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

[Zelandeth]

I've never seen such a night and day difference as when I finally found a garage with V-Power diesel. Flat out on the level went from about 60 to 70+.

I'm still not 100% sure she isn't a bit down on power, though I know the van is due a service. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen a new fuel filter make a big difference to the performance of a diesel.

I need to get the doghouse out to get to the fuel filter so I'll make a point of checking that I'm actually getting full throttle at the fuel pump. Especially as the full travel stop is at the pedal end...bit of cable stretch and suddenly you've only got 90% throttle available...

[myglaren]

Strange. I have used mainly Sainsbury's diesel and petrol as there is one a mile from me (and they are cheap, like me),

With the Accord, I filled up with BP superdooperpetrol as it was on offer. Car went much better but still only it's usual 32 mpg.
But the next time it drove like crap. Resumed Sainsbury with a very occasional dip into others.

Xantia, BX, Visa etc. all fed on Sainsbury stuff with very few exceptions.

Same with the C5s. With a couple of fills of Esso when returning from Little Horwood - White Rose garage in Yorkshire - ran like crap on that, both times.

I did accidentally fill it with BP superexpensive by accident. Son wrecked it that night, I blame the BP diesel.

Current heap gets fed Sainsbury cheapo normally but has has their superundeaded with no difference in performance or economy.
Same with Shell, it was all they had during the great recent petrol shortage. It did seem to go a bit better, probably wishful thinking as it was mixed with cheap stuff.

In all, not convinced by expensive petrol and a couple of times just the opposite.
My dad always said Esso was crap and he worked for a garage that sold it. He would only use Shell from a competitor.

[Armidillo]

Just a thought to add to the 2-stroke in diesel fuel discussion - agree about using mineral oil, but there's a further complication.

2-stroke oil for marine (or outboard motor) applications is supposedly different to 2-stroke oil for air cooled engines - it burns at a lower temperature because outboard motors are water cooled. Since 2-stroke oil is supposed to burn along with the fuel in the combustion chamber, I seek out marine mineral 2-stroke oil for use in water-cooled diesel engines with a mechanical fuel pump.

Note - I am not at all confident that it's a good thing to use with an HDi engine - particularly if it is fitted with a DPF.

Cheers
Alec

[Zelandeth]

Interesting. Never really given a huge amount of thought to the exact flavour of two stroke oil, though the concentration used is so low I can't see a huge difference being made. Especially given how much more violent the combustion process is in a diesel than your average petrol two stroke moped etc.

If I was talking about something new enough to have a DPF I'd probably be less inclined to add anything to it anyway as it will be modern enough to have had the low sulphur content designed for in the fuel pump. It's always been a little extra lubricity for the fuel pump I've added it as rather than anything to improve performance etc.

The newest diesel I've ever owned was a late 90s XUD, so things like that aren't something I'm having to think about. The current one doesn't even have a cat or anything like that...is about as simple as it gets.

I do run an air cooled car (albeit not two stroke) so am well familiar with the higher temperatures involved...given the normal point the gauge sits at while cruising is around 165C. That sort of reading would definitely be cause for concern in a water cooled engine!

Even just bumbling around town it sits around 120C.

[Zelandeth]

One issue I noted while out last week with the van was that the freshwater pump had sprung a slight leak. The leak was tiny, however it meant it kept losing prime.

A bit of digging found a seal kit for £30 odd but couldn't actually find any in stock...or for literally £7 more including delivery...



Yep...whole brand new pump, on my doorstep in less than 24 hours.

Made in Mexico rather than China too, not been sitting around on a shelf for years either.



Old leaky water pump... I'd forgotten the pipework in here was still such a mess. I really need to tidy this up at some point.



Old and new next to each other to make sure everything matched up. Yep, aside from the label they seem to be identical.



The silicone sealant oozing out between the two halves of the pump casting suggests to me that someone has had a shot at sealing this up before.

New one in, correct way up this time round. The instructions suggest that the motor should be at the top if vertically mounted.



The strainer is bugging me...the threads are such that I can't position it in a useful direction.

Needs a bit of tidying but is working fine... reckon the old one had been struggling for a while as this now primes several orders of magnitude faster than the old one and provides a much smoother flow.

[Armidillo]

...

Needs a bit of tidying but is working fine... reckon the old one had been struggling for a while as this now primes several orders of magnitude faster than the old one and provides a much smoother flow.

I'll bet it's still noisy though .

[white exec]

You could add some sound-absorbing foam (pyramid type) to the walls of that locker, and maybe a soft mounting for the pump*. Just a thought.
*or maybe attach the pump to a masonry chunk, sat/secured on foam.

[Dormouse]

Mount the pump out on a block to gain enough room for the strainer. A wedge shaped one might be better for finger access and inspection.

[Zelandeth]

Not really too worried about it, it takes all of 30 seconds to loosen the hose clip and rotate it through 90 degrees to get the strainer out if I need to. Not that it's ever caught any visible debris so far in the few years it's been in there.

There are rubber compliant mountings that the frame attaches to the wall with which do a decent amount to cut down on noise. You can hear when it's running but it's just a low rumble and isn't objectionable for this sort of application.

[white exec]

This place is full of perfectionists.
Long may it continue.

[Zelandeth]

Very quick job on the van a couple of days ago. Can you spot it?



New air filter.

The old one still wasn't quite due by mileage but has been in there since a couple of days after I bought it and was looking quite grubby.



The whole housing being part of the filter means it's a bit more expensive to replace - but means changing the filter is literally a ten second job. One spring clip then the whole thing just pulls off. Have oil and fuel filters waiting to go on too, so will see about getting those done shortly.

The old water pump had definitely been got at with silicone and instant gasket.



Old pump was rather full of gunk, evidenced here by what was built up on the pressure switch.



Eww. Kind of glad I pulled it now...definitely think the system will be getting rather more aggressively treated this year as I don't want that stuff growing in there.

[Zelandeth]

Right...time to quit putting it off, the alternator needs sorting on the Jag.

By the standards of this car it's not actually too bad to get to.



Of course being a Jaguar there's a pipe (can't remember if it's power steering or an oil cooler line) which is positioned precisely so as while it's not an actual problem, is really *annoying* when you're trying to get to the back of the alternator.



Said oil lines will also make getting the alternator out a royal pain if it needs to come out as I don't think it will fit between the oil lines and the engine mount...so let's hope it doesn't need to come out.

Based on the symptoms I've had my hunch is that we've got sticky/worn out brushes and/or a failing regulator. The alternator on this car has always been a bit on the weak side (even keeping in mind the Lucas A115 is only rated at 55A, which isn't a lot for a car like this) even before it started randomly stopping charging.

Before I even got the tools into the engine bay the first step was of course to disconnect the battery. It's smart for pretty much anything in the engine bay really, but faffing around on the charging system with it connected would seriously be flirting with disaster.



Not all that many connections to the alternator, but took several photos of what goes where for future reference.



At this point I had to go rummaging in the toolbox...those tiny little hex head screws I think are a BA size...these saved my day.



Apparently these were originally used for servicing magnetos many years ago - which gives an idea how old they are.

Back cover off meant I could get a better look, albeit via the camera as my view was of course obstructed by the aforementioned oil lines.



I ended up removing the brushes complete with the regulator (rectangular silver box above centre frame). Had to cut one wire as I couldn't for love nor money get this bolt to come out. That black wire is attached to a ring terminal. If I can't get it out I'll just solder and heat shrink the new reg lead on to it, not the end of the world. Now I actually know for certain there is a bolt holding the ring terminal down that's half the battle, I was trying to work this out by Braille at the time.



There we go. One set of brushes and regulator.



Compared to photos of new brush sets for the Lucas A115 alternator the brushes don't look *massively* worn, but there's a good 5mm difference between the two which can't be good I reckon.



Equally suspiciously there are signs in the potting compound that at least some of the magic smoke has escaped. It may just be due to moisture ingress and old age...but generally the potting compound failing on things like this isn't ever a good sign.



A new regulator isn't expensive and it would be silly not to replace it given the situation. Especially as the alternator has been obviously weak as long as I've had the car.

Guess we'll see when it goes back together again! *If* I can figure out how to reassemble it!

Hopefully this will get the charging system going again, then she should hopefully be more or less ready to move on to her new owner.

[xantia_v6]

Back in the day, Lucas alternators often failed with intermittent symptoms because the diode leads would detach from the die due to vibration and thermal cycling.



Gently pulling on the diode lead would determine that they had failed.

[Zelandeth]

Back in the day, Lucas alternators often failed with intermittent symptoms because the diode leads would detach from the die due to vibration and thermal cycling.



Gently pulling on the diode lead would determine that they had failed.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll check that before I put it back together. Of course that's the one electrical bit of the alternator I didn't buy...so will probably be the problem! The ignition light dying when it stops charging to me though says brush issues based on my (admittedly limited) experience.

-- -- --

This afternoon's job. Sorting this.



More specifically, sorting the illumination in that switchgear. None of it was working north of the heater controls.

The fact that they were all out seemed quite odd to me, was really hoping I didn't have a wiring issue to contend with.

Reason I hadn't done anything with this before was that I couldn't figure out how to get the panel out. A bit of experimentation revealed that you had to remove the switches before the panel would come out. Otherwise it wouldn't clear the dash above it.

Upon removal of the first switch the penny immediately dropped as to why the lighting in all these switches was out.



You figured out what these are yet?



Yep, fibre optic bundles. All of these switches are illuminated from a single lamp via fibre optics...clever in that it saves a heap of wiring...but does mean you lose the lot when the lamp fails.

Thankfully the illuminator unit is just about accessible through this panel behind the left hand temperature control. New lamp in there and we had light from the fibres. Sadly I couldn't get a photo of it as everything in there is black and I was working in the dark.



Those maroon and yellow plastic pipes to the left are vacuum lines for the headlamp level adjustment control. Only car I've come across so far where that system is vacuum operated...and I thought the hydraulic setup Lada used was odd.

What followed then was about an hour of trying to cram the heater controls back into the right place. The mounting bracket for them is smashed into about fifteen pieces so nothing lines up making getting things together like herding cats. While blindfolded. I really need to sort the bracket for the heater controls, but before I can do that I need to figure how the heck to get the centre console out, and it's not self explanatory. It's clearly not properly bolted in as the whole thing wobbles too. One for a future date.

Success on the sorting of the illumination though.



Far nicer to have all the dash lighting working properly.



Not blindingly bright like in modern cars, but it doesn't need to be. The dash lighting in this car is precisely as bright as it needs to be and no more. The camera makes the instrument panel in particular look brighter.

This is one of those jobs which definitely had the potential to turn into quite a headache if it hadn't been the simple problem...for once it was though. Guess that's my luck for the week used up!

For those of you counting the mileage showing is now 163,241. 548 miles since the head was swapped. The oil pressure did drop a little over the first couple of days but it seems to have stayed pretty stable since then. Something which is really obvious is how much cleaner the oil on the dipstick has stayed...it would have been the colour of Guinness by now prior to the head swap...So hopefully a good amount of the gunk went with the old head.

[Zelandeth]

New brushes and voltage regulator for the Jag's alternator arrived today.



Comparison of the new and old brushes shows there definitely was a fair bit of wear to them.





Now getting this thing back together is definitely up there on the "Jobs I never want to even entertain the idea of ever doing again" list. What an absolute faff. Trying to get the brushes, the springs, the insulation pad and the screws all back in place - especially bearing in mind that the forward brush retaining screw *also* secures the regulator (which wouldn't just sit in place) was a massive headache. It would have been fiddly and annoying and tried my patience on the bench, but trying to do it with the alternator in situ was a massive pain.



Eventually though we got there.

There's one missing securing screw for the plastic cover because I dropped it. I'll have a dig around tomorrow with the car moved and see if I can find it. If not I'll just have to find another one that's roughly the right size. It's a self tapper into plastic and is just holding an already retained cover in place so being missing for 24 hours isn't going to be the end of the world.

Have to admit I was slightly nervous when I hooked the battery up given how much of this job I did blind. However after a couple of minutes nothing was on fire or trying to be on fire...so I upgraded to turning the ignition on.



Ignition light works...that's a good sign as it means we must have continuity through the brushes.

After starting up we initially had a bit of erratic behaviour but this wasn't entirely unexpected as the brushes will obviously need to bed in against the commutator. After a 20-30 minute run round in circles though things looked healthy enough. So I was brave enough to go get some fuel...which at the current prices stings a bit in this car.



That's from around 1/4 a tank. Nowhere close to warning light territory. Ouch. That's probably good for around 200 miles on a good day!

After that trip we were showing this on the gauge, at idle with the headlights on.



Which actually equates to...



...because the gauge reads a little low. Previously this would definitely have dropped off charge under these circumstances, requiring the revs to be held up over 3000rpm for a couple of tens of seconds for the charging system to wake up again.

It still struggles at idle with the headlights on, rear screen heater and heater blower on high...but given it's only a 55A alternator I think that's not necessarily a concern, as soon as the revs are brought up to 1200rpm or so it comes up to an acceptable range. Not sure what the rated running current is, but I'm pretty sure that *each* blower motor is fused at 30A. So assuming around 20A flat out, there's a fair old chunk of the rated output on the heater blower alone!

I need to make a few errand runs tomorrow so will take the Jag for that and keep an eye on the performance of the charging system. Fingers crossed this stays fixed as I REALLY don't want to have to mess with the alternator again!

I'm not declaring this "fixed" quite yet as the full fault condition was intermittent...but overall charging behaviour seems markedly improved so keeping fingers crossed.