invacar 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...

[egg]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

ah very cool! (and ha I was right in saying where they sampled the start from!  )

Well further tweets (you may have seen) reveal that one of the band members is a Hubnut fan! And the circle is complete...

[RayMK]

4 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

.......this has also been on ebay for a good while if you fancy yourself a lockdown project or such  

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324273411484

I resisted that one when I first saw it on eBay over three years ago.  Since then, my ability to take on projects has further deteriorated. Next year, just maybe, I'll sell my Reliant and then see if any Chinese electric 3 wheelers could take its place. Although some are advertised in the UK under misinterpreted 'Class 3 mobility scooter' rules i.e. no licence or insurance required, I've yet to see anyone legally register one for road use. Most of these proper cabin type electric 3 wheelers can do nearly 30mph and carry one or more passengers plus the driver whereas the more obviously mobility scooter derived cabin scooters (and thus compliant with UK mobility scooter legal requirements) seat just the driver and are a bit of a liability, being too large for pavement use (at 4mph max) but with an 8mph speed limit on the road are extremely vulnerable on most roads. The Chinese 3 wheelers are more like an electric reincarnation of a Reliant, though somewhat slower e.g.:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VELECO-3-Wheel-Electric-Vehicle-Electric-Mobility-Scooter-FROST/274325668368?hash=item3fdf158210:g:R~QAAOSwg6Vehexw

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, RayMK said:

I resisted that one when I first saw it on eBay over three years ago.  Since then, my ability to take on projects has further deteriorated. Next year, just maybe, I'll sell my Reliant and then see if any Chinese electric 3 wheelers could take its place. Although some are advertised in the UK under misinterpreted 'Class 3 mobility scooter' rules i.e. no licence or insurance required, I've yet to see anyone legally register one for road use. Most of these proper cabin type electric 3 wheelers can do nearly 30mph and carry one or more passengers plus the driver whereas the more obviously mobility scooter derived cabin scooters (and thus compliant with UK mobility scooter legal requirements) seat just the driver and are a bit of a liability, being too large for pavement use (at 4mph max) but with an 8mph speed limit on the road are extremely vulnerable on most roads. The Chinese 3 wheelers are more like an electric reincarnation of a Reliant, though somewhat slower e.g.:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VELECO-3-Wheel-Electric-Vehicle-Electric-Mobility-Scooter-FROST/274325668368?hash=item3fdf158210:g:R~QAAOSwg6Vehexw

for that sort of Money I would get one of the new Electric Citroen Ami micro cars  

 

https://youtu.be/uUEKtOGmpVI

[RayMK]

2 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

for that sort of Money I would get one of the new Electric Citroen Ami micro cars  

 

https://youtu.be/uUEKtOGmpVI

Lol.  Too many wheels, and it's ugly.

[Pieman]

I remember ages back in this thread the question being raised whether Invacars had ever been raced on the short ovals with the Reliants, and someone said there had possibly been some raced at Standlake, near Oxford.

Well having recently bought some old West Country Videos footage, I can indeed confirm this was true!  Unfortunately I don't know the year nor the names of any of the drivers, but I've taken some poor quality photos of my TV screen as proof which I attach here.

Many apologies for the quality of the photos, but it's a combination of my piss poor picture taking skills on my phone and the footage being old (early 1990s I think).  The race footage can be found on "Bangers and Smash 3" from West Country Videos.

[LightBulbFun]

11 minutes ago, Pieman said:

I remember ages back in this thread the question being raised whether Invacars had ever been raced on the short ovals with the Reliants, and someone said there had possibly been some raced at Standlake, near Oxford.

Well having recently bought some old West Country Videos footage, I can indeed confirm this was true!  Unfortunately I don't know the year nor the names of any of the drivers, but I've taken some poor quality photos of my TV screen as proof which I attach here.

ah Thanks for grabbing the shots! tis quite sad to see but im glad some shots/video have been preserved for historical purposes

twas me asking about the Invacar banger racing as I had some pictures and I was curious if anyone here knew of any others or anything more about the pictures

 here are some of those pictures for reference, I wonder if it was the same event or not? how well did the Model 70's do against the Reliants in the footage you saw?  

On 26/07/2020 at 17:07, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah

for completeness sake here are the remain 3 pictures I have of Model 70's at the banger track, I believe these 3 where taken during that special 15 car event

 

apparently they did hold up much better then the Reliants did LOL

EDIT: 

looks like it is the same location looking at the previous comments 

On 22/11/2019 at 03:15, LightBulbFun said:

you dont happen to have any records of invalid vehicles going round the oval do you?

Stuart was involved in banger racing back in the day, and he recalls a few Model 70's going round the track, including a special event where an entire field of 15 Model 70's went round the oval

it would be interesting to hear of any details of these events if there's anything out there  

I just have this 1 photograph from an event, im not sure which where or when

 

stuart said that the Model 70's did surprising well around the oval out gunning everything except the hot rodded escorts apparently!

and unlike reliants he did not recall them ending up with bits of fibreglass bodywork falling off all over the place

 

 

On 22/11/2019 at 09:42, Pieman said:

That looks like the pit area at Standlake Arena near Oxford, and I have been told in the past a couple of Invacars went out with the Reliants there but I don't know what years.  Never heard of a dedicated oval race for the things though, so that's one to research.

 

On 22/11/2019 at 10:54, LightBulbFun said:

ah good to know  

yeah stuart says it was some sort of charity event in 1990 if that helps narrow down the search,

as to where you got 15 Model 70's back then when they where all still government property, well  2 of the people on a banger team worked at an approved repairer apparently

so "what better way" to scrap the Model 70's they had out back then to send them all round the oval, then at the end of the race they were taken back to be officially scrapped

 

he also talked about another 8 that went out at some point, where he said the only one he recalls falling over was one that crashed into a tractor tyre marking the course where it went over the tyre landed on its side, uprighted itself and carried on racing LOL

 

I feel sorry for the poor sod who ended up with a Model 67 or something like after seeing all the Model 70's go round the track, and not noticing the visual differences between them and his vehicle and then getting utterly mullered on the track!

 

 

[Pieman]

It was only crash snippets included, they looked quick but fell apart rapidly.

[Eyersey1234]

@LightBulbFun this came up on my Faceache feed, sorry its not a Model 70 but thought it might interest you.  Wonder if gullwing doors could be fitted to an Invacar 🤣

[LightBulbFun]

31 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

@LightBulbFun this came up on my Faceache feed, sorry its not a Model 70 but thought it might interest you.  Wonder if gullwing doors could be fitted to an Invacar 🤣

LOL

reminds me of this picture from when @OliD-E picked up TPE376S from the Isle of Skye  

a distinct "its not supposed to open like that" LOL

[Spottedlaurel]

Seen this one on Flickr yet?

 

[LightBulbFun]

30 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Seen this one on Flickr yet?

 

Ohh no I had not! but I see its in my usual tabs and was only uploaded today, which is why I had not yet seen it as iv been busy doing some Invalid vehicle admin today (which will get its own post once its done  )

but that is a very cool find! its a very late Frank Tippen and Sons Tippen Delta, until now the latest one I have been able to find (in this case by Chassis number bashing against the DVLA database) is OVC89H (an Electric machine)

for reference the earliest Fred Miller Ltd Tippen Delta I can find is ATD567J

id love to know if its an electric or Petrol machine, (current thought and research suggests that Petrol machines ended production a good bit before Electric machines)

so id like to say this is an electric machine but sadly it does not show up on the DVLA nor does anything from OVC401H-OVC510H, so I dont know any exact details about it sadly

[Mrs6C]

There's more!

 

[Mrs6C]

And again...

 

[LightBulbFun]

Finally got some admin done which I had been wanting to do for a while  which was basically take all the registration blocks I knew of for a given invalid vehicle model and document each individual registration number and chassis number of every said block in a big spread sheet

 

and I was finally able to do that/make a start on it because I finally figured out how to wrangle a spread sheet into producing a list of a registration numbers (and chassis numbers) automatically for me without having to type each one out 1 by 1

 

so I could say I feed it ABC101D and A101 then just with a quick drag of the mouse have it automatically generate a list all way to say ABC200D A200

this then let me produce a list that I could bulk uploaded into my special tool so I then would not have to manual type in and run each registration number of a block through my special tool, and being able to bulk upload now is a very handy time saver since Blocks are normally 100 or 200 cars big!

this then further as above finally let me put the blocks and each and every single registration number of a block into spread sheets (previously while I had lists they only contained cars I could find on the DVLA, and I would then calculate from those cars what block they where part of etc)

 

and it means I can finally document blocks in their entirety and it removes any human error, so if someone comes to me with "I have this Model 67 chassis number XXXX could you please tell me what its registration number is" I no longer have to manually calculate what block it falls into, I can just look it up in my spread sheet  

and it also lets more easily see the gaps im missing if any, for example I can see between the YPE831G-YPE930G and YPK751H-YPK950H block there is a small block of 50 cars (obviously to do with the suffix change) who's registration numbers/block im yet to find (none show up when searched by chassis number I just simply suspect none survived into look up range sadly or if any are on the DVLA, they have typo's in their chassis number)

 

so yeah im very pleased to have finally figured out how to auto generate a list of registration numbers from a given starting point, and it will come in very handy and makes things a lot easier for me as in a lot of cases it means ill no longer have to manual look up say 200 registration numbers 1 at a time!

 

 

and so a few days ago I started with the AC Model 67, because as per on Page 92, I had found most Model 67 blocks already (by manually smashing almost all 5900 chassis numbers through the checker!) and I did make sure to at least document where each block I found started and ended

for example I knew the CPL-H block was CPL251H-CPL400H

so I could then use the spread sheet to auto generate every reg in-between CPL251H-CPL400H, so I was then able to upload it into the bulk uploader and run it again to pick up any I might have missed either because I never ran the full block

or to find any I had missed because their chassis numbers where miss recorded (so would have never come up during the initial search I did because I found all the Model 67 blocks/cars still on the DVLA by their chassis numbers)

for example with the Model 67 blocks to save time and credit, once I Had ID'ed how big a block was and what chassis numbers it covered I then skipped ahead those chassis numbers to where I thought the next block started, so I knew id be missing some cars still on the DVLA  from known blocks, so its good to finally find those (even tho I already know about the block they are part of its still useful to know which machines in a block are on the DVLA still)

like for example this one the bulk uploader spat out, Late registration madness! its the first one I have come across where the year is also the late date of registration LOL (normally ones like this still have 1970 or what have you as year of mfg even if the date of first registration is 1983 or such)

and finally finished compiling it today, so now I have a spread sheet that literally contains almost all the registration and chassis numbers of every single Mode 67 produced  

 

I think next ill spread sheet out as many Invacar Mk12 blocks as I can, that will take a little longer tho, as there are several Invacar Mk12 blocks I still need to figure out where they start and end, as I need to know where the block starts and ends at least before I can auto generate all the numbers in between

(but I luckily already did that for most of the later ones see page 83 for example ) 

 

Hopefully this all makes some sense, been quite tricky to describe it all LOL

[egg]

FYI

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/707475453447820

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, egg said:

FYI

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/707475453447820

snap!  (also £1000? a Hand propelled Dingwall-Witham sold for £80 on ebay recently! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203211752157 )

On 04/05/2019 at 14:56, LightBulbFun said:

hand propelled  (although I do wonder what that grey thing between the rear wheels is)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264303196818

 

[LightBulbFun]

On 08/11/2020 at 14:05, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah a good majority of Invacar Model 70's (if not all) where fitted with Tippers plates when new

REV still has her original set  

if you look closely at top black boarder of the plate you can just make out the words "Tipper South end"  

I have been wondering if they still make this style of plate, Tippers offer a pressed retroreflective vintage style plate

but its not the same style as what they made back in the day, notice the Corners, on REV's plates, the inner corners are sharp 90 degrees corners and the outer corners have a much tighter radius, where as the pressed plates Tippers currently advertise have much more rounded inner and outer corners

(however this rounded corner style of pressed of retroreflective plate is what I have seen a good number of AC Model 70's wear back in the day, so I think would be suitable for @Mrs6C's Model 70 for example although I do not know who made them originally) 

here a close up picture of an AC Model 70 so equipped 

(but I have seen the odd AC Model 70 fitted with what I think are Tippers plates like on REV, and maybe a couple other makes of plates, sadly I have a lot less detailed photos of period AC Model 70 number plates then I do for Invacar Model 70's)

it is worth noting that the Die pressed 1930's-1963 plate they offer has the correct boarders for a Model 70 number plate, so I wonder if they could be made up in retroreflective with the correct digit size for a suffix plate?

Just quickly revisiting this

I think I might have figured out why Tippers dont have REV's style of number plate on their website

because I complete forgot about the fact that there are 2 number plate makers called Tippers!

this is the Tippers plate makers most of us probably know about

https://www.tippersvintageplates.co.uk/

 

but no, REV's plates where most likely made in this company based in Essex (which is also where Invacars were made!)

http://www.tipper-signs.co.uk/Contact Us.html

 

do still wonder if either of them can do REV's style of plate for other Invacar Model 70's

[High Jetter]

That's a useful tip...er. Would be worth asking them, they seem to offer a number of options on their rather limited website.

[bobdisk]

Looks like one of them would do the reflective plates for Tiddles the Kitten, I will ask in Jan. 

[LightBulbFun]

and on Christmas 3 Model 70's came bearing gifts of Vehicle exercise duty  

(do have to wonder if @Zelandeth ever thought he would see KPL taxed!)

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Looks like one of them would do the reflective plates for Tiddles the Kitten, I will ask in Jan. 

Yeah, Vintage Tippers plates certainly do, they are the one most people go to when they want period plates

 

but im curious to know if Tippers signs can still do pressed plates as well or not

[LightBulbFun]

In other Model 70 news it looks like MHJ107P has changed hands and the new keeper has recently put up this rather nice photo of it!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/950689934973969/permalink/3588019284574341/

will update its record on the survivors list accordingly  

[LightBulbFun]

continuing the theme of Awesome Model 70 pictures, Adam has been out again with 3 of his this time  

 

its interesting to note that GPF282N's windscreen wiper parks on the opposite side that Most Model 70's have their wipers park on

(the User Trial Prototype Model 70's BPE21H-BPE40H also had wipers that parked on the Opposite side to the Production Model 70's however)

 

also of note, note how once again the Model 70 in the middle of the 3rd photo looks narrower then the outer 2 ones, like how REV looked narrower in the FoD photos when she was in between Dolly and TPA  

[LightBulbFun]

https://www.hotcars.com/three-wheelers-awesome-and-awful/

"Via Autoshite.com"

if your going to borrow pictures from this thread could you at least also borrow some info from it and get your facts right!

(not the first time I have come across something like this, saw another one of these websites/lists a little while ago that used a picture of REV I posted in my Retro Ride thread, again completely ignoring any of the facts or figures I had posted in that thread LOL)

[bobdisk]

Theyve pinched some good pics, but, as you say, dont know anything about using them. Shame on them.🤮

[Mrs6C]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

if your going to borrow pictures from this thread could you at least also borrow some info from it and get your facts right!

Contact them and put them right!

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Mrs6C said:

Contact them and put them right!

I did contemplate it, but these sorts of websites/postings come and go like rabbits, im already playing a big enough game of whack-a-mole as it is with all the erroneous facts and figures flying about online on the various forums and FB groups etc! LOL

(I would love to do an "invacar facts and figures" video with @dollywobbler at some point or something such, I feel like that would do some good to stem all the miss information flying around, given how popular Dollywobbler is in this scene ) 

I do think I should add a quick fact sheet/fact check to page 1 along with the thread index, (a bit like what I did for my Retro Ride post) because I do know finding specifics in this thread can be a bit tricky when its spread out across 175 pages!

 

 

speaking of facts, @Zelandeth mentioning of the appalling Halfords fuel line in the grumpy thread

has reminded me,I did figure out a little while ago, thanks to some careful studying of the DHSS Spare parts list

 what the mysterious metal fuel line was about in Dolly and REV's engine bay

it turns out, Both Dolly and REV would have had full metal lines from the Fuel Tank to the Fuel pump when new

but obviously at some point those must have failed so the Local AR (Approved repairer), must have simply cut them back to the engine bay and fitted a regular plastic/rubber fuel hose for the run along the chassis to the tank

you can see here in the parts list that there are 2 fuel pipes listed in the parts list helpfully  labelled plastic the other metal

and it says that the metal line was fitted from  AC JPF421N and Invacar JHJ578N onwards

which as above explains the remains of the metal fuel line in Dolly and REV's engine bay (as they are much later cars than JPF421N and JHJ578N!)

[egg]

My Mk12 just had regular plastic fuel line from memory.

[bobdisk]

On a slightly different Model 70 theme, did anyone see the recent "Top Gear, Ambitious But Rubbish" series on Dave.? In the background  on some of Richard Hammond's introductions through the series is a ........🤯  Its on UKTV Play.

https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/top-gear-ambitious-but-rubbish/watch-online

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, bobdisk said:

On a slightly different Model 70 theme, did anyone see the recent "Top Gear, Ambitious But Rubbish" series on Dave.? In the background  on some of Richard Hammond's introductions through the series is a ........🤯  Its on UKTV Play.

https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/top-gear-ambitious-but-rubbish/watch-online

do you have a screenshot of it?  it sadly wants me to sign in or sign up to watch the video, and id like to avoid having to make an account if possible!