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

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:51 am
by Zelandeth
Had a little excitement this evening on the way back from collecting a grocery order.

Had taken the Jag out for a gentle amble. Taking it easy as she's got a few things needing sorted, but with a bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense no problem, and I'd rather not have to deal with sticky brakes etc. These aren't cars that like to sit.

Driving along at 50 - which was the limit where I was, and a lorry decided that sitting on his 56mph limiter was a better speed limit so overtook me.

His outside rear nearside tyre blew out - right as said wheel was level with my open driver's window. Well that's what I figured out had happened a few minutes later anyway!

I honestly (and I'm not kidding) thought I'd been shot. Fight or flight reflex defaulted to "flight" and I buried the right foot, ducked as far as I could and traversed the immediately following roundabout somewhat sideways before I found somewhere that felt safe to pull over and figure out what the hell had just happened.

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened. The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay. I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

This was about 1900, my right ear has just about stopped ringing.

Uh...so if you got cut up by a black XJ-S earlier this evening in MK, sorry! You now know why!

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

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:46 pm
by Aaron
one of those situations where both the statements 'you were lucky' and 'you were very unlucky' are equally appropriate. Glad to hear you are okay.

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

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:34 pm
by Dick
No damage to the car? Apart from being a bit deaf and probably needing clean pants im glad to hear you're ok :thumbs:

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

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:11 pm
by harvey
Zelandeth wrote:
Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:51 am

Driving along at 50 - which was the limit where I was, and a lorry decided that sitting on his 56mph limiter was a better speed limit so overtook me.

His outside rear nearside tyre blew out - right as said wheel was level with my open driver's window. Well that's what I figured out had happened a few minutes later anyway!

I honestly (and I'm not kidding) thought I'd been shot. Fight or flight reflex defaulted to "flight" and I buried the right foot, ducked as far as I could and traversed the immediately following roundabout somewhat sideways before I found somewhere that felt safe to pull over and figure out what the hell had just happened.

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened. The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay. I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

I grew up in a village with a narrow bottleneck right in the middle of the high street. Said bottleneck was on a slight LH curve, and uphill travelling that way, and the pavement was about 2 ft wide, and the old houses there opened straight on to the pavement. An old artic shell tanker with super singles on the trailer cut the bend a bit and as one of the trailer tyres rubbed hard against the curb it burst and blew a hole about 3 foot in diameter through the wall of the house, so I think you had a lucky escape.

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

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:10 pm
by Zelandeth
It still surprises me that people don't realise the difference between the 30psi in a car tyre and the 120-180psi in commercial tyres! Even my van which is only a baby compared to most commercial stuff with a 2.8t gross vehicle weight, that runs 58psi up front and 65 in the rear. The amount of stored energy there isn't something to be trifled with. I'm glad it happened when the guy was overtaking me - if he'd been on the inside lane he would have been right next to a busy footway.

Out and about again today...

Modern cars are just so ridiculously huge aren't they?

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Stopped to grab a couple of better photos on the way home as I've been wanting to grab a couple for profile picture type applications for the web page etc.

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The curse of that streetlight in my photos strikes again - got a shadow on the roof this time.

...And reflection on the lens from the back of the phone case in the other photo.

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I'd honestly forgotten that I'd ordered a replacement for the horn that I fitted way back when I first resurrected her as it's proven very intermittent. Fact is the electrical system just isn't up to an air horn...It'll work fine if you're blatting along at 60, but trundling along at 30 it's 50/50 whether the compressor will run fast enough to actually sound the horn or just make pathetic croaking noises.

Arrived with a load of needless plastic tat over it to try to make it look "modern" I assume.

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Thirty seconds of levering with a screwdriver later...

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Far better! Will get that fitted next time I'm in the garage. Half the size and about a quarter of the weight of what's in there just now.

Yes, I could have taken the Xantia today, could have taken the Jag...Nope, I wanted to take TPA because we're honestly at a stage now where she's just a fun little car to drive.

Overtook several cars on the A5 on the way back home - much to the surprise of the drivers! I was making a deliberate point of holding her at an indicated 70 (honest...) for a good few minutes as I wanted to see what the temperature did. On a very slight uphill gradient (which let's face it is about the best we can expect her to maintain it on...The fact this car can DO 70 is enough of a surprise for most people) it peaked at 165C, which is pretty much smack on 1/2 way on the gauge - which I'm absolutely happy with. I'm measuring this from the left hand cylinder head, which being shaded by the oil cooler should always be the hot one. Given blatting down roads at motorway speeds wasn't really in this car's design brief was why I wanted to make sure the temperature wasn't slowly creeping up when travelling at higher speeds.

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

Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:57 pm
by Zelandeth
Brief interlude...

I may have had a moment of weakness on eBay a few days ago...

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Been a long while since I last saw one, but it popped up in one of eBay's "we think you might like..." emails which have been increasingly dangerous lately since I went on a buying spree of ancient calculators a couple of months ago.

Still want to add an NC200 to the collection at some point, a friend had one while I was in secondary school and I always greatly coveted it. Just haven't seen one at a price I'm willing to pay yet. This was less than £50 including shipping though which I was quite happy with.

Hard to believe there's only four years between these two when you look at how much more of a coherent, polished looking product the NC100 is than the PPC which honestly looks like someone found a bunch of bits in a surplus warehouse and bolted them together (which *is* basically what they did!)...

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Though from a purely architectural point of view, the NC100 is arguably more old fashioned, being Z80 based rather than 8086 (well, a clone thereof anyway, NEC V30) for the PPC512.

They also share one major gripe...lack of a display backlight!

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

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:39 pm
by Zelandeth
Finally got around to sorting something today on TPA which has been making my teeth itch for over a year now.

Spot the difference.

(Aside from the distributor cap.)

Before:

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After:

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Yes... finally dealt with this horrific bodgefest.

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These are the original battery hold downs. Sadly as I was completely unable to find the original form factor battery (or indeed what type it even was), they're basically useless.

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Oh, and here's a reminder why bungee cords and cable ties are not a permanent solution.

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That had been pinched between the rear wheel tub and the chassis rail and had rubbed about 2/3rds of the way through.

My solution has been to cut a couple of bits of M8 threaded rod to roughly the right length (a little over 6") and fasten a bit of webbing between them - this is a bit of seatbelt originally from KPL I think where the buckles had completely rotted away to nothing.

I heated a metal rod up to red hot before using it as a punch to make two holes. This melts the fibres together and prevents anything from fraying.

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Not too worried about that anyway. Ever tried to tear a seatbelt, even if it's already frayed halfway through?

Finished article...

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It's tightened up sufficiently that the battery is completely secure. If I have issues with it ovalling the holes out I'll replace it with a strip of angled steel instead - but I'd really rather avoid the need for metal across the top of the battery if I can avoid it given the layout. I might go back and bolt a lip onto the tray though just so there's then *absolutely* no way it could conceivably slide free then. It can't go anywhere the other direction as the wheel tub is in the way. Probably overkill...but I'm a fan of doing what I can to keep Murphy's Law at bay. It's really not a heavy battery either, probably half the weight of your average car one.

I had someone ask me on another forum what the labels on the slam panel were all about - the answer is "me getting fed up of realising I need to consult the manual in the middle of a service one time too many."

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Couple of photos from while she was out in the sun today just for good measure too.

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Really need to remember to paint that rear wheel arch...I just can't see it from in the garage so keep forgetting there are still white filler spots visible there.

Noticed I've got a drip from the sump plug... that's what I get for being a cheapskate and not just replacing the copper washer (which I noted was well mangled originally). No idea why I didn't just change it given I have them in stock. Oh well...on the plus side at least I'm not dropping a huge amount of oil to change it!

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

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:47 pm
by Zelandeth
As mentioned above, TPA has been marking her territory since the last oil change.

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This is because the idiot doing the service for reasons utterly unknown decided to refit the rather dog eared copper washer rather than replacing it. Which would have required him to walk all of four feet to pull one out the box.

This has now been rectified.

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On the plus side, the sump only holds 1.75 litres of oil so I haven't wasted much by changing it twice in 200 miles.

On the downside, the sump only holds 1.75 litres of oil, so you *really* want it to stay inside the engine.

While I'd got the sump empty (again) I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the sump strainer. I had been checking it religiously for the first few oil changes as quite a bit of sludge was initially washed out - but subsequent checks revealed nothing so I'd left it be for a while. Reckon it's probably been untouched for 650 miles or so now. Any slime present today?

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Nope. Clean as a whistle (well, a very oily whistle...but you get the idea). The grainy looking bits at the far edge are attached to the gasket. No deposits in the basket at all.

I think with regular oil changes and the sort of driving I do I can probably drop pulling this out down the service interval list a bit. It's worth keeping an eye on, but definitely doesn't need to be pulled out with every oil change or anything like that from the looks of things.

Later in the afternoon I found five minutes to fit the new horn properly.

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Aside from needing to fit the proper foam pads in the fuel tank frame (which I do now have in stock at long last) it's *almost* looking vaguely orderly under here now...

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The spare belt got in the way of the catch for the hatch so has been relocated to in a bag under the seat for now. I'm probably going to attach a couple of the down points for said bag on the fuel tank supports when I have them out to fit the anti vibration pads so it can stay up front, but somewhere actually out of the way.

I took the Jag out for a quick run to the post office in the afternoon and it rewarded me in a typically Jaguar way by having random components decide to fall off for no readily explicable reason.

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Situation normal then!

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

Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:44 am
by Luxobarge
Happy Birthday mate! :D :D

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

Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:37 pm
by Dick
Happy birthday!!