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.
Message
Author
User avatar
Zelandeth
Posts: 1126
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#271 Post by Zelandeth » Thu May 09, 2019 11:28 pm

I had a spare hour (ish) this afternoon so made another pass at the "clean the secondary pulley game" on the Invacar.

A metre of threaded rod was all of £1.85 from Toolstation. That, a couple of bolts and a few washers allowed me to create this potentially lethal contraption out of my poor innocent workbench and even more horribly abused (yet apparently indestructible) power drill.

Image

It's actually infinitely less terrifying than it looks courtesy of the pulley (as you would expect) being really insanely well balanced. It wobbles a bit at around 500rpm, but then smooths out totally up to the free running speed of the drill. What is scary is that *stopping* from that speed takes the best part of a minute thanks to the rotational inertia involved...

I only did that once though, more out of curiousity as to how well balanced stuff was, while being ready to leg it at a moment's notice.

For reference this is the pulley surface we started with following my first pass at cleaning it with the polycarbide mop on the grinder last week.

Image

An hour or so of working at it with a combination of a chisel (ooooh...sparks!) and several grades of Emery cloth resulted in the surface looking like this. 

Image

Image

While there's still a lot of visible tarnish there the pulleys surface is now smooth to the touch across the full running surface. Whether this will help things or not I will hopefully find out tomorrow. It's hard to express quite how much smoother that pulley face feels than it looks in the photo.

Realistically, this is as good as the pulley surface is going to get without being able to throw it onto an actual lathe with a suitable cutter to reface the running surfaces properly. It just ain't going to get any better in my hands...so if it still eats belts I'll probably need to get a machine shop involved.

The last thing I did before packing up this evening was throw (not literally of course) a load of filler at the bodywork.

Image

Image

The area behind the nearside wheelarch should benefit a lot from this (remember, there was a huge crack there). I'll hit it with the sander and some paint tomorrow (or another coat of filler if needed - I'm going for presentable from twenty paces here) to tidy things up a bit. Obviously will be a fair amount more needed, but it's the first time I've used this exact stuff so I wanted to start simple. Plus to be brutally honest I'm more interested in driving this car right now than making it pretty... 
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
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#272 Post by Zelandeth » Fri May 10, 2019 10:46 pm

Having had a think about it further this morning I went to confirm the identification of my brake master cylinder so I could get either a service kit or new cylinder ordered.

Nice to see that the fluid level hasn't moved in the slightest since I've started driving it, I know there's no reason it should have, but it's still nice to see the fluid staying where it should be.

Image

Yep, there's the number which I couldn't remember or find written down anywhere.

Image

Doing a bit of digging around on the internet to see what I could find. When did the search function on everything become so utterly useless? Why when I type in "Girling 625 master cylinder service kit" are the first five items for Lockheed cylinders or totally different complete cylinders before anything starts to turn up that's useful?

Anyhow...eventually managed to track down some rebuild kits. They're a good bit more expensive than I'd expected...not far off the same price that genuine Girling cylinders seem to go for (£60 or thereabouts). Though there are a plethora of off brand ones for £20-30 out there. Though quite what sort of quality to expect at that point I'm not sure.

I did however decide to grab one. Basically because A: I've had gift money sitting in my Amazon account for about two years now so it's essentially free. B: Because it will at least let me prove the rest of the system behaves or not. If it does behave perfectly then I at least know that the MC is the issue...if I can't then make one good cylinder out of the two or am actually satisfied with the one from Amazon that turns up, I'll get a proper new Girling one ordered up. As the one I've ordered is essentially free it seemed worth a shot though.

Bodywork wise I've given things over the back a sand down (man I'd forgotten how much dust that creates!) and blew a quick bit of paint over it.

Image

Definitely heading in the right direction... here's the same panel when the car arrived on my driveway.

Image

Will want another coat or three of filler, but we're definitely making progress. I'll make sure I actually have enough on hand next time!

Image

She's never going to be a concourse show winner, but hoping that a finish that's presentable from ten or twenty paces should be doable.

What I was really interested in seeing though was whether my messing about with the CVT secondary pulley yesterday had actually done anything useful.

The answer is a definite yes. While I've only been able to do testing up to 30mph today courtesy of rush hour, things have obviously improved. The pickup from a standing start is smoother and changes to throttle setting are far more quickly responded to now. It's also way quieter.

Have a *really* shaky video showing how things are behaving now. I'll hopefully make a run out onto a faster road tomorrow to see how it behaves.

While I was on Amazon earlier this afternoon a better phone mount was also ordered...so hopefully any future footage recorded on that will be something resembling stable. I can only apologise for how awful the footage here is.

YouTube Video Link

Feels like we're getting quite close to a car which is actually usable now.
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
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#273 Post by Zelandeth » Sat May 11, 2019 10:46 pm

Did a bit of experimentation with my existing camera mount to see if it could be improved while I wait for a better one to turn up...nope. Still shaky as ever...so the video from today is equally as unwatchable as the one from yesterday. If anyone actually wants to see it anyway let me know and I can chuck it at YouTube.

Another 16 miles covered. Was actually tempted to keep going but ran out of time.

Image

The run out today was uneventful. Even if I did utterly confuse the poor folks at the fuel station. Speaking of fuel - average fuel consumption on the first tank (well, about half a tank) was 28.1mpg. Given the fact that during that tank we've had sickly carb, plethora of neglect issues in the CVT and have only left the block on a couple of occasions that's a reasonable starting point. Hoping we can expect to see mid to high 30s.

The CVT is very obviously far, far happier. 50mph cruising is almost comfortable, and the judder when moving off from standing still is very much reduced. Had 60mph on the speedo on a couple of occasions. The other thing which is conspicuously absent now is the smell of burning rubber which had previously accompanied any attempts to venture beyond 40mph or so. Obviously I'll need to get a few more miles on the clock to see if we've got things back into a stable and reliable state.

One thing which was made abundantly clear this afternoon was that not having a sun visor is *really* annoying. I've had the trim panel to which it is attached sitting around waiting to be reinstalled for a couple of months now, but finally got around to putting it back in this evening.

Image

I had hoped to get the control box for the heater and choke out to paint it...however it was utterly unimpressed with that idea, so just gave it a coat of paint the old fashioned way with a brush in situ. Not perfect by any means but is at least a bit less scruffy.

Image

While on the subject of tidying the interior I figured it was time to throw a bit of paint on the handlebars and some rusty bits of the seat frame. This has definitely helped make things look a bit less derelict.

Image

Slightly out of order as this was earlier in the day, but I've also given the offside wheelarch a quick skim over with the paint. It had weathered away here to nothing so even though it's not a perfect colour match or all that smooth, it's still an improvement.

Image

Have picked up a load of filler today too, so will hopefully get a few of the scruffy bits of body sorted this week. At least most of it is small patches rather than outright rebuilding like the rear valance...

While I was playing automotive Tetris to put the Invacar away I snapped this photo.

Image

This is a good one for the "what year was this photo taken?" category 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.

User avatar
Zelandeth
Posts: 1126
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#274 Post by Zelandeth » Mon May 13, 2019 12:20 am

First task for this afternoon was to get again replace the throttle cable on the Lada. Out of everything to do with the injection conversion the throttle linkage has been by far the biggest recurring headache. Today involved quite a significant re-engineering of things. It's not 100% perfect (foot down is about 90% open at the throttle body) but far better, and for the first time since I started the conversion it no longer sticks about 1% open when returning to idle. Has made it way more pleasant to drive. Have to wonder how long it will take me to remember that I don't need to tap the pedal back fully up whenever I come to rest...

Bit of a milestone passed while on the test run.

Image

(Ignore the check engine light. It's a wiring issue to the vehicle speed sensor and doesn't actually affect anything in the real world, just tends to ping the light up if you coast for more than a few seconds).

Feeling optimistic having got that sorted out I thought I'd look into seeing if I could do something about the clutch on the Xantia.

This has been a bit of an issue as long as I've had the car. The clutch works just fine, no judder, no slip no snatching. However the bite point is about an inch from the floor, which gets quite tiresome around town.

Not knowing for certain if there was any way to adjust the cable I figured it would just make sense to find it and have a poke around. I've managed to convince supposedly self adjusting cables to tension up better with a bit of violence before. Now, the engine bay in the Activa is somewhat "busy" to be honest. Nothing obvious there, but I figured it would likely be easy enough if I pulled the air cleaner out.

Image

Hmm...nope. Still can't find it. Let's pull the rest of the air intake elbow and look closer.

Image

Plenty of obvious cables for the gear change...no obvious clutch gubbins. How about taking a look underneath?

Image

Nothing (aside from a minor LHM leak - one of the return line weeps slightly at the reservoir). It looks horrendous in the photo but she's never used a drop of oil, water or LHM and doesn't mark her territory.

Turns out I'm an utter idiot. The Activa in 2.0T form (all we got in the UK) has the ML5 gearbox...which means hydraulic clutch! That had never even crossed my mind...once that gem of information crossed my mind the fact that there must be a fluid reservoir for it (unless it uses LHM...though apparently not) also joined the party. A tip from a fellow Citroen enthusiast has me now knowing where to look. Turns out I'd looked at it a hundred times and never given it a second thought.

Image

I'd always assumed that was the interia switch as that's what it looks like.

So I'll check it there's fluid in it in the morning and see about bleeding it. Fingers crossed that might help a bit as there's no adjustment possible and it's been bugging me this last week (it's the van's fault as the clutch in that is lovely now).

Invacar has been seeing a bit more cosmetic work continue. Bit more filler has been thrown into the equation to help smooth things down before I throw some more paint at it.

Small (but to my mind disproportionately annoying) chunk missing from the offside door.

Image

Top of the nearside front wing where it's had a knock at some point. I'd already applied matting and resin from behind the panel.

Image

Worst panel on the car though was the front service cover, so we'll see how that looks after some sanding action.

Image

Will just be a quick sand and splash tomorrow morning which will make things look a little bit more presentable.
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.

Tigdlo
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2015 9:29 pm
Location: Royston, Herts

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#275 Post by Tigdlo » Mon May 13, 2019 8:41 pm

Regarding your Girling master cylinder, the ‘625’ refers to the bore diameter in inches i.e. 0.625” or 5/8”. This is the size used on many older cars such as the Ford 100e, 105e and early Cortina, as well as the earlier Triumph Herald.
Cylinders of this type are available new on the well known auction site, for not much dosh. I have been using them for several years on my Ford 100e (brake and clutch) with no problems at all.

User avatar
Zelandeth
Posts: 1126
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#276 Post by Zelandeth » Mon May 13, 2019 10:05 pm

Thanks for that. I'd figured that out in the digging a couple of days back and currently have one on the way. It's essentially free to me, so if that sorts it out I'll look to get a decent branded one on order.

Had a bit of a special day today as the owner of TWC was due to pay me a visit. His rescue from a field and restoration of TWC was responsible for me discovering what an Invacar was. I'd never heard of them until then. Shortly after wound up with one which was missing a large portion of the bodywork but was generally sound mechanically...then once TWC was back on the road, I bought TPA, the original spares car for the restoration of TWC. She was missing her entire drivetrain by this point...but I had essentially precisely what I needed to make one working car out of the two by fitting the drivetrain from my original car. We did get a couple of photos of them together back last summer, but TPA was still a fair ways from roadworthy back then.

This was going to be the first time they'd been in one spot while both were roadworthy, so obviously we wanted to get a few photos of them together, have a little drive out in convoy etc.

In preparation for that I wanted to finish off the cosmetic work I'd been doing yesterday. Quick splash of paint first.

Image

Still going to need a little more filler, but a LOT better than it was.

Image

While I had the paint out I gave the fan shroud a quick splash as well. The original paint was flaking off and it was bugging me.

Image

Then gave the interior a quick clean as it was covered in filler dust and rust powder which the heater is still shedding despite my best efforts to clean it out.

Image

Really need to get a wet and dry vacuum on the driver's seat as it is quite grubby (sitting in the back of the garage for two years will do that, not to mention the 200K miles in the donor vehicle).

Soon after I was done with that my guest arrived and we went out for our little drive, stopping at a local from park which has some nice greenery in the background so is a good place to take car photos.

Image

Image

Image

Image

That was quite a fun afternoon. Yes, we did get some properly confused looks when we were out driving in convoy.
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
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#277 Post by Zelandeth » Wed May 15, 2019 12:01 am

Had a pretty full day today so didn't have much time for cars. 

One thing which I'm rather paranoid about both in the home and cars is fire. There were a couple of things around the fridge which were bothering me. Simple really in that it chucks out a LOT of heat, especially from the area right by the burner when on gas and around the rectifier/water separator. 

The proximity of that to a plywood wall covering polystyrene insulation bothered me. When I first got it the wiring was melted into the water separator too. In addition to fire hazards the fact that the water lines to the kitchen run within a couple of inches of the burner and that makes me uncomfortable. 

Some of that is unavoidable to some extent, but I could do something to improve matters a bit with a bit of insulation and rerouting of wiring. I want to do this now as before too long the compartment it lives in will be getting closed in, so there will no longer be a whopping great hole in the wall of the living area. Need to fit a vent in the floor so we can get some decent airflow through the heat exchanger too.

 First up was some foil attached to the wall that's nearest to the hottest areas. 

Image

Not pretty but it doesn't have to be... it'll be behind the fridge. 

Also wrapped the wiring which has to run up behind it and tethered them to keep them from actually sitting on the water separator. 

Image

Will get the gas hooked back up, do a leak and CO escape check then get the thing boxed back in as it should be. Once that's done I can button up the gas locker...once that's done I can do the cupboards. Just need to do stuff in a very specific order for the sake of access. 
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
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#278 Post by Zelandeth » Wed May 15, 2019 11:14 pm

Wound up digging around in the locker under the sofa in the van so took the opportunity to install the battery gauge which has been rattling around for months.

Image

Image

The reason I really wanted this installed was because the one in the main control panel appears to have issues. This photo was taken about twenty seconds after the one above. 

Image

Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get that sorted. It's a ways down the priority list though.

I had it in my head that there was a local classic car get together here this afternoon...however when I got there it became apparent that I'm utterly useless and had the wrong day - that's actually tomorrow.

So I suddenly found myself with a couple of hours to kill. Figured it was time to throw some more filler at TPA. 

Still a bunch more sanding to do, but we're getting somewhere. 

Image

Nearside quarter looking almost smooth. 

Image

The huge gouges on the nose have been smoothed out. I felt this was quite important given how prominent the area is. 

Image

Bonnet hinge area is almost resembling flat again and I've built up the corner of the bonnet which I'd clearly missed on the first pass. 

Image

Finally got the hole in the roof filled. Meant the duct tape there can finally go.

Image

This corner is actually starting to look passable. This is as far as I got with the sander. Even with the dust extraction set up the process still makes a godawful mess! 

Image

The biggest pits around the rear of the car have been filled, though some further work will definitely be needed there - running out of filler meant I couldn't go much further today!

Image

The chunk taken out of this wheel arch has also been patched up.

Will spend a bit more time with the sander then throw some paint at it. May have a shot at remodelling my original work on the offside front corner first though as the state of that makes my skin crawl... 

At least matching the original level of finish on an Invacar isn't too strenuous compared to most vehicles, though even that's horribly time consuming! 
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
Location: Milton Keynes
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#279 Post by Zelandeth » Fri May 17, 2019 12:10 am

This morning I made an absolutely awful mess in the garage by attacking TP with the sander and some paint. I swear I will be finding filler dust for years...the stuff gets everywhere. 

Does look like we're moving in the right direction to me.

Image

Image

Image

The rear could do with a lot more sanding, though I was running out of both time and patience by the time I got there, so it will be revisited of course.

The reason I really wanted to get a basic skim of paint over there this afternoon was that there was a local show this afternoon which I wanted to get TP over to for her public debut at an event other than just driving around. Especially given I arrived yesterday to find I'd got the date wrong.

Did we make it? 

Of course we did! 

Image

Image

Here's a few snaps of some of the other motors that were there.

I didn't snap anything like every car as I had made a critical wind chill calculation error and was freezing, so the order of the day was brief runs out to snap photos and talk to people between periods hiding in the car waiting for the feeling to return to my fingers.

Plethora of Astons. Not really surprising given the proximity of their factory and that one of the organisers is apparently in the owners club. 
Image

Don't recall seeing an MGB in this colour before, I like it.
Image

Normally a BMW wouldn't get a second glance from me (635 excepted), but seeing an i8 up close always feels special. They're still a gorgeous looking car I think.
Image
Image
Image
Image

Oddest coloured car of the day award goes to this Ford Prefect.
Image
Image

Lovely Jowett Javelin. These just look "right" to me, and I only discovered recently that they're really quite interesting mechanically speaking too.
Image
Image

Hard not to like a Scimitar.
Image

I just love the degree of colour in this photo given we live in a world of silver, grey, white and slightly off white cars these days.
Image

While Astons are usually a bit rich for my blood, this thing is lovely.
Image
Image

They really need to bring back tail fins...
Image

There were actually a few Austin 7s there, though this one is a really early example if I'm not mistaken.
Image

I still need to drive an actual Mini at some point!
Image

It would have been downright rude to not take a bunch of photos of this. There's no angle it doesn't look fantastic from.
Image
Image
Image
Image

As usual I never actually took any close-ups of my own car.

Definitely need to make up an information sign to put with the car, as the number of questions I wound up answering was very surprising...and most people didn't even know that they had been rendered illegal and had mostly been scrapped.

Importantly TP ran perfectly both to and from the event, even managing an overtake on the dual carriageway on the way there - cue one very puzzled looking Zafira driver. Afraid I didn't have a camera running at that point to capture that moment...maybe next time (this is why I really need get a proper camera mount so recording video isn't such a pain). 
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
gazza82
Posts: 413
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:38 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire
Contact:

Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Lada, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#280 Post by gazza82 » Fri May 17, 2019 9:14 am

My wife's uncle had a Javelin Convertible sitting in his front garden for years. It needed a new loom and I offered to make it for him (I don't mind car electrics) but he never took me up on the offer. He then moved so we lost touch but whether the car went with him we never found out.

Oh and BMW have just announced a i8 roadster .. https://www.bmw.co.uk/bmw-cars/bmw-i/2017-i8-roadster ... so if you have a handy £126k burning a hole in your pocket .. btw that's FROM £126K ... :-(
"If you're driving on the edge ... you're leaving too much room!"

Retirement Project: '59 Austin A35 2-door with 1330cc Midget engine and many upgrades
Said goodbye: got '98 Alfa Romeo 156 2.0 TSpark to 210K miles before tin worm struck

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests