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

[Zelandeth]

A most excellent read Zel What sot of oil goes in the Invacar gearbox and diff?

Plain old fashioned EP90. Nothing special or fancy needed here!

[CitroJim]

A most excellent read Zel What sot of oil goes in the Invacar gearbox and diff?

Plain old fashioned EP90. Nothing special or fancy needed here!

I asked as it looked very thin and foamy for EP90... Does the standard EP90 formulation contain anti-foaming agents I wonder?

[mickthemaverick]

The Castrol version does:

BFTW

[CitroJim]

Excellent Mick

[Zelandeth]

A most excellent read Zel What sot of oil goes in the Invacar gearbox and diff?

Plain old fashioned EP90. Nothing special or fancy needed here!

I asked as it looked very thin and foamy for EP90... Does the standard EP90 formulation contain anti-foaming agents I wonder?

I believe it should - and that this is one of the additives which tends to break down over time. It's not actually thinned down (it drags plenty up with the drive chain etc when you rotate the input shaft), but it's definitely more prone to foaming than it should be.

It's entirely possible that the oil I pulled out last time was as old as the engine, so no huge surprise that it needed a flush to get rid of all the gunk. The other possibility which springs to mind is if someone has topped it off with a lighter grade of oil in the past and it's settled out...Will never know really. Would be a lot easier to be sure it's all out if there was a drain plug!

[mickthemaverick]

Would be a lot easier to be sure it's all out if there was a drain plug!

All you need is a drill and a tap with a bolt to fit and a fibre washer. I did it on my reliant gearboxes and life was so much easier. Obviously its a careful job, just going through the casing and using a very short plugging bolt, but not a difficult one!!

[myglaren]

I asked as it looked very thin and foamy for EP90... Does the standard EP90 formulation contain anti-foaming agents I wonder?

Another forum I was on had a poster called 90WT (90 weight. US designation)
She was called that because her boyfriend said that she was thick.




She wasn't.

[Zelandeth]

Would be a lot easier to be sure it's all out if there was a drain plug!

All you need is a drill and a tap with a bolt to fit and a fibre washer. I did it on my reliant gearboxes and life was so much easier. Obviously its a careful job, just going through the casing and using a very short plugging bolt, but not a difficult one!!

Problem with this is doing it in a way where you're not going to make a horrendous mess draining the oil. The hole would have to be in the side of the casing rather than the bottom, so I suspect you'll just end up with an oil slick running down the side of the case unless you're inclined to start faffing around adding a drain tube and things like that...at which point it really starts sounding more hassle than it's worth. Once I've got 48 years of grime out of there it shouldn't need changing all that regularly anyway given it's just a single speed box...There's no syncromesh to be picky about precise lubricity and viscosity requirements at least.

For comparative purposes, this is what that oil looked like at the end of August when it was put in there...

[Zelandeth]

Just noticed something when flipping through the photos I took when looking at the alternator on the Jag.



If I can get to it, that's getting trimmed back and re-terminated... I'm not honestly expecting it to make the slightest difference. However it's £1-200 cheaper than an alternator so definitely getting tried first. The behaviour initially seemed to suggest a high impedance issue somewhere...

Could I be that lucky?

[Gibbo2286]

Your images don't show on my computer Zel.

[mickthemaverick]

Ok on mine and ok on phone.

[Gibbo2286]

All I get is the progress wheel for about a minute and a half then the image number but no image.

[Zelandeth]

All I get is the progress wheel for about a minute and a half then the image number but no image.

That's an odd one. I have had them vanish for a day or so twice when there was a false positive triggered by one of the adblockers I've got running, but that always resolved itself within a couple of days when the rules databases got updated.

Worth turning anything like that off and reloading the page just to see if that's to blame. I've no idea what to suggest other than that really.

I know some of the earlier ones are dead due to the great photobucket purge, but anything from the last couple of years should be fine.

[Zelandeth]

It's been a bit of a frustrating afternoon. Spent another hour and a half on the phone to Vodafone, trying to give them their stupid 4G modem thing back. No surprises that they've charged me for it, despite assurances half a dozen times that I wouldn't have to. Seriously, if you have a choice just don't go near them. They'll be losing me as a customer once my current contract is up, after 25 years.

I then set about trying to revive my desiccant dehumidifier as I'd really like to properly dry out the Jag. This thing is supremely effective. When I put it in my original Xantia after discovering a swimming pool under the rear seats it pulled over 20 litres out of the car within a day and a half. Unlike refrigeration based dehumidifiers which really don't work well below about 15C, the cooler it is the better these work. In addition to that this thing kicks out about 650W of heat as well, which is obviously helpful when you're trying to dry a car out.




It's actually quite well designed and by the standards of 21st century plastic tat it's actually pretty well put together. Unfortunately Amcor dropped the ball by using the cheapest and nastiest motors in the world. I've already changed the one which drives the desiccant wheel, but last time I had it running the blower motor seized up.



I did pull the motor itself to bits to see if it could be saved, but the bearings are just utterly shot. Then started a swearing match with Google (etc) where 85% of my search string was just getting ignored. Thankfully I was offered assistance and a replacement has now been ordered.

By the time it arrives from China summer will probably be here so it'll be a moot point!

At that point I was able to escape to the garage for an hour to start getting the brake upgrade on the Invacar installed.

There's just a *bit* of a difference in size between the old and new!



The mounting points are identical though as we hoped, though I obviously needed to swap the pushrod over, was expecting that though. Is a simple enough job, it's just held in place by a circlip...the removal of which was made slightly more awkward as this happened to my circlip pliers the moment I tried to use them.



Yep...it's one of *those* days. After about 15 minutes of swearing at it I eventually managed to ping it off my forehead into the footwell.

The new cylinder has a spring clip, so was easy enough to remove with a normal pair of pliers.



My *plan* had been to transfer this clip over as it would be far easier to manhandle into the groove...however I then discovered that the spring clip was too small to hold the washers of the old cylinder in...so I ended up having to wrangle the original flat circlip in.



Got there in the end. One assembled cylinder ready to go on the car.



Having learned my lesson before, I made sure that the "fork" of the pushrod was around the handlebar home rather than off to one side. It's a real faff to get this into place if the cylinder is already bolted in place if the pushrod isn't centralised properly.



Getting the roll pin back in is a pig of a job just because it's fiddly. That's on the docket for tomorrow hopefully.

The cylinder is actually in place now though.



I can't actually finish the installation yet because I completely failed to realise I needed to buy one additional part in. The current setup has the line from the master cylinder coming straight into a 4-way splitter block. From there it splits the hydraulic line to the front and rear of the car, with the brake light switch screwed into the fourth port. Of course there will be one less line there because there's a separate port on the master cylinder for each circuit.

I should have realised that before I even ordered the cylinder...bit annoying as I'll need to wait for that to arrive. Sadly I'm pretty sure I don't have one in stock given the lengths I went to to save the rear axle T on TPA. I'd not have spent hours salvaging that if I had a spare! Annoying.

The reservoir is meant to be at a slightly steeper angle than it is on this car but that won't be a problem at all in use as the cap is at the highest point and it's only a very slight tilt.

In the meantime I will get the rest of the plumbing done and will take the opportunity to pull the mud guard out and attack it with a large hammer to beat it back into something resembling the right shape. I suspect I may need to attack the bolts with the grinder as they're pretty crusty. While in the area I'll get the foam finally installed under the fuel tank upper strap and get rid of the folded up Amazon box which has been in there for a year.

I've got a couple of cans of truck bed liner spray on order as well. I'm going to paint the bulkhead with that on the outside to see if that helps reduce the drumming of that panel a bit. If it works I'll probably go round the inside of the other hollow body sections too.

Just more little bits and pieces it'll be nice to get ticked off the to do list. She's worth it, and they're all things which will add up in future when the car's in regular use.

No huge progress today then, but at least I did get a couple of steps done!

[CitroJim]

I'm with Vodafone for my FTTP Internet Zel and touch-wood, everything has been excellent.

Such a shame you are having serious issues with them Did they finally install and connect your FTTP?

That's quick work on the Invacar brake upgrade, seems only hours ago it was first discussed as a possibility!