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

[Zelandeth]

With your taste of broken electrical gadgets is it one of these
https://images.app.goo.gl/rQc1zCZ1jbSZF2dF8

I may be mad, but I'm not *that* mad.

Okay then. Now that money has changed hands and we've pretty much sorted collection arrangements I feel I can actually reveal what it was that I was willing to spend basically a whole day going to look at yesterday.

The answer is this:





Excuse the blurring. As the photos were taken in the seller's front garden I wanted to blank out the background as far as possible to remove any landmarks.

A P6 has been on my wishlist forever, but finding a viable one with a reasonable price tag was something I'd given up on a good few years back. I did look at a few about 15 years back, but all the ones I could afford then were complete basket cases.

A chance post appeared on another forum a couple of days ago from the seller of this car where they'd had issues with a buyer for this car having backed out making up non-existent issues when they had it delivered to them. I then figured it couldn't hurt to ping the seller a message, and the rest as they say is history.

From the look around the car I did it seems astonishingly solid. Bit of surface rust here and there and some historic repairs, but nothing worrisome. It hasn't been in use for Quite Some Time however, so will want to be properly recommissioned. It does however run, drive and apparently stop - so not a bad situation to be starting from.

Have to admit I'm really pleased it's not brown with a black interior. I mean they do look good in those colours, but it feels like virtually every one you see is brown/mustard or a very similar greeny grey to the P4 and with a black interior, and it's no secret that I like lighter or more colourful interiors. Exactly like this.





Odometer is showing 01034 - so that'll be 101K.



The handles for the doors are in there, reckon they were taken off when some paintwork was going on. I've not spotted anything that's actually missing yet.

Have always been curious to see what this panel looks like at night.



Nothing scary under here.



The previous buyer claimed that the oil was full of fuel and that a head gasket had gone because of the moisture on the oil filler. Yes, there's a bit of fuel in the oil but nothing you wouldn't expect from a car that's been out of use so probably hasn't been run off choke in years. Likewise there's a bit of condensation on the cap, but absolutely nothing you wouldn't expect. We're both kind of baffled over what the previous buyer was playing at.

Even the vinyl roof is in decent shape.



Exact date has to be confirmed, but hopefully it will be getting delivered next week at some point.

Pretty clear very basic plan of attack for when it arrives - plus anything else that I think of then.

[] Change all rubber fuel lines.

[] Chase any electrical gremlins.

[] Change tyres.

[] Change all fluids.

[] Sort any sticky brake issues - anything causing issues there will just be chucked at Bigg Red to be rebuilt, I'm not faffing about trying to wrestle sticky pistons and such into behaving myself, especially with how bloody awkward to get to the rears are.

[] Put back together the bits of the interior which are currently on the floor and give it a damned good clean.

[] Get it professionally rust proofed so it hopefully *stays* this solid.

I am extremely excited to be bringing this on fleet. As I've said before I'd long since really given up on ever owning one of these.

[Zelandeth]

Only had half an hour to devote to car things today so chose the non functional windscreen washers on the P4. This was bugging my OCD, especially as I could hear the motor run so knew there couldn't be much wrong with things.

The issue was that there was originally a rubber coupler between the motor output shaft and the impeller. This had long since turned to powder. A previous attempt to repair this had been done using heat shrink tubing, but this wasn't a tight enough fit to transmit torque to the impeller.

After scratching my head for a while I ended up fabricobbling a coupler together using a horribly mangled crimp terminal, some wire and a screw terminal block minus its outer plastic casing.

Pretty? No.



However it is effective.



Not exactly a huge torrent of water, but it does what it was designed to. Nice to have ticked it off the to do list.

I'm sure the coupler is available as a spare if you know what to search for, but my attempts to find one a few weeks ago turned up nothing, save for the whole pump/motor assembly for more than I wanted to spend when it was surely fixable.

[Dick]

I must say I'd never have guessed a p6, good choice! one of my dream cars since I rode in one when I was 14ish.. someone did ask me to weld one but when I saw the failure sheet I pointed out there wasn't enough mig wire in the world to fix it..

[Zelandeth]

I must say I'd never have guessed a p6, good choice! one of my dream cars since I rode in one when I was 14ish.. someone did ask me to weld one but when I saw the failure sheet I pointed out there wasn't enough mig wire in the world to fix it..

It's a car I've had my eye on for many a year, but had just thought that viable ones were thoroughly out of my reach. The last couple I looked at (and this is at least 15 years ago) sounded like the one you described. The fact that all the panels bolt on mean it's very easy to disguise some absolutely catastrophic rot. The last one I looked at looked absolutely stunning at first glance - until you opened the driver's door and noted that the windscreen moved as the B pillar flexed. I ran very quickly away from that one.

I've known a couple of folks with them and have helped out with a few jobs here and there, but it's really not a car I know a huge amount about, so will be something of a voyage of discovery. I managed to muddle my way through owning the XJ-S for over a year okay, so this should be relatively simple in comparison I guess!

Lot in common though...unnecessarily cramped engine bay, an electrical system full of those terminally temperamental butt connectors, all the faff associated with inboard rear brakes and absolutely catastrophically bad fuel economy. I reckon I'll be seeing somewhere in the region of 12-15mpg. Probably would be a bit better anywhere else, but you can knock about 20% off any estimate because Milton Keynes. The Jag averaged 12, dipping into single digits alarmingly regularly.

I'm quite excited to get stuck into it. Does mean that the P4 is up for grabs though - I really ought to put together a for sale thread on here for that.

[Dick]

I'll be sad to see your other rover leave, I've enjoyed following the renovation...

[Zelandeth]

I'll be sad to see your other rover leave, I've enjoyed following the renovation...

Likewise! Sadly it's a situation where I can only have one or the other, so something has to go. I mean logically it would be the Renault, but if I abided by even the slightest bit of logic I'd never have bought that in the first place.

I definitely wouldn't say no to another P4 in the future maybe, but I'd probably look to pay a bit more for a slightly less tired example. Wouldn't need to be a minty fresh one by any means, but every aspect of this one is quite tired in a lot of areas. Which honestly you'd expect from a 150K mile, unrestored 60 year old motor.

[Dick]

I'll be sad to see your other rover leave, I've enjoyed following the renovation...

Likewise! Sadly it's a situation where I can only have one or the other, so something has to go. I mean logically it would be the Renault, but if I abided by even the slightest bit of logic I'd never have bought that in the first place.

Im afraid logic doesn't exist for people like us who like old cars..

[Zelandeth]

Nothing really been going on car wise last few days. Looking to get the Partner booked in to have a new timing belt (and all the associated gubbins) fitted shortly as I've no documentation to show when it was last done. Well that's not strictly true, the service book shows it was last done in 2016, but I've been advised it has been done "fairly recently" by the previous owner. Given the lack of paperwork though I'd just rather have it done for peace of mind. Going to get them to investigate and sort whatever it is that's whining in the belt area and sort it as well. Hopefully it's just an idler/tensioner and not something annoying like the alternator or power steering pump. I don't think it's the AC compressor as the whine is completely unaffected by whether it's running or not.

This evening I attacked our old friend the Toshiba T1600 again.



Look at that!

This is now running on a Pico-ATX power supply attached to the underside of the original PSU board for everything aside from the -22V rail, which is currently being supplied by the bench top supply next to it.

I wanted to verify a couple of things before I got too involved in dealing with that. Firstly was that the system itself was still working. Secondly was that the display would actually work when I fixed the missing rail. Finally was to get an idea about how accurate the voltage needed to be on it. Annoyingly the answer is actually "quite accurate" in this case. It needs to be within 0.3V or plays havoc with the contrast. So I think I'll just be picking up a pre-built adjustable module for this as it's likely to be far less twitchy than anything I build. I doubt it will fit in the power supply area, but they're pretty tiny things so hopefully I can cram it into either the bay for the modem or expansion slot which won't ever be used for anything else.

It may be a bit of a pain to power (well, not compared to a plasma, +295V as one of the rails sound fun?), this display really does look nice.



Yes, it really *is* that deeply saturated a blue in person, the camera isn't exaggerating it. I've always liked the smaller version on the T1200, but having a larger, higher resolution version is rather nice. Plus this can do something that the T1200 can't: Greyscale.



Which means we can do things with graphics much more convincingly.



Next step for this is going to be to tidy up the installation of the power supply as it is, then reassemble the machine. I'm just going to leave two wires sticking out the back for an external -22V supply for now as I'd really like to get a bit of soak testing done sooner than later. Plus it will allow me to get some experimentation done, get some proper photos for the website and to get the software sorted out. Currently there's nothing on there of interest, just a broken Windows 3.1 install (actually looks like there are two!), Word Perfect and a backup utility. Based on my prior experience with these hard drives the most sensible thing I can probably do is to low level format it (from that perspective it's handled like an old MFM drive), as several somewhat twitchy examples have behaved perfectly after that. Then a fresh Toshiba OEM DOS install and some choice software will be chucked on there.

Actually getting it into a fully working state this evening though felt like a massive victory! Just hope it stays that way now...

[Zelandeth]

The new toy is now officially on the way.



Should be arriving here pretty early tomorrow morning all being well.

Of course the weather has decided to return to being a million degrees this week so not sure how much I'll actually be doing immediately - but there will be a load of photos from when I have a good look over it at least.

Today I have been very much enjoying the whole "having a daily driver with working air conditioning" thing again.

Found an unexpected friend while out shopping today.





Which has allowed me to confirm that the silver trim on the rear bumper is indeed meant to be there. I'd thought that had maybe been replaced with one from an older model as it just looked a bit odd to me.

She's been booked in to a local garage at the end of the month to have the whining noise coming from the aux belt area Investigated (my suspicion is actually pointing towards power steering pump as it looks to be weeping from the spindle), repairs made as necessary and for the full timing belt/water pump kit to be replaced.

The belt change interval on this is a ridiculous 10 years/125K miles according to Peugeot, which does tie in with the last one listed in the service book being pretty much spot on its 10th birthday - back in 2016. I'm not waiting until 2026 to change it...I think 5 years is way more sensible an interval.

Especially makes sense if they're going to be digging into the belt area to sort out whatever is whining, which will obviously involve taking the aux belt off (which is pretty badly glazed so wants changing anyway) so they're already halfway in anyway.

I'm viewing this as a long term fleet member at this point, so this is preventative maintenance I'd just rather have done.

Will be getting done by MOTest over in Newport Pagnell, who sorted out the brakes on the van for me. While Comms between the office and workshop could have been better, the work was done to a good standard and they were very patient with the seemingly never ending circle of issues we ran into. Plus they only charged me about a quarter of the labour I'm sure they'd actually spent on the job, nor did they charge for the MOT retest though we were well outside the ten days by the time we eventually got it sorted.

[Dick]

Don't always listen to service schedules, a friend who was a director of transport at a large company with a couple of thousand of vehicles had several cars with idiotic cam belt changes.. After a couple forked engines he had them changed at a reasonable time.. works out cheaper in the long run