacing the missing jacket clips I had cause to look more closely at the fan shroud.  I'd noted right from the start that the rearmost part looked to have been fitted crooked, though it quickly became apparent that this was because the whole lot was so loosely assembled that everything was able to move relative to everything else.  It turned out that of the eight bolts (plus the one holding the fan itself in place) that five had vibrated their way to freedom in the past and that three of the remainder were less than finger tight.  That definitely won't have been helping our cause.  

Thankfully they are just normal M6 bolts rather than anything obscure so I had suitable replacements in stock.

I did notice a bit of ducting I'm missing while doing this work.

Will need to get that replaced.  Just looks to be a straight bit of tubing judging from the listing on LDM Tuning's website.  https://www.ldm-tuning.de/en/artikel-711.htm so hopefully I've got something floating around that will do.

The carpets are still a little damp, but I've got the underlays both back in the car now.

Hopefully get the actual carpets back in tomorrow.

[Christine]

You say M6...  Do any eastern block cars ever  have any  peculiar threads ?   Good project and write up  anyway  ...ta !