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...

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, barrett said:

That Harding is astonishing! Shows there is still unknown stuff out there waiting to be found...

Yeah it is! its a new survivor making the 8th known surviving Harding Consort  (been having a good discussion with stuart about it and all things Harding, indeed he found other evidence in the form of a period advert, that they made Harding consorts as far back as 1955)

I also see the seller has updated the listing with a bunch of new photos which I have saved of course  

I have also messaged the seller and asked for a picture of the registration document they have for it supposedly, that would be very interesting to see and study  

(as a fun/amusing side note if only 12 harding consorts where really ever produced then they have the highest surviving to manufactured ratio of any old school invalid vehicle out there I think LOL)

[LightBulbFun]

14 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

@LightBulbFun this popped up on my Faceache feed 

Yeah popped up in mine as well  

thats Brian in his Model 70, that was the first Model 70 that I sorted out so to speak

from Dodgy Q plate to proper ID  

so it always makes me grin to see how much the owner of it uses it ever since I sorted it for him! (especially as he was being forced to sell it at the time because of the Q plate)

[Mrs6C]

10 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

I also see the seller has updated the listing with a bunch of new photos

It's quite well equipped and even looks comfortable to use, also has a nice colour scheme of that 'eau de Nile' bodywork and red seats with the jaunty white piping. Interesting to see the body construction, of the tubular frame and aluminium panelling with plywood lining for the door/s.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Mrs6C said:

It's quite well equipped and even looks comfortable to use, also has a nice colour scheme of that 'eau de Nile' bodywork and red seats with the jaunty white piping. Interesting to see the body construction, of the tubular frame and aluminium panelling with plywood lining for the door/s.

Yeah! stuart says the seat is not original but that red and green suits it  

 

speaking of this harding just got off a phone call with the chap who owns it (his nephew is selling it for him)

and its very exciting, all its details check out! it is indeed registered as a Harding Consort on the buff logbook, and was registered in June 1955 which fits with the May 1955 advertisement we have

and most excitingly it was factory registered! me and stuart noticed it was Bath registered and wondered if it was factory registered and or a factory demonstrator of some sort

and indeed the 1st Keeper was R A Harding (Bath) Ltd  so thats quite exciting! 

I have to wonder if its the very first Consort? I have a chassis number and it checks out as a Harding chassis number but due to how harding chassis numbers worked it does not concessively tell us if this is number 1 or not sadly

said nice chap said his father got it for him when he was 12 to run around in several decades ago, and the chap is confident it will run again! he just wants it to find a good home so hopefully it will!

he says its all there just needs some love!

 

but yeah there is a buff logbook for it which should make registering it a doddle hopefully, and its a good thing there is as I dont think the Bath registration records this late exist otherwise sadly,

(from what I can tell this Consort was last on the Road December 1967, so it wont be on any DVLA computer system I dont think!)

but nothing a V765 and V55/5 in conjunction with the buff logbook cant solve  

[AdgeCutler]

After having gone through the three engines I have, I've now selected a good unmolested, corrosion free set set of castings. A lot of them thankfully have come from the engine that was in the car (whether or not this was the original engine I know not).  Obviously it is best to keep critical paired halves such as the crankcase and gearbox castings as a pair. So far I  have picked the crankcase halves of the spare engine that came with the car and and the Dynastart housing from the Ebay engine, the rest are from the original. They have been de-greased and hopefully tomorrow evening I'll be vapour blasting them at a friends and have a set of castings looking as good as the day they were parted from their moulds. The cylinder bore was also honed today and is perfect other than the very finest barely perceivable of scores.

[Mrs6C]

That collection looks like the contents of one of those puzzles you get in the 'luxury' type of Christmas cracker...

[LightBulbFun]

39 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

After having gone through the three engines I have, I've now selected a good unmolested, corrosion free set set of castings. A lot of them thankfully have come from the engine that was in the car (whether or not this was the original engine I know not).  Obviously it is best to keep critical paired halves such as the crankcase and gearbox castings as a pair. So far I  have picked the crankcase halves of the spare engine that came with the car and and the Dynastart housing from the Ebay engine, the rest are from the original. They have been de-greased and hopefully tomorrow evening I'll be vapour blasting them at a friends and have a set of castings looking as good as the day they were parted from their moulds. The cylinder bore was also honed today and is perfect other than the very finest barely perceivable of scores.

Awesome stuff! I look forward to seeing, (and hearing!) the mighty Villiers 11E run once more

[AdgeCutler]

7 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

That collection looks like the contents of one of those puzzles you get in the 'luxury' type of Christmas cracker...

You should see the muddle of critical components strewn everywhere on the bench!

 

7 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Awesome stuff! I look forward to seeing, (and hearing!) the mighty Villiers 11E run once more

The mighty Mite.

[LightBulbFun]

in my own Invacar Mk12 research news, I have an exciting discovery on the subject on Private Invacar Mk12's

it was thought until now, that before the Model 70, private Invacars just ran in the same chassis number range as their MoH/DHSS counterparts

however one thing I kept running into was Invacar Mk12's with normal looking chassis numbers, but that did fit the age of the vehicle like WOO976F had a later chassis number then XWC468F which made no sense (and I knew XWC was correct thanks to the Essex archives)

On 06/01/2020 at 18:55, LightBulbFun said:

(if the DVLA is to be believed VEV446E/VEV447E, WOO976F and ATW435F all have chassis numbers about 10 cars apart from each other LOL

 now I was looking at WOO976F's chassis plate again recently as you do, and I noticed something, the Government property bit on the top was missing! someone had lopped it off,

but there where no rivet holes above it to say someone had lopped it off then re-riveted it

the government property bit is right at the top of the chassis plate, so to lop it off a government car you would have to drill out the rivet chop it off and re-rivet the plate with 2 rivet slightly lower down which would then leave rivet holes above

so I got very curious this and wondered what if all these strange cars iv been finding are actually private examples and I found the chassis number simply where invacar decided to register private examples for a while?

so I put all these strange examples together, and ignoring the normal ministry blocks they are apart of, they suddenly do go up in order as you would expect, in this list no older registered car has a later chassis number then a newer car or such

now the strange cars I have found are VEV446E, VEV447E, WOO976F, YPU659F, YPU678F, ATW435F, BOO682F

luckily ATW435F is known to survive, and so I asked Stuart and got a picture of its chassis plate and low behold its also missing the government property bit in the same fashion  

so I think the pretty conclusively tells me that all the above cars are actually private examples I had unknowingly found while searching through the Ministry blocks they sit in

(its already established that Private Invacars did mingle inside ministry registration blocks, for example my Car REV451R is part of the REV375R-REV475R block of Ministry Invacar Model 70's, notice its 101 cars big because of my private car ) 

 

and im very excited and pleased by it, because these strange Invacar Mk12's had been bugging me for a long time, not only had they been ruining my block searching (because I could not use them to tell me what chassis numbers the block they where in covered)

but also because they where consistently wrong, like they where all wrong, but in the same way and I had wondered what the hell was going on, it seems too consistent to be a DVLA thing and now I finally have my answer they where/are private cars  

and then its also very exciting because I finally know of some private Mk12's and that at least 2 still survive today  (they still ruin my block searching LOL but at least now I know what they are and its not simply a DVLC/DVLA cockup or such)

 

 

I obviously want to see what they show up as in the original Essex archive records still, but I am pretty confident now that these are private Invacar Mk12's  

and also see if I can find any other private ranges I suspect there where more then 1 block of chassis numbers allocated to private cars and that I have only simply found 1 block

so yeah I finally have an answer to all the Weird invacar Mk12's I keep on finding during my DVLA bashing  

[Mrs6C]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

I finally have an answer to all the Weird invacar Mk12's I keep on finding during my DVLA bashing  

Fantastic!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

I finally have an answer to all the Weird invacar...

Yea. You think? 🤣

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

in my own Invacar Mk12 research news, I have an exciting discover on the subject on Private Invacar Mk12's

it was thought until now, that before the Model 70, private Invacars just ran in the same chassis number range as their MoH/DHSS counterparts

however one thing I kept running into was Invacar Mk12's with normal looking chassis numbers, but that did fit the age of the vehicle like WOO976F had a later chassis number then XWC468F which made no sense (and I knew XWC was correct thanks to the Essex archives)

 now I was looking at WOO976F's chassis plate again recently as you do, and I noticed something, the Government property bit on the top was missing! someone had lopped it off,

but there where no rivet holes above it to say someone had lopped it off then re-riveted it

the government property bit is right at the top of the chassis plate, so to lop it off a government car you would have to drill out the rivet chop it off and re-rivet the plate with 2 rivet slightly lower down which would then leave rivet holes above

so I got very curious this and wondered what if all these strange cars iv been finding are actually private examples and I found the chassis number simply where invacar decided to register private examples for a while?

so I put all these strange examples together, and ignoring the normal ministry blocks they are apart of, they suddenly do go up in order as you would expect, in this list no older registered car has a later chassis number then a newer car or such

now the strange cars I have found are VEV446E, VEV447E, WOO976F, YPU659F, YPU678F, ATW435F, BOO682F

luckily ATW435F is known to survive, and so I asked Stuart and got a picture of its chassis plate and low behold its also missing the government property bit in the same fashion  

so I think the pretty conclusively tells me that all the above cars are actually private examples I had unknowingly found while searching through the Ministry blocks they sit in

(its already established that Private Invacars did mingle inside ministry blocks, for example my Car REV451R is part of the REV375R-REV475R block of Ministry Invacar Model 70's, notice its 101 cars big because of my private car ) 

 

and im very excited and pleased by it, because these strange Invacar Mk12's had been bugging me for a long time, not only had they been ruining my block searching (because I could not use them to tell me what chassis numbers the block they where in covered)

but also because they where consistently wrong, like they where all wrong, but in the same way and I had wondered what the hell was going on, it seems too consistent to be a DVLA thing and now I finally have my answer they where/are private cars  

and then its also very exciting because I finally know of some private Mk12's and that at least 2 still survive today  (they still ruin my block searching LOL but at least now I know what they are and its not simply a DVLC/DVLA cockup or such)

 

 

I obviously want to see what they show up as in the original Essex archive records still, but I am pretty confident now that these are private Invacar Mk12's  

and also see if I can find any other private ranges I suspect there where more then 1 block of chassis numbers allocated to private cars and that I have only simply found 1 block

so yeah I finally have an answer to all the Weird invacar Mk12's I keep on finding during my DVLA bashing  

knew there was one more I had dug up in the past  

  

On 31/12/2019 at 21:56, LightBulbFun said:

one final Mk12 Block discovered and surviving Mk12 identified before the new year/new decade  

I think I now have every single known surviving Invacar Mk12E that has a known chassis number fully identified now  

said final Mk12 being EWC163H Im pretty sure, part of the EWC101H-EWC200H block

sadly the only one from that block to show up EWC102H and its chassis number is obviously wrong when I pull it, but looking at the dates of first registration etc im pretty confident that the Unknown car is EWC163H (as I knew the car sat in the block just after the ENO101G-ENO200G block)

and ENO-G block spans June-July, and EWC-H starts one starts 1st of August so im confident its the block that comes right after ENO101G-ENO200G, making the unknown Car EWC163H  

this one tells me that this private chassis number range continued onwards on its own even after the ministry cars went passed it chassis number wise

(which makes me wonder what Invacar did for those ministry cars that would overlap with the private cars, did they let them over lap, or did they skip the private range to avoid any overlapping?)

[AdgeCutler]

On 4/7/2021 at 7:44 PM, AdgeCutler said:

After having gone through the three engines I have, I've now selected a good unmolested, corrosion free set set of castings. A lot of them thankfully have come from the engine that was in the car (whether or not this was the original engine I know not).  Obviously it is best to keep critical paired halves such as the crankcase and gearbox castings as a pair. So far I  have picked the crankcase halves of the spare engine that came with the car and and the Dynastart housing from the Ebay engine, the rest are from the original. They have been de-greased and hopefully tomorrow evening I'll be vapour blasting them at a friends and have a set of castings looking as good as the day they were parted from their moulds. The cylinder bore was also honed today and is perfect other than the very finest barely perceivable of scores.

Just got back from my friends workshop where he showed me the ropes and let me loose with his vapour blaster, it's a lovely piece of kit and I was very impressed with its effectiveness. If anyone is interested, he is offering the vapour blasting service, message me and I can put you in contact. Here's the result.

 

[LightBulbFun]

7 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

Just got back from my friends workshop where he showed me the ropes and let me loose with his vapour blaster, it's a lovely piece of kit and I was very impressed with its effectiveness. If anyone is interested, he is offering the vapour blasting service, message me and I can put you in contact. Here's the result.

 

blimey thats amazing! you where not kidding when you said they would look like new!

shame it does not work for whole cars or id shove REV in there LOL  

[bobdisk]

They look really fantastic, like they have just come out of their manufacture even before first use !!!   Might need those services in a few months time !!

[LightBulbFun]

In Model 70 news I noticed KPK888K has had a new V5 issued recently! 

last had a V5 issued in 2012, I dont see any new keeper changes I dont think...

so wonder what the new V5 is about, a change to historic vehicle taxation class or a change of address etc? 

also did finally get a few pictures of this machine from back when it first showed up in 2010 or so, need to double check if I can post em here tho! (I hope so cuz its the last Model 70 on my public facing survivors list I dont have a picture for!)

but its interesting to note, that for some reason I thought she had a dash gear change but she does not sadly so that means NPD775L and NOO738M are the only Model 70's left surviving with their original dash mounted gear change intact!

 

[LightBulbFun]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

In Model 70 news I noticed KPK888K has had a new V5 issued recently! 

last had a V5 issued in 2012, I dont see any new keeper changes I dont think...

so wonder what the new V5 is about, a change to historic vehicle taxation class or a change of address etc? 

also did finally get a few pictures of this machine from back when it first showed up in 2010 or so, need to double check if I can post em here tho! (I hope so cuz its the last Model 70 on my public facing survivors list I dont have a picture for!)

but its interesting to note, that for some reason I thought she had a dash gear change but she does not sadly so that means NPD775L and NOO738M are the only Model 70's left surviving with their original dash mounted gear change intact!

 

yay got some pics of KPK 888K at long last  (got the a-ok from stuart as there just pictures he saved from ebay himself at the time  ) so the list on Page 24 has been duly updated  

its an interesting looking one, it some how looks like a much newer Model 70 then it is, I think its the Modern plates, 10 inch wheels and late service Britax/Rubbolite rear lights

tho I sadly dont actually know if KPK888K really is KPK888K, details on it are thin, we know where it came from but where it ended up after it was slung on ebay 10~ years ago etc is sadly unknown and so its exact details are unknown

I dont know if its ID was ever fully verified sadly

I would love to know where this one ended up  (if it really is KPK888K then its the 2nd oldest known surviving AC Model 70 after GPG721K)

(it at least is a Model 70 Mark A I can tell that from the dash board and the hole where the dash change would of once been)

[wuvvum]

On 4/6/2021 at 1:59 PM, LightBulbFun said:

heres an interesting one!

Stuart was watching Murder maps on TV when he spotted this! (Season 4 Episode 4)

 

Heh, I've owned two out of the three models in that picture.

Apologies for polluting the thread with non-Inv*c*r content, but as our resident oracle of MOT records knowledge, I was wondering what you make of this one:

[LightBulbFun]

22 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Heh, I've owned two out of the three models in that picture.

Apologies for polluting the thread with non-Inv*c*r content, but as our resident oracle of MOT records knowledge, I was wondering what you make of this one:

Scott is looking for a good home* for 1940PE if you want to make it 3 out of 3  

(*read: someone who wont just plate rob it and flip it for profit)

 

NKZ5705's funky-ness  is because it is/was a Northern Ireland vehicle

which uses its own MOT system

as such while the MOT expiry date is shared with the DVLA,  nothing is shared with the DVSA, as NI have their own system IIRC

normally as such NI vehicles dont even produce a result in the online MOT checker 

 

this one does however despite never having an English MOT, so I wonder if it was recently brought over to England so caused it to suddenly wake up on the DVSA system

however a British car brought over to NI wont vanish from the MOT checker, but will only show the last english MOT on the MOT checker, so will show as MOT expired while still having a current MOT on the DVLA checker

which is what is going on here, (but in this case since the vehicle has had no MOTs at all in England yet the DVSA MOT checker is treating it like a new vehicle so 2005+3 years = 2008)

 

however note the correct MOT details from the DVLA

 

one thing a lot of people dont realise, is the vehicle enquiry service 

https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

and the MOT checker

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

 

are run by 2 different departments and pull vehicle data from 2 completely different databases and is why you should always use the DVLA Vehicle enquiry service when scoping for actual vehicle details

because while when no DVSA data exists for a vehicle the MOT checker will then pull it from the DVLA, if DVSA data does exist (aka whatever the MOT man feeds the computer), it will use that instead of the more reliable DVLA data,

which is fun when your MOT tester is dyslexic 

or colour blind

(ok to be fair this one was Orange at one point but its been blue for yonks now)

and this is why you often see discrepancies on vehicle details between the DVLA checker and MOT checker

[wuvvum]

Ah, OK.

But why does the site think there's 40 days left until 17th February 2008?

[LightBulbFun]

34 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Ah, OK.

But why does the site think there's 40 days left until 17th February 2008?

because its an Iveco its so shit that it actually breaks the fabric of space and time itself, by carefully manipulating one you can travel forward and backwards in time

which is how @Cavcraft gets all his 2 stroke shite  although in typical Iveco fashion its highly unreliable and the odd Moped has been known to get fired into the far future

 

on a more serious note, I suspect its because its pulling its MOT Status from the DVSA, but its Days left from the DVLA

 

[egg]

Who's buying the Harding then?

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, egg said:

Who's buying the Harding then?

I dont know sadly but I am really hoping its someone on here tho so I can keep a nice close eye on it and hopefully see it get fixed up  

Stuart said if he did not already have one (how many people can say that LOL) he would be tempted to try and get it himself

[somewhatfoolish]

Can we not goad @egg into buying it, doing some preservation work only to lose motivation/have a road to damascus moment and sell it to another shiter? That worked last time.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Can we not goad @egg into buying it, doing some preservation work only to lose motivation/have a road to damascus moment and sell it to another shiter? That worked last time.

the preservation work he did was some damn good work mind! not many Invacar Mk12's have a sorted ID and V5 like XWC468F does, its that hard work that probably secured that cars future  

 

(the harding should be comparatively easy as it most thankfully still has its buff logbook so all you need otherwise to get it onto the DVLA is a V765 and a V55/5)

[OldBlokeInACaravan]

After much head scratching, new leads, plugs, points, condenser, temporary fuel line and swearing, the Invacar finally runs again, VJN953S back to life, running well, last taxed 1991 ! Now to sort the brakes! 

[OldBlokeInACaravan]

15 minutes ago, OldBlokeInACaravan said:

After much head scratching, new leads, plugs, points, condenser, temporary fuel line and swearing, the Invacar finally runs again, VJN953S back to life, running well, last taxed 1991 ! Now to sort the brakes! 

Video here: https://m.facebook.com/toooldfordiscotooyoungforbingo?mds=%2Fedit%2Fpost%2Fdialog%2F%3Fcid%3DS%3A_I611022730%3A10159043186222731%26ct%3D2%26nodeID%3Du_0_6d_tI%26redir%3D%2Fstory_chevron_menu%2F%3Fis_menu_registered%3Dfalse%26loc%3Dtimeline&mdf=1

 

[LightBulbFun]

7 hours ago, OldBlokeInACaravan said:

After much head scratching, new leads, plugs, points, condenser, temporary fuel line and swearing, the Invacar finally runs again, VJN953S back to life, running well, last taxed 1991 ! Now to sort the brakes! 

 

6 hours ago, OldBlokeInACaravan said:

Video here: https://m.facebook.com/toooldfordiscotooyoungforbingo?mds=%2Fedit%2Fpost%2Fdialog%2F%3Fcid%3DS%3A_I611022730%3A10159043186222731%26ct%3D2%26nodeID%3Du_0_6d_tI%26redir%3D%2Fstory_chevron_menu%2F%3Fis_menu_registered%3Dfalse%26loc%3Dtimeline&mdf=1

 

 

very awesome to see her running again  

hopefully she will be driving not before long! although yeah working brakes are probably recommended before so!

as a side note when you do your first few oil changes it may be worth dropping the oil strainer thingy out the bottom of the engine, as that can accumulate a lot of sludge after an engine thats been sitting for many years is brought back to life

 

 

heres a slightly more condensed/concise/permanent  URL to the video just incase the above one breaks  

https://www.facebook.com/toooldfordiscotooyoungforbingo/posts/10159043186222731

[R1152]

1 hour ago, OldBlokeInACaravan said:

After much head scratching, new leads, plugs, points, condenser, temporary fuel line and swearing, the Invacar finally runs again, VJN953S back to life, running well, last taxed 1991 ! Now to sort the brakes! 

That really does look rather splendid.

[AdgeCutler]

I managed to get the Carburettor fully stripped down and thoroughly cleaned out today.  Cleaning out the passageways, ports and jets is a painstaking and delicate job but I hope it will pay dividends when Brian finally gets re-united with the road. Not surprisingly all of the above were blocked solid after having sat neglected for so long.