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...

[adw1977]

This popped up in my Facebook feed this morning, no idea of the source but it looks like it was drawn in period:

[D.E]

Southend. Can't find this pic in bigger/better quality...

[LightBulbFun]

47 minutes ago, D.E said:

Southend. Can't find this pic in bigger/better quality...

this big enough?  (sadly still cant quite make the reg mark!)

 

 

a little tip for getting high resolution photos

if you see a URL like this

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/resources/images/11528903.jpg?type=mds-article-620

with the jargon after the ? if you lop that bit off

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/resources/images/11528903.jpg

you will then get the full resolution version  

sometimes when you do that it can get grumpy with you, so then I look for any sort of resolution specified in the URL and then multiply that number by 2 then see if I get a bigger picture and then keep going until i get a nice big one

 

 

[Remspoor]

Sorry to hijack but there is also a Crayford Corsair in the background.

[LightBulbFun]

Today, fittingly for page 500 of this thread, REV finally, after literally dragging her heels last time, has finally come home! 

in the most Autoshite way possible 

on the back of a beaver tail, yes REV  *really* did not want to leave @Andyrew's nice workshop it seems! (I dont blame her tbh!)

you picked a fine time to leave me throttle cable! could of been worse, at least it did not let go on the all lanes running section of the M1!, it let go on one of Milton Keynes many little dual carriage way-between-2-roundabouts-bits

many thanks to @Andyrew and @Zelandeth for coming out to have a good look if it could be fixed on the road side, but alas not

many thanks to Zel for getting REV off the road itself and staying with me till recovery showed up!

and apologies to both @Zelandeth and @Andyrew for the giant Invacar shaped spanner I chucked into their afternoon/evening plans!

I did at least before then, at long last manage to grab a picture of REV with @Zelandeth's fleet, something I have been wanting to do for a long time now! and many thanks to Zel for the quick demonstration/trip out in the Trabant, your not wrong it is rather impressive just how much noise that gearbox makes!

 

and of course many thanks to @Andyrew for all the work done on REV, she is very much improved! even the annoying CVT whine at 53-56Mph has fucked off which I am most pleased about (since that speed is one of her happy cruise speeds) and many thanks to showing me around some of the stuff you had done on REV, its most interesting to see this stuff in actuality, and have it all explained while it in front of you and bits can be pointed at  

hopefully I can procure another throttle cable (and find where the other half of the twist grip has gone off too) and get REV mobile before not too long  only problem is REV's throttle cable is about 5 meters long, anyone got any recommendations on where one can get a throttle cable that long? LOL

 

[plasticvandan]

You can buy it on the roll and a bag of screw on ends,assuming you have no portable soldering equipment.They were known for snapping back in their heyday.a common trick bikers used was to have a spare cable tied alongside the one in use so if it did snap all that was needed was to drop the old one out and slip in the new one.

Here's some inner,you may want to measure what thickness your existing one is first. The likelihood is you won't need to change the whole.cable,just the inner wire.

https://www.motorcycleproducts.co.uk/150mm-x-10-metre-throttle-cable-inner/1/013498

[Zelandeth]

No worries.  It's one of those really annoying sorts of breakdowns in that it's an easy 10-20 minute fix - IF you have the replacement part you need!  Bodging to limp a couple of miles would likely be possible, but nothing suitable for a trip as far as you were going, especially at rush hour.

As said, it could have happened in far worse places - at least it wasn't one of the many bits of MK with barriers all the way along the road and/or absolutely giant kerbs, and there was plenty of room to get you away from the traffic.

At least once that cable is swapped out you should be good for a bit!

[dollywobbler]

Ah. A fair warning to me. I've already had one cable snap and the one currently fitted seems to have suddenly developed a lot of play...

[LightBulbFun]

20 hours ago, plasticvandan said:

You can buy it on the roll and a bag of screw on ends,assuming you have no portable soldering equipment.They were known for snapping back in their heyday.a common trick bikers used was to have a spare cable tied alongside the one in use so if it did snap all that was needed was to drop the old one out and slip in the new one.

Here's some inner,you may want to measure what thickness your existing one is first. The likelihood is you won't need to change the whole.cable,just the inner wire.

https://www.motorcycleproducts.co.uk/150mm-x-10-metre-throttle-cable-inner/1/013498

Oh yeah I have heard a few stories about snapped throttle cables on these and the fact they are a bit of a consumable! tho the one on REV barely made 1000 miles before snapping, I dont think they are meant to be quite *that* consumable mind, I had been working on getting a spare inner throttle cable assembly to keep in the car for this eventuality, but obviously I did not manage it soon enough!

it was noted while Andyrew and Zel where fiddling with it that the brass furrel/nipple on the end of the cable was a bit tight inside the circular hole it slots into on the twist grip, so there is some thought that it was binding up in the twist grip and not freely rotating putting extra strain on the throttle cable, causing the end of it to bend back-n-forth every time the throttle was actuated 

so that will be something ill look out for when fitting a new cable, I also wonder if all the constant, London start-stop traffic has exacerbated things also? since your constantly on and off, actuating the throttle

 

Thanks for the link to the inner-cable length I went down to REV with a set of callipers and measured things up and ordered hopefully suitable replacement gubbins! (and also stuck the hub-caps back on)

they did not have any 6mm diameter nipples that where only 5mm thick/long, but looking at the twist grip I think theres enough side-to-side space for the thicker 6.5mm thick nipple

(and yes it took me longer then It should of to remember/realise that the other half of the twist grip was right in front of me LOL, I had forgotten was installed flipped/the other way around as part of something to see if borrowing bits from the heater-controls could work)

[IronStar]

21 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Today, fittingly for page 500 of this thread, REV finally, after literally dragging her heels last time, has finally come home! 

in the most Autoshite way possible 

on the back of a beaver tail, yes REV  *really* did not want to leave @Andyrew's nice workshop it seems! (I dont blame her tbh!)

you picked a fine time to leave me throttle cable! could of been worse, at least it did not let go on the all lanes running section of the M1!, it let go on one of Milton Keynes many little dual carriage way-between-2-roundabouts-bits

many thanks to @Andyrew and @Zelandeth for coming out to have a good look if it could be fixed on the road side, but alas not

many thanks to Zel for getting REV off the road itself and staying with me till recovery showed up!

and apologies to both @Zelandeth and @Andyrew for the giant Invacar shaped spanner I chucked into their afternoon/evening plans!

I did at least before then, at long last manage to grab a picture of REV with @Zelandeth's fleet, something I have been wanting to do for a long time now! and many thanks to Zel for the quick demonstration/trip out in the Trabant, your not wrong it is rather impressive just how much noise that gearbox makes!

 

and of course many thanks to @Andyrew for all the work done on REV, she is very much improved! even the annoying CVT whine at 53-56Mph has fucked off which I am most pleased about (since that speed is one of her happy cruise speeds) and many thanks to showing me around some of the stuff you had done on REV, its most interesting to see this stuff in actuality, and have it all explained while it in front of you and bits can be pointed at  

hopefully I can procure another throttle cable (and find where the other half of the twist grip has gone off too) and get REV mobile before not too long  only problem is REV's throttle cable is about 5 meters long, anyone got any recommendations on where one can get a throttle cable that long? LOL

 

Liked for the safe return and AS brigade coming out to help, not for the breakdown. Hope you get it fixed quickly!

[Christine]

Common or garden bicycle brake bowden cable is usually a lonnnngggggg  helix outer wind  , and the core is wound the opposite way .and its pretty stiff and doesn't like being bent in a tight radius . Dedicated motorbike  throttle cable , like what you already have actually  , is usually braided multi strand, and  is far more flexible . What about a  Hillman imp cable , that would be pretty long , or a vw t 2 van ? 

[Christine]

I don't do London , but what happens if you  genuinely conk out at  the side of  a red lined road ?  

[Carl1981]

7 hours ago, Christine said:

I don't do London , but what happens if you  genuinely conk out at  the side of  a red lined road ?  

I don’t about London, but it would be interesting if anyone knows?

We have a few ‘red routes’ in the midlands. When the Jag FTP’d on a red route a couple of years ago I got a £60 fine through the post, which I challenged and managed to get cancelled, but only because I had a breakdown report from the recovery vehicle (possibly AA).

the letter confirming cancellation was long and went to great lengths to explain why red routes are red routes and how important it is that they are kept clear, right after acknowledging there was fuck all I could have done about it!

[barefoot]

When I broke down in the Scirocco on the red route, the bypass around Donington I called the police before calling recovery. They said, 'well you've broken down, there's nothing you can do about it '. No fine, no nothing. But I did see a police car drive past as I was being loaded onto the truck. 

[Christine]

Dartford Karting  would make up a  soft throttle cable, i bet

[Christine]

Good site .  I wonder if  your new cable had a pear shape nipple end  , and  the brass cross clevis had a  hole it  to suit ?

  See  " mountings  6 "  window on the left  of  the first page

 

https://www.bowdenzug24.com/en/

[chadders]

14 hours ago, Christine said:

Common or garden bicycle brake bowden cable is usually a lonnnngggggg  helix outer wind  , and the core is wound the opposite way .and its pretty stiff and doesn't like being bent in a tight radius . Dedicated motorbike  throttle cable , like what you already have actually  , is usually braided multi strand, and  is far more flexible . What about a  Hillman imp cable , that would be pretty long , or a vw t 2 van ? 

T2's are about 3.8 to 4 metres, 5m seems unusually long given their respective sizes.

[AdgeCutler]

JJ cables is a good chap. He has supplied me many cable components to make many cables for my projects including Brian. If you can send him a pattern or accurate measurements he'll knock you up a batch ready made.

https://www.facebook.com/jjcables/?locale=en_GB

[LightBulbFun]

Throttle cable gubbins arrived today, and after a massive palaver and much faffing about, I managed to effect a replacement inner throttle cable and got REV mobile again

obligatory test run to the chippy and back of course  

 

not much in the way of photos because I was too busy fucking about trying to get things sorted!

the main issue was just getting the brass ferrule/nipple  to fit in the hole on the twist grip and have it rotate freely inside that hole (I am not sure if the little ferrules I have where slightly over-size or the hole under-size, I suspect a bit of both, because it was noted that the previous ferrule was a bit tight in the hole and one of the new ones measured to something like 6.09mm rather then 6.00 on the dot.

it was also not helped by my somewhat messy solder job, it was only after I had taken it downstairs to REV did I realise you *cant* have *any* cable poking out the end of the ferrule, so i had to trim that then sand it as smooth/flush as i could, I initially thought this was the sole reason for my fitment issues, but then as a sanity check I took a couple more fresh ferrules from the pack and tried those on their own and they also did not want to go in freely, so it was at that point I realised I had to basically slightly enlarge the hole on the twist grip

I somewhat got there in the end it aint 100% perfect, but hopefully its good enough, and I think if if I do a better job soldering (ie make sure theres *no* cable sticking out the end of the ferrel) things should hopefully go smoother, the next time I need to do something like this

and there was also the faff of trying to feed the throttle cable into  the outer, the main problem I found with that was frayed ends causing it to bind up, I got there in the end, by clamping the throttle cable in a pair of mole grips and cutting flush to the mole grips to create a clean end, but I think I need better cutting tools really!

also had a rather unusual occurrence, in that while I had REV's engine running, (testing throttle cable action in all steering positions etc)

I heard a couple strange noises from outside that made me get out and wonder what they where, unable to deduce what they where, I get back in REV continue testing then a short bit later, theres a *thunk* as something impacts the roof and I see this bounce off into the road 

no idea where it came from!  but it living in REV now for the time being LOL

can only assume it fell out of the tree REV is next too, but how it got stuck in a tree in the first place? I dont know, very bizarre, anyone from the shite in miniature missing a bright green Porsche ? LOL 

[plasticvandan]

How I used to make cables was by using a centre punch in the centre of the cable to splay the strands out slightly,then slide the ferrule up so that they were tight in the hole and flush,then heat the ferrule up with a small blowtorch and feed solder in from the cable end,suitably fluxed of course.soaking the end to be cut in solder before cutting stops it fraying

[Christine]

You have got that  spare one you  made up in the car  , ready for the next time it fails ?  

 

I had a right faff once getting solder to flow on the steel cable, so i used a bit of  bakers fluid ... perfect ! Only i didn't wash it off after , and being so corrosive , it rusted and snapped again   within months  

Like dan said , poke it in the hole and mash it up before soldering , it wont come out then ..

[Christine]

Probably just  a Porsche Chestnut tree...

[All-Cisterns-Go]

7 hours ago, Christine said:

, poke it in the hole and mash it up before soldering , it wont come out then ..

 

[Christine]

Yeah, but the Porsche  chestnut tree post was good eh? 

[LightBulbFun]

with REV back and the Throttle cable sorted, it was time for  an evening trip across London

to Northolt, to pick up some of these  

what these are an American type of fluorescent tube, so of course when I spotted a bunch of them being sold by a Seller in the UK, I had to grab a few  I actually found em a while back, but tis only now I have been able to action getting them, they had little interest from other collectors because they are Chinese made, but to me they are still interesting being a US type that should not be over here in the first place! and they are also because of US Federal lamp efficiency regulations and the exemptions/loop-holes around them, they have a rather high CRI then what you normally expect from such a tube, so I look forward to seeing what they are like lit up  

after battling through the A40, I eventually made it to the sellers house, and I had a very fruitful haul! of course I had to ask the seller "how did you end up with these American market tubes here in the UK" and it turns out he collects, fixes/repairs/sells replacement bits/parts-out Juke boxes, and of course Juke boxes have fluorescent lighting in them, and in an order of tubes for them, these U-Bent ones where sent by accident

his house/workshop was amazing, multiple shelving units full of electromechanical bits, bobs, odds and sods you name it! I wish I grabbed more pictures, @Zelandeth you would of loved it in there!

and then he was like "I have a few boxes of tubes I have pulled out of the juke boxes I have parted out over time, are you interested in them?"

Does the pope shit in the woods?!

yeah in what I suppose is typical Fashion for me at this point! what went from "im just picking up a few" kinda escalated  there is a very awesome eclectic mix of tubes, many vintage US types that dont normally exist here, and since there from Juke Boxes, many of them themselves are of odd-ball types (Juke boxes often use whats known in the US as "Appliance tubes" fluorescent tubes of odd ball wattages and lengths, designed to fit within as the name implies appliances, like Cooker hoods Juke boxes, and things like that)

there where also a number of Black-ender tubes in there, that is to say tubes with phenolic Bakelite end caps, something unique for the most part to older US Westinghouse and Sylvania tubes, which I am extremely pleased about, especially the Westinghouse T12's, which you just dont see in the UK usually! (part of the reason I did that 300 mile round trip in REV previously was to pick up some Westinghouse fluorescent tubes!)

but the Pièce de résistance*, was this Bright Light Lamps tube

British, Bright Light Lamps where a small British company that no one really knows all that much about, but who are know for making special/custom fluorescent tubes, their products are always extremely quirky, and even tho my tube in this case is "just" a regular white 2ft 20W T12 in terms of the type it is, its about as un-regular as they come! the stand out feature being that they necked the tube down to use T8 end caps on a T12 tube, which is just fucking weird! (but gives you a nice view of the cathodes  ) so I am extremely pleased to have this, it is also quite unusual in that it is just white and a 2ft 20W tube, again normally Bright light lamps where known explicitly for doing odd-shapes, odd lengths or odd colours, for example I have seen BLL 2ft 20W T12's like this once before, that another collector own but they are pink in colour, not regular white like mine is, so I am surprised BLL bothered making such a regular spec of tube as mine, theres no way they would of been able to compete with the big companies in terms of cost/profitability etc

* but speaking of french there was even a vintage pre philips take over (I think), French Mazdafluor tube in one of the boxes

did I mention it was a very eclectic mix of tubes?! and I have not even actually really dug through them yet, these are just what I spotted at first blush, the ones that stood out like sore thumbs  this is exactly why I always "chase the lead" if I see anything even slightly odd ball, ill enquire about it, because who know what else there might be along with it  

anywho! eventually after a good long chat with the seller, the tubes where loaded into REV and I was on my way home, a nicer drive coming back, traffic was a bit lighter/more free flowing, night-time cruising FTW

 I admit I do wonder what people make of being passed or seeing not just an Invacar ,but one with a bunch of fluorescent tubes rattling about with the driver, (on a Sunday night heading into London)

33 miles covered  

tis good to have REV back  

on that note all being well I am hoping to take REV to the National Microcar rally on the 21st of September  would be good to know if anyone else is attending?  

 

 

[richardmorris]

Spotted this morning at Beaulieu. 

[Christine]

Banned from the road  they were.  None sold privately ..  55mph  , 493cc not 500 !  ,   oh dear    ,  lbf will be on the blower to Beaulieu !   

 

If only someone  would start that Land Rover up in reverse.....

[martc]

For future reference, Venhill can be recommended, they will make bespoke cables if they don't have one in stock.

https://www.venhill.co.uk/cables-and-components.html

[Snake Charmer]

1 hour ago, Christine said:

If only someone  would start that Land Rover up in reverse.....

I wonder what the PTO would do?

[Christine]

Land Rover  PTO  will break off , because the Model 70 was  argueably the strongest , safest ,  machine ever  built . ..

 

Edit , and the Land Rover crossmember will be rotten..