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...

July 13

Re oil pressure. You need to check the 'nipple' on the end of the oil filter hasn't snapped off and blocked the hole in the base of the filter housing it sits in. If you attached the filter to the cap and then spun it in place rather than seating it in the housing and screwing the cap on it may have been damaged.

21,256 · July 13

22 minutes ago, RayMK said:

@LightBulbFun : Has the car got a rev counter? It would make it easier to spot whether changing the oil, filters and plugs has fractionally reduced idling revs. If no rev counter is fitted, try very gradually increasing throttle to see if the oil light goes off at just a very slightly increased engine speed. If it's in the range of 600-1000rpm when warm, then just adjust the throttle stop slightly to hold idle speed slightly higher than it now is. If the light fails to go out until the revs are higher than an acceptable sounding idle, check that the oil pressure sensor which operates the light has got a good connection and the fitting is not leaking. If none of this rectifies the problem, begin head scratching then rechecking everything. Could the oil suction pump used to drain the oil have shoved sludge towards the oil pump inlet?

yeah there is a rev gauge, but we did not record what the idle revs where before and after the service sadly

22 minutes ago, Sh'Eds said:

Re oil pressure. You need to check the 'nipple' on the end of the oil filter hasn't snapped off and blocked the hole in the base of the filter housing it sits in. If you attached the filter to the cap and then spun it in place rather than seating it in the housing and screwing the cap on it may have been damaged.

interesting! I admit I am not sure what the nipple is exactly that you refer to? but heres the filter as just fitted the other day

as installed 5 minutes ago

here is the oil filter housing with filter removed

and here is looking down the oil filter's inner hole for lack of a better term

my brother came back to it just now after an hour to see if it dripped any oil, which it did not, I got him to remove the oil filter and run the engine without it installed just incase somehow the oil filter had become clogged/defective?

and in light of your comment have a rummage around to see if there was any loose plastic bits or anything that looked snapped off etc, but there was not anything he could find (other then a spring loaded thing to the right of the main "shaft" which I am going to assume is a pressure release/bypass valve?)

but the oil pressure light *did* go out at idle with the filter removed, so I then had him re-install the oil filter, aaand it still stayed out?! sooo its fixed? but still quite mysterious

its obviously had an hour or so to cool down between the first incident and now, so I got him to leave it running for about 10 minutes, to see if letting it warm up would cause it to come back on, but it stayed off still

I suppose the next plan of action is take it for another drive and see if it really stays off or not! but that probably wont be for a few days because his schedule is busy etc

6,205 · July 13

It could be a dodgy oil pressure sensor possibly, should be cheap to replace if it is.

21,256 · July 13

47 minutes ago, RayMK said:

check that the oil pressure sensor which operates the light has got a good connection and the fitting is not leaking.

2 minutes ago, Heidel_Kakao said:

It could be a dodgy oil pressure sensor possibly, should be cheap to replace if it is.

yeah! I was thinking that, and thinking I wish I had means to check/see what the actual oil pressure was like on an MGB or something!

6,205 · July 13

2 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

yeah! I was thinking that, and thinking I wish I had means to check/see what the actual oil pressure was like on an MGB or something!

You can get a gizmo that screws in place of the sensor and gives you an actual reading.

5,751 · July 13

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

yeah! I was thinking that, and thinking I wish I had means to check/see what the actual oil pressure was like on an MGB or something!

Touch wood and subject to further test runs the problem has now gone away. I would not worry about it too much unless the light stays on. Older, high mileage engines can carry on for years with a light which comes on at idle or flickers. My daughter's 2004 Focus 1.4 petrol burns a fair bit of oil. It's done 230K miles but still runs fine. She only puts oil in when the light starts coming on when going round corners! Oil and filters are changed annually as a pre-MOT service. My Reliant has an oil gauge and a light. The gauge is probably an aftermarket addition by the previous owner back in the 1980s. It reads around 20psi when idling, engine warm, around 30-40psi when driving. The Stellar that I had a few years ago had a standard dashboard oil pressure gauge which was simply labelled Low to High. At warm idle it barely registered in the Low region which was a concern at first. 50K miles later it was still running absolutely fine. In general, low stressed engines will tolerate low oil pressure for years without ill effect, 'Low' being in the 10-20psi range. I see no need for major expense and/or disassembly if the thing is running ok. You are doing the right thing to investigate a step change after a service but if the symptoms have now gone away don't lose any sleep over it. Much more care is required with many modern engines which are capable of wrecking themselves very rapidly if servicing or symptoms are ignored, particularly if some genius has stuffed a 'rubber' cambelt drive into the oily bits.

2,227 · July 14

Was the old oil pretty "sludgy" when you sucked it out? I wonder if the fresh oil, being clean and of the correct viscosity has moved a little of the dirt from the old oil around the engine in someway? Perhaps running some flushing oil through the engine once the old oil had been removed but before the fresh oil was added would gave helped, but, we can all be wise after the event!

It's not being able fully to drain the oil via the sump plug that might have been part of the problem.

July 14

8 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

interesting! I admit I am not sure what the nipple is exactly that you refer to

My apologies, review of your photos shows this doesn't apply in this application. I was recalling an experience with a DV6 engine which has a locator nipple that if it breaks off during installation, due to filter not being seated properly and turning with filter housing cap, can block things up and cause a low oil pressure warning.

26,929 · July 14

When the meriva had its leaky sump for a while we'd top it up when the oil pressure light came on...

As long as it's got oil in it it'll probably be OK 🤞

25,845 · July 15

21,256 · July 15

6 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

its been featured before

https://autoshite.com/topic/32723-lightbulbfuns-invacar-general-ramble-thread-index-on-page-1-survivors-lists-on-pages-24134-adgecutlers-invacar-mk12-restoration-from-page-186-onwards-still-harping-on/page/268/#findComment-2577208

but I always appreciate the heads up! heres the original

it seems to get freebooted quite a bit I have noticed!

21,256 · July 16

in Corsa news, today we, after lots of finagling (my brother in this shot )

managed to get the old exhaust off

and the new one on

(note that I did not jack the car up from where you see the trolly jack! I just place it under there so it had more area to "catch" should one of the axle stands fail/slip for some reason)

it took a fair bit of finagling, but thankfully the 3 important bolts/studs from the catalytic converter did not put up any fight and came off pretty cleanly, after we wire brushed and penetrating fluid'ed things the exhaust clamp for the rear silencer did sheer, but I had preemptively purchased a replacement (online said the exhaust was 45mm so I did get some 45mm clamps, but I also got some 48mm ones because of how the slip joint is marginally larger diameter, and i am glad I did as it was the 48mm we needed in the end)

the O2 sensor was stuck fast in the old exhaust but I also had preemptively got a new one so that new one was fitted to the new exhaust dont know if the old one was bad or not, its heating element measured 14 ohms (vs 9 ohms for the new one) for what thats worth.

car is obviously much quieter now! tho there may or may not be a new clonk from the rear, hard to say if that was just all the stuff in the boot clonking or the new back box clouting the underside, but the exhaust seemed to fit well otherwise!

many thanks to @beko1987 and @auntiemaryscanary for the parts and parts-places recommendations, all the gubbins I ordered appear to have fitted and worked perfectly!

we went to the tip to dispose of the old engine oil, and I did manage to raid their lightbulb bin of about 6 seeming brand new in box, woods glass (blacklight blue ) 36W 4ft T8 fluorescent tubes so that was nice (tho sadly no nice T12's worth saving!)

we did observe the low oil pressure warning light comes on very briefly sometimes, when you go to pull away from a stop, when the car does that judder if your clutch control aint perfect, so make of that what you will! but for the whole hour or so round trip it did not come on at idle at least!

all in all pretty pleased we managed to get this job done at last, I think its the last major thing this Corsa needed on an immediate basis, and hopefully that means I can finally rest easy now! because my everything hurts!

on the 19th I will be going with my brother in the car up to Kidderminster to help him with a computer monitor he wants to buy, so that will be a good trial by fire for the car! fingers crossed it does not explode on the M40! (and hopefully the new oxygen o2 sensor solves the EML issue, I did get my brother to give the connector it plugs into a squirting with some electrical contact cleaner before plugging in the new one to be belt and braces)

if it survives that, then we will see about treating it some new rear tyres, or more specifically get some semi-decent and move the new budgets we got previously for the front to the rear (since correct me if I am wrong, especially on a FWD car you want your best tyres on the front aka does-everything axle right? )

2,107 · July 16

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

many thanks to @beko1987 and @auntiemaryscanary for the parts and parts-places recommendations, all the gubbins I ordered appear to have fitted and worked perfectly!

How did you cope with parts ordering the modern* internet way and not involving a brittle paper pamphlet from the 70s that lists Ministry numbers?

Looks a job well done on the Corsa.

26,929 · July 16

Yey nice one! Glad it all came apart nicely for you, always good to fit shiny new parts!

The clonk could be anything and nothing but the rear is fairly easy to work on. Have the back up on stands at either side then jack the centre of the axle a bit, undo both bottom shock bolts and lower the axle slightly and replace with cheap parts whatever the problem ends up being! I'd check trims and stuff though, my qq has gone very quiet (not silent sadly) at the back since doing a really good job of the arch liners with new 9mm cheap mushroom clips from ebay.

The oil light wants keeping half an eye on, maybe something pressure related drops when the clutch is depressed? Their a hardy engine though so as long as it has some oil/the light doesn't come on and stay on its probably fine.

I'll wave as you drive past on the m40! Going home you'll be driving up the cut at J6 to 6 at Stokenchurch. Try and keep it at 80, regardless of gear! That's where I blow out the cobwebs after a few weeks of local pottering, can hit 90 in 4th... Then settle down ready for the bigger longer hill at beaconsfield (where plod sits so calm down by there)

21,256 · July 16

35 minutes ago, auntiemaryscanary said:

How did you cope with parts ordering the modern* internet way and not involving a brittle paper pamphlet from the 70s that lists Ministry numbers?

Looks a job well done on the Corsa.

I have to say I much prefer the Model 70! no vagueness over will this oil filter fit or not, or general worry about "modern parts roulette" I have most of the commodity Model 70 parts fully crossed reference so I can order stuff without issue, not to mention the large parts stash and contacts I have, see for example where I was able to over-night myself a new CVT pulley and I have the Ministry parts list scanned in, and OCR'ed, so I dont have to worry about disturbing the original

on the Corsa front it turned out trying to get that triangular shaped exhaust gasket was a a bit of a PITA, because for gaskets it seems every gasket maker has listed every gasket they ever made, as compatible with 2006 Corsa's! so in the end I actually bought a gasket set for fitting a new catalytic converter, since as well as coming with that triangular gasket, it came with new nuts as well also getting the exhaust delivered was a bit fun as the courier guy apparently could not find the building! I didn't have that problem when I bought a Model 70 exhaust LOL

30 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Yey nice one! Glad it all came apart nicely for you, always good to fit shiny new parts!

The clonk could be anything and nothing but the rear is fairly easy to work on. Have the back up on stands at either side then jack the centre of the axle a bit, undo both bottom shock bolts and lower the axle slightly and replace with cheap parts whatever the problem ends up being! I'd check trims and stuff though, my qq has gone very quiet (not silent sadly) at the back since doing a really good job of the arch liners with new 9mm cheap mushroom clips from ebay.

The oil light wants keeping half an eye on, maybe something pressure related drops when the clutch is depressed? Their a hardy engine though so as long as it has some oil/the light doesn't come on and stay on its probably fine.

I'll wave as you drive past on the m40! Going home you'll be driving up the cut at J6 to 6 at Stokenchurch. Try and keep it at 80, regardless of gear! That's where I blow out the cobwebs after a few weeks of local pottering, can hit 90 in 4th... Then settle down ready for the bigger longer hill at beaconsfield (where plod sits so calm down by there)

yeah! once the old one was out of the way, I was most pleased since that was the bit I was most fearing, that one of the catalytic converter flange studs would snap all that sort of thing! I think we are aiming to be at Kidderminster around mid-day ish on the 19th (I know my brother is arriving at like 7:30AM to pick me up, that bit I cant say im looking forward to, but at least I wont be driving for once, so I can just slooowly wake up in the passenger seat for the first part of the trip LOL)

yeah the cutting will be a good test! it was fun/bemusing doing it in REV, Warp speed on the way down blitzing past everyone in the outer lanes, and then crawling back up it at 45Mph firmly in the left most lane hoping I dont get in the way of too many lorries LOL

40,024 · July 16

It's certainly not unknown for the oil pressure switches to fail on these. I even had one go not long after servicing my Mother-in-law's Corsa C after giving it a much needed oil change.

Fingers crossed it's that rather than something more nefarious.

42,441 · July 17

Good to see the progress here on the Corsa - and yes, another voice to advise checking out the oil pressure switch.

I had the switch on the Yaris fail when the car was only four years old (very un-Toyota-like!) with the same symptoms you describe of the oil pressure light flickering on and off at random points during idling and acceleration, despite plenty of oil.

It really was only a five minute job to swap over a new one, and it's been grand ever since.

ERA Oil Pressure Switch Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Petrol

ECP want £18.49 for one suitable for your brother's car - you may of course be able to source one for a bit less!

40,024 · July 17

I'd say get a good quality switch and possibly even genuine if it's not silly money. If it fails again you'll be still questioning lack of pressure or if the switch is duff.

7,940 · July 17

Corsas of that era had a habit of shitting oil through the oil pressure sensor at the top of the head on the cam chain end - Also worth checking you've not disturbed the wiring to it during your work.

21,256 · July 17

6 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Good to see the progress here on the Corsa - and yes, another voice to advise checking out the oil pressure switch.

I had the switch on the Yaris fail when the car was only four years old (very un-Toyota-like!) with the same symptoms you describe of the oil pressure light flickering on and off at random points during idling and acceleration, despite plenty of oil.

It really was only a five minute job to swap over a new one, and it's been grand ever since.

ERA Oil Pressure Switch Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Petrol

ECP want £18.49 for one suitable for your brother's car - you may of course be able to source one for a bit less!

4 hours ago, SiC said:

I'd say get a good quality switch and possibly even genuine if it's not silly money. If it fails again you'll be still questioning lack of pressure or if the switch is duff.

I was having a look at pressure switches on Parts in Motion earlier and theres a Febi (which I think from anecdotal reading on here are decent?) one listed for £7.35 so I might try that, maybe when I have a few other items to order

should scope them out see if theres any Model 70 bits I can get from them also (tho they have a section in the check out process where if you give the make/model/reg of the car someone will double check the parts match up, and I feel like I would probably confuse someone if I ordered some random parts and said "for 1976 Invacar Model 70 REV 451R" good luck cross referencing that! :mrgreen: )

26 minutes ago, ruffgeezer said:

Corsas of that era had a habit of shitting oil through the oil pressure sensor at the top of the head on the cam chain end - Also worth checking you've not disturbed the wiring to it during your work.

interesting! when I looked up a quick youtube video to see how to change the oil pressure switch, for the Corsa C I saw that in the comments a bunch of people where changing theirs because of them leaking, so ill try and have a look at that on the 19th, see if anything is obviously leaking/weeping that might be causing a localised pressure loss at the switch and false triggering

40,024 · July 17

16 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Parts in Motion

Often they are cheaper on eBay as they are covered on the promo codes eBay often have

21,256 · July 19

268 miles later, im pleased to report the Corsa made it to Kidderminster and back without expiring or exploding! start milage

intriguing looking rail vehicle spotted

some truly awful weather, shocking how many people I spotted without their lights on! but the Corsa (despite the budget tyres on the front) handled it without issue

scooby in obligatory blue paint and gold wheels spotted notice the window thats down!

thankfully we made it to our destination without issue, picked up the monitor, and I also took the oppertunity to say hello to my friend with the Mk4 Fiesta who ill be visiting in October, since it turned out he was only about 1.5 miles away

have a picture of his funky 1970's fibre optic decorative lamp thing, it has a little fan inside that causes the fibres to gently jostle about, looks quite neat!

thankfully the weather cleared up for the return trip, much nicer!

we pulled into Junction 2 Services for some refreshments and I took the opprtunity to check on the oil pressure switch which had clearly made a mess and was actively leaking/dripping before our eyes, very much a smoking or should I say leaking gun!

and then eventually home, end milage above, we did pull into Junction 2 on the way there, to brim the the tank, where we reset the trip and then filled up again once back in London, which gives us an mpg of 36MPG (29.5L for 236.5 miles) probably could of done better but we had the air conditioning on and my brother shall we say likes to make good speed when he is on the motorway!

all in all I am very pleased of course it did not explode, and no coolant appears to have be used any no mayo present, so I think fingers crossed we can put the worry of possible head gasket failure behind us (tho I will still continue to monitor things for the next few trips etc) and we can now rest easy knowing all the other major jobs left to do are done, just the oil pressure switch to change and couple more new tyres at some point, I also think the air con could maybe do with a regas? it still works, its not gotten any worse since the car was got, but I dont think its quite as cold as it could be, so I wonder if just after 20 or so years it needs a bit of a top up?

but otherwise yeah im very pleased about this, because its been an ordeal, so I am glad a usable/workable car for my brother has been had out of all this and his application for the parking spot is almost through as well, and he is allowed to park 5 vehicles in the spot, lucky bugger! I know he really wants a motorcycle/motorcycle licence so he is quite pleased about being able to park additional vehicles in the space if he can squeeze em in)

whats the £500 Corsa equivalent in the Motorcycling world? a well used SV650? that probably wont be happening for a while tho cuz thats another load of expenses he would have to budget for!

26,929 · July 19

Nice! Glad the trip went OK!

Cheap tyres will be fine*, it's the having decent tread that will help,especially in this weather. If your anticipating the road properly you shouldn't need to brake hard anyway....

When I had the xsara, coming home one wet evening from work I hit a massive puddle in lane 3 and aquaplaned. Luckily not for long, I just lifted off the throttle and we dropped back down onto the road. Turned out the front tyres were worn right out on the insides 😂 That was the pair I had fitted 3 days before shitefest 2023. If I'd have paid attention that was probably the fucked steering bushes starting to make themselves known but oh well

7,352 · July 19

watch out for offers on groupon for a/c regassing at ATS euromaster

https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/ats-euromaster-31

Saturday at 19:49

Have you seen the classic fiat 500 with the steyr puch flat twin engine, looks like a different version of the model 70 motor. There is a YouTube video on one by YouTuber , number27 , it's called a fiat 500 with a baby Porsche flat twin, puch 500s. Did not know they did these.

21,256 · Saturday at 22:34

3 hours ago, rustdevil said:

Have you seen the classic fiat 500 with the steyr puch flat twin engine, looks like a different version of the model 70 motor. There is a YouTube video on one by YouTuber , number27 , it's called a fiat 500 with a baby Porsche flat twin, puch 500s. Did not know they did these.

indeed I am quite familiar with the Steyr puch 500 a very decent writeup on them (and a bit on Steyr puch in general) can be found here

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-steyr-puch-500-a-small-but-grand-end-to-austrias-automobile-industry/

well worth a read

funny you should say "baby Porsche" I have heard the Steyr puch Flat twin described as half a beetle engine, but when I showed one of my friends who is quite knowledgeable in both beetles and Porsches, he said "nah its more like 1/3rd a Porsche engine if anything", but im not privy to the fine details on what would make it more like one engine or the other

I just giggle in the fact its got Hemispherical combustion chambers, does that make REV a Hemi head 2 Door coupe? :mrgreen: (theres also other phrases I can truthfully use to dress REV up with, like all alloy engine, all round coil over suspension with spax adjustable shocks, designed by famous sports car company (AC) and also produced by famous motorcycle company (Invacar and their Greeves Scrambler bikes) its also the fastest in its vehicle class, with over double the horse power of its predecessors, 66% of my road wheels are driven vs 50% for most cars, but ill stop now before someone gets upset with me LOL)

45,667 · Sunday at 18:03

496 pages in, so we're bound to have had this photo, but just in case, here it is (again?)...

Eastgate Street, Chester, the 1970's. Someone is in a rush from a christening by the looks of it. About to carve through the invalid carriages in a hurry to wet the babies head at the AA and RAC approved Grosvenor Hotel.

28,506 · Sunday at 18:21

@LightBulbFun can I ask what's the situation with Rev?

Will you get it back soon?

21,256 · Sunday at 21:25

21 hours ago, martc said:

496 pages in, so we're bound to have had this photo, but just in case, here it is (again?)...

Eastgate Street, Chester, the 1970's. Someone is in a rush from a christening by the looks of it. About to carve through the invalid carriages in a hurry to wet the babies head at the AA and RAC approved Grosvenor Hotel.

has indeed been featured before, both on this thread and as the very first picture by @Cavcraft in this thread as well

as always tho I appreciate the heads up just incase!

21 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

@LightBulbFun can I ask what's the situation with Rev?

Will you get it back soon?

main last bit of info I have had is that one of the floats in the carb had been found to be holed and no longer floating, so thats been replaced with a good used set of floats out of another carb, which fingers crossed will give me back my idle that was last seen going missing somewhere on the M40, and the engine went back in with the new Clutch and freshly ultrasonic'ed carb etc.

However its sounding a bit like its not wanting to go into gear cleanly, but not sure if idle speed needs tweaking down (if its too high the clutch shoes will engage prematurely) or if the clutch shoes need some tweaking, (I know from when someone else had their clutch shoes relined they had problems with high spots in the new material causing the shoes to bind/engage prematurely) but hopefully just the idle speed that needs tweaking down, as the aforementioned clutch-shoe tweaking would mean dropping the engine or gearbox again, and im sure Andyrew would love* to that again (in out-in-out-shake-it-all-about?)

so theres a plan to fire Zel into REV so he can take her for a quick spin to try and get a feel for things, since he knows what a Model 70 should behave like and is a bit closer to Andyrew then I am, but thats still waiting on some other things to be wrapped up first, I know a leak from the differential was being chased, which is nice to hear, would be good if that can be made oil tight, since theres no convenient dip-stick tube to check for its level, so its always been a worry/anxiety point for me.

but not sure when she will be back per-say, but hopefully not too long, most of the major mechanical work has been taken care of now, its mainly just taking care of the snagging list so to speak

44,528 · Sunday at 22:27

Took TWC to a show 30 miles away today. Bear in mind that in the previous year she'd only done 100 miles. I think I've done more than that in the past week as I wanted some miles covered before driving further from home.

Lots of attention as ever. A car that truly makes people smile. Unless they're behind me on a hill...

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