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]

16 hours ago, AdgeCutler said:

I do wish you luck with freeing the seizure Harry but I strongly suspect that you'd be better off just stripping the engine. Due to them being 2 stroke and essentially oil free the pistons I've finally freed of had suffered Aluminium corrosion which expands and really locks them tight. It took between 11-13 tonnes on a hydraulic press before any of mine relented. As for a carburettor, have you called Steve Gollings at Villiers services? He has surprised me before by having parts on the shelf for several of my Villiers engines going back to 1941. 

im just glad you where able to free the piston from the barrel at all!

as IIRC the main problem currently with XWC's original engine is that the piston is sized in the bore, however I do believe the rest of it does move and IIRC @BlankFrank even got the starter part of the Dynastart turning over (with the entire piston and barrel going up and down amusingly)

so if the Piston can be freed relatively non destructively from the barrel, I do wonder if XWC's original engine could then be relatively easily rebuilt from there on and out  

 

[LightBulbFun]

15 hours ago, R1152 said:

The recording name in the media list says "Scarborough in 1970s" - at the end of the programme it says "Scarborough in 1960 - 70s".

There's a Mk. 1 Granada in view as well as the FE Victor so it must be *at least* 1973, I'd say. It's part of TPTV's "Glimpses" series, and the film was made by a member of the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers.

What caught my eye was the shot of the OSR of a Victor FB estate, clearly missing the rear light lens!

I'll try and get you a better screengrab than the one you posted up: there's an earlier shot where the Model 70 isn't obscured by the Victor,

 

4 hours ago, bobdisk said:

A couple of screenshots of Scarborough in the 70s.  Theres a site called " http://www.dvber.co.uk/  " that does screenshots of Freeview channels.

ah awesome, good to have a better date known, 1973 means that its more then likely a production car

rather then a guaranteed user trial car, glad to have had that cleared up  

still a pretty early machine tho being on white on black plates

[R1152]

4 hours ago, bobdisk said:

A couple of screenshots of Scarborough in the 70s.  Theres a site called " http://www.dvber.co.uk/  " that does screenshots of Freeview channels.

Bet that's interesting from a copyright viewpoint.

[AdgeCutler]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

im just glad you where able to free the piston from the barrel at all!

as IIRC the main problem currently with XWC's original engine is that the piston is sized in the bore, however I do believe the rest of it does move and IIRC @BlankFrank even got the starter part of the Dynastart turning over (with the entire piston and barrel going up and down amusingly)

so if the Piston can be freed relatively non destructively from the barrel, I do wonder if XWC's original engine could then be relatively easily rebuilt from there on and out  

 

I had to turn down a piece of wood to fit snugly in the bore, at first I used soft wood but that just compressed and bound itself up within the bore. After that I used a piece of Field Maple and turned it down to I think 0.025" undersize and got it back in the press. The wood is necessary to spread the load over the crown of the piston to avoid breaking  what is a fragile casting. Even if the engine starts to move I still reckon on a complete rebuild, these cars were out in all weathers for a long time and the bearings will have suffered. 

 

[LightBulbFun]

Woo just uncovered the DPL751J-DPL950J block of AC Acedes Mk15 Model 67's

this plugs the missing block I had between DPD-J and EPD-J so very pleased about finally plugging it

I had an idea it might of existed from this photo which I posted back in 2019

when I posted it I had thought the car at the rear was an OPL-L Model 70, however shortly after that I noticed a few things which made me think no wait thats an Model 67, I wonder if its DPL instead

 but this was a good while before I knuckled down and did my Model 67 block finding, so at the time I mentioned it to Stuart and then moved onto other invalid vehicle things  

anyways fast forward today, and while I was going through my invalid vehicle photo library/archive, I came across the photo again and thought

I really should check if my hunch was correct and as such to finally plug that gap I had and low and behold I was right

quite a few (for a Villiers block) still show up on the DVLA still, 5 in total, DPL767J, DPL783J, DPL833J, DPL884J and DPL887J

with that I do wonder how I missed the block, given 3 out of the 5 do have correctly recorded chassis numbers without any typos or dots in them

because as some may recall I did look up every Model 67 chassis number, granted I sadly cannot bulk upload chassis numbers I have to manually type and check  each one of them individually so I might of missed a couple in the 5900 AC Model 67 chassis numbers there are and which I looked up at the time

of note from this block is DPL767J that one with its 1994 Tax due date has to be the one of the longest surviving In ministry service Villiers machine iv come across outside of the actual machines which where the last Villiers machines in Ministry service (like JPE789C) 

rather interestingly it has a keeper change 4 years after its tax due date and No scrapped marker, I almost wonder if this one escaped somehow and still survives somewhere, one can always be hopeful!

so yeah quite pleased about this as I have plugged another gap in my Model 67 registration/chassis number list  (and it fills up the last hole I had in this particular chassis block of 900 cars)

[High Jetter]

7 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Is that an aerodynamic tweak* on the 'bonnet' of GPB????

[LightBulbFun]

On 14/05/2021 at 00:34, LightBulbFun said:

for those curious NOO738M's V62 was sent in the same envelope as UPB262M's was and so was OVW445P and TPE222S, V62's as well, those later 2 do have scrapped markers so will probably take longer to process if current experience is anything to go by

yay a fresh V5 has finally been issued for TPE222S, thats 3 out of the 4 Cars done out of this batch  (as a side fun fact, this is the First S Suffix AC Model 70! the block before it was the SPE329R-SPE428R block)

nothing for OVW445P yet, hopefully that one gets processed soon, these last 2 have/are taking their sweet time!

[LightBulbFun]

in Mk12 news Alan has posted this 

which is very interesting! as those who have been following my thread for a while, will know that I have been trying to figure out as close as I can when parallelogram front suspension was introduced on the Mk12, IE trying to figure out when the Mk12E came out

as that last car Alan is talking about falls right before the period that I know things changed, however Stuat said that he checked the Oddingly cars at the time and they all had parallelogram front suspension

so I did wonder, if perhaps Invacar managed to retrofit the then in development Model 70 front suspension it to their design before AC managed to do so with the Acedes Mk15 in June 1969 (which came out sometime between the 15th of June and the 25th of June 1969 going by XPH961G the latest Mk14A I can find and YPE859G the earliest Mk15 I can find)

but the Above Mk12, going by its chassis numbers and others that show up on the DVLA from its block was from April-May 1969 which is a good bit before AC's parallelogram front suspension Acedes Mk15

so I did wonder if it was actually a Mk12D, and looks like my hunch was correct  

 

however of course back in the bad old days, maybe the Approved repairer swapped the chassis plates from a Mk12D onto a Mk12E they had lying around outback, so when Stuart looked at the suspension he would of seen parallelogram front suspension and gone "yep Mk12E" 

(the chassis plates on the Oddingly cars where very dirty, so I think he just quickly grabbed their Numbers and just relied on the Suspension he could see to tell him what version of the Mk12 he was looking at was, rather then faff about trying to clean the rest of the chassis plate to make out the Mark) 

with all this in mind I Have asked Alan for a picture of the Suspension of this car it will be very interesting to see if I get a picture of a C-Tube setup as Per the Mk12D or a Mk12E's parallelogram front suspension setup!

[LightBulbFun]

On 31/12/2019 at 16:06, egg said:

Random Invacar pic of the day for you....

was just looking at this picture again, and realised hang on thats an Oddingly car going by the green paint etc, and stuart confirmed "oh yeah that was taken at Oddingly itself"

and some closer examination by the both of us tells us it in fact its the one Big al has for sale currently!  

nice to know which this one is at last  

[LightBulbFun]

speaking of trying to ID invalid vehicles

On 01/06/2021 at 22:43, quicksilver said:

@LightBulbFun This is the one I mentioned at the weekend. My friend found it in a garden somewhere along with several early AC saloons, a 3000ME and possibly others so that suggests it's an AC rather than an Invacar. He says it has no numberplates and there's too much stuff inside to see the chassis plate. Is it one you know about?

@quicksilver do you happen to have any more info on this one, or know who I might be able to contact to get some more info and see about IDing it/figuring out what its story is?  

feel free to PM me if necessary  

but (and this goes to anyone PMing me) please try and find an existing PM thread of ours, as my inbox is almost full, not helped by various members starting a new PM for every small topic change, please just stick to one thread if possible LOL, as a PM thread can be 10 pages long but does not take up inbox space  

 

(and most of my PM's I do want to keep hence my reluctance to empty out my inbox, I wish there was a download PM's button so I could just archive them locally!)

[LightBulbFun]

Plugged another gap in my Invacar Mk12 Reg-Chassis number list, this time a missing block between GVW-H and HEV-H with GWC201H-GWC300H 

the weird thing is, Im almost positive that I have come across this block before

but wrote it off at the time because the only car to show up still from that block is GWC281H which is another Private car  but obviously I did not know that at the time so wrote it off to DVLA shenanigans 

but the weird thing is, I cant find any proof of my past self finding this block! normally I at least tell stuart that "found what looks like a block but nothing workable is showing up"

but nothing!

however what prompted me searching it again was this picture 

14 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

and thought "hah GWC-H theres a block of Invacars there" but when I went to double check with my lists nothing! but I knew there was something and behold there was as I thought and I recognise GWC281H

its all a bit surreal LOL

ah well, glad to have found it again, and now I know what the chassis numbers of Private Mk12's look like and knowing how they plug into ministry blocks means I was able to actually plug this block into my master list at long last  

[LightBulbFun]

On 02/04/2020 at 02:14, LightBulbFun said:

also found this! https://www.theminirestorationcompany.co.uk/projects/marco-karen-s-project

looks like any other Mini these days right?

but check this out!, thats right its a DHSS supplied mini  contrary to popular belief the invalid vehicle service did supply adapted normal cars to certain people depending on the situation especially to married couples, at first Morris minors then Minis

I waited till stuart was available to confirm that what I was looking at was indeed a DHSS mini and to get some extra info  (hence only posting it now, but I came across it while digging up a picture of DYO833C)

sadly its been stripped of all its DHSS features bar the the info plaque, which as it says, Reselco was the primary provider of hand controls for normal cars to the DHSS

I had known of the government Minors and Minis (Dennis and Marion Webb had a government Minor for a while for example)

 but had never seen one otherwise in detail, and I had wondered if they like the DHSS's Invalid vehicles if they had little government property and contract plaques, looks like indeed they did  

its a shame its been stripped of all its unique features otherwise would be neat to see how it would of been setup

 

check it out another ministry Mini  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144074193434

its a shame the full contract number is hidden on OYA512P it would of been interesting to see how it compared to HOY93K

and its interesting how the contract was specifically with Reselco (who where the ones who fitted the vehicle with adapted controls) rather then directly with BMC or something such, so I think it was up to Reselco to source the Mini to then supply it to the Ministry

its also a good excuse to finally post this which I came across a good few months ago now from the Hansard reports https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1973-05-17/debates/a5445f8f-64fb-4a24-87dd-e27a79747623/WrittenAnswers#contribution-f71a9727-9850-40aa-bb4e-76ca5bc10b08

a nifty chart showing what regular cars the Ministry had on issue back in the day

(I knew of the Ministry Mini's and Minors, but I had no idea of all the other cars, can you imagine if someone found a Ministry Renault 4 ) 

 

which is fun because I mentioned before, contrary to popular belief you could very much get a normal car from the IVS if you needed one (say if you where a married couple or had children/other dependants etc)

 

[martc]

Have we had this one yet?

Isle of Wight festival 1969, that's Sid Barrett by the rear wing, with the long, black hair.

From the photographer David Hurn's collection 'Isle of Wight Festival 1969'
https://www.caferoyalbooks.com/shop/david-hurn-isle-of-wight-festival-1969

[LightBulbFun]

7 minutes ago, martc said:

Have we had this one yet?

Isle of Wight festival 1969, that's Sid Barrett by the rear wing, with the long, black hair.

From the photographer David Hurn's collection 'Isle of Wight Festival 1969'
https://www.caferoyalbooks.com/shop/david-hurn-isle-of-wight-festival-1969

a couple times actually, in glorious technicolour too  

but I appreciate the heads up still

[Mrs6C]

^^^ The Mk12s looked really rather swish with the Peacock Blue and White duo-tone colour scheme. Such a shame that they all ended up with the pale Duck Egg Blue kind of colour instead...

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Mrs6C said:

^^^ The Mk12s looked really rather swish with the Peacock Blue and White duo-tone colour scheme. Such a shame that they all ended up with the pale Duck Egg Blue kind of colour instead...

Yeah it was a Ministry specification thing I believe*

the colour change happened specifically  in the TTW101E-TTW200E block of Invacar Mk12C's

I have seen a picture of TTW179E in the old peacock blue and white roof scheme and TTW184E in the then new overall lighter blue colour scheme, taken outside the Invacar works when they where brand new, so that helps narrow things down  

(but before that I knew that early Mk12C's where Blue and white, from the Period Mk12c brochure and the early Blue and white Mk12c that Simon owns)

its a shame I cannot share the pictures (they are earmarked for the big book) as TTW179E looks especially striking, being so fresh and shiny, and (maybe due to the film stock used), also the blue is a good bit darker then whats normally seen like above, so its quite the combination!  

 

*although curiously enough the Model 57 and Model 64 remained in their Darker blue shade of blue right to the end of production in 1971-1972 I guess since by the time of the colour change in 1967 they where niche application vehicles they never bothered changing them

oh and of course the Barrett Midget was an interesting metallic dark green  

[JJ0063]

Who’s been on a run out in York then..

[LightBulbFun]

52 minutes ago, JJ0063 said:

Who’s been on a run out in York then..

that will be Adam out on another run  

https://www.facebook.com/accountdeactivationpending/posts/10165320005265322

[LightBulbFun]

whoa check it out @egg @BlankFrank @Mrs6Cfrom @JeeExEll in the eye catching black and white thread

another XWC-F Mk12c  

its a good shot you can even almost make out the fine details of the Tippers number plates Invacars had at this point in time, which had semi circular cutouts to clear the rear lights

I do wonder if those cutouts where done by Tippers for Invacar or if the plates where modified by Invacar in-house?

[egg]

Great to see. Would it have been in the same batch chassis number wise? Look has functioning door...

[LightBulbFun]

55 minutes ago, egg said:

Great to see. Would it have been in the same batch chassis number wise? Look has functioning door...

indeed it would of been  

although in double checking this via the extra information I have on the XWC401F-XWC500F block, I noticed that XWC476F is a private machine  (really wish I noticed that at the time, it would of explained all the "strange" Mk12's I kept on finding much sooner!)

and that someone somewhere messed up as, XWC499F is xxx92 but XWC500F is xxx94!

because of the aforementioned private car which runs in a different chassis number range taking one of the registration marks, XWC500F should be xxx93, but its not recorded as such, I wonder if it was still recorded such on its chassis plate and/or its buff logbook, or maybe if the Mk12c with the chassis plate xxx93 was given the registration plate XWC500F but registered as xxx94 in the records accident 

or if really xxx93 simply accidentally got skipped over and never existed!

 

 

[Weird Car]

Rear panel collected for MPU382J

Thanks to @AdgeCutler

Let the fabrication work begin 

PS: the tape isn't permanent, I was just seeing if the part of the original fin I found inside the car matched up with the panel and it did obviously.

[AdgeCutler]

Pleased it has been re-united Harry. Sorry I wasn't there, I was on a haulage rescue and had a lovely few hours bringing my friends 3 ton Ruston Procter steam tractor home behind my Fordson Major.

[Weird Car]

30 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

Pleased it has been re-united Harry. Sorry I wasn't there, I was on a haulage rescue and had a lovely few hours bringing my friends 3 ton Ruston Procter steam tractor home behind my Fordson Major.

Not a problem mate as much as I would have loved to stay and have a chin wag I had to leave pretty sharpish myself as I was needed to do a run to my local Recycling centre at 3.45 and got back just in time.

Seems like you had a good time with the steam tractor though! Looks epic.

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Harriytait said:

Rear panel collected for MPU382J

Thanks to @AdgeCutler

Let the fabrication work begin 

PS: the tape isn't permanent, I was just seeing if the part of the original fin I found inside the car matched up with the panel and it did obviously.

glad you got MPUs rear end at long last  (theres a joke about saving someones arse in there somewhere LOL)

 

its a shame the rear end was further chopped off MPU like that

as the initial damage does not look to be all that bad and probably would of been relatively easily to patch up 

but at least it was cut relatively cleanly off so should not be too difficult to line it back up and fibreglass it back on

just make sure when you do fibre to account for any missing material lost when it was cut off, so dont just butt the 2 pieces up together directly, but leave a suitable gap to account for the missing fibreglass material that was lost when the cutting disk or what have you went through it

otherwise if you butt the piece right up you might find things dont line up suddenly etc

 

just something that @adam1db mentioned to me when we where talking about KPL's new body work and I figured id mention for you to keep in mind as its something that might not be immediately obvious otherwise  

[Weird Car]

6 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

glad you got MPUs rear end at long last  (theres a joke about saving someones arse in there somewhere LOL)

 

its a shame the rear end was further chopped off MPU like that

as the initial damage does not look to be all that bad and probably would of been relatively easily to patch up 

but at least it was cut relatively cleanly off so should not be too difficult to line it back up and fibreglass it back on

just make sure when you do fibre to account for any missing material lost when it was cut off, so dont just butt the 2 pieces up together directly, but leave a suitable gap to account for the missing fibreglass material that was lost when the cutting disk or what have you went through it

otherwise if you butt the piece right up you might find things dont line up suddenly etc

 

just something that @adam1db mentioned to me when we where talking about KPL's new body work and I figured id mention for you to keep in mind as its something that might not be immediately obvious otherwise  

Thanks Dez, I'll be sure to remember that, I'm going to attempt a repair job in the coming weeks so will keep everyone posted, I've got a set of number plates in the post too.

When it comes to fibreglass I've never done anything like it before so will be a learning curve for sure, I'll consult YouTube first and patch a small hole in the back bottom corner as a test patch.

[LightBulbFun]

in other news I got myself a new Toy I mean piece of vital test equipment

a Bench top variable DC power supply, 0-30V at a max of 10A, been meaning to get one for a few years now finally bit the bullet got one 

as they are very handy for powering up low voltage stuff as shown for example powering one of the Routemaster/Bus bulbs @Yoss kindly gave me a while back  

and obviously very handy for electronics work and the such like  

and fun for figuring which of my Automotive lamps are 12V or actually 13.8V, for example the Wotan p45t Halogen retrofit lamps @Mrs6C/@Six-cylinder kindly gave me a while back look to be rated at 12.0V (12V*5A=60W which matches the rating of this lamps high beam filament which is what I have lit in the photo)

but some Automotive lamps although they say "12V" thats more of a Nominal thing and are actually rated for 13.8V due to the higher system voltage when charging

so yeah very pleased to have one of these finally after putting it off for so long! its nothing fancy but it gets the Job done well  (and yes I did take it apart to make sure it was relatively electrically safe given its a low end unit from china I got from amazon!)

[AdgeCutler]

After a couple of weeks waiting for the paint sample to be analysed at a laboratory I was informed the formula was ready to go. I ordered some yesterday morning and it was today waiting for me on my return home from work. Craftmaster paints have now logged it in their system as Ministry of health Blue (they missed out the Ice bit), if anybody would like to order some. As of yet I haven't given it a stir but it was only made yesterday and looks to be a good match.

[LightBulbFun]

9 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

After a couple of weeks waiting for the paint sample to be analysed at a laboratory I was informed the formula was ready to go. I ordered some yesterday morning and it was today waiting for me on my return home from work. Craftmaster paints have now logged it in their system as Ministry of health Blue (they missed out the Ice bit), if anybody would like to order some. As of yet I haven't given it a stir but it was only made yesterday and looks to be a good match.

Oh cool! 

getting the colour right on Invacars and the such like is a "fun" game not helped by the fact that I think AC's and Invacar's where slightly different shades of blue-green from the factory

(which itself I think may have changed at some point in the 1960s, I know @Mrs6C's Invacar Mk12c looks a bit more green then later Mk12's I have seen for example)

and of course various vehicles will have themselves have been painted over time and or faded in the Sunlight etc

so I look forward to seeing how well it matches  

[Yoss]

24 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

in other news I got myself a new Toy I mean piece of vital test equipment

a Bench top variable DC power supply, 0-30V at a max of 10A, been meaning to get one for a few years now finally bit the bullet got one 

as they are very handy for powering up low voltage stuff as shown for example powering one of the Routemaster/Bus bulbs @Yoss kindly gave me a while back  

and obviously very handy for electronics work and the such like  

and fun for figuring which of my Automotive lamps are 12V or actually 13.8V, for example the Wotan p45t Halogen retrofit lamps @Mrs6C/@Six-cylinder kindly gave me a while back look to be rated at 12.0V (12V*5A=60W which matches the rating of this lamps high beam filament which is what I have lit in the photo)

but some Automotive lamps although they say "12V" thats more of a Nominal thing and are actually rated for 13.8V due to the higher system voltage when charging

so yeah very pleased to have one of these finally after putting it off for so long! its nothing fancy but it gets the Job done well  (and yes I did take it apart to make sure it was relatively electrically safe given its a low end unit from china I got from amazon!)

That's good to know. All you need to do now is paint your ceiling Sung Yellow and you can have that authentic Routemaster atmosphere in your room.