project 1951 Lanchester LD10 - Rear Corner Inspection

[Mr Pastry]

2 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

Sounds like an exciting experiment. For maximum effect it needs to be carried out in a closed small garage full of fresh petrol fumes and vapour.  

A freshly charged battery releases hydrogen too.

[Mr Pastry]

Seriously folks, I have seen a starter motor tested across a battery like this.  First time was OK, second time it blew the end off the battery and sprayed acid everywhere including in someone's eye.  Just don't.

[PhilA]

The amount of current a horn can sink versus a starter motor is significant.

[Mr Pastry]

1 minute ago, PhilA said:

The amount of current a horn can sink versus a starter motor is significant.

A spark is a spark is a spark.

[PhilA]

True. 

 

Use jump leads at a safe distance from the battery in a well ventilated area, wearing the appropriate ppe.

[vulgalour]

Best brown overalls and garage trilby.  Right you are.

[Timewaster]

Slightly worried for you running the car in a small enclosed space. Don't go giving yourselves CO poisoning.

[somewhatfoolish]

Could the shiny shuttle/rod/spindle/thing be magnetised and need to be the other way round?

[vulgalour]

18 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

Slightly worried for you running the car in a small enclosed space. Don't go giving yourselves CO poisoning.

That's why we do it together with the garage door wide open.  If we had more time and the weather weren't so appalling today we'd've done it on the drive so we had a bit more space.

10 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Could the shiny shuttle/rod/spindle/thing be magnetised and need to be the other way round?

That's a very good question, we shall give it a try and find out.

[lisbon_road]

Good job on the helicoils.  Lot of wheel bolts are that size, you'll be ready for them.

Enjoyed this thread - really inspiring.

[barrett]

Is it a quirk of your ancient filiming equipment, or does it really sound like that? ?

Sounds like it's running on three or even two cylinders... I don't think I've ever heard such a noise outside a car which has a big hole in the head gasket! Or does it have a big hole in the exhaust somewhere?

Well done on getting the carb sorted. I'm always hyper-aware when taking apart ancient carbs not to mangle any of the brass bits, but I've never seen an alloy bit degrade like that before. That's something else to worry about, I guess.

[vulgalour]

It's a little bit of all those things, there's a massive hole in the exhaust just under the pedals, the timing is too far retarded and it might also be running on fewer cylinders than it should.  The antiquated camera is compounding the audio issue.  There's none of the usual OMGHGF signs but we're not ruling it out until we've done the compression test.

Was told the alloy thread disintegrating like that is often due to people overtightening bolts and we reckon that's what happened here because the brass bolt was way tighter than it needed to be when we took the carburettor apart.  When I was hunting for a replacement chassis for the carburettor, quite a few of the offerings had similar thread damage, though not quite as catastrophic as ours.  At least the carburettor seems to be working properly now, so that's a relief.

[beko1987]

On my old Landrover with the 2.2 petrol I remember taking the thermostat housing off and the block crumbled into dust underneath around the bolt holes. 

Sold it for spares not long after... 

[vulgalour]

Snatched a few minutes earlier today to have a quick inspection of the plugs.  As expected, they were all sooty, we haven't yet been able to run the car off the choke so it's not surprising that it's quite rich.

One of our neighbours was having a clearout recently and had a spark plug cleaner going spare.  It's like a miniature mediablaster.  This seemed an ideal opportunity to try it out.  Just clamp it onto the relevant battery terminals and press the little red button to set it going with the spark plug in the hole, it works best if you rotate the spark plug while it's on.

Then pull it out and clean the plug down with some suitable cleaner to make sure there's no grit or similar in the threads and it's back to clean again.  A very handy little tool, it would likely benefit from some fresh media inside.

All of the plug gaps were .034"-0.40" instead of the book recommended .020" (fortunately my feeler guages are metric and imperial marked) so I reset them all accordingly and that's one less job for the weekend.  Just as I was packing up, the grease gun I'd bought online arrived, a second hand Wanner, a brand recommended I think by @PhilA and initial testing at least confirms it pumps out what grease is still in it so hopefully that will be a sensible purchase.  The new ones in the same price range as what we paid for this one all looked rubbish and like they'd barely last one use.

We'll have more time tomorrow so we'll do the compression test, check the timing etc. and hopefully get things running a little better or at least diagnose what the issue with the lumpy running actually is.

[cort1977]

Ooh, like that classic grease gun. 

 

Wanders off to ebay...

[PhilA]

Store it with the spring pressure taken off- pull the chain out a bit else all the grease will get past the cup in storage.

 

Phil

[barrett]

That explains it! Personally I'd sort the exhaust out before fiddling too much with the ignition or carb. If there isn't any back pressure or its drawing air back into the system or whatever then anything you do to get it running okay now will have to be re-done when you get the exhaust system sorted.

I could never get my Humber running right no matter what was adjusted, but as soon as it fired up after fitting the new exhaust system it just sat and idled perfectly. I couldn't believe what a difference it made. Obviously the carb has all gone up the spout since then, but for one day at least the stars aligned.

I'd push it outside, sort the exhaust and then dick about with timing etc 

[vulgalour]

Shall grab a couple of clamps from H*lf*rds on the morrow then, that'll sort the issue with the exhaust.  Maybe a crapload of paste too, just to be on the safe side.  Hadn't really considered the exhaust could be part of the issue.

[somewhatfoolish]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

 Just as I was packing up, the grease gun I'd bought online arrived, a second hand Wanner, a brand recommended I think by @PhilA and initial testing at least confirms it pumps out what grease is still in it so hopefully that will be a sensible purchase.  The new ones in the same price range as what we paid for this one all looked rubbish and like they'd barely last one use.

Cheapo guns do generally work, they just tend to ooze grease everywhere.

[PhilA]

I had a strange dream last night where I was in the chemistry lab at my old school and I had a large block of old looking iron and it had a cross threaded piece, but it was only cross threaded because the threads were so dirty with some sort of sooty gunk.

Phil

[busmansholiday]

In between the rain I had a look under the MGB in the garage and dug out my pair of windtone horns. One looks just like your two, the other doesn't have the nice curved top.

The different one went burp when I connected the body of it to the battery (should be positive earth for that era but didn't seem to matter) and a lead to the double contact on it.

The one like yours just said FRO no matter what the connections. Mind you the spare battery is bolloxed, so I've put that on charge. Hopefully no rain tomorrow so will not get drowned going to see what happens with a slightly* more charged battery.

[vulgalour]

We got the Lanchester to not only run properly today, but to also drive forwards and backwards under it's own power!

The problem was not one we expected at all.  @barrett had suggested the blowing exhaust could cause the issue and he was correct!  We'd gone through and checked all the other items and everything appeared to be as it should be so the last thing to do was check we had sparks on all four plugs (that's the flashing lights in the video) which we did, and to seal up the blowing exhaust better.  Astonishingly, sealing up the blowing exhaust made the biggest difference, we assume the engine needs the back pressure provided and without the length of the system it simply wasn't getting enough.  Unfortunately, as you can see in the video, the car bogged down and stalled and though we could restart it, the problem is with the union on the carburettor.

The union is as tight as it will go but leaks from the fibre washer between the banjo bolt and the carburettor body.  This is disappointing.  The helicoil is doing its job and the bolt is as tight as it will go so we're wondering if a thicker or second washer will seal up the gap and allow to seal properly.  We also wondered if it was something to do with the float.  We had the float bowl off, made sure everything was cleaned out and moving freely where it should and could find nothing amiss, so it seems more likely it's just the union between the carburettor chassis and the banjo bolt.

That said, it was brilliant to actually finally move the car under its own power, we now know first and reverse on the gearbox work and hopefully it's safe to assume the other gears work too.  We didn't do a compression test because of the leaking carburettor issue, though we plan to do that once we've fixed the leak, just so we know what the compression figures are actually like on this engine as a reference point.  Because of the fuel leak and the exhaust bodge starting to fail meaning the engine wouldn't idle as well as it was, we opted to push the car back into the garage, which is when the tyre pump decided to die and I can tell you that pushing this car with two flat tyres is not fun at all.

Still, today was a fantastic day.  We're now pretty confident the engine and gearbox will be fine and we can focus on getting the new tyres etc. on just as soon as our schedules allow.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Woo! 

very happy to see it move under its own power for the first time in who knows how long  

keep up the awesome and interesting work  

(do please look at getting a better device for recording videos tho please LOL)

[vulgalour]

A better device means spending money and this is a No Expense Spent Studio production...

[Asimo]

Are the fibre washers new? Old ones get very hard and bad at sealing.

As for the horn, they do not have any permanent magnets and will work with either polarity.  

[vulgalour]

Fibre washers are indeed new, came with the carb rebuild kit.  They are thinner than the ones that were fitted before so hopefully fitting extra/thicker ones will resolve the issue.

[Christine]

Has the bolt bottomed out before it compresses the washers ? 

 

[PhilA]

This is a high technology engine, really. What compression ratio is it meant to be?

I'm thinking somewhere between 6:1 and 7:1 probably if it's good for pool gas.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

We're thinking the bolt might have bottomed out.  Also, the new washers were thinner than the ones they replaced so that might be contributing.

Plan is to acquire a new tyre pump, a better exhaust sleeve to replace the temporary bodge with a slightly less bodgey temporary fix, and fit an extra washer to the banjo bolt and we should be good to go again.  Compression is 7:1 and it's actually running on the old fuel in the tank in that video which is probably on a par with pool fuel by now.  The sediment trap is doing its job too, it's serving as a primary filter and there's another guaze filter in the fuel pump and another gauze filter on the banjo bolt at the carburettor, nothing untoward seems to be getting as far as the carburettor, it was nice and clean inside when we removed the float bowl.

[Kringle]

Not only is this entertaining but I'm learning as we go so I have nothing more to add than my thanks.