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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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3 minutes ago, egg said:

That's good because it means it may well be taken care of (clearly not people in it for the money!) - but also wonder why a charity would spend that kind of money on it?

exactly what I thought LOL, maybe its like the ol  local government story. where if they dont spend all of the budget it gets reduced next year, so they end up blowing any spare money on random stuff? LOL

but the main thing that matters is it sounds like its gone to a relatively good home as you say :) 

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heard back from the seller of pile-o-panels on ebay :)

he was very thankful for the info and said they came from a derelict scrap yard in a welsh village called Efailwen who's owner had gone into care so he was helping the family sell anything that he thinks deserves better then scrapping

he said he grew up in the area and cant remember the vehicle at all so must have been there for a long time

and finally he said he will gladly keep the panels for me if they dont sell :) 

 

so I responded just now thanking him for that, and gave him a rough date as to how long its been in the scrap yard for :)

(the panels are off an Model 57 Mk10 11 or 12 going by the rear lights, so produced from 64 to 67 (and 67 to 71 but that was in very small numbers) with ministry vehicles having a service life of about 7 years back then, means probably been in the scrap yard since 1974 at the latest!)

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8 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

direlect scrap yard in a welsh village called Efailwen

you've got me looking for that on Google maps now. I'm losing it! lol.

Edit- it is a tiny village with a number of surrounding farms that don't have streetview - probably one of them, but who knows...

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in other hobby news I recently had this interesting tube arrive

image.thumb.png.49d1ba3706e94024a63e1c74bef94f66.png

it was an interesting find, I knew of a UK based lighting wholesaler that had some US tubes in stock, but they where either quite expensive or just had no price listed at all, but I then discovered they had an ebay outlet with the same tubes listed but a good £10 cheaper across the board and some

like this one https://www.lamps-on-line.com/fluorescent-tube-f24t12-cw-ho-2ft-35w-r17d.html with no price listed as you can see where for sale with a price listed on their ebay store, in the case of the tube I just linked only £4! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373108049065

so I decided for £4 id buy one and see what happens! tbh I was expecting a "sorry theres been a mistake heres your refund" email, but no a couple days later the tube turned up and it is as described :)

im quite pleased with this, as not only is this my first tube of this type (a US High output spec tube) but they also have some of these in 8ft length on their ebay store, which is the type I have really been wanting for many years now, so ill defo get some of those at some point (they are a bit pricier then £4 however so ill get those once im doing better financially and have put the other 12 8ft tubes I got recently away!)

(I do however have some rare US Westinghouse F48T12/SHO tubes in the collection which are of the US /VHO spec or very high output)

 

it has been a very interesting tube to study and experiment with, you may notice that it has diffent end caps to a regular tube, US HO and VHO tubes use a special R17D lamp base, however on some of these tubes like mine, you can pop off a small adapter and reveal a normal bi-pin end cap

image.thumb.png.f4decd21ac2effed1c4761594ac1531f.png

which makes testing the tube much easier for me, as I can use regular lamp holders (I sadly dont have any R17D lamp holders)

image.thumb.png.8d4d71da4997f5de858358e80a92bb42.png

here you can see the tube running, all "/HO" designated tubes in the US run at 800Ma (0.8 amps) from 1.5ft to 10ft this allows them to have ballasts that can run different length tubes etc (and for completeness sake all "/VHO" tubes run at 1.5A, and all "slimline" single pin tubes run at 460Ma 0.46A)

the multimeter on the left is measuring tube voltage at 42V with the clamp meter on the right measuring current at 800Ma

 

however I ran into an interesting issue, because the tube runs at such a low voltage, that the voltage drop across the ballast with the tube running or the tube "preheating" was relatively small compared to a normal say 4ft tube

this meant that In a normal switch start circuit I never got enough preheating current to warm up the cathodes before the tube struck (with a fluorescent tube you need to get the cathodes up to temperature  before you strike the arc or you damage the cathodes)

 

as you can see in this photo the tube needs about 1.2A-1.4A to get a healthy preheat on the go, but the problem here is I can get 1.2A as you can see in the photo, but then when the tube strikes because of its very low voltage the current never really changes and suddenly the tube is getting over driven at 1.2A rather then its 800Ma running current

image.thumb.png.bea431264c1d454f9b6bb4902892eb5a.png

so I have been experimenting with various ballasts and the such like and seeing what results I get

 

another interesting comparison is, in the UK we have 2ft 20W tubes like everywhere else in the world, but we also had a 2ft 40W tube, which ran at 45V 880Ma (0.88A), which as you may notice is very similar to the US F24T12/HO tube above

luckily I do have several of these 2ft 40W tubes in the collection so I will be digging one back out and seeing how it compares, I do suspect that they have cathodes which will preheat at a lower current so avoid this low voltage drop issue (the F24T12/HO tube pictured is meant for rapid-start control gear which provides its own separate cathode heating, so cathodes have quite a low resistance and run at 3.6V however I suspect a British 2ft 40W T12 tube will have 9V high resistance cathodes, but Ill have to measure one and see)

but it will interesting to see what results I get

one thing I sadly dont have is a dedicated single tube 2ft 40W ballast, they are very rare sadly, but I know @Zelandeth is fortunate enough to have one in his collection, so ill have to see if I can grab some measurements from it at some point :) it would be quite interesting to see how a US F24T12/HO tube would run on a british 2ft 40W ballast given the similar specs they have

(im specifically quite curious to know what its preheating ie short circuit current is, im curious if they managed to get round the low voltage drop issue, or perhaps they never quite solved the issue and this is why 2ft 40W tubes where always ran on quickstart gear which had a separate cathode heating transformer)

I will say the F24T12/HO tube does run quite nicely on my quickstart setup using a QS transformer for a 5ft 80W tube (however a lot of quickstart transformers output more then 3.6V which would overdrive the cathodes a rapid-start tube, so im not sure how a F24T12/HO tube would do in a proper 2ft 40W QS setup, my 5ft 80W QS transformer only outputs about 2V once the tube has struck because of its very low 45V arc voltage, in normal 5ft 80W operation it outputs about 4V-5V once the tube has stuck)

I hope someone found this interesting, I found it quite interesting and wanted to share it! LOL

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11 minutes ago, bobdisk said:

I never knew there was so much in it. I have some flourescent tubes and other bits, I will bring some of them neat week.

Yeah theres a lot more to lightbulbs then meets the eye! 

and things get very fun/complicated when you get into the more specialised/complicated types :) 

 

I look forward to seeing what you have :) 

not any bayonet capped fluorescent tubes are there?

still very much wanting to get my mits on one!

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in Invacar news, I managed to get the chassis number from SPE351R's chassis itself and im pleased to say as I thought it matches :) (so SPE351R really is SPE351R)

 

I also did a bit of digging just out curiosity and to plug some holes in my chassis number lists, to find out the next Invacar block along from the XWC401F-XWC500F block (if that sounds familiar its because @BlankFrank's Invacar is XWC468F)

which after from DVLA bashing is the YPU-F block YPU601F-YPU700F

YPU659F and YPU678F (hah) show up on the DVLA still but sadly both have erroneous chassis numbers, so I cant verify if the block really is the next one along from the XWC-F block, but im pretty confident it is :)

I have small hole between XWC-F and CTW-G that id like to plug (at least find one block per major letter IE Yxx Axx and Bxx)

no particular car im trying to ID here, but just curious to see what I can dig up (I know its all in the essex archives anyway, but hey any blocks I dig up before I visit means I have more time to go over the ones I cant find etc :)

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did some more bashing, pretty sure YWC900F-YWC999F and AHK101F-AHK200F are blocks, however nothing shows up so i cant say for certain (but its a 100 car gap and it fits the pattern of how frequently Invacar blocks show up)

did find the very last F reg Invacar block tho :) BOO601F-BOO700F, (on a non invacar related note the next registration series issued after BOO-F by Essex was AVX-G, yes for some reason it went AVW-F then BOO-F then AVX-G and so in alphabetical order again, quite curious as to why BOO was issued out of order, clerical error perhaps?)

 screencapture-vehicleenquiry-service-gov-uk-VehicleFound-2020-09-07-02_14_56.thumb.png.25e33af7f89d5b2c84ae165f7c4d85e0.png

 

sadly yet another erroneous chassis number so i cant say for sure where in the chassis number range this block sits (it is quite interesting how almost all of these roughly pre Mk12E's that still show up on the DVLA all have the almost same erroneous chassis number it will be very interesting to see what the essex records say for these cars/blocks) 

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as a side note to all this DVLA bashing I notice that the DVLA are getting to the end of the BFxxxx registration series which is the series they issue as age related plates to vehicles from before 1931

currently last one issued at time of posting is BF9306, and im curious what they will do when they run out!

the only 2 digit registration not issued in England AFAIK is the (funnily enough) Essex marker, WC, (it was only ever issued BWC-YWC. AWC, UWC and WC where never issued I guess because water closet, BF was never issued at the time because it stood for bloody fool)

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1 hour ago, keef said:

Maybe they will use Scottish plates like they do with later age related issues?

I THINK all those have already been used up AFAIK LOL

 EL1000-1500, DS6574+, SL9737+ BS8000+ SV4001+ and BF are all the pre 1931 age related marks  I know of issued or currently being issued

perhaps there are some more small scottish areas that never finished issuing all their original allocation of 2 letter 4 number plates? 

I know for example ASxxxx was issued right to December 1964, but I dont know if they happened to use all of them up or not

(they never issued any AAAxxx plates jumping to AAS-C when in 1965 the Ministry forced everyone onto suffix plates so perhaps after BFxxxx runs out we will see some ASxxxx plates issued? LOL)

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managed to dig up a bit more info on where SPE351R is going :) 

https://thiis.co.uk/warrington-disability-partnership-launches-appeal-to-secure-a-piece-of-mobility-motoring-history/

"The AC Invacar" at least they are not saying they where banned from the road! but its not an Invacar and its not Pre 1970's LOL

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2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

managed to dig up a bit more info on where SPE351R is going :) 

https://thiis.co.uk/warrington-disability-partnership-launches-appeal-to-secure-a-piece-of-mobility-motoring-history/

"The AC Invacar" at least they are not saying they where banned from the road! but its not an Invacar and its not Pre 1970's LOL

Seems like they bought it without having the money!

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2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

managed to dig up a bit more info on where SPE351R is going :) 

https://thiis.co.uk/warrington-disability-partnership-launches-appeal-to-secure-a-piece-of-mobility-motoring-history/

"The AC Invacar" at least they are not saying they where banned from the road! but its not an Invacar and its not Pre 1970's LOL

May I suggest you drop the CEO an email (his address is given in the article) and tell him about REV and the others in the little AS collection, also the research and archive work you have been doing on the Model 70 and other types for your own interest and for the ICR? Maybe you could link him up with Stuart and Simon too if he isn't already.

Who knows, you could find yourself doing research for the planned Disability Museum as well!

If and when they get hold of a Model 70, they may be pleased to have a good source of reference material to support its restoration and display.

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10 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

May I suggest you drop the CEO an email (his address is given in the article) and tell him about REV and the others in the little AS collection, also the research and archive work you have been doing on the Model 70 and other types for your own interest and for the ICR? Maybe you could link him up with Stuart and Simon too if he isn't already.

Who knows, you could find yourself doing research for the planned Disability Museum as well!

If and when they get hold of a Model 70, they may be pleased to have a good source of reference material to support its restoration and display.

yeah thats not a bad idea :), ill have to talk to Simon about that, I suspect the charity may already know of the ICR (I Know simon mentioned he knows of the charity and offered to contact them for me, if I could not get a chassis number from the guy selling said Model 70)

got quite a bit to talk about invalid vehicle wise with simon, hoping to be able to video chat again at some point :) 

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more DVLA bashing and I found the BPU401G-BPU500G block, BPU412G and BPU468G are the ones that still show up and both thankfully have correctly recorded chassis numbers :)

so I have been able to use this info to figure that between XWC468F to BPU468G there are about 840 cars

and that im missing 2 blocks, theres a small block of 40 cars that will have to wait for the essex records visit, but I wonder if I can find that missing block of 100...

(this missing block of 100 of could be a block of 50 and 50 or 40 and 60 or something such!)

here you can see all the blocks I have found between XWC-F and BPU-G and the 2 im missing (note that I dont know where these missing blocks are i just know they are missing)

XWC401F-XWC500F 
YPU601F-YPU700F 
YWC901F-YWC999F
AHK101F-AHK200F 
ATW401F-ATW500F
BOO601F-BOO700F
AOO501G-AOO600G
M100 
M40 
BPU401G-BPU500G 

this also tells me that no im not loosing it and there are a surprising amount of Mk12's with incorrect chassis numbers recorded on the DVLA computer!

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52 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Wow, that's  a sobering website. It's confirmed various cars I owned years ago and which are still showing as untaxed on other websites are actually scrapped. Inevitable really, but sad to see the harsh reality!

One anomaly though. My old Morris 1000 VML734G is the only car I've owned (out of almost sixty cars) which I've scrapped. It was rotten as a pear, engine-less and was collected by the local scrappy. It disappeared off the system shortly after. It shows as still 'out there' and not scrapped on the above checker though- weird?

 

39 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

back before the CoD was introduced in the early 2010s?

the scrapped thing was literally just a tick box on the V5, you would tick the box and send the V5 back to the DVLC/DVLA

I was going to say in the case of your ol moggie I guess the V5 never got sent off

but its a weird one, not on any of the 1st party sites (not even the MOT checker where CoD cars still show)

but it shows up on my 3rd party tools with no scrapped marker or any other such markers 

its not the only vehicle I have come across like this, but never could quite figure out why they would not show up on the DVLA, but show up on the 3rd party sites with nary a marker 

so interesting to hear of your case, did you send off the V5 then or?

do you recall when you scrapped it etc? perhaps this is what happens if you send off an old style V5 with the check box to a post CoD DVLA?

 

19 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

It was taken for scrap in 2004 iirc. I handed the relevant bits of paperwork to the driver and he seemed serious about ensuing it was dealt with properly. I think I joked about keeping the logbook as a memento of my old car, and he wasn't having any of it.

Still got all the service history and old MOTs at my parents place, assuming they've not binned it.

 

 

dragging this over here for a more in depth look into this peculiar phenomena  because 

the 2 other vehicles I know off the top of my head that are like this are GPA627J and EPD674J (both AC Model 64 Mk5's for those curious)

EPD674J does not show any markers at all, shows as Unknown on some, AC on others, but it does show a V5 issued in 2006 curiously enough and its DVLA record was last updated on the 11th of the 10th 2007

its really interesting to read that a V5 was last issued for in 2006, which was a good couple years after the IVS closed etc and even more so that it wont show up on the DVLA, but does on 3rd party tools

 

and GPA627J is interesting because on my comercial tool when checking the raw data  theres a flag saying  "data under dispute" and the Carbaba site says this 

image.thumb.png.bfd55742b5240fa6256fefbccc1b0b65.png

does anyone know what the phone number is? LOL tried googling it but not got much

GPA627J's DVLA record was last updated on the 20th of the 1st 2011, but I dont know when it last had a V5 issued

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check out this neat shot of a colour street scene featuring an Invacar Mk10A or Mk11 :) 

50306284386_d4930c0128_4k.thumb.jpg.9c0c906a09c7ad96b34c6d4ea34b14f2.jpg

(I know its not Mk10, so it must be a 10A or 11 but I have not seen a 10A or 11 from the rear and im not 100% sure on the production dates of the 10A or 11 sadly I have a date of April 1959, but I dont know if thats when the 10A was discontinued and the 11 introduced until the Mk12 was introduced in 1960, or if April 1959 is when the Mk11 ended production and Invacar geared up then released the Mk12 in 1960?)

https://flic.kr/p/2jDoRGN

 

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On 06/09/2020 at 15:48, quicksilver said:

Jag with an unusual reg

OO 643 - 1968 Jaguar Mark II 3.4

 

sadly not original to that car (OBW328F is its original  reg)

but if it was made just a few years earlier it could have been!, OO was not issued until the early 1960's when suffix-less plates began to ran out, where it was issued to Essex, and Essex issued almost all combinations of OO, so OOxxxx then then *OOxxx and xxx*OO (I dont think xxxxOO was actually issued it looks like curiously for some reason)

it lead to some fun "late registration madness" type things of 1960s cars with 1904-1930's looking registration marks! (I do wonder why OO was never issued until the early 60's its pretty evident why they held off issuing WC for as long as possible, which was never issued on its own, only in 3 letter 3 number etc form, but I wonder what was up with OO?)

including at least 1 Invacar Mk12 :) (it would be neat to find an Invacar Mk12 with a full 2 digit 4 number plate and a reverse one of that as well)

8510326000_da4e0956f5_o.jpg

On 06/04/2020 at 00:25, LightBulbFun said:

managed to dig up some more neat photos :) 

first is this Mk12 pic, notable for its unusual registration mark, as mentioned in previous posts the 2 essex registration marks OO and WC where only introduced/added in the 1960s

and rather then say starting from 3 digits 3 letters which is where all of Essex's other marks where at (xxxAEV for example) or such Essex issue its new marks in all previous formats, OOxxxx then swapping round xxxxOO before finally doing AOOxxx then xxxAOO etc 

but as this the 1960's I had wondered if any Mk12's had been given these normally 1900s-1930's format registration marks and it is neat to finally see one :) 

(I just have to find a picture of a reverse 4 digit 2 letter plated Mk12 now!)

https://flic.kr/p/dY2DqC

8510326000_da4e0956f5_o.jpg.9d1396a37141dcf93497e80682c3fd82.jpg

 

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