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

[myglaren]

The carpeting on the sills however appears to be glued in place so cleaning that will require a bit more effort...seems like this might finally be the excuse I need to actually get around to picking up a wet vacuum cleaner. Would be useful to have around, not least because Autotrail felt it necessary to fit pale beige long pile carpet in the cab of the van...and it's filthy.

I bought a Titan one from Screwfix that was fairly cheap. A bit rudimentary but does the job.
Lidl had very similar ones for less not long after I bought mine.

I do regret being a cheapskate and not buying the Nilfisk proper carpet cleaner though.

It came in very useful when removing and replacing daughter's toilet. Just suck the remaining water from the cistern and bowl instead of slopping it over the floor and having to mop it up.

[white exec]

Had a Kärcher - rubbish. Fragile, leaky, noisy, unstable.
Recently replaced with a Bosch AdvancedVac 20, from Amazon. What a difference!

[NewcastleFalcon]

4 XJS's went under the hammer today at Brightwell's Leominster Classic Auction.

If the link works it should come up with the 4 on the list. One was unsold. Quite a contrast in the sale price between the two convertibles.

https://www.brightwells.com/classic-mot ... 1365B37150

REgards Neil

[white exec]

Do like that 4-headlight conversion! Light output should be quite something, too.
Chalk-and-cheese.

[xantia_v6]

The original XJ-S headlights were a Cibie biode design, very similar to those used on some French cars in the 1970s, with a separate reflector for the high beam bulb. The low beam was formed using a good quality reflector and an internal plastic Fresnel lens (like an XM), the headlight glass had no lens pattern.

These original headlights did not (of course) meed American federal standards, so USA market cars had the twin headlight conversion, which with the original Lucas lamp units would have been inferior to the European market Cibies.

As Chris will know, the plastic Fresnel lens tends to go cloudy with UV degradation, and to make matters worse, the moisture sealing on the original Cibies was not very reliable, leading to tarnishing and corrosion of the reflectors, and terrible lighting when the cars were a few years old. Many early UK cars had the later lamp units fitted or a twin headlight conversion done in the 1980s.

In about 1980, either due to the issues with the Cibie biode lights (or more likely due to the cost), Jaguar switched to a conventional single bulb design with the lens formed into the glass. These lights are averagely good, but don't have the crisp beam pattern of the earlier units.

With the XJS face-lift in 1992, the headlights were changed (slightly) again, and were now USA compliant, so post 1992 cars don't have the round light conversion.

My XJ-S still has the original biode headlights, I had to have one re-silvered about 20 years ago, and they both really need redoing again now, but it just gets through the test and I don't drive it at night.

[Zelandeth]

The twin headlight look does suit the car I think and if I came to need to do work on the headlights it's something I might consider. As it is they seem to work pretty well so it's probably a ways down the line.

Still need to do something about the one sill (it's been sponged clean as far as I can manage so far) but the rest of the carpets were finally dry today and are now back in.



Really need to get some leather dye on the steering wheel I think. As the rest of the interior is getting more tidy it's letting things down more!

[Zelandeth]

Was tipping it down again this afternoon yet again.

Is the windscreen still leaking?



That will be a yes then.

[Zelandeth]

Today thanks to a friend I had the opportunity and honour to have a shot of something really rather special.

Not often you come across things which make the interior of the XJ-S seem Spartan and the seats seem conservatively padded!





Those seats are actually even more comfortable than they look.

I love the contrast with the Biturbo between the interior which is absolutely thoroughbred Italian luxury supercar, the soundtrack which matches...and the utterly understated exterior.

Excuse the crudely blanked out registration plates, it's a friend's car so I'd rather keep them covered - and I don't have a decent photo editor on my phone.



The rear in particular is very anonymous, and leaves people looking around trying to figure out where the howling V8 is hiding!



There are a lot of little details though which bely how special a car she is. The door handles to name one.



She is a very Italian car. Only they can make a car feel like such a real living, breathing creature rather than just a machine. Plus they tend to produce cars where there is a hilarious blend of luxury and downright shonky. Such as the wing mirrors which are utterly incapable of staying where you point them behind the first bump. Oh, or the warning lights on the dash...which are comprehensive to say the least.



...However they may as well not be there as they are all entirely hidden behind the top of the steering wheel when driving. Oh, and that Italian thing where half the gauges don't sit at zero. The Lada carried that over from its Fiat routes too.

It's probably nearly 20 years since I wqs last in a Biturbo and I had honestly forgotten what gorgeous cars they are. This sort of uber-luxureous performance car has started to appeal to me more as I've got older...I used to gloss over cars like these as unnecessary and pointless...however the high velocity squidgy leather sofa category is really growing on me.

When (if) I decide it's time to move on from the Jag I think one of these will definitely be high on the list to take that position in the fleet. Especially as it comfortably seats four and doesn't require you to descend to several inches below bedrock to climb onboard...which are two areas where the Jag does lose points. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not in any way shape or form thinking of moving her on any time soon given how I've meshed so well with the car...this is purely a thought experiment for the hypothetical fleet.

Here's why I love this guy's garage so much though...having dropped that off, I was then able to jump into this.



Which is in my view every bit as interesting a car in its own way and as much fun to drive. Especially being a first generation AX she has the interior with the comedy ergonomics.

I can't think of any other car where I have to reach *around* part of the dash itself to get to the power window switches...



The AX/late Visa/C15 dash however is almost timeless though isn't it?



I thought it was a messy design when I first came across it but it's really grown on me and it seems quite charming to me these days.

Do wonder how many other models this ended up in...the Talbot Samba and the Umm four wheel drive immediately spring to mind...

Later on in the day I decided to set about de-fluffing the van. I'll be using it actually to sleep in for a couple of days this coming week so really wanted to reduce the volume of dog hair in there!

I've been considering picking up a carpet cleaner or wet vacuum cleaner this week. The cab of the van I think makes a very good case for it.

Can you see where the mat sits?



Nevertheless, the living area has been effectively de-fuzzed.





Just need to give the water system a flush through so it's ready for use (as it had been drained down and blown through with compressed air to eliminate any freezing risk over the winter).

Will be a good opportunity to test out the heating system in the real world and I'm quite looking forward to testing it out.

[van ordinaire]

Well I can't "see" anything: no piccies anymore, just an "X" with "image" alongside, clicking on that takes me to a link - which requires me to register. Even more frustrating than when Photobucket shot itself in the foot by asking for payment.

[Zelandeth]

I think ImgBB have been having some technical issues this last couple of days, let me know if it's not working again tomorrow and I'll look into it again.

There has been one area that the van has struggled a bit ever since I got it: Audio.

Having upgraded the drivers in the cab they were just about passable - though the dash cutouts only allow for 10cm drivers so there's only so much that we can do there.

In the back though we had bigger problems with these.





Again they're only 10cm drivers...but the issue here isn't the diameter (it wouldn't be hard to widen the cutout) it's the depth. The roof panel is only about an inch and a bit behind there so any serious upgrade is likely to involve a bigger enclosure that will stand proud of the ceiling.

Had a bit of an epiphany this afternoon though and realised that there's absolutely nothing to say that the speakers need to stay in the ceiling. There's plenty of other places they can go where depth isn't a problem.

Grabbed a 5x7" speaker I had laying around and went to have a look.



Nearside one can go here, helpfully it can actually hide below the floor in the wardrobe I believe.

Offside is a little more awkward, but here looks to be the best spot.



It backs onto the side of the oven, but the outer skin of it barely gets warm so I'm not too worried about that. If depth is an issue there I can probably get away with using a little spacer without it being too obvious.

A 6x9" should work just as well as this in these locations and give us a bit more punch.

Have a plan to get things a bit beefier in the cab too. What I reckon I'm going to try is getting a decent set of drivers installed down here forward facing behind the seats in the end of the lockers...



The important thing though is that I'd keep a pair of tweeters in the place of the current cab speakers to help keep a decent soundstage in the cab. Bass is relatively non-directional, it's the treble you need to place carefully as that's what will give you the stereo separation.

It's either this or in the front of the box under the seats, but those boxes are full of battery and it involves cutting metalwork with I'd rather avoid.



I'll keep the original speakers in the back of the van, but what I'll do is hook those into the TV as they're absolutely perfectly serviceable for that sort of duty...just not providing music above an OM.601 with a straight through exhaust being worked hard!

That's been a bit of a fly in the ointment ever since I got it as I do like my music, but I really didn't know quite what to do about it as the original speaker placements left little room for improvement. Quite why moving them didn't occur to me until now I've no idea. Well the obvious answer is that I'm an idiot I think!

It's a low priority thing really in the grand scheme of things but will impact a lot on my enjoyment of it, especially on longer runs.

A sub is something that might join the party one day...I know what a difference it can make, and unlike in a car it's not like I'm struggling for anywhere to fit one without eating half the boot or anything.

[myglaren]

I think ImgBB have been having some technical issues this last couple of days, let me know if it's not working again tomorrow and I'll look into it again.

Images have been OK for me Zel, were last night when I saw Van's post.
You do know you can upload direct to the forum though?

[Zelandeth]

I do, and the fact I don't often these days is mainly due to the fact that it's so rare that I have the option to use my desktop PC when posting. Uploading images from my phone is a clunky, frustrating process (80% due to the inbuilt file browser rather than the forum software) so if I can do it once rather than three times I'll usually opt for that.

The fact that a lot of the general blog posts are shared between a few motoring forums usually means that using a dedicated external host saves me a shedload of time as I can use the same block of text edited to answer any comments/questions folks have. Aside from one forum anyway which has the most annoying WYSIWYG editor which basically forces you to use their internal upload system as old school IMG and URL tags don't embed properly.

I really miss getting to use a proper computer!

Checked this morning on three computers and the images were working for me there - even using private browsing sessions so I should be logged out of everything.

One thing I have run into a couple of times is that ImgBB does occasionally get flagged up by adblockers as unscrupulous services have been known to host their content on there - this is usually corrected rapidly enough when rule definition updates roll through though.

[myglaren]

As I don't use a phone for other than texting I always assume people are using at least a laptop. The use of images on several forums is a good reason to have them hosted elsewhere too.
I run a couple of adblockers and have never had any of your images blocked.

[Zelandeth]

I think it's an increasingly common concern as more and more people seem to be shunning laptops for tablets, which feature many of the same limitations for me as my phone. Albeit with a slightly less annoying file browser as that's a specific Huawei issue.

Simply put, when it opens what's essentially the window to pick the file from it insists on having things arranged by modification date. Fair enough, but it classes being indexed by the internal search algorithm etc a modification. So the file order is essentially random. Getting sanity restored involved having to click menu > View > arrange by > name > Descending. It does not save this option, so I have to do it for every single file. Drives me mad. Granted, the Samsung file browser on the tablet is nearly as annoying, just in different ways. Insisting on opening in the root directory every time rather than the last folder you were in for one thing...

Three of the forums I use don't have their own hosting service either so I need to have things hosted externally anyway. I used to do this on my own server until one day when some random, high traffic forum somewhere in Russia hotlinked to a bunch of my content...it proceeded to spend the next several days saturating my connection. Lesson learned.

If they were to move to a reasonable subscription based service I'd quite happily throw ImgBB some money as I've always found it to work well. Far less cumbersome than Photobucket ever was (providing scaled images which link directly to the full size upload for one). Given most of my uploads are from a mobile device, the fact that their uploader detects the orientation from the image metadata is nice! Their model has always been to provide hosting for images to be embedded in forum posts rather than a general purpose image host like Photobucket (which as I recall for a long time didn't even require a registration!) so hopefully they won't get things quite as catastrophically wrong.

Time will tell I suppose, and I may end up with several many hundred post long threads with broken images to fix again one day...

[Zelandeth]

Well I can't "see" anything: no piccies anymore, just an "X" with "image" alongside, clicking on that takes me to a link - which requires me to register. Even more frustrating than when Photobucket shot itself in the foot by asking for payment.

Scratching my head on this a bit. Have tried two mobile devices, two browsers on each, two browsers on my laptop and five on my desktop between Linux and Windows and have been unable to replicate this issue.

Is it still playing up for you, Van?