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

[Hell Razor5543]

Zel, if you don't mind me asking, how much were the tyres?

[Zelandeth]

Zel, if you don't mind me asking, how much were the tyres?

£93 each including fitting and VAT I think - which is a whole £2 each more than mail order only from Black Circles listing the same tyres when I looked just now, so can't complain about that. I'll double check the invoice tomorrow when I get a chance.

Apparently the wheel has been sorted as of a few minutes before they closed up shop today, so hopefully should all be sorted tomorrow afternoon. Will we have solved the vibration? Taking bets...

[CitroJim]

That truly is good all-round Zel I need to know what company this is

[Zelandeth]

That truly is good all-round Zel I need to know what company this is

These guys!



https://thegaragetyres.co.uk/

There are two bits to this business. The tyre/exhaust/brake place out front, and a more in depth garage that's hidden away around the side. I've nothing but praise for the former. The latter is solidly average. No particular complaints really, but it's very much a production line type environment. The tyre guys though are great. Always a good bit of banter, and it's nice to see folks who actually take care when jacking cars up without me even needing to prompt, and actively looking up torque specs for wheel bolts and such. Somehow James there always remembers all the cars I've had in and asks about them.

Plus they always manage to make me feel *welcome* there rather than just being an inconvenience they have to deal with, which is definitely the exception rather than the rule these days.

Thanks to their efforts, we've now got four wheels on our wagon again.



Of course I was immediately sent out into properly torrential rain this afternoon. Unsurprisingly these handle surface water rather better than the tyres that came off, especially given they were far more worn on the inner edges than I'd realised.



I do sometimes wonder whether the legal wear limit needs to be reconsidered given how wide tyres generally are these days. There's a hell of a lot more tyre to shift water from under on something like this compared to the skinny 140-160 profile stuff that was the norm in the 80s. It also means that it's way easier to end up with a tyre that's damned near through to the cords on one shoulder but technically is still legal given the measurement is over 75% of the tread surface.

I am glad to report that with four new tyres, correct wheel alignment and properly balanced wheels the vibration at speed has been *completely* eliminated. Cruising at motorway speeds is now positively serene. Going to have to be very careful now as there is very little to tell you you're actually going that fast, this is a car which you could end up very easily speeding quite substantially after a tiny squirt of throttle for an overtake on the motorway.

Also dealt with the position light I noticed was out yesterday. No thanks to Halfords where I had an absolute fight to get these.



As I've mentioned before, our store a couple of months ago was "improved" and one of the changes that came with this was basically all consumables aside from oil being moved to be behind the counter. So you have to get someone to go retrieve it for you rather than just picking it up and going to the till. Bulbs, wipers, batteries, filters, they're all back there now. At the best of the time this is an utter pain as it means that the one till that's ever open is having to deal with significantly more workload. Queuing times are at least doubled since the change. It's also a royal pain trying to explain to someone who has zero technical knowledge and zero interest in gaining any to find your slightly oddball bulb for you (the 10W festoon ones for the Trabant tail lights took some getting). I'd hoped this would be a two minute job...but no. The guy wouldn't just go and get the bulbs I asked for - he insisted on taking my reg and looking them up. W5Ws are so obscure aren't they? Then kept completely failing to understand the difference between the daytime running lights and the position lights. After what felt like an eternity of going back and forwards, and a queue of about ten people having built up behind me, I eventually left with the bulbs, my patience however was nowhere to be seen, having utterly evaporated by that point!

Changing it was actually really simple - thanks to Volvo being sensible.

The holder in question is actually buried deep in the wing, however they put a really long extension on the back of the lamp holder so you can reach it.



It's the vertical white bit of plastic just visible in the void just right of centre frame. Once you've popped off the connector for the indicator it's pretty easy to remove. Here's a photo of it out showing how long that extension piece is.



The only reason for including that bit of extra plastic was to make it easy to change the bulb without having to remove the headlight. Other makers could really take lessons from that.

Driver's side is a bit more fiddly as the washer bottle filler neck is in the way so I used a pair of pliers to grab it instead. Reckon I probably could have managed by hand, it just would have involved more swearing.



I think one screw removed let's you unclip the filler neck, but it was so easy to just grab with the pliers it didn't seem worth messing about with.

I changed both as I figured if one had blown the other probably wasn't far behind. It was very blackened, so I reckon I wasn't far off the mark. Job done on both sides in about 15 minutes.



Shudder to think how long that would have taken on quite a few cars of this age where I'd have ended up having to dismantle half the front of the car.

Rear ones we don't need to worry about as they're LED based so shouldn't need any maintenance (or rather will write the whole cluster off when they fail).



To be fair I've never heard of them failing in these clusters, and I do admit that I think that little strip that forms the rear position lights does look smart. I don't think they're even obligatory lights in the UK anyway - they're over and above the actual daytime running lights that Volvo have had since the dawn of time.

Glad we really seem to have got the handling and vibration issues sorted. I hate to use superlatives like "it feels like a completely different car" but it's not actually that far off the mark here. It's uncanny how serene it is cruising now. Do kind of wish we could drop the wheel size down to 16" though as adding a bit of extra sidewall would help the ride a bit around town. It is what it is though, that's just the curse of modern cars.

Still a few jobs to do, but we're getting there. There's a very light knock from somewhere (by default pointing at a drop link as we couldn't detect any play in anything when Steve and I were hauling on things), though that may involve just waiting until it gets worse so we can actually find where it's coming from. Though the next big ticket item is probably going to be the stereo. Getting properly integrated navigation and media without having to faff about with FM transmitters and the like would really be a nice quality of life improvement - it's not going to be cheap to do right though, and yes I will be doing this right. Making sure we're interfacing properly with the amplifier already onboard is high on the list as Volvo plainly put a lot of effort into making the existing setup sound very good and I'm not about to mess that up. Likewise I'll be making sure we maintain the steering wheel controls. Additional adapters are also needed to maintain functioning parking sensors as the tones for that usually come through the stereo...there are a lot of bits involved and you're looking at about £200 before even picking up the actual head unit.

[CitroJim]

I know that place well Zel I have inner track rod ends to replace on my AXs so will give them a try for alignment...

And now you know why, unless it's urgent, I'm unlikely to ever set foot in our local Halfrauds ever again I'd already encountered their 'rearrangements' and the resulting pain...

The shop is now just full of tat...

[Zelandeth]

I know that place well Zel I have inner track rod ends to replace on my AXs so will give them a try for alignment...

And now you know why, unless it's urgent, I'm unlikely to ever set foot in our local Halfrauds ever again I'd already encountered their 'rearrangements' and the resulting pain...

The shop is now just full of tat...

Aye, my usual choice for car bits these days is Mileham's down in Luton. One of the few proper old school motor factors left around here. The problem though is that it's in Luton, so that's an hour and a half gone by the time you've got there and back (assuming the traffic around Hockliffe is behaving), so for "oh I need a bulb" type situations it's a bit of a stretch. I point blank refuse to use Motorserv now, having walked out twice leaving my goods next to the till having waited 15+ minutes to be served. They plainly want nothing to do with retail customers.

There's also Top Gear down in Apthill, though I went off them when they tried to sell me several year old Pearl fuel hose as "good quality, ethanol safe" hose.

[CitroJim]

I must admit Zel, my first choice for parts I'd have previously gone to Halfrauds or Motorserv for these days is on-line...

I'm rarely in a rush for anything as I keep running stocks of commonly needed stuff...

[Zelandeth]

I hate this new phone. Had just been writing a post here when the over-sensitive edges of the screen decided I'd clicked where I didn't and it skipped back a page and lost what I'd been typing.

Really the only thing I've found it has over my previous handset so far (well, aside from the whole being able to get software updates thing) is that the onboard speaker is slightly better. Though that's not saying much, and it's still a mobile phone speaker so it's still awful! Which with five and a half years of supposed progress from something which has generally very favourable reviews is really disappointing.

I'll try to type things up again tomorrow when I get a spare five minutes.

[mickthemaverick]

I make 99% of my posts on the laptop, for me and my big fingers and waning eyesight the phone is a phone, a camera and a very short messaging device!! Plus the simple ability to have multiple windows open on the laptop screen makes life so much easier for copying, quoting, inserting and generally constucting a post with the content in front of me.

[myglaren]

Same here, I have enough trouble with a laptop. I find that it will sometimes select and delete a whole wodge of text.
CTRL=Z to the rescue.
Impossible on a phone. Text, camera and Kindl reader is its limitations. Not even a talky thing.

[MattBLancs]

All my (autocorrect error riddled) posts on here are via a phone.

There's a setting for "Gestures" Vs the three buttons at the bottom (one of which is Back) - it's done my sanity a lot of good to turn off the new Gestures mode and have the old fashioned 3 buttons back!

[Zelandeth]

Today's silly experiment: See what happens with a V8 P6 when you remove the intake silencer from the equation? That made a huge difference on the P4, so I was curious. Especially as this car is very muted as it's currently set up.

0-30% throttle, no really discernable difference. Beyond that however we get an unmistakably V8 bellow in the mid-range which develops into a properly visceral howl at the top end.

Cheaper than a big bore exhaust and sounds every bit as good. Is there a temptation to just leave it like that? Um...yeah...kinda childish? Yes, but it doesn't half sound good. Also has the advantage over the exhaust or not being antisocial when you're just bumbling around residential streets.

Yes I've put it back as it was, but it was a silly experiment done while I had a spare 30 minutes between finishing one job and taking my other half to a doctor's appointment.

I may grab a video if I can find time and something better than zip ties to hold the random cone filters that have been floating around in my garage for a couple of decades onto the carbs. Just a bit of silly fun when I had a bit of spare time.

Not likely to be much else going on in the near future as things have just been really busy this week and look to be staying that way for a bit.

[Zelandeth]

After a surprisingly long period sitting for sale, the Partner went off to a new home yesterday. Just the wrong time of year to be selling a car. It is what it is though, and with me not being able to park it on my property it needed to go.



It's definitely a car I'll miss. Such a useful thing and surprisingly pleasant to drive - though that did surprise me a little less once I discovered how much DNA it actually shares with the Pug 306 under the skin, which was surely one of the best driving cars of the 90s in any of its variants.

If you've been on the fence, considering a Berlingo/Partner and have been wondering if they're really as good all rounders as the hype would have you believe, I'm just going to say a solid yes in my view. Having owned one now I'd confidently say that one will be the only car that 99.9% of drivers will ever need. Despite the boxy looks they've got a chassis which allows them to be more fun on a twisty road than you'd think too. The French seem to be really good at that, making cars which handle far better than you'd think, and also ride comfortably.

I've really not been doing much lately. I've been generally a bit time poor lately and just have lost my mojo with regards to doing car work to be honest. However I managed to coerce myself into actually looking at one of my to do list items on the Rover, namely the adjustment of the kickdown cable. It was far too loose before. Still is, but it's definitely better. There's apparently barely anything between too loose and too tight, so there's probably going to be a few iterations there before I get it spot on.

Something I'd never actually checked on this car was the condition of the air filter elements.



Looks like they were changed when most of the work was done to the car, so nothing wrong with those. Not the biggest filters for 3.5 litres of engine to breathe through though (even though there are two) - especially not when you see how little clearance there is inside the filter housing.



There's not enough room around the filters to fit a finger in, so I'm sure this does restrict breathing quite a bit. Rover obvious deemed it to be fine, but it doesn't surprise me that I've seen alternative arrangements in place on a lot of examples people have modified for more grunt. Not that it feels like the car needs any, with the torque available it feels *plenty* perky. I do wonder if the original filter elements might have been more conical in shape which would have clearly helped with breathing?

Volvo was away on work duties today, but I needed to make a tip run - so Rover was up on daily duties in this regard



There's no such thing as a car on my fleet that gets away with not earning it's keep it it's working. While any of them might pop up at shows, they'll also all do runs to the supermarket, trips to the recycling centre and just general running around.

Having added a bit of tape over the gap on the side of the heater box has helped get us at least some heat into the car. I really need to take the whole assembly out and put it back together properly though - there isn't room to access it in situ...so I wish whoever had it out had just screwed it back together properly. It's not the end of the world to remove, just faff I'd rather not have to deal with.

On the plus side, last time I had done a run to the recycling centre in this car I broke down about 30 seconds after leaving when the fuel pump died for the second time. This time I actually made it home under my own power without having to get a lift home to grab bits to jury rig an alternative fuel supply...so I'll take that as a win. Actually felt good to just use it as "an car" for the afternoon, and have it just behave like one.

Hopefully won't be so long before the next update.

[CitroJim]

Good to see an update Zel

I trust the new owners will be very happy with the Partner. Agreed on what a superb all-rounder it is. It was on my list but I went for the Picasso as it was just a little smaller and more manageable for me. I'm sad to see the latest iteration is massive and has gone all obese like so many cars.

My Pic. is rapidly becoming irreplaceable If I had to replace it with something new I'd not have a clue what to even look at.

That air filter looks shocking. And especially after I've been doing a bit of recent study of engine performance tuning...

BL never were very good at engines really... The Rover V8 was OK as they bought it from someone else...

[Zelandeth]

The Buick derived Rover V8 also if my memory of history is correct pre-dated BMC really getting their claws into Rover's workings as well. It was originally destined for the P5, where the silky smooth but by that point quite obsolete IOE six was deemed to be too heavy and too slow. Said six cylinder unit obviously was early enough to be pure Rover, and was an absolutely lovely unit but the era its origins were in were plain to see. The air duct that ran from the carb to the air cleaner was probably heavier than the cylinder head on a lot of modern engines. Cast aluminium which must have been the best part of 1/4" thick. Granted, pretty much everything on the P4 was clearly engineered up to a standard rather than down to a price. It was still quite something to be able to do the trick of balancing a coin on the engine while it was idling on an engine that was very clearly not in its first flush of youth in a 50 year old car. Know I've said it before, but I definitely wouldn't discount owning another P4 in the future - though it would have to be after I've secured a garage for it to live in, and it would probably be a slightly less tired example than my previous one. The only thing that car really wanted for was power steering as it was painfully heavy when parking - however I wasn't going to fork out the five grand for the kit to fit it to a car that was worth half that on a good day.