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...Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#1131 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:18 am

Dick wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:30 am
Will we be saying goodbye to the Mercedes ?short lived visitor but very welcome :cry: do you have any news of the jag? Im missing it... :oops:
I was due my 3rd jab later this week but tested positive last week :sick: ... ive never taken the egr? Valve apart ... while im on unplanned "holiday" for a week i might have a look for the one on the shran... (im nicking the turbo)
Yes, the Merc will be moving on later this week. It's been fun but just wasn't the car I was looking for...just don't think one that's tidy enough for me is in my budget any more. Still glad to have had it though.

-- -- --

This surging behaviour seriously has me intrigued. Managed to catch it doing it again today and got a better video properly catching it.

https://youtu.be/JT0X3XLBsCw

This clearly shows how it's essentially a regular "blip" approximately once a second that happens irrespective of the engine speed - and that during this behaviour she chucks out a shedload of smoke.

You can always *smell* that something is off when it's doing this, the smell from the exhaust lingers for ages. If you're in a car following it, it makes your eyes water apparently.

Physically disabling the EGR valve by removing and plugging the vacuum line to the actuator has no effect. I know the valve is moving as you can clearly hear it snap open or closed - and it sealed well enough that carb cleaner wasn't even seeping through the orifice while I was cleaning it yesterday. So I think the valve itself is innocent.

However if I unplug the *electrical* connection to the solenoid valve which controls said valve, the problem completely goes away. Idle immediately smooths out perfectly (it sounds to me like the injection timing or duration also changes as the engine note itself does change too), you hear the throttle valve in the intake snap fully open, and the throttle response becomes perfectly smooth through the whole rev range - and we see absolutely zero smoke aside from the expected tiny initial puff of black if you absolutely boot it, and that's not enough to be visible in the headlights of a following car. Also notable that any noticeable smell completely vanishes too...it just smells like an early 00s diesel VW.

Now I'm sure unplugging that would trigger an engine management light if I had one and I'm sure will have logged a fault code, and disabling an emission control device like this is illegal, so it's not a permanent fix...however it provides me with useful data to add to my diagnostic process and *definitely* puts the van in a less polluting state while I get to the bottom of the root cause. You've seen the cloud if you've watched the video above!

I need to make my reading today working out exactly what the sequence of operation is for the various bits of the emission control system on this engine and how the various parts interact with each other. I get the impression that understanding how that lot works will shed some light on what might be happening.

Decided that the Caddy could have a day off as errand running workhorse today.

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Which went absolutely fine until I heard a suspicious "ding" at one point and saw something small and round disappearing into oblivion behind me.

When I eventually found somewhere safe to pull over, the cause didn't take long to find.

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Ah. That's sub optimal. The air filter element was still present, wedged between the chassis and suspension arm thankfully (as they're surprisingly expensive), however the cover plate and wing nut are long gone. Even if I could spot it, as with so much of MK there's nowhere safe to pull over to retrieve it safely as it's on a 70mph dual carriageway with no pedestrian provision even vaguely nearby. So I'll need to find a replacement. Thankfully it's a bit of standard Steyr-Puch engine rather than a bespoke bit of Invacar so shouldn't be difficult to track one down, even if it may mean getting a whole new air cleaner assembly.

Guess we need to add "check air filter element retaining wing nut is tight" to the weekly checklist!
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.

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

#1132 Post by Dick » Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:49 am

Could you fit an aftermarket air filter to the ac?

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

#1133 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:22 am

Dick wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:49 am
Could you fit an aftermarket air filter to the ac?
Wouldn't be hard, it's just a normal 32mm Weber carb. I've got an old cone filter in the garage which may get stuffed on there if it looks like parts might take more than a week or two to show up. Shouldn't be necessary long term though as the filter housing is the same on all the Steyr-Puch 500/600 engines so finding a replacement for the now missing bit shouldn't be too hard.
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...Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#1134 Post by Zelandeth » Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:28 am

Today's automotive task:

Get rid of this bodgery behind the heater controls in the Caddy.

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This is a close up of the broken bit of plastic on the back of the heater control assembly.

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Which SHOULD look like this.

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Thankfully as I expected the base units are identical, just mine has a few extra bits on being from an AC equipped car.

Mine:

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New (used) one:

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Underneath:

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These (plus the white plastic lamp cover I later realised) are what need to be transferred over - and the faceplate obviously.

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The greenish plastic thing in the middle is the light pipe which illuminates the indicators in the AC/Recirc buttons green when the headlights are on and the controls are off.

It needs to sit in front of the main light pipe assembly, but thankfully that unclips easily enough.

The one on the right illuminates the legends on the aforementioned buttons...and getting that sucker into position here is a royal faff, especially as you're acutely aware of what a tiny, fragile bit of plastic it is.

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Really glad I had the sense to photograph the order these sat in before pulling anything apart.

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This is what the top of the switch assembly looks like.

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Whole new unit back together now with my AC specific bits added.

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I initially didn't realise that the white lamp housing is slightly different, as the AC specific one is slightly shorter to allow it to fit over the additional light pipes.

The part numbers are different, confirming I wasn't just being daft.

AC one:

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Non-AC one:

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Though if you're doing this job you've likely got a complete but broken assembly in front of you anyway, so really not an issue. If robbing bits for an AC conversion though worth knowing you do need it.

After a small amount of swearing at cables (they are *precisely* as long as they *need* to be). I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's a large part of how that bit got snapped in the first place. Wouldn't be hard to put a load of strain on there when installing a stereo or routing any wiring behind the dash.

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Having all four mounting lugs now present both the heater controls and the black surround on the front of the dash is far more secure.

While I was in there I pulled the cigarette lighter out to replace the failed lamp in that.

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That has to be one of the most frustratingly difficult to access lamp holders I have ever come across. I did eventually though manage to extract and replace the lamp. Result being (finally) all of the dash illumination working.

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Albeit with a moderately annoying amount of light leakage from the vicinity of the cigarette lighter. It really needs some assistance in the light-tightness department.

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Next interior target will be the offside outer heater vent which is missing a large chunk of itself.

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Which I have a suspicion will end up coming from the same breakers I just got the heater control panel from. I'll probably do the headlight control panel too as it's not securely fitted, I'm assuming because a mounting tab has broken or something like that behind it. The little storage cubby for documents under the dash being screwed shut with self-tappers may make it onto the list too as I can't unsee that now!

Small steps, but nice to have fully working heater controls again without needing a cable sticking out under the dash. For the sake of £12 of parts and maybe an hour of time, hard to say no really.
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...Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#1135 Post by Zelandeth » Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:22 pm

Been a little while since I had the time to do a proper update so let's have a catch up.

The Caddy passed a nice milestone while we were on the way to an appointment a few days ago. Thankfully I had my other half with me so was able to get evidence of it...as I was on the M1 at the time I couldn't exactly pull over to grab a photo.

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Hopefully many more to come.

Despite suffering from a lack of a working pressure washer I needed to get the Mercedes cleaned up ready to be handed over to the new owner - this meant the best part of an hour driving around in circles until I found a jetwash that was actually working. Was the most horribly rushed and patchy job in the history of self serve car washes, but at least I had most of the moss out of the window seals and brightwork, so it looked a lot better.

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Still one of the classiest looking cars I've ever owned I think.

The car rewarded me for cleaning it by blowing the offside rear indicator bulb. Of course I didn't have a spare in stock...so wound up nicking one from one of the repeaters on the van. It won't be going anywhere until the salt is gone from the roads anyway. Plenty of that a out just now...the corner of this roof was silver before a 20 minute run up the motorway a couple of days ago!

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With the cleanup complete though I was able to pass the car on to its new owner. Only a few miles up the road and someone I know, so I'll still see it now and then I'm sure.

Off she goes.

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The space will be filled again soon though, some of you may remember this one being mentioned a few months back.

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Which will be quite a rewarding revival hopefully. They're pretty simple cars and this one by and large is exceptionally solid. A friend on another forum has already offered me use of their car roller which will make the bit of welding on the offside sill inner several orders of magnitude easier. Will also make doing a decent job of rust proofing it easier - though I may well still just farm that out to a specialist.

Revival work is what I tend to enjoy the most, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

A surprisingly large parcel arrived - even more surprisingly quickly given it came all the way from Germany - for the Caddy. Got here quicker than some things ordered from an hour up the road.

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Hardly mission critical, but definitely tidies things up a bit. Does make quite a noticeable difference to the noise level outside the van too so isn't entirely cosmetic. I usually hate engine covers, but this only takes about 90 seconds to install/remove and makes a good tray for putting things in so isn't a huge problem.

Does look like it's taken about ten years off the engine bay though!

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While I was rooting around in the area I dropped the new cabin air filter in. Dead easy to get to compared to many modern cars which require you to stand on your head in the footwell and/or dismantle half the dash.

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I'm quite used to seeing these having never been changed so was half expecting a solid black rectangle of unidentifiable organic matter to come out, but it wasn't actually too bad. Definitely due a change but it's definitely been changed sometime in the last few years.

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You may recall me noticing some horribly hacked wiring in the engine bay related to the obviously long defunct aftermarket alarm system a little while back.

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Which had also left a gaping hole in the bulkhead.

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I've now found that end of the tail (buried behind the heater box), and each of the wires has been taped, heat shrink covered then the tail as a whole treated the same way. The actual alarm module is buried up behind the centre console and I didn't have the patience to go chasing that further today.

This lot was pulled out.

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The above area now looks like this. By pure chance I found a bung sitting on the drive that was exactly the right size to fill the hole left by that alarm wiring.

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Much tidier.

A friend dropped by today with their fancy diagnostic gizmo to see if we had any fault codes stored which might give us a pointer on what's going on with the twitchy idle/EGR issues.

As we had hoped there were a couple of codes stored.

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The first of which is the interesting one.

"Motor for intake flap (V157) - sporadic - open/short circuit to earth."

The second code is expected as it's indicating the solenoid for the EGR valve being open circuit - because I've unplugged it.

This is really useful as it gives me a component to home in on with my investigation. First port of call is to make sure the wiring to it isn't obviously damaged as it is quite exposed. Then we'll give it a good clean, which it really wants anyway.

Tomorrow's task is going to be putting together the contents of this very heavy box, which arrived too late yesterday to do anything with...but should solve my pressure washer situation.

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Should be a decent upgrade from a fairly low end electric pressure washer...and having 30 metres of hose to play with will be a massive help in itself compared to the four I'm used to. Putting that all together will be tomorrow afternoon's task.

A silly little accessory arrived yesterday for the Invacar.

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Suitable replacement for the keychain that I somehow managed to lose back at the start of the pandemic.

Have also come up with a temporary solution to the air filter issue. This doesn't look in any way ridiculous...

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To be honest it's basically only there to keep crud out of there until I can track down/manufacture a replacement for the missing bit of the cleaner housing. I won't be driving it like this given the insurance company may declare it's a performance modification...must be good for at least a 30% power increase of course!

I think that brings us up to date for 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.

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

#1136 Post by Dick » Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:27 am

Id be interested to see if there is any performance improvement on the ac....

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

#1137 Post by Zelandeth » Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:53 am

Dick wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:27 am
Id be interested to see if there is any performance improvement on the ac....
Given I noted precisely zero difference to performance (or the ever present induction roar) when the filter element was ejected I'm expecting the answer is not really!
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.

Dick
Posts: 1280
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#1138 Post by Dick » Sun Jan 23, 2022 3:09 pm

Zelandeth wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:53 am
Dick wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:27 am
Id be interested to see if there is any performance improvement on the ac....
Given I noted precisely zero difference to performance (or the ever present induction roar) when the filter element was ejected I'm expecting the answer is not really!
I had one fitted to a capri, all it seemed to be was an extra annoying noise... it got swapped with the original setup ... made the car so much more pleasant to drive..

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

#1139 Post by Zelandeth » Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:49 am

Well this box arrived on Friday...

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What was in it then? Well after about half an hour's assembly, this:

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Assembly was about as simple as you could ask for - all the necessary tools and some PTFE tape were in the box.

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The biggest complaint I'd seen from people in reviews of this unit was that they were managing to melt the hose that runs between the pump and hose reel on the exhaust. Have to assume they had it routed over the top of the engine...

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Simple solution, route it down underneath and apply a couple of cable ties to ensure it can't get in the way.

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Yes the reel is very obviously an afterthought they just managed to find space to bolt onto the frame as it does make getting to the pull start a bit awkward.

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Really not badly though so long as you've uncoiled the hose, which you're meant to do before starting the engine anyway - and having onboard storage for the hose is worth it I think anyhow.

Speaking of the hose... I've got used to the pathetic four metre reach on the old cheap plastic electric one, so having twenty metres to play with feels like utter luxury. It basically used to equate to one side and a bit of a car before you had to pick up and move the whole lot. This is the new setup...

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That's not even using the additional ten metre extension that came in the box. That alone will make the job of cleaning anything far less annoying.

Fit and finish is a lot better than I was expecting to be honest. Just a shame the polystyrene packing has reacted with the paint on the frame in one spot. Everything slotted, clipped or screwed together nicely as it was mean to and I had no issues with sharp edges or burrs on anything.

Engine is your typical Honda clone which turns up on everything from go karts to lawn mowers to generators...and while I'd obviously prefer the real thing (or being me to be honest, a flathead Briggs), I've never personally had any issues with these on any of my equipment or anything I've helped others look after. If it was being used for hours on end every day, maybe. For a couple of hours every week or two it should be fine.

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It does have a low oil shutoff, which is always nice to have on a piece of equipment like this.

The detergent tank built into the base is a nice detail rather than just a hose dangling off to dip in a bottle (which inevitably gets either lost or broken) or an awkward thing you have to clip to the lance like the Nilfisk this replaces had.

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As for performance? Well you'd expect it to have more punch than the 1400W electric ones given the engine here is rated at 5500W if my math is right (8hp). Yep...that's definitely the case...you properly have to brace yourself when pulling the trigger on this and use common sense as even with the wider nozzles fitted I don't doubt for a second that this thing will strip paint off metal if you're not careful.

Hoping to give it a proper test in the week, today was just a run of a few minutes to make sure everything behaved, and allowed me to blast some of the worst of the gunk out of the gutters and after a dousing in degreaser, the engine bay of the Caddy. Not an oily engine anyway, just grubby from 20 years of use. The washer bottle is going to need separate attention, but it generally looks a lot cleaner now.

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Cars are much more likely to get cleaned now as this reduces the hassle factor massively!

List price for this is £379, though it was discounted to £330 when I ordered it - decided it was a good thing to stick the £100 or so of vouchers I've had sitting around literally for years to use for - plus my nan sent some money at Christmas too...so good excuse for a new toy I reckon!
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.

3xpendable
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#1140 Post by 3xpendable » Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:17 pm

Zelandeth wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:49 am
Engine is your typical Honda clone which turns up on everything from go karts to lawn mowers to generators...and while I'd obviously prefer the real thing (or being me to be honest, a flathead Briggs)

I have one!

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2013 Dodge Durango R/T
1965 Ford Anglia 106e Estate (Wagon). LHD.
1964 Ford Anglia 105e Saloon

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