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]

10 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

I've not seen an adivsory for colour or texture of engine oil before!

my brothers response LOL

[LightBulbFun]

10 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Congratulations! 

I vote ignore but make sure there's always something in the car ready for if it complains. It could be a pinhole that only opens under certain circumstances? My xm had that, try and rev the shit out of the car whilst studying the engine bay and see if there's a dribble from somewhere. On the xm it was always bone dry when I checked as it all dried out with the heat in the time it took me to pull over and pop the bonnet each time

My gooner 2.2dci would quite happily do a few round trips to work before I remembered/tried for the heaters and got nothing. I fixed that ultimately by scrapping the car though... 

yeah your XM was exactly what I was thinking about when I saw this a while back, I have just not had a chance to look at it myself while the car is nice n hot n pressurised  to see if its actually spraying out of that patch or not! and indeed for my brothers Birthday last year I got him a nice big jug of OAT from Halfords which he keeps the car fed with  

On 28/03/2026 at 22:46, LightBulbFun said:

had a day of working on the Cars with my Brother, first up was his Corsa C, he just wanted me to give it a quick look over, its one persistent issue since purchase s that it likes to drink coolant, no mayo on the cap and it behaves all fine as long as you top it up, but there is the question of where is it going, sometimes it seems inconsonant as to how much it drinks (ie you could do a big drive and it would not change at all, but do a bit of around town driving and suddenly all the coolant from the expansion bottle vanishes), so I decided to have another look for where it might be vanishing off too

and noticed during todays checkover this puddle of coolant, and then noticed when looking what might place coolant there, that one of the hoses coming from the expansion bottle going over that area had this suspicious patch on it

wonder if theres a pin hole leak thats spraying coolant out under pressure? something to have a look at next time the car is hot/fully pressurised

also I had a look at the tyres, I noticed this on the front tyres we had fitted when he first got the vehicle, would that be some inner edge tyre wear I am looking at there on the right side? I noticed it seemed to be worn on both of the front tyres in the same manner not just this one singular tye, would it be a tracking issue or something else?

 

[beko1987]

55 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

yeah your XM was exactly what I was thinking about when I saw this a while back, I have just not had a chance to look at it myself while the car is nice n hot n pressurised  to see if its actually spraying out of that patch or not! and indeed for my brothers Birthday last year I got him a nice big jug of OAT from Halfords which he keeps the car fed with  

 

Worst case it's a full coolant fluid change every 8th top up 👍😂 At least it's cheap enough to bung the cheapest ready mixed you can through it (and it won't freeze now for months...) 

[Andrew353w]

Could it be that the coolant cap's the wrong one? If this were the case the coolant would remain at a cooler temperature when on a Motorway but when sitting in traffic, for instance, when the coolant becomes hotter, were the cap not able to hold the pressure, some might escape.... I had this problem with a late edition 1999 Mini Cooper MPi.   

[LightBulbFun]

End of an Era!

@dollywobbler hopefully you have pointed the new owner to these beige pages! will there be an epic collection caper where TWC is driven all the way to her new home?

 

It all reminds me I still need to figure out a good filming solution for REV, I cant promise the production/commentary  levels of Hubnut, but I would like to record some of my trips out in REV

something over the shoulder like in @Zelandeth's videos would be good I think, gives people a good view of the control, while still being able to see out the window etc

I have a spare iPhone I can borrow for filming, so I suppose the question is finding a good mount!

[DeanH]

External camera interspersed with a chest cam maybe?

[dollywobbler]

Yes, I am now Invacarless for the first time since November 2017. Feels a bit odd but it deserved better than sitting in a damp Welsh shed.

Regarding filming, phones always seem to struggle a little with the vibration an Invacar can generate. Something like a DJI Osmo Action will give better results (better than a GoPro).

[SiC]

On 13/05/2026 at 13:42, High Jetter said:

I've not seen an adivsory for colour or texture of engine oil before!

I don't think they should even be removing oil caps in an MOT?

[loserone]

18 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

hopefully you have pointed the new owner to these beige pages!

I'm hoping that it's @HMC

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, SiC said:

I don't think they should even be removing oil caps in an MOT?

I don't know of any reason to - or to check the dipstick.

[Snake Charmer]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

I don't know of any reason to - or to check the dipstick.

When you insert a probe in the dipstick tube to monitor oil temperature for emissions. 

[beko1987]

Maybe the tester saw the empty expansion tank and had a peek before the emissions test revs? 

[Yoss]

41 minutes ago, Snake Charmer said:

When you insert a probe in the dipstick tube to monitor oil temperature for emissions. 

My tester doesn't do that. 

[LightBulbFun]

for what its worth, my brother did a short 6-7? mile round trip into the city and back to help mum with some stuff (VDP got a rest day LOL) and it drank all its coolant again (Well when I say drank all its coolant, I mean all the coolant out the expansion tank), he had a look under the bonnet but could not find any evidence of leakage (although if its already emptied its tank by then, maybe its got nothing left to piddle!)

according to my brother the dip-stick looks fine, the Oil cap itself is covered in mayo, but I understand that to be normal for any sort of short trip like that, and generally when it is given a long trip it clears up.

not sure when the next long trip for it will be, maybe when I pick REV up from Andy's after next week or so, but ill be sure to keep a close eye on it to see how it does there if theres any change in behaviour or not

 

part of me is tempted to shove a camera under the bonnet and see if I can record what the expansion tank is doing LOL

[Snake Charmer]

6 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

part of me is tempted to shove a camera under the bonnet and see if I can record what the expansion tank is doing LOL

What do the plugs look like?

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

When you insert a probe in the dipstick tube to monitor oil temperature for emissions. 

Didn't know that, thanks. Thought that was always done by a probe up the exhaust.

[Zelandeth]

10 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Didn't know that, thanks. Thought that was always done by a probe up the exhaust.

It's a temperature probe - haven't seen anyone actually do it for ages, but that was a backup method for vehicles without a temperature gauge as I remember.  Increasingly common again these days!

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

for what its worth, my brother did a short 6-7? mile round trip into the city and back to help mum with some stuff (VDP got a rest day LOL) and it drank all its coolant again (Well when I say drank all its coolant, I mean all the coolant out the expansion tank), he had a look under the bonnet but could not find any evidence of leakage (although if its already emptied its tank by then, maybe its got nothing left to piddle!)

according to my brother the dip-stick looks fine, the Oil cap itself is covered in mayo, but I understand that to be normal for any sort of short trip like that, and generally when it is given a long trip it clears up.

not sure when the next long trip for it will be, maybe when I pick REV up from Andy's after next week or so, but ill be sure to keep a close eye on it to see how it does there if theres any change in behaviour or not

 

part of me is tempted to shove a camera under the bonnet and see if I can record what the expansion tank is doing LOL

I think you can get a florescent or dye liquid to trace? Worth a try tho never used it myself.

[Zelandeth]

Most OAT coolant and its residue glows bright orange under blacklight on its own, so you might not even need anything special to help track it down.

Edited May 15 by Zelandeth
Correction of autocorrect

[Snake Charmer]

11 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Didn't know that, thanks. Thought that was always done by a probe up the exhaust.

Two different exhaust probes, spark and compression ignition, OBDII connection also reads oil temperature and rpm.

Test results have to be kept for a minimum of 3 months.

[beko1987]

It can't all be going into the oil that fast or you'd tell from the dipstick 🤔 

Pour a heavy washing up liquid/matey mix in and watch for the bubbles? 

[Mr Pastry]

Just do not get involved in working on cars belonging to members of your family.

It is a Very Bad Idea.  

[LightBulbFun]

6 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

Just do not get involved in working on cars belonging to members of your family.

It is a Very Bad Idea.  

its a bit late for that im afraid!

On 16/07/2025 at 17:23, LightBulbFun said:

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? ) 

i'd also however recommend extending what you say to computers as well, today has been an adventure in that as in less then 48 hours, before I have a big undertaking that ill need to be awake at like 5AM for, having already been rudely awaken by someone randomly ringing the building entry-control-intercom, my mums computer then decided it would be fun to keep BSOD'ing (Blue Screen of Death, Crashing hard) about 5 minutes after boot up

lots of fucking about later including having to haul the thing upstairs so I could better poke at it (read: shuffle the RAM sticks about in their slots, as its had issues with this in the past)

after it passed a memtest run

and I let it sit for a while on the test bench in windows where it was fine, I hauled it back downstairs to my mums desk

where it proceeded to keep BSOD'ing *much frowning* turns out the issue in the end is something related to the NIC or network stack, not figured out what yet, but I at least figured out that If I boot it with the ethernet unplugged *then* plug it back into ethernet after windows has booted, it then wont BSOD, so that will have to do until I can gather enough willpower to go poking at it again/finally move mum to a newer computer (also Windows 10 had fucked up its own audio settings so Chrome was muted, had to literally go into "advanced audio settings" to fix that)

Gotta love* windows eh...

then to top it all off, I finally get back up stairs sit down at my work station to find about 10 text messages from my brother

Just what you want to see, a clueless relative trying to do something, with a terminal window running shit on their computer, thankfully turned out to be something as far as I can tell fairly benign, but fucking hell, the last thing i needed to see! 

[LightBulbFun]

18 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Yes, I am now Invacarless for the first time since November 2017. Feels a bit odd but it deserved better than sitting in a damp Welsh shed.

Regarding filming, phones always seem to struggle a little with the vibration an Invacar can generate. Something like a DJI Osmo Action will give better results (better than a GoPro).

I will say it is a bit sad to hear that one of the reasons you sold TWC was because of the brainless comments people make online about Invacars, while its sad that people seem to wish to Weaponise the Invacar as a means to marginalise the disabled  (while I am all for bringing back an Invacar type vehicle, it would certainly not be instead of regular adapted cars and would not be foisted upon those whom it was not suited/asked for, much as it was never the *only* choice even in the 1950's-1970's)

letting them get to you like that,  feels like letting them win! I much prefer breaking them by using REV as she was intended,, as I mentioned to a couple people, the reaction on Facebook of REV on the M40 was such a giggle for me because it was so much fun seeing peoples preconceived notions trying to compute with the actual reality that was in front of them  

 

as an aside you should find out what happened to the 7.5T'er you used to save TWC and TPA with, buy it and use it to move to Spain, that would be a fitting and very Autoshite/Hubnut thing to do

 

 

[bunglebus]

Seen this?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYPNNRWIg8G/?igsh=MXhvajZ3YmVkNzM3Zw==

[SiC]

I wonder how often the ball got smacked into them?

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Seen this?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYPNNRWIg8G/?igsh=MXhvajZ3YmVkNzM3Zw==

aye I have  I have noticed that video has been reposted/reuploaded a bunch of times, not sure which is the original but this is when I first came across it

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

2 hours ago, SiC said:

I wonder how often the ball got smacked into them?

I remember reading a comment that the crowd would let out a cheer when it happened, obviously I was not there in period to say if this was actually the case!

[brummiejon]

Rev is looking great these days @LightBulbFun. I've been absent from this forum for a few months because my health took.a massive nosedive last year and I've had to sell my house and move in with my daughter in Shropshire.

Flo has been laid up for over a year. Anyway, I'm finally well enough to take her for a spin and I've been doing a bit of off roading in the sunshine.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/z363jyPGXJRQWVeB7

[LightBulbFun]

50 minutes ago, brummiejon said:

Rev is looking great these days @LightBulbFun. I've been absent from this forum for a few months because my health took.a massive nosedive last year and I've had to sell my house and move in with my daughter in Shropshire.

Flo has been laid up for over a year. Anyway, I'm finally well enough to take her for a spin and I've been doing a bit of off roading in the sunshine.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/z363jyPGXJRQWVeB7

Awesome to see you here once more  sorry to hear about the health decline and having to sell the house! I very much hope things improve for you in that regard!

very cool to see Flo is still about and still going strong, I love the video, nice and serene  I cant help but imagine a OLLI'ed up Land Rover coming the other way trying to green-lane and them getting completely befuddled as you pootled on past with scant regard  

Land rover driver to his mate: "say Tod you know those Mushrooms you foraged earlier...."

 

 

BTW speaking of Argsons/Flo, I am not sure if you have seen it, so just incase, a while back I took pictures of all the pages of my 1952 Argson Handbook, which you should be able to see here, (its on Page 509 if the link fails for whatever reason)

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/509/#comment-3369749

 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, brummiejon said:

Rev is looking great these days @LightBulbFun. I've been absent from this forum for a few months because my health took.a massive nosedive last year and I've had to sell my house and move in with my daughter in Shropshire.

Flo has been laid up for over a year. Anyway, I'm finally well enough to take her for a spin and I've been doing a bit of off roading in the sunshine.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/z363jyPGXJRQWVeB7

Sorry for your health issues, and hope moving in with your daughter is a good thing for you. Great that you're now able to get out and about again, hope to see more reports of your travels.