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...

23,693 · April 2

had a impromptu late-afternoon-evening run out in the VDP

we went to place our regular online supermarket shopping order and found that the next available delivery slot was a good week from now! so me and mum headed in the VDP to the big Tesco's to pick up a few things to tide us over

dropped the shopping off at home and then since I was already in the car took mum to something she wanted to check out in the city then a visit via chippy

and finally home

5,535 · April 3

31,039 · April 3

This has your name on it.

Think this was a backup I managed to find back when my original one fell to bits, and I wasn't trusting the replacement I had on the way to be serviceable.

I'd forgotten it existed until (literally) falling over it in the garage just now.

23,693 · April 3

6 hours ago, Weird Car said:

I think thats been run through an AI sadly

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

This has your name on it.

Think this was a backup I managed to find back when my original one fell to bits, and I wasn't trusting the replacement I had on the way to be serviceable.

I'd forgotten it existed until (literally) falling over it in the garage just now.

sweet! much appreciated I had a feeling there was one of those kicking around in the collective spares stash, as I remember seeing one in the bundle of engine spares you got from that bloke from which the 200 mile exhaust came from

1,815 · April 4

Just back from Tesco, thought I’d take a “Where’s Brian” photo!

1,815 · April 4

A bit more done with the Steyr Puch today. Crankshaft stripped down and thoroughly cleaned including and most importantly the oilways. It’s a good job I did do this as well, inspire of the oil in the crankcase being surprisingly clean and the strainer clear, the oil way within the crankshaft was choked with what was almost grease like. I guess this is due to it effectively being a centrifuge and throwing all the heavier deposits to the outside over the years.

The camshaft drive gears were pulled off of the crankshafts and kept paired with the replacement camshaft. Crankshaft re-assembled with nice clean oil and is now silky smooth. Second crankcase half has been given a tidy up and its half of the cam followers installed. At that point I decided to offer up the crankshaft as a trial run, it’s quite fiddly getting the bearings to all find their locating dowels while ensuring that the gears mesh in the correct position for timing.
Next up will be cleaning up the oil pump as this also acts as the bearing for one end of the camshaft.

2,544 · April 4

PROPER engineering-I LOVE it! Well done in explaining everything.

3,655 · April 4

Is the camshaft gear alloy?

1,815 · April 5

15 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

Is the camshaft gear alloy?

Yes.

1,914 · April 5

On 04/04/2026 at 11:21, AdgeCutler said:

Just back from Tesco, thought I’d take a “Where’s Brian” photo!

10/10 would buy "Where's Brian" paperback

5,535 · April 5

2 hours ago, Mr Livered said:

10/10 would buy "Where's Brian" paperback

When are we getting the Audiobook version?

“a black focus, a blue Corsa, a white transit, a 125cc moped, a green clio, Brian”

2,904 · April 5

On 03/04/2026 at 14:24, LightBulbFun said:

I think thats been run through an AI sadly

sweet! much appreciated I had a feeling there was one of those kicking around in the collective spares stash, as I remember seeing one in the bundle of engine spares you got from that bloke from which the 200 mile exhaust came from

What's fishy about the above @LightBulbFun? The photo looks perfectly fine to me -- can't see any of the usual AI telltales and the case for it being real is fairly strong: all in-focus text is legible and the people's faces look normal. Colour balance matches what's expected of film that age and there's even a bit of good, old-fashioned leaded-petrol haze over the horizon. Can't think an AI would know to put that in!

Not sure if you're old enough to remember the sky being dirty! Better that it isn't, mind.

31,039 · April 5

Few details that just look "off" though it's jpeg compressed to hell and back so it's kinda of hard to tell if it's compression artifacts I'm looking at or AI nonsense.

The text on the Wimpy sign in particular has that odd slightly distorted AI look to it though rather than seeming to be a compression artifact. The end of the number plate on the front Invacar just having a black blob rather than a letter seems off too, and I think there should be a slot in the engine cover.

Struggling for definition, but the roof line of the car in the distance seems to slope to frame left.

Not sure if it's just been compressed to hell, or been AI colourised and THEN compressed to hell.

I heard someone describe AI content as "the asbestos of the internet" the other day. Astonishingly accurate I reckon.

No problem with these tools being used to bring some colour to folks old snaps - but for the love of puppies, label it accordingly as it does mess about with fine detail in images.

1,815 · April 5

I woke up early this morning fretting that the crankshaft cleanup job was insufficient despite my pumping solvents and many litres of compressed air through the oilways. Nothing else for it but to tear it down again and go one step further. This time I drilled out the crank pin oilway caps, despite my previous efforts, I did manage to get some more greasy deposits out which could have potentially restricted flow.
At least now I can hopefully have a full restful sleep tonight!

23,693 · April 5

2 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

What's fishy about the above @LightBulbFun? The photo looks perfectly fine to me -- can't see any of the usual AI telltales and the case for it being real is fairly strong: all in-focus text is legible and the people's faces look normal. Colour balance matches what's expected of film that age and there's even a bit of good, old-fashioned leaded-petrol haze over the horizon. Can't think an AI would know to put that in!

Not sure if you're old enough to remember the sky being dirty! Better that it isn't, mind.

basically what Zel said! in addition to what he highlighted already, also look at the Model 70 closest to the camera and the random silver blob on its bumper!

what I have seen in recent times is not just purely AI generated photos, but photos that may have really existed, but then been fucked with by some sort of AI for example

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/523/#findComment-3430782

(I have also seen several web comics on social media fucked with in the same fashion)

and similarly i have seen weird shit where someones taken an existing photo and told an AI "extend the scene" so you will get an very AI fucked about photo but with bits of an actual real image in it, I think there was an example somewhere on here involving a train yard

https://autoshite.com/topic/67032-mystery-car-from-the-50s60s-mystery-solved/#comment-3443502

1,815 · April 5

A nice picture I took after cleaning, which shows the oil porting from main bearing to the big end. The port on the main journal is actually its feed, from here the main finds its pressure feed. At 90 degrees from this is the port that takes oil from here to the big end.

23,498 · April 5

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Few details that just look "off" though it's jpeg compressed to hell and back so it's kinda of hard to tell if it's compression artifacts I'm looking at or AI nonsense.

The text on the Wimpy sign in particular has that odd slightly distorted AI look to it though rather than seeming to be a compression artifact. The end of the number plate on the front Invacar just having a black blob rather than a letter seems off too, and I think there should be a slot in the engine cover.

Struggling for definition, but the roof line of the car in the distance seems to slope to frame left.

Not sure if it's just been compressed to hell, or been AI colourised and THEN compressed to hell.

I heard someone describe AI content as "the asbestos of the internet" the other day. Astonishingly accurate I reckon.

No problem with these tools being used to bring some colour to folks old snaps - but for the love of puppies, label it accordingly as it does mess about with fine detail in images.

AI slop is another description. It's all a bit like those approximate car images you find on birthday cards or jigsaw puzzles - perfectly pleasant for decoration but meaningless in the real world.

But it can be more sinister manipulation of images...

Try 1984 for a possible destination for all this:

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

2,544 · April 5

13 minutes ago, AdgeCutler said:

A nice picture I took after cleaning, which shows the oil porting from main bearing to the big end. The port on the main journal is actually its feed, from here the main finds its pressure feed. At 90 degrees from this is the port that takes oil from here to the big end.

Would not the crank's balance be affected by this? I'm not sure how much swarf you took out, but I remember being told that these were dynamically balanced at the factory and that they had to be balanced again if they're disturbed.

I'm only asking, and no criticism is intended!

2,904 · April 5

Thanks @Zelandeth and @LightBulbFun. I'm still not convinced; old photos can be full of weirdly distorted bits -- people used to use convex lenses and all sorts of other things that have gone out of fashion. It also depends on the quality of the scan, what was scanned and the rest. The thing that seems too 'real' to be AI, to me, is the reflection of the Wimpy sign in the shop window -- zoom in to see it. The letters are correctly reversed; just never seen an AI that competent.

For contrast, here's another seventies pic. of the same road:

It's a better composed shot and the colour balance is different -- alternative stock or exposure and different lighting quality -- but you can see the similarities.

We chew over this sort of thing endlessly, now, in education. It's a shame.

1,815 · April 5

3 minutes ago, Andrew353w said:

Would not the crank's balance be affected by this? I'm not sure how much swarf you took out, but I remember being told that these were dynamically balanced at the factory and that they had to be balanced again if they're disturbed.

I'm only asking, and no criticism is intended!

Only the caps (like core plugs) were drilled out and identical ones will be installed in their place.

22,858 · April 5

27 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

basically what Zel said! in addition to what he highlighted already, also look at the Model 70 closest to the camera and the random silver blob on its bumper!

what I have seen in recent times is not just purely AI generated photos, but photos that may have really existed, but then been fucked with by some sort of AI for example

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/523/#findComment-3430782

(I have also seen several web comics on social media fucked with in the same fashion)

and similarly i have seen weird shit where someones taken an existing photo and told an AI "extend the scene" so you will get an very AI fucked about photo but with bits of an actual real image in it, I think there was an example somewhere on here involving a train yard

https://autoshite.com/topic/67032-mystery-car-from-the-50s60s-mystery-solved/#comment-3443502

I have picked up on a couple of pictures of London street scenes where the buses have given it away. One where an RM had the wrong combination of opening windows (only three of the six upstairs windows open but it's the same three on every bus and these were wrong. And another where the thing looked like half RT half RM.

The thing is, as stated above, they start off as real photos that have been manipulated by AI. For what reason God only knows.

12,838 · April 5

Just 4 Dennis buses used here ...

23,498 · April 5

15 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I have picked up on a couple of pictures of London street scenes where the buses have given it away. One where an RM had the wrong combination of opening windows (only three of the six upstairs windows open but it's the same three on every bus and these were wrong. And another where the thing looked like half RT half RM.

The thing is, as stated above, they start off as real photos that have been manipulated by AI. For what reason God only knows.

The images always seem to promote an uneasy dystopia - sometimes involving milling crowds as here. Like something from the film Westworld.

There are some details that are just odd.

Person not touching the ground -

Road surface -

Uniform parking with odd details- AI does like repeat images -

All looks a bit sci-fi - like made from an image seen from far away.

Shame when we can't trust what we see. One day this stuff will get so good it will be impossible to tell - and so all images will need to be verified from a reliable source or labelled.

18,441 · April 5

2 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

Thanks @Zelandeth and @LightBulbFun. I'm still not convinced; old photos can be full of weirdly distorted bits -- people used to use convex lenses and all sorts of other things that have gone out of fashion. It also depends on the quality of the scan, what was scanned and the rest. The thing that seems too 'real' to be AI, to me, is the reflection of the Wimpy sign in the shop window -- zoom in to see it. The letters are correctly reversed; just never seen an AI that competent.

For contrast, here's another seventies pic. of the same road:

It's a better composed shot and the colour balance is different -- alternative stock or exposure and different lighting quality -- but you can see the similarities.

We chew over this sort of thing endlessly, now, in education. It's a shame.

Yes but - the first 2 storey building on the left has a strangely bleached fan area on the roof in the earlier pic, much more normal in the last one

23,545 · April 5

If AI was involved it was probably used for colourisation of a real photo.

You often get odd results feeding low res black and white images into AI as it'll add/adjust areas of low detail as it sees fit. Add in a load of jpeg compression and any odd lens/light artefacts from the original photo and it'll be hard to know what is real and what isn't.

9,976 · April 6

10 hours ago, captain_70s said:

If AI was involved it was probably used for colourisation of a real photo.

You often get odd results feeding low res black and white images into AI as it'll add/adjust areas of low detail as it sees fit. Add in a load of jpeg compression and any odd lens/light artefacts from the original photo and it'll be hard to know what is real and what isn't.

^^^ this or possibly other earlier tools and techniques used, from a pre-AI world...

16 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

and I think there should be a slot in the engine cover.

The slot is there, but it is obscured by the wing mirror of the Model 70 nearest the camera. It shows up more clearly in the blown-up image that @lesapandre posted. The little structure like an 'over-rider' on the bumper of that nearest Model 70 is interesting.

23,498 · April 6

The camber/positioning on the first wheel does not look right either - could of course be lens-distorted by the original film camera - but in real life the axle would be bent?

Good game this - like one of those spot-the-difference puzzles. Font on that second registration plate looks blobby?

Scaling and details here look all wrong too...

All a bit of a pity if we can't believe what we see as a true record - of Invacars parked on a sunny street in the past. It's the falsification of history.

3,655 · April 6

14 hours ago, AdgeCutler said:

This time I drilled out the crank pin oilway caps, despite my previous efforts, I did manage to get some more greasy deposits out which could have potentially restricted flow.

What's behind the other two screws and ball bearing peened in to the crank throws?

A lot of British bikes had similar setups on the crankshafts, Honda used a centrifugal filter on the auto clutches of some bikes. Very effective in the fine silt they remove, comes out like a hard lump of rubber when cleaned.

1,815 · April 6

7 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

What's behind the other two screws and ball bearing peened in to the crank throws?

A lot of British bikes had similar setups on the crankshafts, Honda used a centrifugal filter on the auto clutches of some bikes. Very effective in the fine silt they remove, comes out like a hard lump of rubber when cleaned.

They are fixings and a dowel that secure an extra weight to the counterweight.

23,693 · April 8

On 05/04/2026 at 20:59, AdgeCutler said:

Only the caps (like core plugs) were drilled out and identical ones will be installed in their place.

I have already messaged you these by iMessage, but just incase (and I suppose for anyone else interested!) just earlier(?) at 10PM I had an email come in with these bits of pertinent information from Constantin, the nice bloke who supplied the pictures of BPE19H, and he happened to send me some random service bulletins he had to do with the Model 70 over to me after we talked about Steyr Puch engine/Model 70 production figures and how they correlated , I saw this one and thought "best ping it over!", hopefully I am not too late with it, I cant help but chuckle at the timing of it! funny how the universe works like that, you do service work on the crankshaft plugs and completely unrelated to that I get a service bulletin for Crankshaft shaft plugs!

also of interest, I finally have my answer as to what the Amendment in the workshop manual with regards to Timing was about

On 24/03/2022 at 18:06, Zelandeth said:

a lot more advanced than the manual calls for...

Especially as the amendment there seems to suggest they were basically setting things up for zero advance...I know they were running on two star fuel, but even so...

turns out it was for emissions control of all things!

apparently the Model 70 was a bit of a tricky bugger to get through emissions tests at the time!

Quote

No. 3 (used to be in testing department in the early 70s)
I was not able to reach him on the phone, but I looked up notes from a meeting from 2021 (below).
He recalls that he had to do with the Model 70 because there were problems with the so-called “Europatest” (Europe test) driving cycle to prove emission compliance in the UK in the early 70s (exact year unknown).
He was then on a visit at Weber in Bologna. The Model 70 to be tested for compliance was sent there by him to be precisely adjusted by Weber.
In England, where the vehicle was then tested, things turned out to be complicated again. Despite the proper adjustment by Weber, emission compliance was “borderline”. The average out of three independent tests had to be OK to pass the “Europatest”. Two people carried out the test, one inside the vehicle to operate on the test bed, the other one in the control room. Eventually, the test could be passed.

that bit about the carburettor tuning I wonder if this has anything to do with the discrepancy in specification of the Weber 32ICS3 in the workshop manual as noted below and/or if its also anything to do with the existence of the later Weber 32ICS10T Model 70 specific carburettor

On 03/02/2024 at 15:52, LightBulbFun said:

yeah I have had a few people tell me thi, but it still bugging me because I knew that when it came to 32ICS carbs, the numbers also often meant a different state of tune and jet sizes for example IIRC certain steyr puch 643cc engined vehicles used the 32ICS9 and maybe the 32ICS10? (non T suffix)

so I finally knuckled down and found a bit of info on the Model 70 specific 32ICS10T carb

which has provided to be a very interesting read, if I am not mistaken its actually slightly de-tuned compared to the 32ICS3 the Model 70 originally shipped with

but im obviously not an expert when it comes to reading these values etc! I mainly just know* that main Jet size is one of the main things that effect engine power, in that it controls how much fuel flows right?

I also came across this interesting PDF

https://doczz.com.br/doc/1241942/steyr-puch-vergaserhandbuch

and I also have this parts digram PDF

32ICS10T.pdf 366.09 kB · 10 downloads

On 03/02/2024 at 16:23, LightBulbFun said:

actually I just noticed the 2 32ICS3 screenshots are from the Model 70 workshop manual and in one section it says it has jet size of 135 and in another it says its 125!

wonder which it actually is!

I was already wondering if the ECE emissions stuff I see only on later Model 70's, has anything to do with the 32ICS10T carb, interestingly that carb and (I *think* the ECE stuff) are from 1976~ rather then from 1972 that the Distributor change is dated too.

On 25/05/2025 at 18:49, LightBulbFun said:

as a general aside, I noticed in one of the pictures some stickers on the chassis below the ignition coil bracket, that I had never otherwise seen before!

and what they are is most interesting from my whole research into the history and development of the Model 70 perspective, they are ECE approval markings for fuel consumption/exhaust emissions (ECE R15) and electromagnetic emissions (ECE R10) I wonder what the "242" and "176.01" numbers mean?

all throughout the Model 70's production life, it was constantly being iterated on and improved, and I had read about the ECE compliance stuff, so its really cool to see actual physical evidence of it,

also for those wondering about the Crash pads, it turned out that those where not really required and actually made things worse when fitted

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...

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