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...

[danthecapriman]

15 minutes ago, bub2006 said:

occasionally fighting on a Saturday night either.

 

🤣 I didn’t think you were that sort!

 

But, if I’d listened to other people’s advice I’d have been driving an Astra! As it was I went out and bought a series of rear wheel drive Volvo’s and consequently looked like the absolute boy a right prick!

Do what makes you happy in life I think is the best way. 
Obviously take care and don’t do anything crazy stupid and don’t hurt anyone doing it, but life’s too short to spend it being miserable and bitter and not enjoying yourself or the things you like. 
I’ve done that too! Yes, with cars I did (imho the best thing!) but pretty much everything else in life I’ve let it pass me by and spent too much time (that I won’t get back) being miserable, bitter and depressed. In many ways I’ve spent a great deal of my time not being a particularly nice person to be around either because of those things. That I do regret. I wish I’d got help sooner (like 20 years sooner) or talked about my problems. As it is I’ve lost that time.

I really really do wish Dez (and indeed anyone!) the best possible, I hope his dream comes true and we can all sit here looking at photos of him tearing up the streets in his Invacar. 
I just hope it doesn’t cause him a whole world of heartache in the process.

[bub2006]

23 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

🤣 I didn’t think you were that sort!

 

I wasn't but had a "friend" that had a motor mouth and didn't know when he was going too far. I just got lumbered with the fallout!

[BorniteIdentity]

All gone a bit quiet… 

[Snake Charmer]

16 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

All gone a bit quiet… 

Kebab shops are open.

[loserone]

32 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

All gone a bit quiet… 

395 pages of unsolicited advice* will do that to anyone 

[somewhatfoolish]

35 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

All gone a bit quiet… 

Perhaps it's all the tedious mithering from you and all the other Cassandras? No one filled up your thread with predictions of doom when you bought a shite old car which the vendor warned you against driving very far and promptly did 200 miles in. In fact the opposite, we did all but goad you into doing an objectively foolish thing. Posting about it once would be fine, but repeating it ad nauseam is fucking boring. It might well turn to rat shit within 20 minutes of it being parked up in That London, but he's an adult and has been warned at length of the potential bear traps waiting to be stepped in. Maybe just give it a rest.

[plasticvandan]

I guess as dez will be comparing the invacar with the bus or crutches,it's probably better. Perhaps we should just ignore this thread,and wait to see what happens,maybe in another 400 pages he might have it back.

[BorniteIdentity]

37 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Perhaps it's all the tedious mithering from you and all the other Cassandras? No one filled up your thread with predictions of doom when you bought a shite old car which the vendor warned you against driving very far and promptly did 200 miles in. In fact the opposite, we did all but goad you into doing an objectively foolish thing.

I remember it well. The car I won on a Monday night and collected, myself, on the Friday afternoon.  It was a brilliant day out which will stay with me for a long time. I saw a bit more of our beautiful country, bonded with my new steed and had a throughly good time.  I’d recommend it to anyone - particularly Dez. 

I understand Dez is an internet expert in Invacars. Sadly, in the real world, it’s a bit like being an internet expert in women. There’s a lot of studying, but not a lot of action. The latter is much more fun.

[IronStar]

While I understand that all the “don’t” comments are coming from a good place and genuine care for LBF, you’re trying to convince a 20-something lad he should give up something he has a genuine enthusiasm for because it’s not sensible. On a forum that’s not really about sensible cars of all the places. Do I think it’s a suitable vehicle for London? Nope. Not that I think that suitable vehicle for that place exists, I’ve been there once, and it’s not a place I would like to live in or spend my time at. Do I think it’s a liability that will undoubtedly be a moneypit? Yes, old cars are pain and the further back you go and the quirkier  it gets it’s harder living with them as a daily. Even the best supported among them such as Mini are temperamental and I really wouldn’t enjoy depending on it getting me to work every day if I still worked in the office.

HOWEVER.

I also live in a flat in a town of 2.5 million. I have 16 cars, and I keep figuring out a way to store them somewhere which is a pain as you can imagine. road. I have stories of dragging cars with absolutely broken parts home, priming and changing fuel filters in the layby driving home car from scrapyard with some MOT and tax remaining but with a single working brake and no tailgate, and many many other stories, many of which I have probably forgotten. My daily is a 17 y/o Alfa Romeo with north of 500k on the odometer. I’ve spent way too much time money and effort keeping it on the road. I could sell/scrap all of it and get a brand new car on PCP, probably even really really nice one, make my life easier and have it cheaper than what I’m paying for all the garages, parts and mechanics combined now, but that’s not my thing. I bought a Yugo Florida instead. Because life is too short not to have fun, if you can reasonably afford it.

More importantly than all the fluff above - sometimes we need to learn from our own experience. Ages ago, I was dailying a mk1 Golf. It was (and tbf, still is) broken in countless ways. I couldn’t afford fuel, let alone fixing it up. A lot of people tried reasoning with me that a car that costs pennies to buy is probably a shit idea to daily, along with a bunch of other reasonable comments I got along the way. Similar reasoning happened with plenty of other decisions in my life. I wouldn’t have any of it, and ended up learning the hard way. Some of them were sound though, despite many, many advices I really shouldn’t do X or Y.

Bottom line is, IMO, LBF should give it a shot. He certainly has the passion for it, and this thread, amongst other things is a proof of it. He will end up learning something from this - be it that this was a shit idea and you need a reasonable daily, finding new and creative ways to keep the car going, the reason why they were all recalled first hand, or maybe, just maybe - actually enjoying it and proving everyone wrong.

Would I do it with all the experience I have now? Absolutely not, too much of a risk of things going very wrong. Would I not do it I was in his position and waited for years to get what I wanted? Not a chance in hell.

Just please, for your sake, drive it somewhere safe for a first few days, or even better weeks, until you get an idea of how it drives in practice. It’s no good if you get yourself seriously injured or worse. 

[Mr Pastry]

1 hour ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Invacars and women.

Both potentially dangerous and best avoided?

[warren t claim]

3 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Perhaps it's all the tedious mithering from you and all the other Cassandras? No one filled up your thread with predictions of doom when you bought a shite old car which the vendor warned you against driving very far and promptly did 200 miles in. In fact the opposite, we did all but goad you into doing an objectively foolish thing. Posting about it once would be fine, but repeating it ad nauseam is fucking boring. It might well turn to rat shit within 20 minutes of it being parked up in That London, but he's an adult and has been warned at length of the potential bear traps waiting to be stepped in. Maybe just give it a rest.

Are you calling me Cassandra?

It is said that a wise man learns from his mistakes. I'd go further and say that a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others. 

It could be argued that with the "Khanage" 20 mph limits pretty much everywhere in London an Invicare would be ideal for local trips of less than 3 miles. The problems arise from society breeding feral rats that will see it as fair game to tip over and/or set on fire. Speaking as someone who 40 years ago could have been reasonably described as a feral rat himself, these three wheel deathtraps were pretty much everywhere but we left them alone as we knew what they were and had respect for the WW2 veterans that were the main users of them. Anyway, it was far more fun to play lucky dip with a coathanger fishing for keys at the local car and van hire establishments. I'll admit that one lad took it a bit too far and after studying the method of starting and operating a pre selector gearbox on a bus during his ride to school put that into practice and "borrowed" a double decker Leyland Atlantean from the depot on Sunday evening (what a night that was!).

The main problem is dealing with the inevitable breakdowns when they happen. The snapped spring on a drum brake was used earlier as an example. We had a Fiesta in at Claim_Garage that needed new rear shoes and it took two of us to get the fucking spring on even on a ramp with the correct tools to hand.

The main reasons why I suggested @LightBulbFun should buy a retired TX1,2 or 4 are because in London there's a whole industry based around keeping cabs on the road and as they are WAVs it would give him somewhere to store an electric wheelchair. FFS! I even gave him my personal mobile number for when he was going to view one for sale!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Mr Pastry said:

Both potentially dangerous and best avoided?

Coerced into productive action, shirley?

[warren t claim]

Put it this way using the analogy of radio.

COOL. During a hot date getting the radio DJ to give a shout out to your GF and him playing a song guaranteed to allow you access to your woman's panty hamster.

NOT COOL. Getting a shout out by Sally Traffic describing your Invarcare as "an unknown broken down vehicle causing a three mile traffic jam on the South Circular Rd".

[IronStar]

Surely even in bloody London there is at least one mechanic sympathetic to random old shite? 
Off street parking, preferably in a lockup is a very good idea though for anything anyone wants to keep nice, not just an Invacar.
As for cars getting vandalized, is that seriously an issue? You’d think with every single inch of London being covered by cameras, people wouldn’t want to fuck around and find out. If it indeed is, it’s an interesting thing to know that it’s infinitely safer here in that regard, as there’s a distinct lack of people vandalizing private cars, even ones that have been obviously abandoned, partially because they are not feral cunts, partially because there’s a realistic chance of finding out, and cops will be looking the other way while someone is using sporting goods on you if you get caught. Even fucking football fans are above that, and they are as feral and dangerous as it gets.

[SiC]

[Saabnut]

Despite still testing +ve for Covid, I felt better today so ventured out. Put the tow barge on the ramp to try and solve the main problem for Invacar delivery, and indeed sorted that. Of course, found another problem that resulted in sending a friend on a shopping trip to *spits* Hellfrauds and should have that sorted tomorrow. Another small step in REV journeying south soon.

[warren t claim]

9 minutes ago, IronStar said:

Surely even in bloody London there is at least one mechanic sympathetic to random old shite? 
Off street parking, preferably in a lockup is a very good idea though for anything anyone wants to keep nice, not just an Invacar.
As for cars getting vandalized, is that seriously an issue? You’d think with every single inch of London being covered by cameras, people wouldn’t want to fuck around and find out. If it indeed is, it’s an interesting thing to know that it’s infinitely safer here in that regard, as there’s a distinct lack of people vandalizing private cars, even ones that have been obviously abandoned, partially because they are not feral cunts, partially because there’s a realistic chance of finding out, and cops will be looking the other way while someone is using sporting goods on you if you get caught. Even fucking football fans are above that, and they are as feral and dangerous as it gets.

Even 40 years ago there were very few mechanics familiar with Invercares as they had specialist garages maintain them. Maybe a motorcycle shop that majors on old British bikes might touch the engine?

Sadly, the feral youth situation is only getting worse.

[LightBulbFun]

it seems the overarching concern has now shifted to "you wont be able to handle it when it has an FTP", but its not like I dont already have experience of having to deal with that,, people seem to forget when she was offloaded here at home the 5th of November 2021 I quickly discovered she actually developed more faults then what she left the FoD with!

funnily enough brakes and Dynastart are mentioned as potential issues, and thats exactly what I had issues with when she came home back then, the brakes had sized on and the Dynastart had stopped charging, as well as on top of that the mechanical fuel pump had packed up, so she would not even run! but I was able to fix or workaround all those issues apart from the brakes, and keep in mind this was November to February time, was it easy for me? fuck no! did it leave me utterly broken afterwards, Yes, but I did manage it in the end, I even bandaged up a hole in her exhaust system like a true shitbox owner would do, surely that in itself is worth some Autoshite points in itself?  

on top of that I was able to fix other niggles like when she had her indicator stalk replaced, the person doing so had not installed it properly, it promptly fell off while I was driving it to the chippy but I was able to then take things apart and figure out how it should go back together such that it no longer fell off etc

I am fully aware that there is a chance things might get very difficult or tricky indeed, as above I have already been there! but if there is one thing people surely have picked up about me is, I am a determined person and where there is a will there is a way  

and I already have contingence planning in place to deal with potential troublesome scenarios, for example I have amassed a large spares stash of most of the the otherwise Tricky to find Model 70 specific components, and all the other parts bin stuff, I have fully cross-referenced to their most common equivalent and made sure I know where I can buy them from

I even have a whole brand new Dynastart unit, still in its wooden box  

so yeah its not like I have not thought about these potential issues!  

 

[IronStar]

3 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

Even 40 years ago there were very few mechanics familiar with Invercares as they had specialist garages maintain them. Maybe a motorcycle shop that majors on old British bikes might touch the engine?

Sadly, the feral youth situation is only getting worse.

I was thinking more of a backstreet shop ran by an older bloke that does a bit of everything, or an enthusiastic young lad that doesn’t shy away from the challenge.

Feral youth is really sad to hear. As I’ve said, it’s really an interesting fact for me, as that place never stroke me as a place where people would attempt to fuck around with other peoples property to that extent. Now thinking of it though, I probably shouldn’t be too shocked judging by the behavior of some of the brits holidaying abroad I’ve ran into. Especially if there was football matches involved. 

[warren t claim]

4 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

it seems the overarching concern has now shifted to "you wont be able to handle it when it has an FTP", but its not like I dont already have experience of having to deal with that,, people seem to forget when she was offloaded here at home the 5th of November 2021 I quickly discovered she actually developed more faults then what she left the FoD with!

funnily enough brakes and Dynastart are mentioned as potential issues, and thats exactly what I had issues with when she came home back then, the brakes had sized on and the Dynastart had stopped charging, as well as on top of that the mechanical fuel pump had packed up, so she would not even run! but I was able to fix or workaround all those issues apart from the brakes, and keep in mind this was November February time, was it easy for me? fuck no! did it leave me utterly broken afterwards, Yes, but I did manage it in the end, I even bandaged up a hole in her exhaust system like a true shitbox owner would do, surely that in itself is worth some Autoshite points in itself?  

on top of that I was able to fix other niggles like when she had her indicator stalk replaced, the person doing so had not installed it properly, it promptly fell off while I was driving it to the chippy but I was able to then take things apart and figure out how it should go back together such that it no longer fell off etc

I am fully aware that there is a chance things might get very difficult or tricky indeed, as above I have already been there! but if there is one thing people surely have picked up about me is, I am a determined person and where there is a will there is a way  

and I already have contingence planning in place to deal with potential troublesome scenarios, for example I have amassed a large spares stash of most of the the otherwise Tricky to find Model 70 specific components, and all the other parts bin stuff, I have fully cross-referenced to their most common equivalent and made sure I know where I can buy them from

I even have a whole brand new Dynastart unit, still in its wooden box  

so yeah its not like I have not thought about these potential issues!  

 

Do you have the strength to push it out of harms way after it FTPs?

[LightBulbFun]

28 minutes ago, SiC said:

thats pretty awesome to see! DM9913 is one of those I have sort of seen in the periphery, the odd photo here and there, but nothing of it in detail like that  

[SiC]

Sorry I didn't think to take a photo from the otherside without the sign in front.

These are the originals. Only a phone camera but 50MP so you should be able to zoom in a bit. Hopefully my hand was relatively steady when taking the photo and not blurred it too much. I tend to point, click and move on but that resolution supposed to have the camera still a bit longer.

https://file.io/xEew1yLF7c6h

 

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, SiC said:

Sorry I didn't think to take a photo from the otherside without the sign in front.

These are the originals. Only a phone camera but 50MP so you should be able to zoom in a bit. Hopefully my hand was relatively steady when taking the photo and not blurred it too much. I tend to point, click and move on but that resolution supposed to have the camera still a bit longer.

https://file.io/xEew1yLF7c6h

no problems! I still appreciate it all the same  (although sadly that file sharing link appears to be broken? its claiming the files have been deleted)

[Snake Charmer]

25 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

Do you have the strength to push it out of harms way after it FTPs?

Is that a prerequisite for owning a disability vehicle? I would struggle to move my car out of harms way (wherever that is), 

[warren t claim]

2 minutes ago, Snake Charmer said:

Is that a prerequisite for owning a disability vehicle? I would struggle to move my car out of harms way (wherever that is), 

It's handy for not getting a kicking from the Amazon driver who you are blocking.

[somewhatfoolish]

Judging by the amazon/evri drivers I see and the condition of their shitboxes they'd probably shunt it out of the way. Bumpers are for bumping, innit.

[Christine]

Is that  sliding pillar  suspension a   3 wheel Morgan  in the photo Sic ?  

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, IronStar said:

Surely even in bloody London there is at least one mechanic sympathetic to random old shite? 

im pretty confident that there are a couple around here, based on the surprising amount of Historic Vehicle Taxation class vehicles that are street parked around here they all must be getting maintenance somewhere! 

thats part of my plan that once I get REV back I want conduct a visit to all the garages around here, in REV herself, and see what they make of REV and if they would be willing to do jobs on REV if required etc, 

6 hours ago, IronStar said:

Just please, for your sake, drive it somewhere safe for a first few days, or even better weeks, until you get an idea of how it drives in practice. It’s no good if you get yourself seriously injured or worse. 

dont worry  my plan is and always has been to start out with small local trips (to the chippy and back for example) and then slowly work my way up there, with my end goal in mind being getting to the FoD and back, this is why I am not just driving her down from anywhere! be it Scotland or the FoD itself

but I am pretty positive  things will go smoothly on that front once she is home, as not only am I quite familiar with REV, I have driven her some 25 miles around the FoD previously, but even in the brief time i Had her here at home, I felt much more at home and at ease driving her on the streets of London, then I was in any of my driving instructors cars, its quite funny because I was at first really nervous before hand, driving REV to the chippy and back was my first time solo on the road, but the moment I got behind the handle bars, in a very cliche manner, all that melted away, and I imdiately felt like I was at home to so to speak, since everything was already ingrained in me! I suppose it helps in this regard, that I started driving REV around the FoD before I had even started official driving lessons, so Invacar handling is just naturally engrained into me, (at least at slower speeds, its all 20Mph roads here sadly!) so hopefully that comes back once more when she comes home  

as a related note to that, it actually startled me, when I did my over-the-shoulder checks in REV for the first time, just how much visibility there was all around, its really strange looking over your shoulder and actually being able to see whats behind you vs the much more limited visablity of the modern driving instructor cars I had driven/learned to drive in previously 

[Christine]

Lbf , you know petrol golf buggies  have  similar  wanky transmission .. a golf buggy mech might be an idea .. 

[Christine]

Dynastarts too...!