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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...


LightBulbFun

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just came across a Nifty blog post from someone who had a few carriages back in the day,

https://www.thefriendlytimes.co.uk/2022/11/three-wheels-on-my-wagon-and-im-getting.html

which contains this neat photo of as the chap correctly says an Acedes Mk10, Model 57, looks like its DPH523B :) 

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I look forward to reading his next instalment!

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7 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

just came across a Nifty blog post from someone who had a few carriages back in the day,

https://www.thefriendlytimes.co.uk/2022/11/three-wheels-on-my-wagon-and-im-getting.html

which contains this neat photo of as the chap correctly says an Acedes Mk10, Model 57, looks like its DPH523B :) 

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I look forward to reading his next instalment!

What a great article. Full of information and told in a light hearted way. These memories need to be preserved. 

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On 03/12/2022 at 08:09, Dobloseven said:

What a great article. Full of information and told in a light hearted way. These memories need to be preserved. 

Yeah! when I was buying REV and the previous owner to me, used to work at an approved repairer way back in the day, and he told me good few amusing stories, 

I really need to go back there and borrow a transcriber to note it all down before its lost to time :) 

 

speaking of which, the 2nd blogpost instalment is up, of a Tippen Delta, living up (or should that be down!) to its name!

https://www.thefriendlytimes.co.uk/2022/12/crash-bang-invacar-on-in-last-blog-i.html

going by the example pictures he has used I gotta if he is aware of this thread! since AFAIK esp the picture of UPB262M, I am the person who originated that photo so to speak! (as in I did not take it, but am the person who stuck it on the internet)

 

the part where he went so fast as to get the front end of his Delta to glide is quite amusing, as its something I have often wondered about if it would happen at some point in a Model 70 if you really did try and tune one up to go as quickly as possible, hit the 100Mph mark or something daft :) 

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More Argson electric antics…..  whilst my brake drum is being hammered back into shape I’m having a look at fixing the burned out high/low power switch (burned out because it has been wired incorrectly)…. Electrics has never been a strong point of mine but I’m learning… I got hold of a wiring diagram but as @LightBulbFunpointed out, it may not be the correct one for my model….. I’m beginning to think he’s right because I can’t figure out how this works, with this switch configuration…… head scratch time

 

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feeling quite pleased with myself atm! as I have just taken delivery of a type of lightbulb which I have coveted since I was about 4! 

and here it is!

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what so so special about that I hear you ask (or probably not! LOL) it just looks like a regular old pearl lightbulb?

 

that is until you fire it up!

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this aint no normal lightbulb!

and thats what makes it so special, its an early british high pressure mercury vapour discharge lamp, the first of which, where made with regular for the time lightbulb components, the only majorly outward clue as to anything being different is the 3 pin bayonet base to prevent from being inserted into a regular un-ballasted socket which would blow it up! 

these early mercury lamps are very rare and very sought after hence why its taken me nearly 20 years to finally get my mits on one! 

and I really do love it, not only for its early construction techniques and differences, but as above how it really does look like a regular lightbulb until you fire it up where it then subverts all expectations

instead of the regular warm 2700K glow of a tungsten filament your expecting, you get the cool blue-green etherial glow of a mercury arc! but still with the classic pearl halo of a pearl/frosted lamp! :) 

this particular example is an 80W Philips example, made in Hamilton Scotland, which I believe dates to about the 1940's sadly theres no visible date code, (although there is a strange glyph on the base which may be one) but its arc tube is if of a very early construction style, which was nice bonus, I was expecting this to be a 1950's lamp with a more modern typical arc tube construction, but I was pleasantly surprised to find its older and even more interesting then I thought :) 

all in all as you can tell I am pleased as punch to finally have one of these in the collection! 

as a side note the very earliest of these had clear bulbs rather then frosted bulbs which let you see the awesome early hand made Quartz arc tube contained within

http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D MB Osira MB125.htm

Id love one of these as well, one can dream! 

 

 

 

 

 

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So the time has come to insure the model 70, obviously insurance for one of these isn’t the most straight forward thing in the world and for whatever reason Stirling who I was with on my last model 70 won’t touch me on this one, anyone got any suggestions for insurance company’s that’ll insurance weird cars? 

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25 minutes ago, Harriytait said:

So the time has come to insure the model 70, obviously insurance for one of these isn’t the most straight forward thing in the world and for whatever reason Stirling who I was with on my last model 70 won’t touch me on this one, anyone got any suggestions for insurance company’s that’ll insurance weird cars? 

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Hagerty sorted me out with TPA no bother.

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1 hour ago, Harriytait said:

So the time has come to insure the model 70, obviously insurance for one of these isn’t the most straight forward thing in the world and for whatever reason Stirling who I was with on my last model 70 won’t touch me on this one, anyone got any suggestions for insurance company’s that’ll insurance weird cars? 

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Bikesure are happily insuring REV, so they might be worth a shout :) 

and the underwriter is Markerstudy, who I think Steph, @Idriveaclassic works for I think so perhaps you could also talk to her directly and she might be able to set you up directly! cutting out the middle man so to speak

tis strange how VJN's old insurer wont touch TPE! gotta wonder if they heard "2 Door AC with flared wheel arches" and got the willies? LOL

Awesome to hear things are at the insurance stage! :) hopefully not long before your cruising on the highway!

 

 

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On 06/12/2022 at 14:23, LightBulbFun said:

this particular example is an 80W Philips example, made in Hamilton Scotland, which I believe dates to about the 1940's

Yeah about that! Guess who did not quite realise just how old it is and completely overlooked the exact wording of its box and etch

lets take a look at that shall we! "Made in England"

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now lets take a look at my slightly later Philips 400W MA/V Medium pressure mercury lamp from 1952 "Made in Gt Britain"

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indeed the Philips 80W MB/V lamp is so old it predates the start of Lamp production at the Hamilton Works! this likely means it was instead made at the Philips Harlesden Factory in North London, which stopped producing lamps in 1949 (with the start and consolidation of lamp production at Hamilton)

 

I also took delivery yesterday evening of a 5Kv Power supply that @Merryck very kindly donated to me! shown here powering a Neon-Helium Laser tube, that @808 Estate very kindly gave to me a while back! 

its not quite got enough grunt to fully run it, but its got enough to get it to laser, as can be seen by the red spot on the kitchen towel ahead of it :) (the tube needs 3.5mA but the Power supply maxes out at 2.2mA according to my meter)

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now I just need some sharks...

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On 11/24/2022 at 2:49 PM, LightBulbFun said:

and thats 2 out of 2 done!

the Porthole car's real identity has finally had a fresh V5 issued! (the one with windows in the B pillars that was on eBay incorrectly wearing GIG4834's identity!)

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this was a bit of a nerve wrecking one, because given the previous fun that was had with GIG I was worried the DVLA would be extra tetchy about things, but thankfully despite the scrap marker on TPG443M, it all went very smoothly :) 

 

question I guess is now, will the guy actually be holding onto TPG443M like he said he would, or will it just go right back onto eBay? LOL

I don't know if anyone else has sent this to you, but bad news

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1375179456555185/

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1 hour ago, Crackers said:

I really don't understand how "someone selling their car" constitutes bad news in this thread all the time. 

It was simply a direct reply to the last sentence of the quoted message, pointing out the new owner was lying about keeping the car. I suppose at the end of the day, it should barely be news as people lie all the time!

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6 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Bikesure are happily insuring REV, so they might be worth a shout :) 

and the underwriter is Markerstudy, who I think Steph, @Idriveaclassic works for I think so perhaps you could also talk to her directly and she might be able to set you up directly! cutting out the middle man so to speak

tis strange how VJN's old insurer wont touch TPE! gotta wonder if they heard "2 Door AC with flared wheel arches" and got the willies? LOL

Awesome to hear things are at the insurance stage! :) hopefully not long before your cruising on the highway!

 

 

Sterling insurance is owned by the same parent company as Bikesure. Adrian Flux.

 

Long and short of it is that it’s Bikesure who will cover it unless it has a steering wheel, which in that case it’ll be covered by Sterling/Flux.

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2 hours ago, AdgeCutler said:

Exciting times, a door.

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thats very awesome! its really taking shape now! 

will be interesting to see how well the colour matches! is it a new batch of paint or has it been painted from the same pot that the rest of Brian is painted with?

I am curious as I noticed because Mk12's of course have steel doors, they have to be painted where as the rest of the car is gel coat coloured, and thus overtime the door and body work tend to fall out of sync with each other! (either because of differences in fading or because one or the other had to be repainted)

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(I think I have said it before, but with all the fun thats had with Invacar colour matching over the years theres a Joke about 50 shades of Invacar in all of this somewhere LOL)

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9 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

Same tin, same primer. Body painted in mid summer heat, this door in far from ideal sun zero temperatures. I just needed to get some paint on all that bare metal especially after the heat exposure from all the various forms of welding. Also, spot the exhaust, now complete.

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And to think it once looked like this, you must be really proud of yourself!

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17 hours ago, Harriytait said:

And to think it once looked like this, you must be really proud of yourself!

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I dont think those pictures quite do it Justice, just how epic the work @AdgeCutlerhas done to restore KPU

as those pictures where taken after Big Al had cleaned up Brain for the sale, note the fresh lights etc 

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heres a better picture of when she was on the trailer with KPL, and even this does not quite show just how fucked everything was to put it bluntly! 

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fibreglass hides a multitude of sins as most people on the forum are probably all well too aware of!

 

 

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On 30/11/2022 at 22:38, LightBulbFun said:
On 25/08/2021 at 23:33, Coprolalia said:

Hey LBF, I have that small stack of lamps and fittings for you we rescued out of my friend's old garage. They're safe in my garage, just wondering how to get them to you.

I'm in S Wales, and it's unlikely I'm heading east soon as we have a newborn. I suspect shitely or courier may be easiest?

 

 

 

On 27/08/2021 at 18:51, Coprolalia said:

Follow up with photos...

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so @Coprolalia very kindly drop these off yesterday while he happened to be in the area! :) 

I am still sorting through things but I got all the tubes cleaned up and I even managed to hook up one of the fixtures

the 1960's Atlas Grey sided Popular pack, which needed nothing more than a duff starter holder replacing before it sprang into life, 50 years and kept in a damp garage for gawd knows how long, no problems!

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even the test tube I selected worked! I did do some basic checks before applying mains of course, but I still was not going to put in one of the rare tubes just incase, it did develop a fault and eat the tube

so I selected the sad looking fairly modern Philips T8 from the bundle which I was pretty sure was at end of life based on the amount of end blackening and would just blink away, but nope fired up without a hitch!

sadly the Atlas Super 5 tube that is original to this fitting is either severally contaminated or outright gassed and thus non functional

but the Thorn T12 that was with one of the fixtures is another case of not holding out much hope but it fired up also without issue!

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this one not only looked pretty worn on one end, but also has suffered typical thorn ring off on the etch end, (where a crack forms in the glass in a ring around the end) but luckily in this case it had not compromised the atmosphere of the tube! 

just 2 more tubes left to test and all the other fittings to assess, most sadly probably beyond saving, but will yield many useful bits and bobs :) 

I hoping at least the cursive etched Crompton 8ft 125W T12 works! but ill have to see if I can get the atlas twin super slim going or rig up a bare ballast test setup (as I dont actually have any 8ft fixtures otherwise!)

 

once again many thanks to @Coprolalia for saving, setting aside and delviring these fixtures and tubes for me, its very much appreciated :) 

so following up from this, I set out to test, out of all the fixtures the one that drew me the most to this lot, the Twin tube 8ft Atlas super slim, a very rare fixture that I just had to save!

despite being battered and bruised, rusty and burnt, the 60 year old fixture fired up into life without any hesitation!

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even the 8ft Atlas made Crompton tube that was included works which is a really nice bonus, the date code of 52 dates it to April 1970

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the atlas warm white tube is of my own stock and I just had to include it to complement the atlas made crompton :) 

 

once I was happy everything was working as it should (bar a burnt lamp holder contact, which is fine as long as you dont bump the tube and have its contacts shift to the burnt section!)

I fitted from my collection the crème de la crème of 8ft tubes to the fixture to really put the cherry on it all :) 

 a pair of Hamilton made Philips 125W 840's Triphosphor tubes, 8ft fluorescent tubes pretty much dont get much better than this! these was the pinnacle of the 8ft tube, high quality British made Philips in full power 125W guise (none of this 100W energy saving nonsense!) with the latest most efficient and high CRI rare earth phosphors

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this is was/is seriously stupidly bright, we are talking 21800 lumens total here, dwarfs even the 2 6ft 840 70W T8 tubes that light my desk which puts out only a paltry 12400 lumens LOL

 

as you can tell I am really quite pleased with this! hopefully in time ill gain the skills to restore the fixture back to its former glory and maybe even install it somewhere in my home, but for now I am just really pleased its all working even as is :) (atlas super slims are pretty note worthy in and of themselves, but a twin 8fter like this is especially rare!)

really goes to show they dont make em like they used to! 

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So today was rather productive, a rare day were my brother and I were both off work meant that he could come over and we could complete a few jobs that required 2 people and try to get TPE over the finish line, a few issues arose like not having the right wiring connectors and for whatever reason neither of us having a 10mm spanner in our tool boxes but we  got as much work done as we could and now only need to sort the rear lights out “both fixtures seem completely dead” and replace an earth strap that’s ripped in half. Both jobs for another day, we also had a rummage in the door cards and found many “treasures” including an old brochure for Butlins which I found interesting as I live 20 minutes from Butlins.

also another book I can’t make out, a few bags and a few tax disc holders

all in all a productive day

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6 hours ago, Harriytait said:

Just braved the cold to record this, please excuse the fingers all over the camera
 

 

hah very cool! (literally LOL) she started very well :) 

3 minutes ago, Harriytait said:

So today was rather productive, a rare day were my brother and I were both off work meant that he could come over and we could complete a few jobs that required 2 people and try to get TPE over the finish line, a few issues arose like not having the right wiring connectors and for whatever reason neither of us having a 10mm spanner in our tool boxes but we  got as much work done as we could and now only need to sort the rear lights out “both fixtures seem completely dead” and replace an earth strap that’s ripped in half. Both jobs for another day, we also had a rummage in the door cards and found many “treasures” including an old brochure for Butlins which I found interesting as I live 20 minutes from Butlins.

all in all a productive day

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very awesome to see some more work being done on TPE!

on the rear lights I would try and clean up the bulb holders, it should be possible to get em working, I was able to get REV's old lights going even when they where previously written off! I found that the springy contact platform seems to be a bit of a weak spot, so I wouid have a look at that if those lights have the same type of lamp holder, and indeed those "door pockets" can hide many interesting things, one of REV's doors we found was full of broken glass, gotta wonder what the story behind that was! LOL wonder if TPE really visited Butlins back in the day or not? that would of been a fair old trip from Scotland! 

On 23/04/2022 at 15:51, LightBulbFun said:

got a bit board, got one of REV's old rear lights working again :) 

(by some "genius" design they earth the entire light through the indicator lamp sockets springy contact platform, dont know why they could not of just directly earthed on the metal body of the light, which is earthed anyway as the indicator lamp is a single contact item)

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in a very me sort of thing, the first "indicator" bulb I could lay my hands on was this oddball US General Electric one, thats 12W not 21W, I presume for some sort of federally mandated side light/side marker/orange marker thing that most US cars have, im sure @PhilA will know exactly what application its intended for :) 

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I got it in 2004 from a family friend who sent us a gift package from the states :) 

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the other bulb is just some generic item I had kicking around, with a saggy 5W filament LOL, (annoyingly I could not find where I placed the goody bag of soviet car bulbs Zel gave to me from the Lada)

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next up, lets see if I can get the head lights working! well whats left of em anyway LOL

 

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