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

[Zelandeth]

Well done that Jim! You do have to wonder what on earth Billy the Bodger was up to when they got at the sets beforehand sometimes!

Which one is up next then?

Today I actually managed to get to spend a bit of time just driving around.

I have to eat some of my previous words. I stated a while back that I didn't reckon that I was ever going to beat the previous record that I'd set between two points local to where I used to stay - a particular route between my former place of residence and a friend's house. The previous record had been set in - believe it or not the L plate Vauxhall Corsa 1.5TD. Which was a little rocket of a motor which was far, far quicker than it had any right to be. The record I set back then for the journey was 16 minutes 49 seconds if my notes are correct. I'd never managed to come anything beyond "vaguely close" to beating that, even in a mate's Jags. The Cappuccino gave it a valiant effort, but still came up short.

Did the same run today in the Activa: 12 minutes and 2 seconds - and I've got considerably more of a sense of self preservation than I had back in the days when I set the original record, and really wasn't pushing things...Especially in light of the fact that the Activa is *entirely* capable of very easily travelling at speeds which would result in an instant loss of my licence at the very least if sighted on the public highway. The huge chunk taken off my previous time is saved in the twisty bits rather than outright acceleration/speed on the few straight bits of road involved.

The Activa was *made* for the roads up here...Sod disappearing to Italy or Spain etc...When the likes of Top Gear go out looking for great driving roads, why do they never venture to Scotland?

I think being driven fully as intended for a couple of days has done the car the world of good though, and it definitely feels a heck of a lot more eager than it used to - and it really wasn't lacking anything before!

Be heading back down south tomorrow, will be a relatively relaxed run down given I'm not running to any particular schedule and that about 40% of the overall journey now seems to be littered with average speed cameras. I might take some liberties on un-numbered roads in the back end of nowhere in the Scottish countryside - the M6 however is another matter, and "very carefully" is basically how I'll be driving.

[daviemck2006]

My guess is that you were having a bit of fun on the B9001 Zel. I love that road myself, when I lived in Portsoy I always went that way to Aberdeen. Still tend to use it yet, from Macduff take the a947 to Turriff then cut across to the b9001. I hate the A947 with a passion, every inch of it is full of nutcase drivers. It has a reputation as a killer road, it's full of pig ignorant usually Banffers, who think they are invincible in their bmws and range rover and discoveries all trying to go faster than each other and think it will never happen to me. When I drove the service 305, now 35 along that road I saw loads of near misses, folk overtaking the bus at bad bits, even though most of the time we were running at 55 to 60 because the timetables were too tight.

[Zelandeth]

Problem with the A947 is the volume of traffic on it and the impatience that goes with that. It's a sod of a road to overtake on unless you've got a car with the grunt to do it. Trying to wind up a 1.4HDi Pug 207 to get round the tractor was always a terrifying experience.

Take all the idiots off and it would actually be a lovely road to drive.

Road between the B9001 at Thorneybank and Turriff is a laugh (don't forget the bit where you can get air), but I refuse to put my foot down on there now as the police have taken far too much of an interest in it in recent years. ...the couple of gorgeous banked S-bends excepted though...like Hell I was going through those without using the handling to its full potential.

It's astonishing how like an old coach the Activa behaves at speed through the dips and rises on the straights along that road...

Test mentioned earlier though is between New Deer and Badenscoth, via what I'm simply going to describe as the back road. Twisty for the most part - but most critically for a good road to go for a blast down - it's for almost the entire run got fantastic visibility. One of the reasons the A947 is so dangerous...it doesn't.

Remember the tight timing on the 305...was actually one of the reasons I preferred it to the 307 back around 2005-7. The 307 had way too much time between Bucksburn and Inverurie. You blasted your way out of town as best you could with the traffic - hit the dual carriageway...and trundled along at about 40. Which as a passenger was absolutely maddening! They did seem to at least partly fix that in later years.

One thing I will say for the ADL Enviro 300s Bluebird have (unlike the E200 which has no redeeming qualities whatsoever) is that if you're sitting in the rear seats, they really do sound nice when absolutely flat out... especially when fitted with the screamer of a Voith box that that batch are. Totally different thing to being up the back of a Cummins L10 engined Olympian thundering along at full chat, but equally satisfying to someone who likes proper mechanical things.

...never have encountered another bus that made the bizarre whistling/warbling noises at about 50 that the Jonkheere Mistral bodied B10M coaches on the S**JSE plates did. Was most peculiar...but they all did it. Was astonished to see one of them in Aberdeen this weekend! Surely one of the very last B10Ms still in service...was quite surprised to see that it still existed anyway...as the body frames did rather like to rust on those as I recall...even if the engine and chassis would keep going until the world ended.

[CitroJim]

You do have to wonder what on earth Billy the Bodger was up to when they got at the sets beforehand sometimes!

Sadly, Billy the Bodger is ubiquitous and he pops up anywhere and everywhere He especially loves cars...

Which one is up next then?

The battery set

Did the same run today in the Activa: 12 minutes and 2 seconds

Result! Just shows how wonderfully able and nimble a good Activa is


I really must make a visit to Scotland soonest It'll be by train though as I want to ride some of the railways... The one on the west coast particularly...

Have a great trip home Zel and keep a watch for those speed cameras... Speed does rather creep up when enjoying an Activa

[Zelandeth]

Scenery on the West Coast Main Line is lovely.

Back home safely now - hopefully without having earned the wrath of any cameras.

Left Aberdeen just after 10:45, arrived through the door at home 19:07. That included a stop of 30-40 mins for lunch.

Only managed 29.9mpg on the way back - I expected that though as I was fighting a heck of a headwind for the first couple of hundred miles. Aerodynamics of the Xantia were obvious though in that it was getting blown around so much less than most other traffic.

[CitroJim]

Back home safely now - hopefully without having earned the wrath of any cameras.

Excellent

As we were in the area and discussing my old Activa, I drove Robyn past your house yesterday and her reaction was 'Cor, what a cool house!'

I have to agree...

[Zelandeth]

While cool, it does have its shortcomings...not least that getting tradesmen to touch it is nigh on impossible.

Be curious to see how you get on with that set, be interesting to see how it sounds.

News on the Invacar! All being well it should be arriving here sometime on Friday. Guy who's selling it is currently suffering from quite a few health issues which have been slowing him down a bit - hence wanting to thin his own fleet of projects out a bit. Seems that things are moving now though.

Turns out he does actually have a Model 70 as well in good order (which I hadn't realised before), which will be a real bonus if I need measurements, photos etc as it's several hours nearer than any of the others I know of.

Really looking forward to having the thing here and starting to get stuck into the project.

[Zelandeth]

Quick update!

All being well, the Model 70 should be with me by mid-afternoon tomorrow so long as there aren't any problems tomorrow.

Given that my garage is still something of a work in progress I decided that a quick check was in order...

Yep! It will fit! The yellow box drawn in chalk on the floor represents the overall dimensions of the Invacar (even though mine will be slightly more compact just now due to missing bits of body!). Obviously there's still a lot of junk to get rid of - but the car will physically fit into the garage and allow the door to be closed at least.

Does highlight the reason that the garage really hasn't been used for anything other than a junk store though...There's just over a foot of clearance to the left, and maybe two and a half or three feet to the right...and this is a car that's only 4'6" wide (and 9.75' long). With a car that's a more normal width in there you'd have to be nigh on two dimensional to get in or out.

[Hell Razor5543]

Does highlight the reason that the garage really hasn't been used for anything other than a junk store though...There's just over a foot of clearance to the left, and maybe two and a half or three feet to the right...and this is a car that's only 4'6" wide (and 9.75' long). With a car that's a more normal width in there you'd have to be nigh on two dimensional to get in or out.

Either that, or buy either a soft-top or a car with a sunroof!

[Zelandeth]

I did once park a Skoda Rapid in a friend's garage for a while that was sufficiently full of stuff that getting into/out of the car involved climbing through the window.

...That looks a heck of a lot easier in the movies.

[van ordinaire]

The STS is in a lock-up (meant for the C15) which I can only reverse into, with the mirrors folded in 'til clear of the door frame & entry/egress is via the passenger window. In the dark it's a truly scary manoevre - & there's very little else in there!

[Zelandeth]

...The Invacar has landed...

Will snap a couple of photos after dinner to prove it!

EDIT: Here you go...some horrible quality photos.

First order of business tomorrow will be to break out the pressure washer and basically attack every square inch of the thing. It will probably look a heck of a lot better just for that.

The floorpan is utterly, completely and totally shot to pieces. So far the chassis still seems good though - couple of small areas needing attention, but overall pretty astonishing given the storage conditions.

Doors are present - just stored to one side right now.

The engine hasn't been run yet, but I've ascertained that it's not full of water and can be turned over by hand, so that looks hopeful.

Once it's had a clean seeing if I can get it started will of course be first on the list! ...on axle stands of course as we've no idea whether it's in gear or not at the moment and the gearshift linkage is totally seized (though I do have a spare).

Expect to see more in the morning!

[CitroJim]

Great to see the Invacar has arrived safely Zel

I'll be following the restoration with great interest...

[Michel]

Great to see the Invacar has arrived safely Zel

I'll be following the restoration with great interest...

Yes, me too, though I'm unsure as to why I'm quite so interested in it!

[Zelandeth]

Figures doesn't it...Get a new project home, then it goes and spends the ENTIRE day pouring with rain.

Not one to be deterred however, I figured even with the limited space available in the garage, I could get something done.

First up was changing this...

...as it was clearly beyond any redemption, and was making it very difficult to move the car around.

Replacement still needs a new tyre before the car goes anywhere near the public highway, but at least the wheel is something resembling round and it actually holds air.

While I was in the area, I had a look at the brake master cylinder. Successfully removed the brake pipe connecting it to the rest of the system without any problems, however getting the master cylinder itself off the car is another matter. It's an utterly daft design. To save a couple of pence, they didn't use captive bolts to hold the master cylinder on. This is a pain as getting at the head of the non-captive bolt is an utter pain. I need a very compact ring spanner with a cranked end I reckon...Or I could just introduce them to my good friend Mr. Angle Grinder and stick a new set of nuts and bolts with the new cylinder.

Annoyed at being temporarily defeated by that I stuck the windscreen wiper back on, simply to satisfy my OCD.

I then turned my attention to the engine. A quick test using the attachment point for the starting handle proved that it turns over smoothly and appears to have decent compression.

On checking the oil, it appeared to be massively over-filled, but didn't look *too* gross...Anyhow I drained that off and replaced with it some new stuff. Not quite the right grade, but it will only be in there for a few minutes worth of running before being replaced anyway. The filter I had in stock is a variant of the specified one (MANN W712) which has a not-required non-return valve. So long as the flow direction isn't wrong I don't see any reason this shouldn't work just fine...I'll be keeping a careful eye on the oil pressure before I even consider turning the engine over with the ignition system enabled.

While I was in the area I took a better look at the ignition system...Surprisingly clean!

I also tried connecting up a battery...Result being that absolutely nothing seems to work. Given the amount to which the loom has been hacked about that's not a huge surprise...so I may have to get slightly more inventive to get the engine going initially.

Here's hoping the weather is a bit better tomorrow so I can actually get it cleaned up a bit!