Lankytim’s general shite related ranting, Ft mystery 2CV and P4 shittery.

[Six-cylinder]

6 hours ago, Lankytim said:

Maiden voyage cancelled today! I thought I’d fixed the fuel leak from the carb but it reared its ugly head again. Despite appearing absolutely fine last time I checked the float was firmly stuck at the bottom of the float chamber. Retrieval showed it was full of fuel!  I’ll have to dig around online and see if I can find a replacement. 
 

MISSION ABORTED. 

If you can find the hole many a float chamber has been repaired with Araldite glue.

[Lankytim]

20 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

If you can find the hole many a float chamber has been repaired with Araldite glue.

I did consider that, it’s been mentioned in other groups too. The float was half full of petrol though and I didn’t know  how to get it out, not that I knew where the pinhole was anyway. 
 

In a rare brainwave moment I boiled the kettle, filled a glass with boiling water and dropped the float in. The petrol in the float immediately started to vaporise and a jet of bubbles shot from a pinhole in the float. A few cycles of cooling the float with cold water and then heating again in the mug of hot water soon had all the petrol vapour out (the glass cracked when I got some cold water on it, doh!) I was able to mark the pinhole for repair before it vanished, it’s virtually invisible without a jet of bubbles emitting from it.  
 

Im not sure if this is the “official” way of getting petrol out of a float but it seemed to do the trick.  The wife didn’t appreciate the house getting filled with petrol vapour and her glass/mug getting covered  in petrol/cracked but there you go. Apparently it was her “special” glass left to her by her great uncle on his deathbed or whatever. 

[Six-cylinder]

9 minutes ago, Lankytim said:

I did consider that, it’s been mentioned in other groups too. The float was half full of petrol though and I didn’t know  how to get it out, not that I knew where the pinhole was anyway. 
 

In a rare brainwave moment I boiled the kettle, filled a glass with boiling water and dropped the float in. The petrol in the float immediately started to vaporise and a jet of bubbles shot from a pinhole in the float. A few cycles of cooling the float with cold water and then heating again in the mug of hot water soon had all the petrol vapour out (the glass cracked when I got some cold water on it, doh!) I was able to mark the pinhole for repair before it vanished, it’s virtually invisible without a jet of bubbles emitting from it.  
 

Im not sure if this is the “official” way of getting petrol out of a float but it seemed to do the trick.  The wife didn’t appreciate the house getting filled with petrol vapour and her glass/mug getting covered  in petrol/cracked but there you go. Apparently it was her “special” glass left to her by her great uncle on his deathbed or whatever. 

Well done.

 

[tooSavvy]

I was going to suggest that but....

I find myself busy, filling my own posts....

Well Done 😉

🚙💨

[2flags]

This is a flowers and chocolates moment. Remember, happy wife, happy life. 😁

[Minimad5]

Brilliant idea getting the fuel out, whats the plan for patching up the little hole ?
Keep up the good work 😎

[Asimo]

I have repaired brass floats with solder, that looks like a brass float.

[Lankytim]

13 hours ago, Minimad5 said:

Brilliant idea getting the fuel out, whats the plan for patching up the little hole ?
Keep up the good work 😎

 

12 hours ago, Asimo said:

I have repaired brass floats with solder, that looks like a brass float.

Solder would be the best solution but I don’t have the correct kit for that so it’ll have to be araldite or something. New floats are available for £not much so I may go down that route at some point. I’ll see how this repair goes first. 
 

Another thing I thought about with a proper solder repair, there was recently a discussion on an American car group where a brass float has been randomly crushed, apparently while inside the float chamber. Maybe it had been heated up to repair with solder and as the air cooled and contracted inside the atmospheric pressure squashed it, especially when it was in the float chamber getting cooled by the fuel. It was very odd.  I bet you’d need to get it VERY hot and then make it VERY cold for the float to collapse like that. 

[Lankytim]

UPDATE!

This morning I dug out the old tin of araldite out of the garage and had a go at wobbing this float up. All seemed to go to plan and the float was soon bobbing around in petrol. With everything reassembled the engine ran and idled pretty well so the only job left to do was take it out for a test drive! 
 

Im happy to report that there were no break downs and no fires but there were one or two hiccups. The fuse that controls the heater motor, indicators and wipers blew so that needs looking at (sorry to the misery guts in the Kuga who was tailgating me and had to stop as I turned onto the drive) I think it’s the heater motor at fault but I haven’t investigated. 
 

The brakes all seemed to operate fine and although they seemed to drag a little initially all freed off and operated normally. After fuelling up and heading home I could smell the tell tale aroma of hot brake linings and found the NSR brake binding. A quick knock with a hammer freed it off, a quick strip and clean should sort it. Not bad going really. 

[purplebargeken]

You could go to the worlds biggest and most emptiest petrol station, be the only person using it and some knob end would still queue behind you….

[Lankytim]

1 hour ago, purplebargeken said:

You could go to the worlds biggest and most emptiest petrol station, be the only person using it and some knob end would still queue behind you….

It was pretty rammed TBH, this place always is. 

[Homersimpson]

Those floats look the same as the MK2 Jag/S-Type, I've had these fail over the years and tried repairs but found you need to be careful that the repair doesn't alter the weight too much as otherwise it overfills the float chamber causing a rich mixture especially at idle.

[Stinkwheel]

On 08/12/2024 at 14:08, Lankytim said:

UPDATE!

This morning I dug out the old tin of araldite out of the garage and had a go at wobbing this float up. All seemed to go to plan and the float was soon bobbing around in petrol. With everything reassembled the engine ran and idled pretty well so the only job left to do was take it out for a test drive! 
 

Im happy to report that there were no break downs and no fires but there were one or two hiccups. The fuse that controls the heater motor, indicators and wipers blew so that needs looking at (sorry to the misery guts in the Kuga who was tailgating me and had to stop as I turned onto the drive) I think it’s the heater motor at fault but I haven’t investigated. 
 

The brakes all seemed to operate fine and although they seemed to drag a little initially all freed off and operated normally. After fuelling up and heading home I could smell the tell tale aroma of hot brake linings and found the NSR brake binding. A quick knock with a hammer freed it off, a quick strip and clean should sort it. Not bad going really. 

Excellent thread and makes for great reading.

A question about the picture above, is there supposed to be a rusty nut just sitting right next to the fuse terminal? I'm guessing not, is there any way this might be shorting to something (not that i can see any track/burn marks on it)

 

[Lankytim]

1 hour ago, Stinkwheel said:

Excellent thread and makes for great reading.

A question about the picture above, is there supposed to be a rusty nut just sitting right next to the fuse terminal? I'm guessing not, is there any way this might be shorting to something (not that i can see any track/burn marks on it)

 

Well spotted! I think the nut is something to do with the air filter which is still in the boot. It might’ve slid down the bulkhead and shorted a terminal out. I’ve replaced the fuse and nothing has blown since so maybe that was it.

If it was the stray nut causing the issue I’m very lucky it didn’t short the non-fused side out! 

[Stinkwheel]

34 minutes ago, Lankytim said:

Well spotted! I think the nut is something to do with the air filter which is still in the boot. It might’ve slid down the bulkhead and shorted a terminal out. I’ve replaced the fuse and nothing has blown since so maybe that was it.

If it was the stray nut causing the issue I’m very lucky it didn’t short the non-fused side out! 

Very true, hopefully fishing that out will at least bring some peace of mind it wont be that causing any issues

[Lankytim]

just returned from a nice trip out. The testing of old crocks like this starts of with a 1 mile trip to the local disused colliery and museum, then a 2 mile trip to the in-laws for a cup of tea, then if that all goes to plan I take a brisk 16 mile or so trip to the M6 J16 and back on a dual carriageway. 
 

Everything seemed to go swimmingly, the brakes behaved themselves and nothing fell of or broke. There was a strong smell of petrol as we approached home but I couldn’t find the source of it. The engine definitely needs a good tune up but it runs well and pulls nicely. We even hit 70mph! The overdrive doesn’t work but hopefully it’s fixable. 
 

The wife wasn’t too terrified, apart from the thought of sliding off the seat and out of the door on cornering due to a lack of belts and the boat like handling. 

[lesapandre]

The smile says it all!

Petrol smell - I think these have decay problems around the fuel filler or vent - so on corners petrol sloshes up and weeps out slightly.

If you are going to keep it I'd fit seatbelts myself - a late car like this should have the mounting points.

[Lankytim]

17 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

The smile says it all!

Petrol smell - I think these have decay problems around the fuel filler or vent - so on corners petrol sloshes up and weeps out slightly.

If you are going to keep it I'd fit seatbelts myself - a late car like this should have the mounting points.

It does have mountings, it did have lap belts in the rear too as the buckles are still present under the rear seat. 

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

The smile says it all!

Petrol smell - I think these have decay problems around the fuel filler or vent - so on corners petrol sloshes up and weeps out slightly.

If you are going to keep it I'd fit seatbelts myself - a late car like this should have the mounting points.

Correct, this hose here (looking in through the spare wheel flap).

Which as it's above the height of the tank doesn't tend to cause leakage when the car is stationary on level ground, but can lose a fair bit when cornering - the clips on mine were loose.

For extra fun points, it causes fuel to drip straight onto the exhaust.

Just to make sure that a good chunk of it is immediately turned to vapour.

I think a bit more of a smell when stationary than we're generally used to is most likely to be normal though just because there's no PCV system on the engines of these - so there's always some amount of blowby gases wafting out of the engine bay from the breather (which is oh so helpfully positioned right next to the heater intake).

[Westbay]

...and the air filter + housing being in the boot won't help either ! 

[Lankytim]

I’ve read that series Landies share the same oil filter for these. I want to do a couple of flushes, can anyone point me in the general direction of a supplier? Britpart filters are available for under a tenner on eBay but I could do with getting at least one for the weekend and I’ve left it a bit late. 

[somewhatfoolish]

Buy something decent rather than shitpart. No idea about the filter being a common component but it wouldn't be a surprise.

[jonathan_dyane]

Relevent part numbers are 246262 and RTC3183, as you say also used on some Land Rovers and widely available 

[jonathan_dyane]

I got one from John Wearing when I was there getting various bits. It is Britpart and looks fine.

[Lankytim]

What’s better than a working float? A working float that comes with a spare!

These arrived in the post today, pictured with the old float for comparison. 10 minutes later and the P4 was purring away. I followed an online guide on how to set the float height, apparently this is quite important as it makes it difficult to tune the carb if it’s not correct. I’d previously assumed that as long as the float chamber didn’t run out of fuel or overflow then it made little difference but it can really mess up the mixture and lead to bad things happening like fuel getting into the sump and diluting the oil. 
 

I noticed that the top of the float sat well above the level of the fuel, the previous one seemed to sit much lower, evidence things were amiss from the start. 
 

Fingers crossed this marks the end of the float issues and I’ll be able to get stuck into tuning things (after I’ve googled how to do it) 

 

[rustdevil]

Is it me or is there a self tapping screw that has poked through that filler neck pipe.

 

 

 

 

[captain_70s]

23 hours ago, rustdevil said:

Is it me or is there a self tapping screw that has poked through that filler neck pipe.

I think it has narrowly missed but a bit of crud on the end of the screw makes it look like a hole!

[rustdevil]

Oh aye I think your right capn.

[Lankytim]

It’s been a frantic few days around Christmas but I managed to do a little work with the Rover. The first job was to find out why the main beam wasn’t working. It turns out it was working and I couldn’t turn it off, the culprit was the floor mounted button which began to work the moment I removed it to replace. This revealed another issue, the dipped beam on the passenger side wasn’t working. It turned out the filament on the sealed beam unit was broken so a new pair of halogens have been ordered to replace the mismatched originals. 
 

The sidelight switch on the dashboard was also a bit knackered and worked intermittently  so this was replaced with one from the spares stash. 
 

The fuel gauge registered empty no matter how full the tank was so that was the next little job. On my last P4 this was fixed by simply cleaning the connectors on the sender but that wasn’t the case with this Rover. The sender was removed from the tank and found to be completely seized. Liberally applying light oil and gently easing the float up and down slowly restored movement and after refitting I found the gauge now working. Result! 
 

The NSR brake seems to be binding a little, this was traced to the handbrake not releasing properly. I think with a little adjustment it should be fine but crappy weather and family duties put paid to any more tinkering although I did just about manage to squeeze in an oil and filter change! I’d been meaning to do this for a while and was pleased to see the condition of the old motor oil, no debris or metallic clouds! 
 

I’ve done 77 mines so far in this old jalopy and enjoyed every moment. The kids hate it though. Hopefully I can add seatbelts and give it a good polish soon and that should give it some more appeal for certain family members, after all, we aren’t all lucky enough to be blessed with a sense of good taste. 

[Lankytim]

The new headlights were delivered last night and were fitted in the dark in a fit of excitement. They’re a quick job to fit although it was a struggle to get the mounting ring over the headlamps. I went out this morning to admire my handy work. They look pretty good, I paid a little extra for the triangle shaped bit of tin inside the headlamp because I think they look cool.  The halogens have a weird blue tint which doesn’t really suit the Rover but the light output  is excellent and they actually work which is a massive plus over the old headlamps.