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LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...


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alright We gave em a call and mum gave em an ear full

 

they said they where not happy with the 1st assessment. as in someone on their end fucked something up and now I have to pay for it...

 

the guy on the phone was not able to tell us what/how they fucked up, but he was able to move the appointment to the 7th of Jan so at least that gives us some more time to sort things out and recuperate. 

 

(and to think the lady doing the 1st assessment said we would not have to come back again in a long time...)

 

What a pain - that's such a bureaucratic thing 'something went wrong but I can't tell you why' - at least if you had a clue you might feel better about having to do it again. 

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Tell me about it! been dealing with this crap since day 1 pretty much (when as a 29 week term baby they almost gave me the wrong blood type during a transfusion...)

 

 

I think it's in this episode they come to England and find an Invacar in a fellahs garage. 

Don't know if he still has it or if it's for sale but could be a lead.

 

American pickers season 10 episode 4

 

Thanks for the lead :) sadly I cant seem to find S10E4. (even on the dodgiest of websites...)

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Thanks!

 

looks like that forum has an entire invalid carriage sub section! saw DW/TWC there :) 

 

excuse me while I get all hot and bothered  :mrgreen:

 

im tempted to sign up to that forum, but im not sure how happy they would be if someone signed up just to try and find/buy a model 70?.

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account has been made :)

 

now to spend a few hours battling with social anxiety as I try to make my first post...

 

Amen to that!

 

Post has been made :)http://rumcars.org/forum/index.php?topic=5549.0 lets hope I dont get lynched too badly...

 

also took the opportunity to update this threads title a bit :)

 

Good man. Or should I say good lad, as it appears you were born in the year 2000. I didn't realise anyone was born that late. I feel old now.... :shock::mrgreen:

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Trying to remember if I ever registered on there now...though definitely looks like "Big Al" is the gent who KP originally came from. If memory serves - don't quote me on that - he said back then that he did also have a complete Model 70 in storage that he wasn't willing to part with at the time. I never really pushed on that was I knew any price it might shift for would be too rich for my blood, plus I was happy enough to have a project to get my teeth into.

 

I'm sure there are more of these cars still floating around in sheds or fields around the country, and hopefully the increased interest of late (DW I'm sure largely responsible for a lot of that) will help encourage their being saved.

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Thanks guys :) I noticed that forum is a bit quiet, but I see people in the past have found model 70s via said forum so hopefully something will crop up from somewhere :) (I was born in 1999 for those wondering :) )

 

 

Trying to remember if I ever registered on there now...though definitely looks like "Big Al" is the gent who KP originally came from. If memory serves - don't quote me on that - he said back then that he did also have a complete Model 70 in storage that he wasn't willing to part with at the time. I never really pushed on that was I knew any price it might shift for would be too rich for my blood, plus I was happy enough to have a project to get my teeth into.

I'm sure there are more of these cars still floating around in sheds or fields around the country, and hopefully the increased interest of late (DW I'm sure largely responsible for a lot of that) will help encourage their being saved.

 

Thats what im hoping as well but also worried about at the same time, that the increased interest will drive prices up...

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Thanks guys :) I noticed that forum is a bit quiet, but I see people in the past have found model 70s via said forum so hopefully something will crop up from somewhere :) (I was born in 1999 for those wondering :) )

 

 

 

Good man. Or should I say good lad, as it appears you were born in the year 2000. I didn't realise anyone was born that late. I feel old now.... :shock::mrgreen:

 

BTW, it occurs to me that my saying "good lad" could be taken as flippant and discourteous. It wasn't meant in this way and I apologise if that is how it came across!

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BTW, it occurs to me that my saying "good lad" could be taken as flippant and discourteous. It wasn't meant in this way and I apologise if that is how it came across!

 

nah dont worry ya didn't come across to me like that, I found it quite amusing  :)

 

(tho I do worry sometimes about people not taking me seriously due to my age, was a problem I had to deal with as a lighting collector especially when I was younger)

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it reminds me of all the times id stroll into a Lighting shop and they would all think "ohh another kid..."

 

and then the look on their face when they realise I know what im on about

 

"Hello Sir id like to buy a 6ft T12 please"

 

"How about a 6ft T8 them betters"

 

"A 6ft T8 with its krypton-argon buffer gas has too high a striking voltage and wont work on my Vintage SRS setup, one 6ft T12 please"

 

:mrgreen:

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Might a T8 tube potentially work in a T12 fitting? I have one T12 unit still working well, but tubes are getting a bit thin on the ground.

 

Yes - providing it's a switch-start fixture.  Basically if it has a starter fitted (i.e. the sort that blinks a few times when you switch it on) you should be fine.  Though T8s do tend to be dimmer and flickery for the first few minutes if they're cold.

 

If it's a starter less fitting it's most likely either quickstart or SRS...and that will need a T12 to work reliably.

 

Take a photo of the offending fitting and we can probably identify what gear type is in it.

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(on a side note, even in switch start fittings I prefer to use T12 tubes if the fixture was from before T8 tubes, as T8 tubes in fittings designed around the dimensions of a T12 tube often look quite naff)

 

That, plus the fact I like using outdated technology...

 

Here it is, in all its *glory!

 

post-5223-0-99034400-1544918449_thumb.jpg

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nah dont worry ya didn't come across to me like that, I found it quite amusing  :)

 

(tho I do worry sometimes about people not taking me seriously due to my age, was a problem I had to deal with as a lighting collector especially when I was younger)

 

You've nothing to worry about - age isn't a factor if you know your stuff, if anything older people are more likely to be impressed a young person is taking the same interest as them.

 

Much like yourself I signed up to AS in my late teens before I'd even passed my driving test, I'd have been 17 then (passed two weeks after I turned 18). I stuck around and posted regularly for about three years before the Northern Powerhouse meets were set up - and by some miracle were on my doorstep. I'd never had an issue on AS in the three years prior, and when I showed up to the Northern Powerhouse on my bike(!) I was accepted instantly. Before then too I'd often blindsided older mountain bike nerds with my knowledge. It was a further six months after Northern Powerhouse started before I even got a car - and when I did it wasn't without its issues, and spent the best part of a month in my garage not even running, having suffered HGF on the way home, and fixing it in the garage with my dad. When I first took it it to Northern Powerhouse, 320touring happened to be visiting as he was working nearby. He just said 'well done' and shook my hand. I'll never forget that.

Going to the NP meetings, combined with another monthly social occasion, were my first big steps to get past social anxiety and it was only upwards from there. 

 

I've been fully a part of things round here ever since - and I've always seen myself a bit as the baby of AS, but by now, at age 23, I'm not really any more!

 

The bottom line is, you're welcome here, and the community will always support you. Look how much Zel has done for you :) if you have the confidence to do what you do in lighting shops and such, you have the confidence to do whatever you want - that's an admirable feat in itself, there was a time I'd be too scared to set foot in any shop let alone a specialist one. You're doing well, maybe more than you give yourself credit for. Keep on going! :grin:

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Rocking its original OEM Tube too!

 

looks like the Tube was made by Philips, if you can post a picture of the marking on the tube so I can date it, and as such date the fixture :)

 

Sadly this is the only marking still visible on the tube, and when I tried to clean it the writing came off too :-(

 

post-5223-0-48277600-1544966723_thumb.jpg

 

I'd guess at mid-80s, as the house was gutted by a fire then so likely fitted new then. Although the other 3 fixtures were all T8 tubes so maybe this was old then. When we redid the house in 2008-2010 I re-purposed the fittings to light our outbuildings, so they see a quieter life now, although take their time to warm up in winter.

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Ohh thats an early one for Fitzgerald :) defiantly a Philips tube from the Hamilton Factory in Scotland shame the date code has gone AWOL, if this is not asking too much, any chance you could take a picture of the control gear inside the fixture? (if theres a Power factor correction capacitor that will have a date code on it too)

 

but yeah going by the etch style looks to be from the Mid 1980s, would of been one of the First Fitzgerald fixtures using the T12 Thorn Popular pack design they bought from Thorn, after Thorn Moved to a new Popular pack design with different lamp holders to accommodate T8s better (before this Fitzgerald was known as Light-Ring and their fixtures had octagonal shaped lamp holders IIRC)

 

(Fitzgerald only stopped making T12 specific LightPacks in 2010 :) you can or well could last I checked, still get 8ft T12 fixtures from them still, as 8ft has no T8 equivalent in the UK)

 

the T8 fixtures you mention if they where fitted in the 1980s then they would of been pretty early for T8s, probably Thorn Popular packs with Oval lamp holders?

 

its nice to see an old T12 still going, they got an unfair shunning in the lighting industry in the last few years.... (a lot of older but perfectly good Lighting tech got an unfair shunning for modern Crap which is about as reliable as chocolate teapot, but thats a soap box for another day LOL)

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any chance you could take a picture of the control gear inside the fixture?

 

This may take some explaining if I am caught doing it!

 

"Oh, I'm just taking a photo of the insides of this light fitting for a bloke I know from an obscure car forum"

"Right...."

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