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

[Dick]

You were looking for à colour scheme for the caddy
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... tory_share

[JPB]

That looks like a barcode and there are too many colours, which are mostly in the wrong order. Rich, thank goodness you're a builder and not an interior decorator!
Oh wow! This new laptop allowed me look at fb without asking me to select cookies.

[3xpendable]

Regarding the limo, if you buy it get some of these on the front wings and you can be the prince of Zamunda!

[Dick]

That looks like a barcode and there are too many colours, which are mostly in the wrong order. Rich, thank goodness you're a builder and not an interior decorator!
Oh wow! This new laptop allowed me look at fb without asking me to select cookies.

Great! I will post lots more shinytat for your perusal..
I see zel has bought à plasma cutter, im In the process of cutting un a 3000 litre plus fuel tank.. when I chopped the end off I filled the house with fumés.. would à parkside plasma cut up the rest without too much smoke? Its 5mm thick Steel

[Zelandeth]

That looks like a barcode and there are too many colours, which are mostly in the wrong order. Rich, thank goodness you're a builder and not an interior decorator!
Oh wow! This new laptop allowed me look at fb without asking me to select cookies.

Great! I will post lots more shinytat for your perusal..
I see zel has bought à plasma cutter, im In the process of cutting un a 3000 litre plus fuel tank.. when I chopped the end off I filled the house with fumés.. would à parkside plasma cut up the rest without too much smoke? Its 5mm thick Steel

I'd think you would really be wanting something a bit more industrial for a job like that. Unlikely to help much with the smoke issue as a fair amount of heat will still be produced. I think it's one of those cases where "ensure adequate ventilation" is about the only solution. Not always easy when you're working in a basement.

-- -- --

Yesterday I had arranged to take a look at that W123 limo for the owner. I was offering nothing beyond an impartial and to my knowledge realistic appraisal.

My initial reaction on pulling up was "Oh she's crusty."







Though after a bit of a walk round and a bit of a crawl around underneath I've realised she's far less of a lost cause than I initially thought. Let's list the grot.

I Had Concerns about the bulkhead on account of this given the tendency it has to dissolve.



Given the state of the screen surround I was expecting to find that I could poke holes straight through into the cabin. However much to my surprise it looks to be sound, both sides. No amount of poking or prodding resulted in that sickening "scrunch" any owner of cars this age have come to dread.

Offside:



Nearside:



I was really surprised about that. I've seen really tidy looking 123s with holes in there. I did peel quite a bit of the crusty seam sealer off on the nearside and the metal under it was still solid.

Bottom of both B pillars is shot.



Probably the most difficult MOT relevant repair on the car just due to the amount of interior you'll need to remove to make sure it doesn't catch fire.

Offside outer sill needs some love around the rear jacking point.



I suspect that hole will be a lot bigger before sound metal is found, especially running up into the rear quarter, though it felt more solid than I'd expected.

Floorpan seems absolutely fine, couldn't see anything crusty around the suspension mounts etc, underside looks astonishingly fresh aside from one bit on the bottom of the spare wheel well.



I did notice this odd looking panel behind the offside rear wheel. Possibly an old repair? It seems solid enough though.



Both inner front arches need some remedial work, though I wasn't able to poke any holes by hand - I'll make sure I have an MOT tester sized hammer next time. Not really the worst job to fix as there's not much in the way save for a bit of wiring. Keep in mind the wings are bolted on so they can come off to improve access.

Offside:



Nearside:



Contrary to those crunchy bits the bodywork does have a few things going for it.

They often seem to go around the fuel filler flap, that's spotless on this car.



I thought there might be a hole in the rear pillar where that trim had come away, but it's the fastener itself that has rusted away. Though the surface rust there obviously needs catching before it gets deeper.



Rear screen surround where I've seen quite a few of these go is spotless.



I *haven't* had the boot open yet as the lock is jammed, and I didn't have good access to mess with it as she's parked about an inch from the car behind. We'll come back to that.

Oh, and there's the all important flag pole socket.



Wheel arches in 3/4 cases seem to be surprisingly free of the almost standard rust around them on unrestored cars. Only one that's really crispy is the nearside rear.



The engine bay is generally grubby but very free of apparent bodgery. Given the fun and games I had with someone having historically messed with the vacuum system in mine this was nice to see.



Radiator still had spotless green coolant in. Oil needs a change and smells a bit fuelly but I've seen worse. You remember the mess under the rocker cover on my S123? Take a look at this for a contrast.



How clean is that for a 39 year old 115K mile engine?

ATF is spotlessly clean too.

I wanted to spin the engine over to see if it would build oil pressure (hence the jump leads in the earlier photos). She only went and started!...and immediately started peeing fuel out of a perished line on the side of the carb. Fair enough, I hadn't been planning on engine running tests so hadn't checked anything like that. No knocking or anything even the moment it fired, and the oil pressure gauge pinged up to max immediately as we would expect. However we also had it immediately shown that the exhaust doesn't appear to be connected to the engine. She definitely seems to want to live though.

Can't believe the carb was working well enough for her to fire up and that the fuel pump wasn't totally gummed up. The carb is huge by the way. Don't have a photo of it, but it's a stinking great four barrel job that's wider than my hand of the sort of size I'm more used to seeing on huge great American V8s. I guess one thing in our favour is that she was laid up before ethanol was in all fuels...I suspect if it had been a year or two later we'd have got nowhere near as far as this.

Now the really, really sad bit though which could scupper everything.

Can you see the problem here?



Look closer.



Yep. The reason this car came off the road originally is that some lowlife nicked it to break for parts. The car was recovered before they got far through stripping anything, having only taken the seats apart in the back. However they made a huge mess getting into the steering lock.

They also smashed one of the limo specific windows.





Though as you can see, by some miracle the owner managed to get hold of a replacement. If I don't do anything else I'll get that installed to get the car weatherproof again.

I think that film has actually been doing a good job of keeping the weather out until the winds last weekend as the upholstery is in fine shape and there was only a little bit of water in the footwell, no rust or mould which would point at long term damp issues.

While it's in bits all of the rear seating is there i think so just needs bolting back together.

This car definitely has lived an easy life until the last few years, there's very little sign of wear and tear inside.



Really nice seeing original touches like this still present.



Granted she is barely run in.



Yes, the thieving scum who stole it managed to smash the face of the instrument cluster as well while they were making a total hash of breaking the steering lock, adding to the list of replacement bits needed.

Being an earlier one than mine the centre console doesn't have the veneer.



Yes, I want to know what the green switch does too. Guessing it's for the auxiliary cooling fan.

The air conditioning definitely still has gas in, though I'm sure it will need to be recharged - and I'll bet this is still running R22 (or maybe even R12!) so will need to be converted. On the "plus" side, the dash needs to come out anyway...

That dash damage is a big problem, probably *the* problem really. Mechanical parts are generally not too bad to get hold of for 123s for the most part. However bits of trim and the like are eye-wateringly expensive. So finding another full dash moulding, in the right colour is likely to cost a packet. Plus it's also (and I have pulled one of these apart in a scrap yard to get the heater box out) an absolutely HORRIBLE job to get the dash out of one of these. Merc went to great lengths to try to make sure things didn't creak, rattle etc and they didn't envisage it ever needing to come apart in the life of the car. So it's Not A Fun Job. It took me a whole afternoon, and that was in a car which had been rolled and where I didn't care about breaking things. Getting it out without damaging bits of the rest of the interior (I think I ended up kicking the windscreen out) and then getting things back together without breaking anything will be a nightmare.

So my assessment of what she needs sorting for an MOT.

[] OSR outer sill holed.

[] Both B pillars holed at the base.

[] Both inner arches corroded near enough to the shock towers to be a fail.

[] Tyres are perished.

[] Handbrake has been on since 2016...Plan on overhauling the whole brake system.

[] Exhaust rear downpipe is missing about a foot of pipe between the downpipe and collector.

[] Fuel leak at carb.

[] The MOT history mentions issues with the wipers...so given they're sitting halfway up the screen figure that needs to be rebuilt.

[] Attack the dash with a hammer and enough duct tape to get rid of all the sharp edges.

[] New front reg plate as it's delaminated.

Additional you'd want to do:

[] Rust around windscreen surround needs sorted.

[] Nearside rear wheel arch is crusty.

[] Bootlid currently doesn't open.

[] A million vacuum lines no doubt need changing.

[] Goodness only knows what electrical systems work/don't.

I'm going to arrange to visit again with more time and some tools. My target then will be simple:

[] Sort the fuel leak so we can run the engine for more than 20 seconds. That should allow us to do a test on what systems on the car work and don't. Should hopefully also allow us to move it forward so I can have a bash at getting into the boot and to move it out from the fence so I can see the nearside properly. Oh, and see if the SLS works, or is going to flood the driveway with hydraulic fluid.

[] Install the replacement rear window to get the car weatherproof again.

So yeah...bit of a mixed bag. She can definitely be saved, not a hopeless spares only job. However there's an alarming amount of hours work needed there. If you're looking at it pragmatically you'd absolutely break it for spares as that will no doubt be worth several times what the car is in running order. I could be wrong, but I imagine it's probably actually worth less than a normal W123 250E would be because the limo is going to appeal to a smaller audience.

There's nothing I found today that's specifically a show stopper, probably the biggest headache is actually the damage to the dash.

I don't know. If I had no other projects on the go I actually would have been tempted to give it a shot. As it stands though, I do...I already have the Cavalier incoming and really want to reduce the fleet size by one. Time aside this could be a fair money pit too...full set of brakes, tyres, front exhaust, dash, I could see a parts bill easily into four figures.

I think it's just too much of a project for me to be taking on on my own. Aside from the fact it's six metres long!

At the very least we can hopefully get it weatherproof, secure and movable in the short term.

Will probably offer to give it a wash too as getting rid of the moss and pumping the tyres up properly would make the car look a lot less sad.

[Dick]

You have got to buy it , if only for the flagpole!!

[Zelandeth]

You have got to buy it , if only for the flagpole!!

I really want to get into the boot to see if there's any clues in there as to its former life - not expecting it but you never know.

I've not completely discounted the idea yet, but it's only holding on very tentatively. It would mean I would need to find a home for the BX in a hurry, I'd need to figure out what the fluff to do with the Cavalier (which I'm already feeling guilty that is still getting in the way rather than having been moved to my driveway yet), and basically take over as this year's major project. Finding somewhere that's dry and reasonably secure to put a car possibly for a year or so around here just ain't going to happen without a second mortgage. If I was still back up north I might be able to figure something out, but here it's just not going to happen - and I refuse to have two decaying cars sitting on what used to be my lawn. If we'd had the driveway expansion done it would be less of an issue but goodness only knows IF that will ever happen, never mind when. Especially as it's looking increasingly like the guy who was meant to be sorting our fencing and hopefully a bit of the landscaping has actually taken two grand of our money and disappeared off the face of the planet. Again. That's the second time I've had something like this happen.

Nevertheless, it is an exceptionally interesting car and there is an appeal to it. It definitely ticks one of the big must haves in the fleet, and that's the ability to carry four adults and two large dogs at the same time - can do that easily and in comfort. Would need rear seatbelts fitted though. In a lot of ways to be honest it's in better shape than my last one. Yes there is more rust, but aside from that the bodywork is very tidy. Mine had 160K on the clock, but they were plainly 160K miles of hard work...Whereas aside from in the last few years it looks like this one has lived a pretty pampered life - and avoided doing time as a wedding car which I'm sure 99% of the limos you're likely to find at the bottom of the used market have, usually only being moved on from that when they can't be bodged together enough to get through another MOT without spending actual money or have got scruffy enough that it's showing up in photos.

The size isn't massively unusable either. It's actually a full metre shorter than the camper which I have no issue using regularly - and indeed did use as my daily driver for a chunk last year when the S123 had the engine in bits. A limo will be a bit more cumbersome for sure as the wheelbase is a couple of feet longer and you don't have the visibility advantage of a cab forward layout, but I don't reckon it would be too bad to drive. Granted I wouldn't fancy trying to parallel park it, but that's what forward planning is for! Or feet for that matter...I'm one of those people who will pick an easy parking spot and spend an extra five minutes walking anyway rather than doing a 72 point reversing job to save myself walking a couple of rows over Tesco's car park.

I've done a bit of back of the envelope maths for what I think she will need - a lot of these figures are just spitballed, it's not intended to be a written quote and I'm just trying to get a rough ballpark figure of what I'd be getting into.

[] Purchase price of car: £????. We've not even talked money yet.
[] Tyres: £400.
[] Body repair panels for the B pillars/sills: £200.
[] Sundry welding/tool supplies: £100.
[] Brake discs & pads: £200.
[] Brake calipers: £250.
[] Exhaust (will probably have to get it made up): £400.
[] Fuel & vacuum lines: £40.
[] Battery: £80.
[] Dashboard: £300.
[] Instrument panel: £100.
[] Ignition barrel & key set: £150.
[] Seatbelts for the forward facing seats in the back: £200.
[] I'm sure I could blow another £200 on "misc" in ten minutes flat.

Already over two and a half grand, and we've not even looked at the purchase price of the car, things like paintwork, converting the air con to R134a or anything like that - we're also making the assumption that the SLS is going to "just work" after being left sitting for six and a bit years...Blowing another £500 on that system alone wouldn't be hard - and I don't know if this has the variable pressure dampers up front to worry about as well...Or getting someone in to remove the windscreen so the rust in the scuttle can be properly fixed while the dash is out etc...

I reckon there's probably 150-200 hours worth of work in there (largely in the bodywork department). At the end of the day you're going to have a car which is probably going to be worth somewhere I'd think around 70% of what a standard saloon 250E would be...and it's never going to be a mint example, it's always going to have the marker against it on the insurance which will put a lot of the purists off...so what? Five grand give or take on a good day? Especially with the way fuel prices have been going...Can't see this doing north of 20mpg unless you're on a nice relaxed run somewhere on the motorway.

By far the most *sensible* thing to do with this car would be to break it for parts. All indications so far are that the engine has been very well cared for and as I understand it the 2.5 six pot is quite popular. With the notable exception of the main dash moulding and needing a really good deep clean, the interior is in exceptional condition throughout, and period touches like the original Becker radio are worth a good few quid themselves. Externally there are quite a lot of panels that are in perfectly good shape to see further use, all the brightwork is present and aside from that one bit on the rear offside pillar which was hanging off looks to be in exceptionally good shape, as are the body colour wheel covers. My gut feeling is that if you've got a bit of patience and are good at listing things you could easily get back more than the car is worth from the sale of bits - and you'd still have a decent chunk of metal to weigh in at the end of the day too.

Let's remember as well, we still haven't talked price with the seller yet either. If they're wanting strong money for it that's game over in my mind.

We all know I'm not about sensible though, and as such will do anything I can to try to make sure it is saved! Whether in my hands or not, that bit remains to be seen.

[Zelandeth]

It looks like we've come to the end of the road with this V123. Simply because the current owner is looking for around £1500 for it. I don't doubt for a second that on the open market someone will probably have their arm off at that price to break it for parts as it's worth a lot more than that in bits. However I made it quite clear what I was willing to get into this for, and dropping another grand on top of that just wasn't going to happen.

We're still on amicable terms though. I fully understand that this situation with the car being vandalised has left them way out of pocket and they need to try to recoup at least some of their costs. I just can't justify spending that much. I'm grateful they took the time to contact me and let me spend a few hours crawling over it. They're grateful I've given them a bit of an insight into the reality of the situation with it. I got to do one of my favourite bits though, and that's actually breathing life back into something that everyone assumed was a completely lifeless hulk. At the very least they now know that with a jump start she will start and drive onto a trailer just fine.

I had been planning to take a better look at it last week, but with the weather being so dismal I only dived over very briefly the one day to get the replacement window installed and to do a real quick stock take to confirm that all the bits of the forward rear seating row were there.

Fasteners scattered all over the floor and one support needs a whack with a hammer to get it back into shape, but yes everything was there.



Looks a mess there, but I could absolutely transform that in a couple of hours. That rear seat is so, so comfy. Given we as a family actually do quite often want to transport four adults plus luggage and occasionally two dogs, especially on holiday runs the layout could actually be really well suited to our needs...for all I initially looked at the car and thought "what on earth would I do with that?!?" It's not unusably large either - being well over a metre shorter than the camper, which I quite happily used as a daily driver for a period last year when the S123 had an engine in bits and the Jag lacked a charging system. If you're not comfortable driving bigger things, yes it's one to avoid. I'm not bothered about that though so reckon I could use it daily no bother. Guess that's the difference with it being a factory built car designed to transport people in the real world rather than movie stars from one glitzy hotel with a purpose built collection point to another. In actual car terms, it's a smidge over 10cm longer than a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow/Spirit. I've done plenty of miles behind the wheel of one of those, so it doesn't put me off.

I returned today to take a closer look at it. I wanted to get the engine running long enough to get some heat into it and make a proper list of what worked and what didn't, and see if we could move it away from the fence to get a better look at the nearside. Oh, and to attack the crusty bits with some violence to see how much bigger I could make the holes.

The inner arches under the bonnet were pretty much exactly as they looked. I was able to punch a pinhole in the offside one in one spot, the nearside didn't go through but they both want that bit cut out and new metal let in as it's obviously thin. There's nothing in the way though save for needing to cut a few cable ties to get the wiring loom out the way. I'm calling that about a 1.5 out of 10 on the difficulty to fix scale.

The bit of most concern was obviously the B pillar. I was kind of expecting a substantial portion of the surrounding metalwork to vanish and to find myself staring into the void where the inner sill used to be. I was quite surprised that I only poked one hole in the actual sill structure and peering through there with a torch showed everything in there to look fine. So while it's still quite an involved repair it doesn't seem to be as drastic as I was honestly expecting. I was kind of expecting to end up going halfway along both door apertures.

The camera always makes rust look way more dramatic than it does in person.



Don't get me wrong, it's bad...but not nearly as catastrophic as it might have been.

The hole by the rest jacking point was pretty much exactly as expected. Not the worst I've seen by a long shot.



Pretty standard "old car rust" there I think. Unlike the B pillar though repair panels for the sills are readily available.

Same spot on the nearside isn't nearly as bad, though I was able to punch a tiny hole right next to the jacking point tube so it'll want a repair in the same place.



That slightly wider shot shows what the underside looks like though. There's a bit of rust around one of the bungs (again it resisted being bludgeoned by a screwdriver) but by and large the underbody protection seems to have done a pretty good job.



The nearside I originally thought needed the same repair to the bottom of the B pillar from what I could see when trying to view it sandwiched up against the fence, but it turns out there's not actually a hole there. Was a lot of flaky stuff along the seam (which is obviously the offending water trap), but despite getting quite aggressive I didn't manage to poke any holes in it.



A little more grot was found along the edge of the boot closure on the one side, so that'll explain where the water that's rotted out the boot floor came from.



Fiddly but not unexpected as they often go there.

I was worried spotting this in the nearside front wheel arch, but after some digging it honestly does just seem to be the seam sealer having got to that age where it starts failing.



I knew the offside had a repair done here for a previous MOT...not thrilled by that so a good session with the flap disc would definitely be in the future of this corner. I'd be budgeting on cutting this out and redoing it.



Mechanically given the car was running and driving fine when the break-in happened I had no reason to expect any issues - but that *was* in 2016.

Having it idling like this with precisely zero work beyond reattaching one fuel hose which had been dislodged wasn't expected.

https://youtu.be/e9AamEkV6wo

That's on six plus year old fuel, not touched the carb, and started first touch today.

Speaking of the carb, this thing seems somewhat overkill for a 2.5 litre engine. Hard to convey as there's nothing really for scale in the photo. It's a big old beast though.



She sounds a bit rough there because the exhaust has been damaged, I'm guessing from the looks of things from when the thieves dropped it off the truck they carted it off on, as the whole system has been pulled back by a couple of inches - which also has mangled the rear valance.



The pipe leading to the rear manifold has pulled out of a slip joint, the forward one however is responsible for the racket.



Yep, that would do it!

Despite the noise she's running beautifully smoothly, throttle response is instant and showing zero smoke or anything. Which also meant I was able to confirm we had drive. Smoothly engaging gear, and even more surprisingly given the handbrake has been on since it was parked up, after a brief blip of throttle the brakes freed off - and then also worked. Not much you can really test on a driveway but definitely seems like a good start.

At the very least that will make loading it when it comes to move easier.

Aside from the windscreen wipers everything (including the electric radio antenna) seemed to work - though I didn't try the windows as that seemed like tempting fate.

This is where we part ways though. I'm sure a lot of parts from this car will see further service on other 123s, but if they're wanting that sort of money for it I really can't see anyone taking it on as a project. Even if they delivered it to my doorstep for free it still wouldn't make sense anyway!

Does now mean that the V123 is very much on my radar as something to possibly consider in the future though. So even though it looks like this one will be going elsewhere another may pop up here one day.

Which I'm okay with to be honest. If that one had *just* the damage from the break in, the rust or had been sitting since 2016 I'd be happy enough to just dive in...but having all of those things against it really does make it more of a project than I wanted to get into this year. Especially as I've already got one lined up. The Cavalier is probably more conventional content for these threads I think...

It's been a fun little diversion though and I've enjoyed my brief encounter with it. I think we've come to the right outcome at the end of the day.

[Dick]

That would be a shame if it was broken for parts..but you can't save everything...
Are you still looking for ideas to paint the caddy?
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... tory_share

[Zelandeth]

Well there hasn't been much by way of updates since the inspection of the V123, simply because there hasn't been much going on. Between the weather being pretty dismal and my just generally lacking energy it's been difficult to find the enthusiasm to really do much. With the better weather over the last couple of days though I managed to kick myself into actually do something useful.

I really wanted to get this lot fitted to the Invacar.



I had no intention of having this turn into a complete carb rebuild given that it had been for the most part behaving itself. I just wanted to try to get rid of the habit it had of dribbling fuel all over itself and the inlet manifold. The main culprits for this I was pretty certain were the gaskets under the top cover and accelerator pump housing. Plenty of access to both of these with the carb in situ, just need to detach the choke cable and unthread the linkage between the choke flap and the throttle arm.



I took the opportunity to blow the float bowl out with the air line and to clean the main jet while the float bowl was empty. There was a fair bit of scaly residue on the jet which wouldn't have been helping anything. This is a pretty good demonstration of how even with a completely new fuel system over time just the normal evaporation of fuel will leave residues. Given how small the jets in this carb are it doesn't take much to cause issues.

When comparing the new and old gaskets next to each other it was pretty obvious visually how much the original top cover gasket had shrunk and distorted with age.



The new gasket is about twice the thickness of the old one too.

The gasket on the accelerator pump housing definitely shows evidence of the fact that it's the one thing I didn't take apart when I cleaned the carb (as I didn't have a replacement gasket or any gasket paper on hand). There was quite a bit of gunk in there.



That was blown out with substantial amounts of carb cleaner and compressed air before I put the cover back on.

With it all back together it was immediately apparent that this had made a difference. The engine started much more easily than usual from cold and the idle was more even. My hunch is that there was an air leak around that tiny drilling near the centre.

A quick test run round the block showed we had definitely improved the fuel seepage issue. The whole carb would have been wet before.



Still a little bit damp around the base of the carb which I think must be coming through the throttle shaft itself. There doesn't seem to be any excessive play in there so I'm inclined to just leave it alone for now.

I decided this was a good time to bust out this bit of kit and to see if I could get the idle mixture set a bit more accurately.





Imagine this can only be slightly newer than the car.

I've found this is a tricky one to set up by ear. There are two reasons for this: One is that there's about half a turn on the idle air screw between stinking rich and so lean it falls on its face and stalls if you so much as breathe on the throttle. Secondly is that because of the length of the intake path for such a small engine (I'm sure the hard 90 degree bend right after the carb does wonders for gas flow...) means that there's quite a substantial delay between you making an adjustment and the engine reacting. I also found that the idle tended to wander enough on its own to make it hard to judge. So "good enough" was where I left it before.

The hope was that this would allow me to see better what I was actually doing.



Turns out that at idle she was waaaaaaaaay lean, at about 2% CO. Which for an injected car wouldn't be far off, but for an old school engine like this is way off.

A bit of experimentation revealed that she seemed happiest with it set to around 5.5% - which if memory serves is about where my old Metros were happiest too (hence the ritual of having to back the mixture off a couple of turns before the MOT every year).



The emissions test for an engine of this age is simply a visual smoke check, the 4.5% limit not applying until a few years later. Though I will need to check after a couple of hundred miles to make sure we're not risking fouling plugs.

Throttle response off idle seems to be a lot snappier now - though still a bit slow compared to most engines simply on account of the heavy flywheel.

Something this car has always had a substantial dislike for was driving on a very light throttle, for example at a steady 30-40mph. This would tend to be interspersed now and then with a brief loss of power, a sneeze back through the carb then normal service being resumed. Even though I'm used to it it's something which never stopped being unnerving. It has tended to result in me using something of an "coast and burn" approach when driving at these speeds so as to avoid that behaviour.

Well I did upwards of 50 miles yesterday under various conditions and didn't have that happen once. Not calling it fixed yet, but definitely improved.

I think mainly due to the better sealed carb than my twiddling of things (which shouldn't affect anything much once the engine is under enough load to be drawing from the main rather than idle circuit in the carb, though there is some interaction) it definitely *feels* like she is able to maintain 50-60mph more easily. I guess the best test there will be to take a run up the hill towards Olney and see how far it drops. Absolutely feels zippier up to 40 or so though, despite I'm absolutely sure the difference on paper being minuscule.

One thing that is visible is that trundling around town she is definitely running a touch cooler, which ties in with the indication from the exhaust gas analyser that the engine was running lean.



Reckon we've knocked maybe 20C or so off, haven't been out on a longer high speed run to see if that's carried over to that sort of situation too - though expecting less change there.

One of my main jobs for this weekend definitely needs to be sourcing the missing bits for my air cleaner. I'm absolutely not proud of this bodge fest.



I've had two separate people who likely have one who have gone totally unresponsive for a couple of weeks now so I'm giving up and just going to pick one up from a commercial outfit. Have to admit I'm curious to try one of the "normal" air cleaner housings anyway and see if they tame down the induction noise a bit. It is quite obtrusive anywhere above 50 or so and is the sort of noise that gets quite tiresome after a while. I figure the larger internal volume of the normal housing might act as a bit of a muffler. We have never been able to figure out why TPA (well, KPL actually as that's the car the engine came from) was fitted with a shorter than standard air cleaner housing - nor have we ever found another car with the same one, though it doesn't *look* like it's been modified.

Was really nice to get the car out again though, spent too long just sitting in the garage.









Couple of hundred miles off the 3000 mile mark now. The current list of things in my head to be included with the service that will come up at that point.

[] Resecure nearside rear wheel tub to the chassis. I've noted that whole corner wobbles about a fair bit and I'm sure that's not helping with the amount of bodywork rattling going on.

[] Sort out the damage to the rear of said wheel tub to prevent the ignition coil getting drenched every time I hit a vaguely damp bit of road. How it's not protested yet I have no idea.

[] Go over the car end to end checking basically every fastener I can find - if the air cleaner worked itself loose there's every chance other things may have too. I'd rather not have mission critical things randomly falling off.

[] Adjust the valve clearances. I put that off at the last service because the weather was horrible...no excuse there other than pure laziness.

[] End-to-end check of the brake lines. I spotted one bit up front where one had been rubbing against the frame, I'd rather not have that going on. Deploy additional clips as necessary.

[] Adjust brake free play.

[] Order another indicator flasher unit. The one I fitted recently had a really annoying "feature" in that there was a good 2 second delay between you turning the indicators on and them doing anything...this made signalling on roundabouts an exercise in forward planning. So I nicked the one off the C5. I need to replace it now of course.

[] Actually check to see what my ignition timing is set to (not that I can do anything about it), but it would just be nice to know what the initial and total timing I have is set to. Really do wonder how much difference having vacuum advance available would make. Know it's something that 2CV folks suggest makes quite a big difference there. Moot point really given my distributor seems precisely as stuck in place in the block as seems to be standard on these engines.

[] Investigate an electronic voltage regulator for the charging system. I know the system is never going to be great just given the limitations of the dynastart, but I've heard a few people say the modern regulators have vastly improved the behaviour of systems on cars with traditional generators, so seems worth a look.

[] She really could do with a wash...honestly can't remember when that last happened! Hoping to get to at least one or two shows this year so would be nice to have the car clean at least.