Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[daviemck2006]

Cant wait to hear what's replacing the Lada Zel. Any clues?

[Zelandeth]

Cant wait to hear what's replacing the Lada Zel. Any clues?

Utterly out of character for my fleet for one, and will make the Activa look positively economical...

[bobins]

Cant wait to hear what's replacing the Lada Zel. Any clues?

Utterly out of character for my fleet for one, and will make the Activa look positively economical...

Roadroller
User:Suniltg [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

?????

[Hell Razor5543]

Hang on, it isn't that specific shade of Blue Rolls Royce you have been after, is it?

[daviemck2006]

I was going to say a bus, but I dont think it would be out of character for you, so I will guess at a relatively modern yank v8 pick up

[Zelandeth]

Hang on, it isn't that specific shade of Blue Rolls Royce you have been after, is it?

Sadly not, that seriously would have required the heavens to be in perfect alignment...though also I'd not consider it surprising because it's already on the shopping list...just a ways off. The correct answer isn't something I'd even vaguely been looking for.

That would be fun Davie, but sadly I've already got one car with limited passenger carrying ability, so the ability to carry four adults (even if it's a bit of a squeeze) would be necessary. Yes I know crew-cabs are a thing...but not on this occasion. Though there are quite a few Dodge Rams around here, presumably due to our proximity to a USAF installation...could see one of them being a laugh for a few months.

-- -- --

The Lada was unceremoniously dragged out of hibernation this morning and thrown at my local garage for an MOT without so much as a lighting check. Was expecting a list of minor stuff just due to having sat around for a month or two plus a year's use (albeit covering only a couple of thousand miles, mostly in fair weather).



Unexpected, but not going to complain!

The advisory for some underbody corrosion has been there as long as I've had the car, there's quite a bit of surface rust that could do with a scrub down and attacking with some Vactan and Dinitrol. She's never done any winter service in my ownership and I've generally tried to avoid wet weather driving where possible, so it's never got any worse. Has always been on the to do list, sadly has just never got to the top.

The steering idler mentioned has a (nylon?) bush in it, and they're prone to wear - replacement inserts are less than a tenner...and I've got one in stock already. Though it's nowhere near bad enough to worry us just now.

Having this car roadworthy again is going to make the logistics of this weekend where we need to get to a charity event with the dogs this weekend immeasurably easier.

Last year when she was in for the test I was still trying to get to the bottom of a small vacuum leak which meant the fuelling wasn't quite spot on so the emissions test was a rather mediocre pass. Having finally sorted that leak, I was curious to see what she would show today.



Much better!

Ignore the fail on the first test. The cat on this car is miles from the front of the car and takes an age to get up to temperature when you're standing still.

Lambda is still showing slightly high, though both me and the tester agree that that's probably entirely down to there being a couple of small leaks in the exhaust.

Last test we did with the carb in place we eventually managed to squeak through at 0.297% CO (limit is 0.300%)...so fair to say she's running quite a bit cleaner now I think. I reckon 0.093% is a decent figure for any engine...much less one from behind the Iron Curtain fro. The early 70s essentially with what many consider to be a very crude injection system grafted onto it. The cat is the original one from 1993 too.

Seeing those numbers makes it seem a lot more worthwhile having done the work (plus the car being way nicer to drive!).

One definite symptom of an old car that's not been used for a while was found though...I don't need to actually be able to *read* the instruments do I?



Think the first few runs out will be done with the heater on full blast and the rear windows open to try to encourage the moisture out of the car a bit.

[myglaren]

Put some trays of Fullers Earth cat litter in the car, which will absorb the moisture.

[Zelandeth]

Put some trays of Fullers Earth cat litter in the car, which will absorb the moisture.

To be honest it's a bit of a lost cause, the thing very much shows its origins as a cheaply made interpretation of a 1960s design where weatherproofing is concerned. There being a drain hole at only one side of the scuttle panel beneath the heater intake doesn't help as it means unless the car is parked on level ground you can end up with an inch deep puddle in the heater air intake essentially...

It's not usually too bad when the thing is in regular use, but she's been sitting a couple of months and it's been tipping it down here the last couple of days.

I've got a mains powered dessicant dehumidifier I can stick in there overnight if it keeps being an issue. That thing pulls a downright alarming amount of moisture out of the air. Chucks out a couple of kW of heat too which also helps when you're drying a car out.

[myglaren]

Hmmm - cat litter would struggle to cope with that

[Zelandeth]

Hmmm - cat litter would struggle to cope with that

Aye...the best solution by a mile is "just use the car regularly" to be honest.

The heater is positively furnace like (yes, they are as effective as the stories would have you believe - putting your hand over the vents with it on full is honestly painful), so opening the low level vent, sticking the heater on full and keeping the windows cracked while driving usually dries things out pretty quickly.

-- -- --

Hmm...what's that hiding in the van...?



Yet more ex-garage diagnostic equipment. This time in the form of a diesel smoke opacity meter.

This control panel has a very late 80s/early 90s look to it under the grime I reckon...





These things are pretty simple, so no reason it shouldn't work. Pulled one apart a few years ago and it was basically just a high intensity light source (halogen MR16 lamp in that case) in one side of the case and a detector at the other side plus some hardware to draw the air through.

Can't see it getting a huge amount of use - especially given the van basically doesn't smoke at all once started - but could be handy checking stuff for others and it's nice to know I've got the bases covered... slowly but surely getting my garage kitted out.

[Hell Razor5543]

That looks like a Psion keyboard and display!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Psion-Organi ... SwTpZd0q5-

[Zelandeth]

That looks like a Psion keyboard and display!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Psion-Organi ... SwTpZd0q5-

That's because that's exactly what it is...knew it looked familiar.

Looks like they're using a Comms package from here to send data to the receipt printer which would spit out the report to attach to the MOT certificate/Vehicle condition report.

May well need to refer to the documentation to figure out how to drive this lot!

Bearing in mind my fondness for vintage technology and computing devices finding this hiding under the cover was quite a nice surprise...even if the unit itself is naught but scrap it was worth it to add this to the collection.

[van ordinaire]

[/quote] The heater is positively furnace like (yes, they are as effective as the stories would have you believe - [/quote]

I remember that from my Niva days ("Built for Siberia, not suburbia") - so was surprised recently to learn of the availability of a heater upgrade

[Michel]

Cant wait to hear what's replacing the Lada Zel. Any clues?

Utterly out of character for my fleet for one, and will make the Activa look positively economical...

Range Rover 4.6HSE?

[Zelandeth]

Cant wait to hear what's replacing the Lada Zel. Any clues?

Utterly out of character for my fleet for one, and will make the Activa look positively economical...

Range Rover 4.6HSE?

Dear god man, even I'm not *that* insane!

Probably appealed to a similar market when new though.