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

[Hell Razor5543]

The concern was not the contamination. It was the fact that the whole unit was scorched (including the disk pack) and repairs had been necessary for the thing to work once. The overriding worry was that components could be on the edge of failure, and WOULD fail the next time the unit was powered up, with no certainty they could get it to work again.

[Zelandeth]

It's a bit sad that I'm going to have to wait a fair while to see if this will spin up, but it won't do anything without the 4MHz master clock from the host system. So until I've got a controller card running and all the leads hooked up it won't do anything.

I should be able to do a proof of life test though once I've checked out the power supply, as it should power up and show a fault condition, and after ~30 seconds release the disc loading cover latch. From what I've read though aside from the obvious physical maladies which can afflict them, especially if they've got damp that these drives are actually pretty robust electronically speaking.

I really ought get the VT-100 on the bench and at least have a look at what state that's in (aside from predictably scruffy). I'm also going to need to get a bunch of bits to make a keyboard adapter as I don't particularly fancy paying £200 for a probably broken keyboard missing a bunch of keys! However without a keyboard I'm not really going to be able to do much.

If I had half a brain I'd just use a terminal emulator on a modern machine, but where's the fun in that? I'm fairness I probably will, especially when we're initially trying to get things up and running just to eliminate as many unknown variables as possible. However actually in use using something era appropriate seems more attractive. Plus I like the idea of just because I can, using something that ancient to control my desktop workstation. Not every day, but just as a silly project to prove I can do it.

[Zelandeth]

Long term readers of this blog may recall that going waaaaay back to when I first got the Trabant that there was always something amiss with the wipers. Aside from the horrifically worn and corroded spindles which made getting the wipers to stay on in the right position a pain. The driver's side one only wiped about 2/3rds of its intended travel and there was a tonne of slop in the mechanism.

A week or so back the spring clip holding the linkage onto the motor pinged off (again), leaving the wipers stuck here.



Not ideal.



It was pretty obvious that something was amiss as there was a load of lateral tension trying to force the linkage off the motor. Of course I did the correct thing and decided to investigate rather than pretend I had seen nothing and just jam it back together.

This, in hindsight, was a mistake.



It doesn't matter how generally pleasant a car is to work on - anything involving messing with wiper linkages is going to be hell.

One of the main issues was that the plate the driver's side spindle is attached to has been subject to some serious mutilation. Correct on the right, one off the car on the left.





The bushings were totally missing. Everything was attached to a (loose) bolt in one of those holes - that's both where all the slop was and why I wasn't getting the full sweep on the driver's side.

The linkage had also been assembled incorrectly...however rather than stopping and trying to figure out why things wouldn't fit (it's essentially a three piece jigsaw...), no they just brute forced it and bent things to just about get enough clearance.

In the absence of a correctly assembled unit to compare to, there was a fair amount of trial and error involved in just trying different combinations until everything slotted together properly. Which would have been less annoying if you weren't almost entirely working buried in the bowels of the dash - and of course it's about the only place you can't just reach from underneath because the fuse box is in the way. Oh, and an always live bus bar. I found that with the pliers before I disconnected the battery. That woke me up.

It took me a good few hours of cursing, but I eventually got it to a point where I'm fairly sure that everything is assembled correctly, everything that had been bent out of shape has been more or less corrected, and the linkage seems to be working smoothly and pretty quietly.

Aaaaaaand the head stripped out of the grub screw holding the driver's side arm onto the spindle. Cue a lot of swearing.



Think that unknowingly I picked up an imperial hex bit rather than metric, so only have myself to blame.

Getting that out took me nearly all afternoon on Friday - and it ended up taking the threads with it. That however I can deal with, just not right then. I just had to step away at that point as the frustration level was reaching critical mass and I was going to start throwing things. I need to switch it out for a longer bolt anyway to help compensate for how worn the spindle is. HOPEFULLY I'll get that ticked off soon and I can put the entire interior back together.

Realistically I need to find some secondhand bits in better shape as the whole linkage is still pretty mangled and the spindle bushings are pretty badly worn out. It should work once I get the wiper itself reattached though.

It's been temporarily sidelined though as I've got a temporary visitor.



This was primarily to take along to the BL Show at MK Museum on Sunday, but it won't surprise anyone to know that a bit of tinkering will inevitably happen while it's here.

I always forget how small these cars are until I see them parked next to anything else.

Last time this car was here something I was intending to investigate was a complete lack of night time dash illumination, however ran out of time before I really had a chance to dig into it.

Looked into that and became suspicious when the first two lamps I looked at (started with the heater controls as they're the easiest to get to) were perfectly fine. Sure enough the lamps were all fine. I'm not 100% sure if it was down to a dirty fuse holder, dirty switch contact or a combination of the two. However after both have been cleaned everything sprang to life.



I always wondered what the little holes over the switches on their control panel were for, and half pondered if I could add some illumination for the switches with some LEDs hidden in there. Turns out that on higher trim level cars (like this one) there's a light guide in there to do just that.



Fancy! My lowly HLE didn't have that.

I didn't have a rev counter either.



Just wish all repairs were that easy!

Definitely isn't running 100%. Especially under heavy load it's spitting and sputtering a bit, though it's been forever since the car had a really decent run so that may be all it is. I'll give it a run not stuck in rush hour tomorrow and read the plugs, see what they're telling me. Bit of an exhaust blow from the manifold area made itself known about halfway home, no doubt from those horrible clamps between the downpipes and manifold. I know the head was off this not all that long ago, so one might just need a tweak now things have settled.

I know a lot of people say never to go back to drive your first cars again as they'll never live up to your memories, but I've never found that. I still have a massive soft spot for the Metro and find them huge fun to drive. Are they perfect? Hell no. Is a good one a right giggle to drive though? Absolutely. I think there's some rule that it's simply not allowed to go around a corner in one without attacking it like you're in a go cart.

I mean I'm probably not the best person to ask though...I can enjoy driving most things from an Austin 7 to a Silver Shadow, and have a Trabant as a daily...

I am still slightly scared that one day I'm going to stumble across an early one in Snapdragon yellow for sale somewhere - and I know full well that irrespective of what the price tag is that I'd have a hell of a hard time saying no to buying it.

-- -- --

Some photos from Sunday. May be some more to follow as I took quite a few on film.









Aside from the extra 300cc and being a year newer (and the colour of course) this is pretty much identical to my last one. It surprised me how many little details changes there were between a W and a Y plate (indicator stalks, seatbelt buckles, rear washer jet location, and deletion of the fasten seatbelt light on the dash are what I've spotted) when actually looking at one. Wasn't a single one there on a W plate that I saw, X was the earliest.





Many Metros.



Not as good as XAN71A on a certain Xantia, it I thought this reg was a good effort.





This was a LOT of green...and I thoroughly approved of course given my penchant for brightly coloured cars, especially with its colour matched partner in the background - apparently one of only nine ever sold in that colour, which makes the fact that any survive kind of miraculous.



Definitely had some weather throughout the day, but the showers were pretty brief so it didn't really impact things much.



The owner of the Metro was also there in his Morris 1300, so as things thinned out at the end of the day we took the opportunity to get a photo of them together.



Then the owner of the Vanden Plas 1300 which has featured on this page a year or two back also showed up.





In general I usually don't rate single marque shows that much, but BMC covered such a diverse range of the market over so long that there's actually near as much variety as you'd see at any show. Plus it seems to always attract a good number of proper greasy rag cars and motors clearly in regular use as well as the usual the concourse show queens.

[CitroJim]

Loving all the pictures from the BL Show Zel Wish I'd known it was on; I'd have joined you..

Having owned three, including a Turbo, I have an incredibly soft spot for the MG Metro and indeed, the Metro in general...