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

[Luxobarge]

Just a couple of thoughts:

1) Re. carb balancing, I know my Midget is a very different beast, but it does have twin SU carbs, and I found that the Gunson Carb Balancer tool was VERY effective in getting the vacuum "suck" on both carbs aligned and balanced absolutely spot on. You can do it at tickover to get the tickover settings correct, then find a way of holding the carbs slightly open at a fast idle to get the on-power settings balanced too, these are the two main "balances" that are needed. The third is to get the mixtures balanced too, which the Gunson won't help with, but adjusting each carb to get the best running at a fast idle seemed to work pretty well for me. Once I'd got the mixtures right I went back and re-did the vacuum balance, as there's a chance that one can affect the other if they're way out.

2) By all means go to an alignment centre, but I've had to adjust tracking on so many cars, from my Jag XK8 through my Volvo V70 down to my Midget and many cars in between, and so I invested in Gunson's "Trakrite" tool. Used properly on a nice flat surface (put a flat board of plywood under it if there are any ripples or bumps in the surface) again worked extremely well for me, I've set up all my cars on this, and after many miles and many sets of tyres I can report that the front tyres wear evenly with no shoulder wear and scrubbing, so it can't be too far off if I'm getting wear that even. I have a kind of OCD phobia about the steering wheel being off centre in a straight line, so I use it to correct this first, then set the toe-in to be within limits and it's worked every time.

As with most Gunson tools you MUST follow the instructions to the letter, in the case of the tracking tool it's especially important to have a smooth flat surface under the tool plate so that it slides smoothly and evenly. It's worth doing a few runs over it each time, and checking that you get the same result each time so you know it's working consistently. It's an odd piece of kit, but I reckon it actually works really well in my experience. I've used it so many times it's paid for itself many times over, and it's so handy to be able to set up tracking at home without the faff and expense of booking appointments at places where the teenage scrote operating it often doesn't know what they're doing anyway (again, in my experience.....)

Sorry if this sounds like a Gunson product advert, just sharing my personal experience on doing this sort of stuff.

Keep up the good work, always enjoy this thread, thanks for posting it all up.

[Zelandeth]

Sadly they couldn't fit me in today, but it's booked in now for Thursday morning. I have checked and the toe angle adjuster cracked free no bother at all so at least that's one fight they won't have to deal with.

They were helpfully able to fit in sorting the slow puncture on the offside rear wheel on the Peugeot though - a nail was found well hidden in the tread so that was sorted. Having that wheel balanced has got rid of the slight vibration at speed too which is a nice bonus, that must have been the wheel that was out.

That's two punctures in three weeks. Our neighbours across the road are having a bunch of building work done. Coincidence? Last puncture I had was I think in 2004.

The dash on the P6 has gone back together now the paint has cured.



Much better than patchy rust I think.





It was originally a satin finish (I'm assuming some sort of powder coating rather than painted based on how it flaked off) but I don't think the hammered glossy finish looks at all out of place. I may at some point need to see if I can do anything to convince the top of the dash to return to something closer to its original shape - the whole dash top has lifted when the board backing has got damp - thinking doing that deliberately and putting something heavy on top of it might be worth a try...but equally I don't want to make it worse...I think just taking some black paint to the underside of it so you can't so clearly see that you're looking at the underside of fibreboard is probably the more sensible option.

This afternoon saw some further testing, trying to dial in the kickdown cable adjustment - which I think I've pretty much got there now. It's fair to say that with the carbs being synced and the timing adjusted we do have rather more low end torque now. To the point that when I pulled away after backing out of the drive for the first time the few things which had been sitting on top of the dash and in the open glove box were launched into the passenger seat/my lap with quite some force. Previously you needed to noticeably press the accelerator to get power, now bumbling around on residential side streets just requires the tiniest of inputs as you'd kind of expect for an engine and gearbox combination like this. The typical V8 burble is now very much present on light throttle.

There is definitely something not quite right with the rear suspension. Turning right at a roundabout with any speed will make the nearside rear tyre rub on the arch as that corner is sitting far too low. Hoping we can get it up on the ramp when I have the tracking done to get a proper look at what's going on. I can't see evidence of a broken spring poking my head under the car, but you can't really get a clear look at it. There could be a break towards either extreme end of the spring that I just can't see.

While we were out doing the testing I was getting a little warm so opened the fresh air vent below the instrument panel.



This it turned out was a poorly considered decision and was definitely a mistake. The millisecond the vent started to open, approximately 30 years worth of dessicated spiders, a not inconsiderable number of pine needles, atomised leaves and a large amount of dust was launched straight into my face. All I can say is I was very glad to be wearing sunglasses at the time as it kept at least most of it out of my eyes.

Later in the afternoon I made a bit of a save of some completely non car related hardware. As this whole estate was originally built as part of a homes expo quite a few of the houses had some quite distinctive fixtures and fittings. The vast majority of them in the intervening 42 years have of course been refitted in rather less exotic decor, though there was one house just round the corner from us which had survived with a huge amount of the original kit still in situ.



Sadly following the sale of the place last year it's now being gutted and renovated, into I'm sure a far less interesting form. I did rescue one little fragment of the original expo which can now live on.





A good chunk of that is going to be made into a very festive rug for my room.

I'm a great believer that the world's seeming to have become afraid of bold colours is a very sad thing. Aside from just liking bold patterns and such (blame being the son of a commercial artist from the 60s!), while it's a small thing it's a bit of MK's history I've been able to preserve.

[Zelandeth]

Getting rid of the small mountain of random parts and suchlike in the boot of the P6 was something I'd been wanting to do since it arrived.



So I now just have yet another pile to work around in the garage of course! That wheel is absurdly heavy.



Need to try to track down a battery cover at some point.

A couple of things I'd been looking for did appear while rummaging through the boxes. First being this.



A simple but quite important bit of hardware - the heat shield which should sit between the brake master cylinder and the exhaust manifold to help prevent it from getting cooked quite as badly. This has now been reinstated.



The other was a whole bunch of screws which belonged in the tail lights - the vast majority of these were originally missing, though both of them now have all seven screws correctly fitted.



Only missing one now, the bottom one for the nearside front indicator. Annoyingly despite having gone through all of my boxes of fasteners I can't find one with the right thread pitch which is long enough.



I had that apart today as well to resolve the issue with the non functional sidelight - just needed a new bulb. Though the lenses were both filthy and the whole light unit was full of dead spiders and general grime so I took the lenses inside and gave them a thorough wash. This predictably made the other one look visibly worse so that got taken apart too and given the same treatment.



Also finally got around to removing the plethora of stickers on the windows.





That was somewhat precipitated by the desire to *clean* the windows so I could actually see through them properly as the windscreen in particular was absolutely filthy. The rear windscreen still is - sadly it's been quite noticeably pitted on the inside by grinding/welder spatter so is never going to be 100%, though it would be far worse if that was the windscreen. Rear one being a bit pitted isn't the end of the world.

[Zelandeth]

This morning the P6 was booked in to The Garage over in Wolverton to get the wheel alignment looked at. First trip more than a few hundred yards from the house, of course in the rain. Of course the wiper blades haven't made it to the top of the to do list yet, so they're still ancient. Thankfully they do actually still have blades on them, and I was able to clean them up enough that they were functional, albeit emphatically not great. Sufficient for dealing with three miles of light drizzle though.

We made it there in one piece - albeit having discovered that these tyres have about as much traction off the mark in the wet as industrial grade Teflon. Wheelspin at 900rpm, no problem! Yeah, they'll be getting changed soon. Actually seem to handle braking just fine, but trying to pull away anything other than exceptionally gently they're not a fan of.



Guys there were their usual efficient selves, and took a lot of interest in the car. Tracking wasn't actually anywhere near as massively out as I'd expected, though it was definitely out. Having it sorted has definitely vastly improved the straight line stability, previously the car wanted to wander all over the shop when you were trying to drive in a straight line. We did have one bit of near excitement on the way there, in that the temperature gauge crept up very nearly into the red on the way there before the thermostat opened and it calmed down - sitting here under normal conditions.



So I will be replacing that in case it's sticking. That's a failure we could do without.

I took the opportunity to stop on the way home to grab a couple of photos to commemorate the car effectively being released back onto the public highway.







After we were home I changed the oil & filter again.



Aside from wanting to flush out any remains of the slime that was in there when the car arrived, having just had the heads off I was always planning to treat the first fill after the heads were off essentially as a flush to ensure there's no debris I've introduced getting stuck anywhere.

The drained oil was still a little cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as what originally came out.



In case you don't remember, this is what came out the day the car arrived here.



That's after it had settled out for a few minutes too. You can see why I was planning on doing a couple of changes one after the other.

No noticeable moisture gathering on the oil filler cap any more it looks like - this used to be literally dripping wet whenever you took it off. This is after sitting overnight too so did represent a full heat cycle.



Later in the day I had a couple of errands to run, so took this out again. She's officially burbled her way to a supermarket to pick up groceries now, that feels like a decent landmark for a car that's been off the road for an indeterminate period of time.



Handling was further improved by me actually checking the tyre pressures - which I thought I'd already done, but apparently not. Especially as they all had north of 40psi in - nearside front was nearly 50! I imagine this was done while the car was in storage to help avoid them getting flat spotted. Which sadly hasn't worked, one of the rears is definitely out of round. I'm really annoyed with myself for not checking that sooner though, no excuse for that.

Things I've got out of today's driving - probably 20 miles or so in all.

[] Possibly sticky thermostat when cold.

[] Reversing lights don't work.

[] Light metallic click from somewhere in the rear end driveline when coming on/off the power. Hopefully just a UJ needing some grease.

[] Windscreen wiper blades desperately want changing.

[] Rear tyre(s) are flat spotted which becomes very obvious if you try to exceed 50mph.

[] Kickdown cable still needs a tiny tweak - I've gone too far the other way again now and she won't drop into 3rd at all until 42mph even when coasting. Suspect there's going to continue to be a bit of going round in circles until I get that spot on.

[] Brakes have actually woken up surprisingly well after a few hard stops. I know the rear discs are quite rusty so aren't going to be 100%, but they feel decent and she pulls up perfectly straight.

[] Low end acceleration even when being deliberately really gentle is such that you almost invariably find yourself being held up by modern traffic almost the moment you pull out of a junction.

[] The burble is addictive.

[] Heater does work, albeit currently sans blower.

[] I keep looking for a nearside wing mirror that doesn't exist.

Aside from the brief bit of anxiety before the thermostat opened (and it may just be like that - this is the first time she's been out of a 20mph zone really, so I would expect the engine to have warmed up a lot faster than when I'd been testing before) that's not a bad result I reckon. Not even any maddeningly annoying squeaks or rattles in the cabin which have made themselves known yet.

Sounding a good deal happier than a week or so back, that's for sure!

https://youtu.be/_XAJA8RqdB4

Not a bad place to be starting from I think.

Got a few things on my shopping list now.

[] Oil pump/filter housing gasket.

[] Full coolant hose set.

[] Set of rear brake discs/pads as the discs are in pretty poor shape. Fronts have obviously been replaced relatively recently. Discs aren't cheap, but you can't put a price on safety. I might measure them to see if they can be faced, but realistically it probably just makes sense to change them. Haven't actually looked today since we parked up, but this photo from when I first inspected the car shows they weren't looking great.



[] While I have the rear brakes apart anyway I'll probably get the calipers rebuilt by Bigg Red just as insurance against future issues. They're a faff to work on being inboard so I just want these to work.

[] Full set of brake flexible lines as the front ones are a little perished and I'm not taking chances with brakes.

[suffolkpete]

MGBD parts of Wolverhampton do exchange calipers re-sleeved in stainless steel.

[Zelandeth]

MGBD parts of Wolverhampton do exchange calipers re-sleeved in stainless steel.

Useful to know, thanks for the heads up.

-- -- --

I'd noticed residue from a weep from an old repair to one of the radiator end tanks. It wasn't actively leaking, but had clearly been an issue in the past.



I was pondering whether I would have a go at improving on the original repair there, however walking back to the car after it hasn't moved for a couple of days has made it clear that I'm probably going to be fighting a losing battle there.



It's definitely been dribbling a bit.



Residue on the front panel clearly shows that this is coolant.

Having a closer look at the radiator shows that there are at least two points in the actual core which are weeping, and the fins towards the bottom have started to come apart.



Think it's just time for a new one. Radiators are one of those things you don't really want to play roulette with. So I'll be looking at getting one ordered shortly.

In the meantime an oil drain pan has been deployed to catch any further dripping as I don't want to risk animals drinking it.

[Zelandeth]

A few days ago the Caddy was given one last clean up ready to move on to its new owner.









Still doesn't scrub up bad for a 21 year old van.

Off she goes.



Has been a cracking little car...van...? I still never quite decided whether to call this a car or a van. Always felt more car like to drive, so I've always tended towards car. I really hope she continues to give similarly Stirling service to the new owner.

This is a big weight off my mind though as it means that all my cars actually can be kept on my own property again rather than having to abandon one around the corner or have one lodged at a friend's house. That takes a bit of the urgency out of moving the P4 on at least.

A few days back a large box of box of bits arrived for the P6. The vast bulk of these by volume was a full coolant hose set. Additionally there was a full set of gaskets for the light clusters, a full set of stainless steel screws for the same as a bunch of mine have well mangled heads, new thermostat and housing gasket, a set of wiper blades, and an oil pump housing gasket.

Decided to tackle the light gaskets first as it seemed a nice simple job.

The reason the front light clusters were proving to be significantly less than weather proof wasn't hard to see, the gaskets had long since turned to plastic.



The tail lights were also letting in a bunch of water as evidenced by this condensation.



These turned out to be completely missing their gaskets which definitely wouldn't be helping. Hopefully adding these will help things out a bit.



A similarly quick job was swapping out the ancient wiper blades for some new ones.



I know these modern repro stainless blades aren't great, but I wanted to have a second set of them on hand so I could have a go at rebuilding the original ones I had with new rubber blades in case I wreck them. The stamping of the ones I took off is definitely far superior to the replacements. They do clear the screen acceptably though for now at least, and this isn't a car I'm likely to be using a huge amount in poor conditions anyway. That's what I have a modern daily for.

I've been looking into the options regarding the radiator. Off-the-shelf replacements don't appear to be available. No huge surprise to be honest.

There are a couple of suppliers offering exchange units for around the £300 mark by the time you've factored in two way postage etc. Alternatively there's a well reviewed company over in Kempston who can recore this one with an uprated core for around the same money. Which is probably the option I'm leaning towards. Being less than half an hour from home rather than having to entrust things to the postal system is a big plus, and being able to support local businesses always appeals to me. They can also carry out a repair to that end tank no problem, whereas those offering exchange parts I imagine may object to that damage. So that's likely to be the route I take there.

This brings us up to today, when I'd been feeling a bit rough but still wanted to try to get something ticked off the list. Changing the suspected sticky thermostat seemed like a good target. As it was quite crunchy and had a split at one end only being stopped from growing by the hose clip I took the opportunity to swap the top hose while I was there.



The old thermostat wasn't the most gunged up I've ever seen but it was definitely a bit on the grubby side. That poor gasket though, I wonder how many times that has been used.



I did note that the bleed hole in the original one was positioned at the bottom - whereas it really should be at the top like so.



Idea being that any trapped air is then able to find its way past the 'stat through that hole without leaving the power head on the thermostat air bound which could cause it to fail to open.

Worth noting that after I took that photo I did dig off several layers of silicone and instant gasket off the sealing surface before bolting the housing back in place.

Not thrilled about the quality of the moulding of the new top hose, the radius of the curve leading to the thermostat housing is too wide so it wants to kink there a bit. Not badly so and once the system has a bit of pressure in it definitely won't be prone to collapsing, but it's a bit disappointing nevertheless. Sorry I didn't apparently get a photo of that. Admittedly, several of the current hoses on the car aren't the best fit either - the heater hose you can see below the thermostat in the above photo is basically wedged in place. Will see if the replacements are any better. I may be able to improve the fit of the new hose by just trimming the end a bit as that will naturally straighten out the bit that's trying to kink a little. I'll take another look at that when I'm feeling a bit more human.

I didn't have the opportunity to take the car for a road test today but the temperature at idle stabilised around here. Which doesn't look unreasonable to me for a car that's stationary.



Hopefully it sits somewhere reasonable when we're actually moving as well, though that will need to wait till the weekend to find out.

Interestingly at one point while I was keeping an eye on this during warmup the fuel gauge visibly twitched two or three times. I'm (probably vainly) crossing my fingers that we might have a dead spot on the potentiometer and that as the level drops a bit we might see it spring back to life. I know the gauge itself works and we've got a good ground connection between the tank and body, so the sender is our issue. Wishful thinking I know, but I'm going to cling to it for now given how much of a pain getting to the sender will be.

Have noticed I do have a slight weep from the top radiator hose connection so imagine there's some gunk trapped in there. Radiator will be coming out probably this week anyway so I'll likely just be leaving that be until then as it's a tiny weep.

[Zelandeth]

See what I was meaning about that top hose?



Radius of that bend at the thermostat end as moulded is too wide, it's essentially trying to connect to a space roughly halfway between the thermostat and the driver's side rocker cover.

Nevertheless, topped up the coolant today and went for a proper test. Seems to sit around here when driving normally, albeit after peaking quite high on the gauge before the stat opens.



This is higher than I'd generally expect on a car of this age, especially on a coolish day and when I'm still treating the car pretty gently.

Though I have zero prior experience with a P6 so I've no reference to know what's normal. I also don't have huge confidence in the accuracy or otherwise of the gauge as it certainly doesn't feel or smell to me to be running warm - so I'm leaning more towards the gauge just being a little on the pessimistic side.

I'd just tend based on prior experience with cars old enough to have an actual gauge rather than some lying ECU controlled nonsense, for the temperature gauge to generally sit probably somewhere covering the 8 of 85 unless you were sitting in traffic.

Open to feedback from others who know these cars better there.

We do seem to actually have some heat from the heater which is nice, albeit no blower yet. Haven't had a chance to investigate that yet.

[Dick]

How long until you have upgraded the radiator? I'd be interested to see the difference..

[Zelandeth]

How long until you have upgraded the radiator? I'd be interested to see the difference..

Hoping to get it in to be worked on this week probably. Would like to see a baseline so I can see if it's made a difference. I need to actually remember to pick up the IR thermometer to check real world numbers rather than repeatedly forget to pick it up.