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

[Dick]

I nearly bought one of those, a lad had to buy it after he ran into the back of it while a bit drunk ( accident on large private property) tailgate was stoved in but it looked fixable..

[Zelandeth]

I nearly bought one of those, a lad had to buy it after he ran into the back of it while a bit drunk ( accident on large private property) tailgate was stoved in but it looked fixable..

I imagine that whatever went into the back of the Merc looked worse!

-- -- --

Little very mild tinkering before I went out to run some errands this afternoon.

Step 1 was to implement a slightly more robust solution to the broken secondary bonnet catch pull than the bit of bent wire on it.

Cable tie to the rescue.





Which I can tuck back into the grill to make it slightly less conspicuous when not in use.



Of course I remembered about 30 seconds after this that I have some grey ones in the garage. Meh, it will do for now, the broken bit will be getting replaced eventually anyway.

While I was under the bonnet there were some checks to make. First up, how much oil did we use during the run down yesterday?

A sufficiently tiny amount that it doesn't show on the dipstick. Not going to complain at that!



Coolant hasn't moved either, which is pretty impressive given the conditions yesterday.

On the subject of coolant the radiator isn't in the best of condition. It's serviceable (if she held temperature yesterday she should do under any situation) but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a replacement.



While the oil is a bit grubby the air filter looks pretty much new so I'll leave that alone for the time being.



The spring clips on the airbox are wicked strong so I quickly learned to keep your knuckles out of the way when releasing them...ow.



Fuel metering plate could do with a clean though. This ideally wants to be cleaner than a hospital operating table after it's prepped for surgery.

Just having a general poke around the engine bay I discovered that the power steering pump has an integrated reservoir...



This was a surprise as that's what I'd (for no particularly good reason) assumed the oil reservoir on the offside front wing was for.



After a little head scratching I remembered reading something about the estates having self leveling suspension on the rear...so that will be what this is for then. All I know so far is it looks like we have a camshaft driven pump and that the pipework disappears downward in the general vicinity of the brake master cylinder.

I was wanting to renew the thermal compound under the ignition amplifier, I was expecting to find this on the nearside inner wing...which was exactly where it was.



The heatsink compound under it wasn't horrible but was clearly just starting to break down and go chalky in a couple of places.



This was cleaned off and replaced with new good quality stuff. I do note that the O-rings on the wiring connectors are badly perished so will need to change those - especially as a date with the degreaser is definitely in the future of this engine bay.

First lesson I learned during the trip out today...if you brake fairly firmly at speed, the sunroof will slide shut and scare the bejeezus out of you. Will check to see if it can be locked in the open position next time...never occurred to me.

She really is a nice car to waft around in and really does look classy.



Really does have proper presence on the road too.

A long term fleet member? Bit hard to say so early on...but my gut feeling is that she may well be.

[Zelandeth]

Just as a bit of background to the "thermal incident" during the trip home, this is the highest the temperature gauge ever seems to get to, in stop/start town traffic today with 30C ambient temperatures.



It gets that far, then drops back down to just below that mark on the gauge over the course of a minute or two, then just repeats that cycle. Presumably as the (electromagnetic) clutch on the fan cuts in/out. Temperature when actually driving seems to sit at a fairly solid 85-95C. So I don't think she's overheating, rather something just took exception to being hot.

Having scared myself half to death yesterday when the sunroof slammed itself shut (it's unsurprisingly heavy!) under braking I had a closer look today. It can indeed be locked in place when open...not sure why this never occurred to me before.



Will try to remember to do that in future to avoid giving myself a heart attack again. Speaking of the sunroof, yes that locking/pull handle is indeed as satisfying to operate as it looks like it should be.

While the stereo fitted was relatively recent it lacked Bluetooth connectivity. Given that this is a car I plan to use regularly this was a must have, and I figured I may as well just get it swapped out now while I'm waiting for some service parts to arrive.

Pulling the old one out revealed that the cage wasn't actually anchored to the dash at all and typically 80s stereo wiring.



The fact that by wiggling the wires I could make channels cut in and out confirmed that I needed to remove the tape and properly connect these wires together.

By the standards of modern stereos the new one is not massively blingy at least.



The display colours on this unit are fully customisable and you can separately set it for the display and buttons. So I went with warm white for the display and red for the buttons, matching the heater controls directly above.



Far better than the bright blue gaudy thing it replaced anyway.

Haven't fitted the hands free mic or DAB antenna yet, will come back to that when I have more time and it's less than 29C in the shade. In fact I've not even turned the volume up to see how good or otherwise the speakers are, as they may well be the next thing to see attention if they're poor. Even sticking with the stock sizes there can be huge improvements to be had, speaker tech has come a long way in recent years. Don't worry, no holes are getting cut, everything will be kept behind the factory grills.

It did reveal that the centre console doesn't actually appear to be attached to the rest of the dash...so that's something else I'll need to add to the to do list for investigation.

[Zelandeth]

Had a proper nose around in the engine bay today for the first time since I picked the Merc up, when a very basic check of "does it have oil and water in?" was done.

Immediate thing which just leaps out at me is how much room there is around the engine on all sides.





Even behind the engine there's about a 6" gap.





Anyone notice anything missing there?



Yep, missing a manifold nut. Looks like the threads are a bit chewed up so we may wind up with a few washers involved. I'm inclined to just leave the stud alone rather than breaking it trying to remove it for replacement. I *have* a spare head and manifold here but I'd rather not have to mess around swapping parts over between them if I can avoid it.

Looks like radiator replacement will need to be moved up the list a bit. Not lost any measurable amount of coolant, but the top tank to core seal is definitely weeping.





Will have a dig around and see what I can find. If there's a drop in all-metal replacement I'd rather go that way as I'm really not a fan of plastic tanked radiators. Having said that I'm kind of curious to see if I can find any date codes on it to see how old this one actually is.

First mechanical job though is definitely going to be setting the valve clearances in the hope the rattle is slightly reduced.

https://youtu.be/TeoJ12AkgOo

As soon as the new rocker cover gasket arrives (a whole £18 from the dealer - going rate on eBay looked to be £20-25) I'll get that done. Then drown the whole engine bay in degreaser and blast the worst of the crud off, as it's honestly disgusting. Every time you touch anything you get covered in oil.

Did notice one nice detail in the engine bay that I'll need to try to remake...you know all that technical info for servicing you're likely to need? Spark plug type and gap, timing details, valve clearances...all right here on the slam panel.



Nice little detail to find. Just a shame it's so faded...wonder if someone sells reproduction engine bay sticker sets for the W123...

Made a run over to the Formula 1 in Newport Pagnell to get her up on the ramps to see if we could find where the exhaust is puffing from. The answer is the second silencer, which has split around the weld on the outer casing on the leading edge. The rest of the system isn't in bad shape actually. Given the degree of grot is visible on some of the body panels the underside looks to be in surprisingly good shape to be honest. Does look like I've got a bit of a fuel leak though - looks to be from the top of the tank, so thinking the seal around the gauge sender is most likely the culprit. Wasn't actively leaking but you could see the evidence of it having run down the side of the tank.

Sadly they can't source any exhaust parts for a car this old (can't say I'm surprised) so I'll need to see if I can track one down...or just go round to Deutsche Tech and get the offending section made up in stainless. I don't like faffing about with exhausts so that is likely what we'll end up going with, as the puffing from it will likely drive me mad.

Quite happy with today's tinkering though. Was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the underside of the car, found the exhaust is actually mostly sound aside from one silencer (which actually looks like a manufacturing defect rather than corrosion), got a price on a set of tyres which is well within my expectations, dealer was helpful, oh...and found this bit of broken trim in the glove box.



Just glue this back together and replace the missing fastener, you'd never notice it was cracked.



Feeling quite positive today. There was a certain degree of "what have I got myself into" creeping in with regards to some areas, but I'm getting more convinced that there is actually a good car here, she just needs a bit of TLC.

Finally got around to getting a couple of photos of her and the van together. These do a good job of showing how much wider than a car the van is too.





I think a couple of paint touch ups, a really good polish, some nice fresh tyres and a new set of number plates will make her look quite different.

The number plates are both pretty knackered.

Front one is cracked around both mounting screws.



The rear one is crack free but is delaminating...plus both are in the post 2001 typeface which on a vehicle of this age bugs my OCD something rotten.



Thinking that given the age just standard acrylic plates make the most sense. Think pressed metal would look like we were trying to pretend to imitate the German ones a bit too hard, which is why they bug me on Golfs etc so much.

Question is whether is just go for a plain plate though or if I try to recreate a dealer plate? Not sure where this car was originally sold. Though I wouldn't be surprised if someone could figure it out!

[Dick]

For your plates, could you get some made by your local main dealer? You'll be spending some time with them in the future.. can you get the radiator re cored? Ive had a few done and have always been happy with the results..

[Zelandeth]

For your plates, could you get some made by your local main dealer? You'll be spending some time with them in the future.. can you get the radiator re cored? Ive had a few done and have always been happy with the results..

The dealer could probably provide plates, but would obviously still be in the post 2001 typeface. Plus that's one of those things where I have a feeling the price tag may sting a little.

For the radiator that's not something I've discounted - though the only two places I've dealt with that do recores back up north won't touch a radiator with plastic tanks due to the potential for old plastic that's been through many many heat cycles to fail without warning down the road somewhere.

[Zelandeth]

Out and about again today. Stopped in one of the local car parks and grabbed a couple of photos.





These cars really do have quite some road presence. Can't really think of many things which compete in that regard other than the like of Rollers, Tatra T-603...

Really does suit the estate body as well I think, so many estates look clunky or out of balance compared to their saloon or hatchback variants, whereas this shape just works for me.



Gave the interior plastics a really quick wipe down this afternoon with some vinyl & rubber care solution. Never ceases to amaze me how much life that alone can bring back to the interior of a car.

They really were quite dull and chalky.









The interior really is a pleasant place to be. Even in spite of a partly collapsed driver's seat base.

While I had the stuff out, gave a few of the exterior plastics a quick wipe down as well - totally forgetting the grey bit of the radiator grill. Derp.



Noticed while doing this that there's quite a bit of condensation in the nearside headlight.



Given how warm it currently is have just popped the rear cover off it, hoping the weather will dry it out for me. I'll have a closer look to see if I can see any evidence of where water may have got in at a later date.




Courtesy of a local independent locksmith we now have a non manky set of keys, the tatty ones it came with have been relegated to the spares drawer. They both worked fine but the ignition key had long since lost the plastic handle bit so was really awkward to use.

Has reminded me that I still need to get a spare made up for the van, as they have the right blanks will run by there again tomorrow to get one made. Not having a full set of spare keys makes me really uncomfortable... especially as I've locked them in it once already (and had to break in via the gas locker and unbolt the sink from underneath to gain access!).

[Zelandeth]

Rocker cover gasket arrived this morning so should be able to look at getting the valve clearances set and the top end at least something resembling oil tight soon. Then will get an oil and filter change done. I'm looking forward to that as I'd really like it to stop sounding like an 80s 1.1 Fiesta.



Fuel filter was done not massively long ago, but I don't know precisely when...so I'd like to get it on the service log. I'm seriously tempted to fit the old fuel pump from my Saab as the one currently on here makes an utterly horrendous, piercing whine. Just need to look up the specs for the two to make sure they're the same - but my gut feeling is that they will be.

Normally I'd have already done the oil & filter change, but I'm holding off until I've done the valve clearances and have cleaned up the remains of the old petrified rocker cover gasket that will no doubt be stuck to the head. I'm bound to get some crud washed down to the sump when I do that, and I'd rather do that immediately before rather than right after an oil change.

One thing I noticed a day or two ago was that the tailpipe was only sitting in one of the rear hangers.



Upon reattaching this errant hanger it immediately became apparent *why* it was detached as a horrible rattling buzz reverberated through the car. The unmistakable noise of an exhaust pipe touching the underbody.

Right here.



The reason that one hanger was removed was because they were too short. A simple fix at least by sticking a couple of slightly longer (50mm diameter) hangers in there instead.



While in that corner I investigated the non functional reversing light. Just a case of dirty contacts, after a quick clean it was back in action - though it needs a good clean and ideally a new lens.



As I had hoped the condensation in the nearside headlight has cleared up completely.



Annoyingly I then spotted there's similar damp in the offside one...it will get the same treatment next week.



Was interested to discover that the inner two elements in the headlights aren't actually used for main beam (as on the Ford Sierra to name one car with a visually similar structure to the lights) but appear to be front fog or driving lights. Really need to track down an English PDF of the handbook!

[JPB]

Regarding a DAB aerial, I put a Kenwood DAB set (seen below these words) in my daily driver to replace the Clarion that came fitted, but was running Windoze CE and sadly couldn't be updated with an English language version, meaning that it insisted on telling me that I was in the sea, just off the bottom of Japan.
I found the screen mounted DAB aerial that came with the set to be utterly hopeless, but by building a very simple attenuator/ splitter in a finger case, both analogue and DAB come in with superb sensitivity using the car's original pillar aerial, which is in fact far better everywhere than the factory infotainer which came as standard in the CH-R hybrid demo car that I borrow when the daily is in for service.
The source of supply for the attenuator splitter is the set's (blue) electric aerial motor feed, but the mint green one that's grounded to the cage as the usual way - connecting to the reverse lamp switch that lives inside the steering column - was interfering with the rear camera view, itself essential as turning my neck to see right the way out of the back window isn't physically possible and besides, only gives a rough idea of how much further back I need to go to touch the bumper of the 164. Leaving a gap means that the bB would then be slightly over my pavement. That's what happens when I have a car holidaying on my drive as well as sixteen feet of Hilux estate and the daily.
It's an easy circuit to build, though depending upon the amount of room available it may be easier to buy a ready built one from eBay or wherever.

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[Dick]

John, im going to ask a daft question, would a dab ? Radio receive radio 4 here in France??? The bbc in their wisdom are turning off the lw signal in 2023 so im left with very few options..
1 dynamite all french radio stations
2 dynamite all french radio stations or
3 dynamite all french radio stations ??
Please help as there are only 10 recordings in france and theyre all awful