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

#641 Post by Dick » Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:02 pm

Can you get a colour to match made? Re xantia exhaust i find that a bit of wd40 or fairy liquid on the hangers makes them either fit easier or ping off and play hide and seek...

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

#642 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jul 21, 2020 1:23 pm

Dick wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:02 pm
Can you get a colour to match made? Re xantia exhaust i find that a bit of wd40 or fairy liquid on the hangers makes them either fit easier or ping off and play hide and seek...
Not easily. Dante red involves I believe five coats, including a not-actually-clear clearcoat. Which is why it appears to vary between a deep red to quite vivid orange depending on the light and angle. Plus the bonnet and roof have already been repainted and the colour match there isn't great. It's a pig of a colour to work with.

I think the one remaining exhaust hanger won't be too bad with an extra pair of hands and a proper ramp. It's just nigh impossible to do while laying on your back under the car trying to get them in place while single handedly trying to wrestle a huge silencer which weighs a significant portion of my own body weight into position.
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#643 Post by Zelandeth » Thu Jul 23, 2020 1:50 am

Having come to the conclusion that the Invacar will need the carb pulling for a proper deep clean again I got to having a dig around to see if there's a carb rebuild kit available for this one as it would make sense to me to swap out all the seals and gaskets for fresh ones while I've got it in bits. While this carb isn't showing any appreciable wear anywhere it's still over forty years old so I wouldn't mind at all if I were to spend a bit of extra time doing a full service. Unfortunately the Weber 32ICS10 on here seems to have very little in the way of parts availability out there.

The other carb they apparently came with was a Solex 40PID. That at least does have *some* availability...though it sounds like the larger 40mm carb is probably better suited to the larger 650cc version of this engine. After a bit of poking around I did note that that does also come in the same 32mm size as the Weber...and *that* does have decent availability as it's used on early Land Rovers and several PSA models. Hmm...if one of those were to pop up somewhere cheaply enough I might have to do a bit of experimenting.

Someone on another forum did link me to something which very much piqued my interest too in this field.

Link to a throttle body fuel injection kit for small engines

Now a lot of folks would run screaming away from this sort of idea. There's a few reasons I won't however. Firstly is that I conducted exactly that sort of conversion on my Lada a couple of years ago. There were a few hiccups due to dodgy secondhand parts and a few components being hard to obtain because the donor vehicle hasn't been made for twenty plus years. However once they were ironed out (finding the bug in the ECU design which meant standard lambda sensors didn't work was fun...) the difference to the carb setup was like night and day. The overall driveability of the car was transformed, and you could just jump in, turn the key and go, irrespective of the ambient temperature, it the car is hot, cold or anywhere in between. I reckon we gained a huge lump of mid range torque too. In spite of what the naysayers said, even though several bits were still unfinished and lashed together a year later the system had proven to be utterly reliable once the initial bugs were ironed out.

While it cost me a small fortune and trying to track down some parts was a pain (the donor vehicle having both a stuffed ECU and siezed fuel pump was unhelpful!) it was a rewarding challenge to undertake and resulted in a car I was far more happy to use.

For now we're just going to stick with the existing carb and clean it up, or possibly swap it out for something similar but with better support. For one thing I'd really like to experiment with the jetting a bit. My gut tells me the standard carb runs things a little on the lean side of ideal.

On the plus side, having had the carb off before it was a lot quicker and less annoying job to get to it this time as I knew what contortions and stripping down of the engine bay were needed to get the retaining nuts out so we were left with this.

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Still can't get over the size of that oil cooler for a 500cc engine.

...With this rather grubby lump of metal ready for some attention.

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When it was previously cleaned I never really put much effort into the outside of the casing, I'll give that a better scrub this time round.

Pretty much the moment I started stripping it down it became abundantly apparent that it really did need to be stripped down. This is the state the fuel inlet strainer was in.

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With this all dropping out of the recess the above strainer sits in.

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While the float bowl looked clean at a glance, there was actually quite a lot of this grit in there too.

Into the cleaner it goes.

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Will obviously need to be rotated several times before it's finished but despite being a couple of sizes smaller than ideal the cleaner does a good job.

The fact that the cleaning solution had after only a few minutes visibly turned darker and cloudy shows it's doing something.

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Will get the other sides done tomorrow, blow all the drilled passages out and finally refit it to the car before taking a test drive.

-- -- --

Yesterday I swore at the Jag a lot. Changing four belts should not take an entire afternoon.

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Whoever was responsible for the belt tensioner design on this car was a complete and utter sadist. They're awkward to get at (except for the one for the air con belt which you can clearly see above), which you kind of expect and accept going into the job. The location of them means that you can get about 1/18th of a turn on the nuts at a time, having to rotate the spanner by 180 degrees between each movement. This is annoying...but especially so given that the threaded rod used in the adjusters is of a ridiculously fine pitch for the application. This meant that it took me more than half an hour of knuckle grazing, smooshing my face up against the front splitter and swearing to back the alternator belt tensioner off enough to actually get the belt off. This one is even more annoying as you have to do it completely blind unless you're lucky enough to have a vehicle lift on hand. Just having it parked on static ramps is no good as you need access from both above and below...

There's absolutely nothing difficult about this job...it's just incredibly soul destroyingly tedious.

I honestly hope that I never have to do this again...it was a truly horrible job.

Unfortunately once everything was back together I think I have found why the original compressor clutch assembly failed.

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The far side of the pulley you can see here is adjusted to the correct clearance. Yep...the input shaft on the compressor is bent. So I'm on the hunt for a new compressor after all...though it does look like we've tracked one down already. Just annoying to have wasted the best part of £100 on the clutch assembly.

Not one to be put off by such things though I turned my attention elsewhere. One thing which had always been letting the interior down was the steering wheel. It had faded in a slightly odd, blotchy way and looked a mess.

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Finally got around to treating it with some leather dye today...I think this looks a thousand times better now.

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-- -- --

I have made a start on de-rusting and painting the front apron on the van as it was getting to look embarrassingly rusty... obviously waiting on a top coat now but we're getting there.

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The bonnet skin has had it, I'll get a repair made to that corner shortly, though longer term the panel needs to be changed. Don't worry about the slight overspray on the bumper by the way, it needs painting too but will be removed to do that.

Made a bit of a step forward with my planned audio upgrades when I stumbled across these in a box in the loft.

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I bought these back in 2007 as part of a kit including all the fittings, wiring etc and both the sub and amplifier which are still in use, hooked up to my stereo downstairs. I'd completely forgotten I still had these though, I thought they were still in the Saab which I passed on to a friend years ago. While they're not exactly a prestige name as far as I'm aware they definitely exceeded my expectations performance wise. These should do nicely in the van I reckon. They're a lot less conspicuous than they were when new as after a couple of years in use the almost neon green colour of the cones faded to what you see now.

I'm usually one to try avoiding cutting holes in things, but I like my music and there's not really much option if I want some better speakers in place. The position I'm planning to install these will be about as discreet as I can possibly make it though.
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#644 Post by Zelandeth » Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:39 pm

One slightly cleaner Invacar carb back in place.

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Not sure if I ever posted the full carb details before...so for those who are interested in such things here you go.

I had a feeling that the adjustments on this were a mile out as when dismantling it I found that the idle mixture screw was only held in by about two threads. When I put things back together I went with the usual starting point of two turns out (I've generally found that's usually a setting that's close enough to get an engine to run so you can start adjusting things properly).

After dancing between the idle mixture and idle speed screw we settled at a reasonable idle showing this on the CO meter.

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Annoyingly 1 out of 4 times when you go to open the throttle she will hesitate and spit back through the carb before the engine picks up. The accelerator jet is working and is squirting fuel nice and straight down the carb throat. It's just as though she's running too lean as soon as you try to transition between the idle jet and main.

It seems that thes cars were always somewhat prone to doing this, though I don't see that that means that they all *should* do that if the fuelling is correct.

Something I've always noticed is totally absent from this car is any form of pops and crackles from the exhaust on the overrun, which always tends to suggest she's running a bit on the lean side. It's utterly unscientific and worth nothing but it's just my thoughts on the matter.

It looks like I've tracked down another carb which *should* have the same stud pattern as the one on the Invacar, from a 1100cc four pot so the fuelling should be roughly in the right ballpark (I'm assuming that like air-cooled VW engines these engines probably prefer to run slightly on the rich side). I'm just curious to do a bit of experimenting and irrespective of performance etc, for long term reliability I'd not complain about having a slightly better supported carb in place. It's entirely theoretical at the moment anyhow, will let you know when it arrives and I have a chance to experiment.

Some very quick and dirty paint has been thrown at the van.

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It's not pretty by any stretch of the imagination but I think looks a bit less horrendous than it did. Doesn't need to last forever given that both of the panels involved will be replaced eventually anyway. At least the rust should be a bit less conspicuous at a passing glance now.

Today I've set about attacking the front and rear windscreens in the Jag with Cpt. Tolley's to see if we can resolve the issue with water creeping in between the glass and the rubber seal.

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The driveway being on a slope is a pain when doing this as it tries to run to one side because of the slope.

While I was in the vicinity of the rear windscreen I took a brave pill and poked at the rusty blisters at both lower corners. I was honestly expecting to wind up with holes in this panel (and know full well what an utter swine it would be to repair). Mercifully the metal was still solid if somewhat pitted. This was rubbed back a bit then liberally coated with Vactan.

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I'll give it another couple of coats before getting some top coat on there.

A couple of weeks ago our lawn mower started playing up, and no amount of cleaning the carb would restore normal behaviour. It would run fine for about 30 seconds then start behaving as though it was running out of fuel.

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I was about to order a carb overhaul kit before discovering that you could get a whole genuine Briggs carb for less than £20...Which makes spending £12 on an overhaul kit seem a bit pointless.

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Ten minutes later we had the new carb in place.

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Based on comparison of what came off and what went on it seems that the diaphragm which serves as the fuel pump has gone hard and plasticy probably resulting in poor fuel delivery.

While it was pouring with rain so I wasn't able to really test it under load, it started first pull and was happy to run on both idle and run settings, so it *looks* like we've solved the problem.

EDIT: Oh, and I've got a couple of metres of 1.75" stainless steel tubing on the way to become the new tailpipes for the Jag. Figured for £20 it was worth a shot at doing it myself. The rattling from the sleeves in the silencers is annoying me, but I'm sure as heck not going back to having a silent exhaust, the V12 howl is far, far too addictive.
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#645 Post by Zelandeth » Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:21 pm

After what seems like forever I finally have this bush for the Xantia's suspension in my hand.

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Despite coming from an eBay shop which didn't mention the name anywhere, it came in an AutoDoc box with an AutoDoc invoice...I'd never normally voluntarily buy from them given the history of sending out completely the wrong part that's on part with Euro Car Parts...However it appears that this is actually correct by some miracle. While changing it looks a deceptively simple job, apparently getting the old bush off can be a right pain so I'm sticking with my decision to get the garage to do that work. It's booked in for a week tomorrow, and I'll hopefully have the car back a few days later with a fresh MOT. Only taken me eight months!

22mpg will seem positively frugal after using the Jag daily for a while!
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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

#646 Post by Zelandeth » Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:53 pm

With the Xantia heading in for remedial work and an MOT at the start of next week I figured it was probably time to set about removing the cobwebs and pine needles from the interior. I always try to present my car for the test in a reasonable state as I figure making a good first impression can never hurt. The tester jumping into a car that's obviously cared for despite being worth about the same amount as the fuel in the tank is always going to put them in a better frame of mind than one they have to don full hazmat gear to get into.

While the clearcoat peel let's the exterior down the interior still scrubs up will for a 24 year old, 140K mile car.

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Gave the cab of the van a quick scrub up too as it was really dusty.

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Really do need to do something about the threadbare carpet on the engine cowl. If it wasn't glued on I'd just remove it and have that match the rest of the dashboard. Finding a second hand one may well be the easiest solution there.

EDIT: Went back out after dinner and gave the Jag the same treatment.

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

#647 Post by Dick » Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:00 pm

Could you strip the engine cowl and cover it with a vynil leather type finish?

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

#648 Post by Zelandeth » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:58 am

Dick wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:00 pm
Could you strip the engine cowl and cover it with a vynil leather type finish?
Quite possibly...Though if they have used commercial grade carpet adhesive it's likely to involve a LOT of work!

-- -- --

Wednesday was a little bit of a disaster.

My fuel injection overhaul kit for the Jag has finally turned up. I'm leaving this alone until next week though once the Xantia is (hopefully!) back on the road as it will inevitably take the car off the road for a few days as it will be quite an involved job to get that overhaul done.

The other thing which turned up was the stainless steel tubing I had ordered to take the place of the rear silencers on the Jag.

I set about replacing the tailpipes, while a bit fiddly this was pretty uneventful. Right up until this happened.

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That is the twisted, shattered remains of what was my poor Huawei P20 Pro phone.

What happened is a classic case of "a series of unfortunate events." I'm a creature of habit...and my phone always lives in my left pocket. However during lockdown I've had no less than three pairs of trousers come to the end of their lives...leaving me a single, solitary pair of cargo pants. I've not felt like going into a clothing store to replace them so have been making do - but I didn't have my usual cargo pants on. So I didn't have the usual compliment of pockets. So I took my phone out of my pocket so it didn't get scratched up by my keys, placing it on the rear bumper of the Jag by where I was working. Unfortunately I then totally forgot to retrieve it before I went for a test drive. I realised it was missing about half an hour later and eventually figured out what had happened. The rubber bumpers on the case managed to make it stay exactly where I had put it for about 3/4 of a mile until it eventually fell off...Right in the middle of a 70mph dual carriageway.

The P20 Pro is a sturdy bit of kit for all it's got a shiny tempered glass finish, the chassis is milled from a single solid ingot of aluminium. It would have probably been absolutely fine following that experience, between the sturdy case it was in and the design, it might have cracked the screen or the rear case glass (both relatively easily replaceable), but it wouldn't have been a huge issue. However getting run over repeatedly by 70mph traffic was more than any piece of consumer electronics could deal with...and I defy any phone, even the ruggedised ones made by Cat, to come out of the experience looking any better than this.

Despite that mess my SIM card survived, and the eject mechanism for the drawer it lives in was still able to work properly to retrieve it. The battery was still undamaged as well - though given what it had been through I removed it as I didn't particularly trust it.

I feel such an utter idiot. I've had a mobile since early 1998 and have never damaged any of them beyond the odd scrape or scratch...I still have every single phone, and they all still work (even though the charger for the original one, a Vodafone MN-1 is currently AWOL...I know I do have it through, I saw it when we moved in here). Until now.

It's a real shame as well as this was probably the single piece of technology I've ever owned that I was most both impressed by and generally liked. I'd had it for a little over two years, and the shine hadn't even started to wear of (physically or metaphorically), and I was still daily awed by the capabilities of such a tiny bit of technology and the camera never ceased to impress me - and was singularly responsible for me having stopped carrying a separate camera. I knew I was just about at the point where I would be able to pick a new upgrade, but wasn't really feeling any need to. The main drive would be the fact that I always pass my previous handset on to my husband when I get an upgrade - so we actually get far more use out of them than we would otherwise (though I'd probably have considered selling the old handset otherwise). Being able to offer him such an impressive bit of technology would probably have been an incentive to look into it. Obviously that's not going to happen this time!

Turned out when I looked, I was indeed due an upgrade (as of last Wednesday), so getting a replacement handset wasn't going to leave me directly out of pocket (bearing in mind that directly replacing my existing one would still have set me back somewhere around £400) - though we *do* have "gadget cover" on our home insurance which will allow some of that to be recovered at least. Did mean I needed to do a bit of research though to decide what I wanted. Didn't take much...I've been very impressed with Huawei's handsets so far (we've had two P9s, two P10s and my P20 Pro in the house) so wasn't really interested in looking elsewhere. The P30 Pro was the standout choice...Basically a couple of year's worth of refinements to the basic design of the P20 Pro - and apparently a far better camera. Knocked £8 a month off my contract and doubled my (hardly touched) data allowance too.

Less than 24 hours after speaking to Vodafone the new handset arrived. I'll say one thing...It really is an incredibly pretty thing. There's a sort of three dimensional holographic effect on back.

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They describe this finish as "Aurora" - and yes, I can see that.

I think I may actually need to make a point of getting a clear case this time...That's too pretty and makes me far too happy to hide it.

Initial impressions to overall fit, finish and software experience while setting up, basically can be summed up as "Your move, Apple."

Quick camera test...Haven't fiddled around with the configuration at all yet...

Hey look, a conveniently pretty test subject.

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Hey look...a proper optical zoom with proper optical image stabilisation. Nice to have.

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Plus in the opposite direction a proper wide angle mode.

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Which will definitely be handy, not so much outside but for interior shots it will be a real bonus. Examples...

Here's a shot of the interior of the Jag in "normal "mode.

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It's clear how much more you can see with it in wide angle mode.

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The rear seat you can't usually get a decent photo of whatsoever because it's so cramped.

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Would have been much better if I spent two seconds making sure the driver's headrest wasn't in shot.

It's even makes taking an interior photo of the Invacar pretty easy!

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At the other end of the scale I discovered another party trick this camera has which will definitely be a lot of fun to play with. The macro mode focuses down to something ridiculous like 3mm. Here's the Jag's bonnet badge. I could get closer than this but would need to have a light on hand to avoid shadows.

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Or how about a Xantia tail light lens?

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You can really clearly see the alternate strips of clear lens and retro reflector in the lens.


Another package arrived yesterday morning that I'd actually completely forgotten about...This was hiding in it.

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Here's the data tag for those of you playing along at home.

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This is a new old stock 32mm Solex carb. It has the same throat size and stud spacing as the Weber 32 ICS carb on the Invacar - albeit with the base rotated through about 45 degrees. So if this stays on the car I'll need to make an adaptor up - not that it will be difficult. Just needs a metal disc with one hole in the middle and four smaller ones at appropriate places.

There was nothing really in mind here other than experimentation in the sheer spirit of curiosity.

Turned out the most difficult thing to get my head around for an initial test was figuring out how to actually bolt it onto the manifold. The original Weber carb has studs attached to it. This one has two holes to allow it to be bolted down or to fasten onto studs on the manifold. Just bolting it on however was made a bit tricky by the fact that you can't slot a bolt in from the top because the top of the carb casting is in the way. You can't slot it in from the bottom because the inlet manifold itself is in the way. After a bit of head scratching I cut a couple of bits of threaded rod to size and put nuts in both sides to clamp it down. That took me far longer to figure out than it really should have.

So what happened the first time I started it up? I wasn't honestly expecting it to even start. This was literally the carb as it was out the box - all I'd done was to blank off the vacuum feed for a distributor advance unit. Apologies for the horrible camera work, you're listening more than watching to be honest though.

YouTube Link

Well I think that's got promise! The throttle response is immediately obviously far, far snappier. Cracking the throttle open would usually result in quite a gaping hole in the carburation until the engine picks up, with at least the occasional sneeze back through the carb. I think we might need to cobble together a connection to the throttle to see how it behaves under load. The engine this carb was originally destined for was an 1100 I believe, so the per-stroke fuelling rate should have been pretty similar to what we would have been looking for here. Should be an interesting experiment...Initial indications seem to be positive.

Hopefully the weather will cool down enough over the weekend that we might be able to do an actual test run. I'll need to figure out whether making an adaptor plate for the base or adapting the throttle cable will be easiest. Annoyingly the throttle cable is about 1/2" too short to reach as it is. I suspect it may well be the base plate. I don't want to invest *too* much time in this at this stage as it's purely an experiment and it's entirely likely that my theory will be completely wrong and it will actually run pig rich under load.
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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

#649 Post by suffolkpete » Sat Aug 01, 2020 9:52 am

Slightly off topic, but I also have a Huawei P Smart phone and I find it very impressive. Much better piece of kit than the Samsung I had before. I can't help but wonder how the embargo on using American technology will affect them though.
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Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroen, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70

#650 Post by Zelandeth » Sat Aug 01, 2020 9:52 pm

suffolkpete wrote:
Sat Aug 01, 2020 9:52 am
Slightly off topic, but I also have a Huawei P Smart phone and I find it very impressive. Much better piece of kit than the Samsung I had before. I can't help but wonder how the embargo on using American technology will affect them though.
I think it's something we'll see resolved one way or another in the relatively near future. Doesn't directly affect me here as the P30 Pro was launched just before the embargo came into force, and it doesn't affect anything which was essentially "type approved" prior to the date it all kicked off.

I know Google are currently in the process of applying for an exemption...and given the money involved I can't see it being turned down. Hardware wise Huawei have the muscle to sort most of the other issues out domestically if they need to, but the lack of access to the Google Play store etc on the newer models is the biggest issue just now.

-- -- --

I *finally* found the long lost trim for the number plate light this afternoon so have stuck that back where it belongs.

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It's not perfectly straight, I'll tackle that another day when it's not a thousand degrees outside.

Did a bit more experimentation with the carb. Let the engine run long enough to get decently warm to see if any running issues cropped up...still seemed happy. Let's see what the CO meter has to say.

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Well that's rather better than I'd expect for a carb from a totally different engine on which I've not even touched anything.

Got a better video today, showing throttle response...audio is better if nothing else.

The first run is me cracking the throttle immediately wide open after the engine had been idling for a good 30 seconds or so. The engine here is always going to initially respond a little slowly just because it's got a really heavy flywheel attached and has to spin up the whole gearbox input shaft when the centrifugal clutch engages.

YouTube Link

Anyone who knows these cars knows that this would normally have resulted in a fairly noticeable pause before the engine really picked up.

She starts a lot better now too. Usually you had to give her a bit of throttle to initially get the engine to catch.

YouTube Link

I have cobbled together a connection to the throttle cable which seems to work okay...think we might need to try to get a road test done tomorrow.

I'm really, really curious to see how she behaves under load 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.

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