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

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

#591 Post by Zelandeth » Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:33 pm

One of the gremlins I've been aware of on the Jag ever since it entered the fleet was a slow leak of brake fluid from somewhere in the vicinity of the master cylinder. The whole thing was wet with fluid, and the deposits in the vicinity suggest it's been leaking for a long while.

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I had originally assumed this was down to the seals between the plastic hose stubs and the cylinder body, right up to the point that I discovered that the hoses weren't snugly fitted. I guess over the years the rubber has shrunk and compressed below the hose clips so it's no longer a tight fit.

I don't want to disturb the actual hose connections until I know that all the bleed valves are operable...and I'm slightly scared of the rear ones as if I break a bleed nipple off I'll be in for a whole world of pain as sorting it would mean having to drop the entire rear subframe. I'd rather not do that!

Decided to try an experiment. Got a couple of small table ties and fitted them as tightly as I could. Result of sitting overnight after cleaning things up and after about 1/2 an hour or driving:

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That looks better to me! Has proven nicely that the issue is with the connecting hose between the reservoir and the cylinder. This is preferable as it's a lot cheaper to sort.

Being totally honest once I get some suitable hose in I'll probably do away with the typically Jaguar flexi-metal-flexi arrangement and just run hoses directly from the reservoir to the master cylinder.

I discovered while doing this however that I do not have a working brake fluid level warning light. The float is jammed in place at the top of its travel and one of the terminals has corroded sufficiently to part company with the lid. I'll get a new one ordered. If I wasn't the sort of person who actually does a regular check of fluid levels that could have been nasty. This is why you should never rely on warning lights folks!

In the afternoon I turned my attention back to the van. First order of business was to finish tidying up the tail light wiring in the gas locker.

Nothing special but better than the spaghetti that was in there before.

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With a bit of fermangling I managed to make the gas line for the water heater reach. Not the prettiest bit of work but it passed the leak test just fine.

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Attention was then turned back to the worktop.

The location for the hob was pretty much fixed by the position of the framework under the worktop, so that was the obvious thing to start out with as far as cutting holes in my nice new surface.

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By some miracle (and thanks to quadruple checking things!) I managed to get it fitted straight.

After a bit of thought we went for this layout as it gives a decent clear area at the rear for food preparation etc.

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After generating approximately fifty tonnes more sawdust...

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Nothing actually hooked up yet, but it is actually starting to look like a kitchen again. Now it's time to actually get things reconnected...which I'm honestly looking forward to far more than the blasted carpentry!

Only bit of further cutting needed (well, aside from making a few holes for pipework) will be to make a blanking plate to sit in the sink to allow that to be used as extra space if needed.

I do have to admit to feeling quite satisfied with how things are looking now though...hopefully I won't foul it up before I'm finished!
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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gazza82
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#592 Post by gazza82 » Tue Jun 02, 2020 11:53 am

Definitely looks all usable space now!!

On that Master cylinder .. my old Alfa 156 had two plastic connectors to the master (dual circuit) and both were leaking slightly. Turned out that there was a recall on them as they had started to go brittle and the vibration caused them to crack. When I worked one hose off, the plastic union snapped .. luckily I'd already got two new ones and seals. But there was no way they would push in so out came the master cylinder (unbolted from servo!). At least you have a jubilee on the hose .. mine had the clamp-on type you get on moderns but wanting to keep it standard I replaced these and bought a Clic-R set of pliers to clamp them back up. Always handy on anything mid 90s!


And when I checked with Alfa about the recall .. they said it had been done!! (and I don't doubt the garage that did the work at the time!) If it had then the replacements were just as bad as the originals!
"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

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

#593 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jun 02, 2020 1:32 pm

The hose clips on there are the use-once crimped type...which is half the problem. If they were normal fuel hose style clips I'm sure another couple of turns on the screw would have sorted it. Or if they were the spring ones they would probably still be fine.

Anyhow, I've got a couple of metres of EPDM hose on the way now so it will be sorted soon.

Still can't quite work out why Jag felt it necessary to use metal lines for half the run, producing eight rather than four possible points of failure...though it definitely sounds like them!
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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

#594 Post by gazza82 » Tue Jun 02, 2020 2:49 pm

Zelandeth wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 1:32 pm
Still can't quite work out why Jag felt it necessary to use metal lines for half the run, producing eight rather than four possible points of failure...though it definitely sounds like them!
At least they are using metal .. most are now using plastic for fuel pipes (and tanks)!
"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

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

#595 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jun 02, 2020 11:51 pm

Today hasn't seen all that much actual physical work done, but quite a bit of thinking regarding the plumbing was done.

I'm going to be doing away with pretty much all the convoluted pipe in the greywater drainage system in the van in due course. I'm not bothered about the one vent line or the outlet from the bathroom sink (which is a specialised caravan one), but the vast majority of it will be getting binned. The bathroom sink I can get to the back of easily at least as the line it dumps into is accessible in the service compartment below the wardrobe, so I can add a trap in there easily enough. The couple of inches of line between the sink and the trap I'm not going to lose any sleep over. This is something I can look into though once I pull all the lines underneath the van off (the one from the bathroom side is more patch than original pipe!) and replace them with 40mm rigid plastic. Just now though I'm not quite feeling like facing that challenge. However as I've already got the kitchen in pieces it makes sense to me to pipe that up properly so I don't need to take it all apart again.

Firstly, we need to ditch this outlet on the sink.

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Replacing it with a standard household 1 1/2" one. The existing plughole on the sink side was retained

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The overflow port on here is where the draining board will hook into.

The one challenge I did face was that I had very limited clearance to work with in the cupboard and I really didn't want to go cutting holes in the shelf to make room for the trap. So I went scouring both the Toolstation and Screwfix catalogues to find the shallowest trap that anywhere locally has in stock. I may replace this with a waterless one in the future as I'd rather have a water free solution to prevent possible freezing issues in the winter - not that a scoosh of antifreeze when I winterise the van wouldn't solve that issue - and the new heater controller that's on the way has a frost protection mode anyway.

This was the arrangement we ended up with.

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You know sometimes that you measure everything down the nanometre and it still ends up looking like you never gave anything a moment's thought? Well sometimes it works the other way too...when what you ended up with completely at random ends up fitting absolutely perfectly.

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The seal and thread on the base of the trap didn't exactly inspire confidence, so I gave it a good blob of assembly goop before putting it in place.

The pipework runs down to the back then drops down where the old drain "downpipe" used to be.

At this point I had a challenge however in that I needed to hook the 40mm rigid pipe up to the existing convoluted line under the van. Cue a bit of headscratching and digging through my box of random "stuff" to see what I could come up with.

This was the result:

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One boiler condensate drain attachment point with the compression fitting replaced with a washing machine attachment barb. It won't flow fantastically well...but it will be getting hacked off and replaced with an elbow not all that far down the line when I replace the underfloor lines. It just needs to drain the odd small sink in the interim. It will do fine I reckon. The compression fitting is just an inline coupler with a push fit end cap blocking it off. That will disappear entirely once the elbow is fitted...In the meantime it can be a sediment trap I guess...

Should get this all together tomorrow and can then get the sink and drainer bolted in.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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

#596 Post by Zelandeth » Thu Jun 04, 2020 12:56 am

Up until today, the arrowed line in the image below was the main drainage line that the kitchen sink and draining board dumped into.

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That bit of pipe is no more...This is now the main waste line heading out of the van from the kitchen.

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Doesn't that look better?

This is the contraption just below the floor to hook it up to the existing line that runs forward to the grey water holding tank (which sits just in front of the living area door step).

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The grey pipe with the white tip on it at about 8 o'clock is the original waste line from the kitchen which has now been removed. The larger grey line running from about 10 o'clock to 3 is the fill line for the fresh water tank which you can just see the end of to the right of the image.

The drainage side has now been hooked up inside and secured with a bracket in the cupboard.

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(Yes I fouled up the position of the outlet the first time around).

When I came to fit the taps I discovered that even though it was way thinner than the one I had removed, the worktop was still too thick...so I had to do a bit of modification.

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Sorted.

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I did consider completely re-running the lines for the taps, but instead decided to just pick up from where the sink used to be.

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The last couple of inches of the feed to the cold tap has been run in red hose...I quite simply needed a last couple of inches of hose and I didn't have any more blue to hand.

It almost looks like a sink again.

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I did wonder how well things would flow given my Frankenstein's Monster of a hookup to the original drainage system.

It used to take a good few minutes to drain this sink, and it couldn't drain quickly enough to keep up if you were rinsing your hands etc. If you just left the tap running it would eventually overflow the sink. How's it looking now?

YouTube Video Link

Much better!

That's a huge improvement. That low profile trap is never exactly going to allow mammoth flow rates anyway, but it's certainly decent enough for the intended application.

This is quite a big milestone. Next steps are to get everything actually attached to the worktop, then just tidying things up really. Few gaps to fill around some edges in the cupboards, seal around the pipework (including patching up my foul-up from earlier with the drain outlet positioning), a couple of brackets to install, some trim to add, and a few screw heads to trim off etc...then we can start tidying up the horrific mess I've made!
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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

#597 Post by JPB » Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:41 am

:idea: Do you plan to cut back the long edge of the worktop? I ask simply because the overhang may make the process of removing the grill pan somewhat more risky, especially if the cook is removing something that's on fire. OK, so that's maybe more representative of my own lack of cooking skill but might a slightly slimmer surface not be less intrusive for the person using the kitchen? I know that a coachbuilt van's facilities will always be more accommodating than those of my own long yet strangely narrow vehicle's galley area, but then I manage to clatter my head along the pretty much flush tops in my own mobile food preparation zone, all eighteen inches of it, so maybe I'm not crediting others with the ability to avoid such self-inflicted pain.
:)
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

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

#598 Post by Zelandeth » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:19 am

JPB wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:41 am
:idea: Do you plan to cut back the long edge of the worktop?
Possibly. I've already got a plan in motion.

Being honest given our eating habits I'll be surprised if the grill ever gets used. If it does there's very unlikely to be anything more combustible than a couple of slices of toast in there.

Trimming back some or all of the edge is something that I'm going to withhold judgement on until we've used the kitchen a bit as that will reveal any shortcomings far better than any theory. Edge trimming there is something I can easily come back to at a later date.

I don't think it will really impede access to the grill though - the kitchen is narrow enough that the natural way to approach inserting or removing the grill pan will be to stand to the side rather than directly in front of it.

The one thing I definitely will be doing will be putting a radius on the corner at the front corner - but that's being held on until a final decision has been made on the removal of not of any depth.
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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

#599 Post by Zelandeth » Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:00 am

Time to start actually putting things back together.

I discovered a bit of a problem when I came to attach the draining board and the sink.

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These originally used a very specific type of fastener...Which vanished somewhere after the kitchen was pulled apart long before I got the van. I couldn't find a replacement locally and I wasn't prepared to wait for something to arrive from eBay.

Hmm...We can work around this.

*snip*

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*Rummage in box of fasteners*

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There we go.

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Note the thick rubber gasket around the edge as well to stop any spilled water getting under the edges. There's an O-ring under the tap as well though it's not visible once it's fitted.

There we go! Both the sink and the draining board are now properly fitted.

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Sadly I did chip a bit of enamel off the draining board because I over-estimated how tightly to do the fasteners up. My mistake - though at least it was already chipped in one corner so I don't feel quite so bad! A little paint touch up will sort it.

Annoyingly there's a "but" as well. That cheap and nasty low profile sink trap...it is indeed cheap and nasty, and is a complete joke. It's utterly useless, the whole outlet section is held on by two tiny little plastic pegs, one of which has snapped.

Back to Toolstation tomorrow for something more suitable. We'll stick a straight pipe under the sink and add an in line waterless trap in the drop pipe in the gas locker - Probably this one. It's what I was originally planning to do anyway, then I tried to save a few quid...Should have gone with my original plan!
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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

#600 Post by Zelandeth » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:26 pm

Having discovered that the sink trap I had bought was as much use as a chocolate teapot I did what I should have done in the first place and grabbed one of these.

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This is a "water free" sink trap. In case you wondered what's inside one, this is the answer.

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The blue section is a very flexible material which feels like silicone to me.

While it required a bit of rearrangement of the pipework this really is what I should have done originally.

Before:

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The fitting wedged under the trap is the only thing stopping the outlet section falling off in the above photo.

After:

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Yes, I utterly fouled up cutting the new hole for it vertically. That's what I get for rushing to get finished before dinner. I knew pretty much the moment I started that this was going to fight me, it just felt like one of "those" jobs.

Obviously this also required changes to the main waste line as the kitchen outlet was in a different spot. The less said about this the better probably!

Not proud of it but sometimes that's just how it goes.

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Patching up the cupboard wall won't be a problem - it's just irritating at this stage.

Really irritatingly though I apparently managed to nick the line from the draining board while cutting the new hole in the cupboard wall, so I needed to pull that off and replace it. Thankfully this was just standard so I was able to use the original hose that the sink was originally hooked up with.

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Hob needs bolting in then I can tidy up and call it done!
My website - aka. My *other* waste of time
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 88 Renault 25 Monaco. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.

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