Zel's Fleet Blog...Rover, Renault, Peugeot, Trabant, Invacar & Sinclair C5

Post pictures and stories about your cars both present and past. Also post up "blogs" on your restoration projects - the more pictures the better! Note: blog-type threads often get few replies, but are often read by many members, and provide interest and motivation to other enthusiasts so don't be disappointed if you don't get many replies.
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Zelandeth
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Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#851 Post by Zelandeth » Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:22 pm

Today's unexciting update...TPA has had an engine oil & filter change.

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I had another shot at a Slow-Mo video of the distributor working in daylight. Given we've got a clear cap on at the moment it seemed something worthy of playing around with the slow motion mode on my camera.

YouTube Link

Got another angle where you can see the points opening and closing.

YouTube Link

Quite interesting to actually see things working. Can see from the lack of sparking there that the replacement capacitor setup I put in place.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#852 Post by Zelandeth » Mon Mar 08, 2021 12:33 am

Hey look what was dropped off for the BX today...

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These are actually rear spheres for a non-hydractive Xantia rather than BX ones, but they're pretty close spec wise. Will be absolutely fine for the purposes of getting the car into a driveable state. Once she's got an MOT and is driving reliably I'll look at getting the exact correct ones.

So tomorrow (if time permits) the battle to change the rear spheres will begin. I've been regularly dousing them in PlusGas since the car arrived and I've been loaned the right tool for the job but I'm still expecting this to be a royal battle.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#853 Post by Zelandeth » Mon Mar 08, 2021 6:20 pm

Well I didn't see that coming!

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I was expecting a battle of biblical proportions to get these off. Nope...They just unscrewed absolutely fine. No huge explosion of LHM when they came off either so the diaphragms are probably still intact.

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New spheres went on without any issue, even though the nearside one is a little obscured by the rear silencer.

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She has rear suspension again now! Huge step forward.

Unfortunately now being in a position where I was giving serious scrutiny to the rear end of the car I did spot an issue. We do have an LHM leak.

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Initially I thought this was coming from the seal on the sphere I'd just changed - but fluid only appears here when the brake pedal is pressed, at which point it appears in quite significant quantities. Looks like we've got a failed brake line then. Not sure if the BX has the same little spiral of brake pipe behind the caliper that the Xantia has - if it does, that's got to be the prime suspect as I've seen that rust out on several Xantias where the lines were otherwise spotless.

Wonder if this might be the fault which originally took the car off the road?

Whatever took her off the road, she's got a step closer back to it today.

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My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#854 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Mar 09, 2021 5:55 pm

The LHM leak is definitely somewhere up above the nearside rear suspension arm.

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Didn't have time to get the wheel off to investigate today - the offending line is totally obscured by said wheel so no clear view of it today.

You may recall a few months ago I finally got the correct indicator stalk fitted to the Invacar and took the opportunity to move it over to the left hand side, which makes far more sense from an ergonomic perspective. This did however leave a rusty patch where the stalk assembly used to sit.

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This has been bugging me for some time...now I've got new grips it sticks out even more. So took the opportunity to splash some fresh paint around.

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Won't be quite that shiny once it dries, should tidy things up a bit though.

Edit:

Yep, that looks a bit better!

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Not perfect if you peer at it too closely, but it's a lot less scruffy.

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Just helps make the interior look a little less shoddy I think.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#855 Post by Zelandeth » Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:09 pm

Package arrived this morning to allow me to finally hopefully properly sort the throttle cable on TPA.

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I know I probably still have a load of cable somewhere in the garage...but this was all of £0.88 a metre so I wasn't going to lose sleep over trying to find it. The important bit is the cable end being the right size to fit the twist grip.

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Which is one of these. For future reference when I forget.

I fed the cable through from the cabin end as I've always found it behaves better doing it that way. Every time I've tried feeding it from the engine bay it ends up snagging on something.

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Then trimmed the cable once it was attached to the cable end. This has to be done before fitting to the twist grip or it's not possible to slot the barrel in.

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Then basically just put things back together before securing it and trimming the excess at the carb end.

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I've left enough excess that if it snaps right at the barrel in the future that I'll have enough cable to repair it.

For the first time I have a throttle which is bodge free and has a nice smooth action through the full range. That will make driving nicer.

While I was in the garage I tackled something else I'd been meaning to do for a while - finding somewhere out of the way to stash a spare CVT belt.

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That will do nicely. Despite what it looks like in the photo it's sitting clear of the brake lines to frame right, it's resting on top of the master cylinder at the rear. I'll be finding a spare 17mm spanner shortly and leaving that attached to the belt, meaning I'll have everything I need to change a belt at the side of the road if I ever have one fail out of the blue again. Not really expecting it as I'm sure that was down to me using an ancient belt that had been poorly stored, but it's an easy eventuality to prepare for so just seems smart.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

Aaron
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#856 Post by Aaron » Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:53 pm

(Pedantry alert)

"to finally hopefully properly sort."

You may have split the infinitive, but at least you did it in style.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#857 Post by Zelandeth » Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:54 pm

Aaron wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:53 pm
(Pedantry alert)

"to finally hopefully properly sort."

You may have split the infinitive, but at least you did it in style.
Looking at some of the grammar in my posts makes me cringe. Probably the biggest problem is that while I'm writing them I'm usually juggling three or four other things at the same time, plus getting asked things by the rest of the family or getting sent on various tasks for them too. As such my train of thought regularly gets derailed...While I generally manage to keep vaguely aware of the thread, things like grammar suffer. Plus about 85% of these posts are written on a phone using an on-screen keyboard the size of a postage stamp.

-- -- --

Just a quick bit of work done today between the showers. With TPA having passed the 1000 mile mark a week or so back a service was on the cards, a few bits of which have already been done. Today it was the turn of the ignition system.

The points and rotor arm were still the original ones which were on the engine from KPL when she was originally dragged out of a field. However as the ignition system just worked I'd left things alone! Now the engine is in a car in regular use though and I've tracked down a source of the right parts it's time to sort that.

New points in and the gap set to the correct 0.4mm.

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New rotor arm was then fitted. This is quite a different style to the one which was on here and is a bit taller. Looking at the old distributor cap though it does look as though it was only just touching the lower edge of the contacts in the cap, so I do wonder if the fitted one was correct.

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A new distributor cap then finished things off in this department, the proper one having finally escaped from its extended stay in customs limbo.

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The eagle eyed among you might spot that the air filter has also been changed. It's only got 1000 miles on it, but having been present during all the painting, filling, sanding painting (repeat several times) I figured it was probably worth changing. Only the finest OEM parts used of course!

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I was not really expecting there to be any obvious change to how the engine ran as she's always seemed quite happy. The idle is definitely noticeably smoother though!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNydY_N4dnc

Whether there will be any difference when actually driving will need to wait until a test drive happens.

Two jobs coming up in the engine bay. First being that I really need to adjust the fan/dynastart belt tension as the rearmost one is flapping about quite a bit. Before I can do that though I need to figure out where in my disaster area of a garage the impact gun is as everything else I've thrown at the nut on the fan pulley has failed to shift it. The second job is to fabricate a proper battery stay. The bungee cord and zip-tie solution was absolutely fine when TPA was primarily held together by duct tape and hope, but those days are a fair way behind us now and it's *really* bugging me. Shouldn't be difficult to come up with something, just has taken a while for it to get to the top of the to do list.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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Zelandeth
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#858 Post by Zelandeth » Sat Mar 13, 2021 1:08 am

While it was a bit breezy really for driving tiny three wheeler vehicles with a kerb weight roughly equal to that of a postage stamp today, I wasn't about to let that get in the way. I wanted to see if the last few jobs I'd done on TPA had any impact on the way she drove. So she was the chariot of choice for today's errands.

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Short answer is yes.

I definitely wasn't getting quite full throttle before. Most noticeable when cruising at 60 now, there wasn't a huge amount of travel left (it was very mushy anywhere beyond about half throttle) whereas cracking it open at 60 now results in a very distinct additional bark from the intake and the pace being picked up quite a bit quicker. Wasn't doing any real higher speed testing though today as the roads were too busy and it was too windy.

She is definitely running smoother too...which is nice even though I didn't really realise there was any improvement to be made there beforehand.

By complete random chance when I pulled up back home today the odometer stopped showing 427 - appropriate for an AC built car!

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My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

User avatar
Zelandeth
Posts: 1126
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#859 Post by Zelandeth » Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:51 am

Finally managed to find time to get the webpage for the BX live on my website yesterday.

I really wanted to get caught up on there as my intention is to keep updating it as things progress...which is far easier when I'm not playing catch-up! Nothing on there you've not seen on here as far as I'm aware aside from full resolution versions of all photos used.

Have also applied a bit of common sense and rearranged the list on the cars page so that they're listed by manufacture date rather than completely randomly (think I'd just added each new addition at the top originally) before.

Invacar will probably be the next one to go live - though my earlier comment about trying to get caught up applies there as there's a lot more pre-existing story that I need to get caught up on! Reckon I'm about 60% of the way through it so far.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

User avatar
Zelandeth
Posts: 1126
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#860 Post by Zelandeth » Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:48 pm

Today would have been a great day for getting work done on the cars...Instead I wound up spending the entire day faffing around replacing the weatherproofing on our shed roof.

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Would have liked to get it a bit flatter, but despite messing about for well over an hour this was the best I could get it. The whole structure isn't entirely square which doesn't help.

The old roofing felt had started peeling off last time we had any real wind (having been patched a couple of times already), so it needed done. Have put an EPDM membrane on there now, so it shouldn't need touching again in the remaining life of the building.

Really just hasn't been much going on in the last week to report on!

[] BX is waiting on a new brake pipe.
[] Xantia is being a working car, though it desperately needs spheres.
[] Invacar seems to be running well, just needs the brake adjustment tweaked now the shoes have bedded in again.
[] Jag is waiting on the proper arrival of spring before I start dismantling 80% of the engine bay to sort the oil leak and replace all the fuel lines.
[] Van is still in winter hibernation...Undecided when I'll get it back on the road - or to be honest if it's even worth doing this year. Though getting it out for a good run would probably be a good thing, even if it is just to the MOT station and back.

Do have a few things lined up for this week though so should hopefully have an actual update soon.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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