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

[andy5]

Looking at those photos now it is slightly hard to believe that's the same car that arrived wedged in the back of a Transit van about a year ago...

Can't be many cars in the world that fit in the back of a van, everything getting wider and taller and heavier all the time.

[myglaren]

Looking at those photos now it is slightly hard to believe that's the same car that arrived wedged in the back of a Transit van about a year ago...

Can't be many cars in the world that fit in the back of a van, everything getting wider and taller and heavier all the time.

Can if you cheat

[Zelandeth]

What diameter are the handlebars Zel? Spare throttle tubes (that twist grip bit you've ground out) are readily available for motorcycles, and cheap. You could even fit a set of heated grips over them for winter use

They appear to be the same diameter as standard push bike bars (no idea if that's the same or different to motorbike norms), the grip for the nearside bar had dissolved originally and I just grabbed a normal bike set from Go Outdoors for a couple of quid.

It's definitely something I'll look into changing at some point from a comfort perspective I think.

I'll also look at moving the indicator stalk back to the left. It currently requires the rest position of the throttle twist grip to be rotated a bit too far forwards so the cable doesn't foul on the stalk which adds to the discomfort. It's also quite awkward to operate with the hand you're using for the throttle...so it is better on the left. One of the main reasons it was moved was that the replacement stalk I got has symbols on it which dictate the position - I've since tracked down the correct part number for the unmarked one that was used in the Invacar so can get the right part ordered. Not expensive either.

[Michel]

22mm is standard modern motorcycle handlebar diameter. Depends how tied to originality you are, but a set of bar-mounted motorcycle switchgear would work well...

[Zelandeth]

22mm is standard modern motorcycle handlebar diameter. Depends how tied to originality you are, but a set of bar-mounted motorcycle switchgear would work well...

Not worried too much about originality for things like that. It's a car that's going to be used rather than a show queen...hence considering adding a few things to make the car easier to live with.

[] Sound deadening.
[] Possibly carpeting.
[] Better fan for the heater (which heats the air to supernova like temperatures).
[] Low brake fluid warning light.
[] Possibly dual circuit brakes.
[] 12V outlets in the cabin (concealed obviously).
[] Local relays for the headlights.

I've already made a few changes - improving the original door seal arrangements, switching from 12" to 10" wheels, aluminium fuel tank...you get the idea.

There are plenty of these cars in museums that are immaculate, so I'm not too hung up on keeping things exactly as they left the factory.

I don't need all the buttons and switches bar mounted, just the throttle. The stalk works just fine for the indicators and such and I've no issue with that. Though it does need to be moved back to the other side as operating it with the same hand as the throttle is a bit awkward.

I figure that by far the best thing for TPA at the moment is to cover miles given how long she's sat dormant. To this end I took the very long way round both to and from the shops this afternoon, covering roughly another 40 miles.



Nothing I've ever owned does quite such a good job of making conventional parking spaces look absolutely massive.

She didn't miss a beat. The only gremlin I have discovered is that the heater control flaps aren't closing fully in the control box...so the heater doesn't switch off quite fully. The efficacy of the heat exchanger definitely isn't in doubt...The air coming out of the vents is *painfully* hot...so it would be nice to be able to switch it off properly. Especially as the outlet for the main cabin heater is under the seat. Gets a bit toasty after half an hour or so.

[Zelandeth]

You know a while ago I gave some of the rusty and/or scruffy metalwork in the engine bay some paint? I really should of either held off doing that until after I painted the rest of the car or masked it off.



Oops.

On the plus side it wasn't exactly a work of art, so not much to be replicated. Have already given the cowling a fresh coat of hammered black.



I'd really like to get the fan off so I can give it a better clean up, but the bolt holding it onto the dynastart really doesn't want to budge. A six foot breaker bar and 3/8" socket extension resulted in zero movement and a bent socket extension. A task for a year or five down the line.

Had a few errands to run today and it would have been rude to take any other car wouldn't it.



Enjoy the fact that it wouldn't take all that much editing to take thirty years off this photo.

Starting to get a bit of a better feel for the car now and can definitely vouch for it being very much at home darting around congested city streets. The only slight negative mark is that the initial launch between 0 and 5mph is a little sluggish. This is down to the centrifugal clutch and a relatively heavy flywheel for a small engine like this. It's not bad, just more like an old school automatic with a long first gear. Just needs a half second or so more forward planning than driving a modern car when you're pulling into a busy roundabout or turning right out of junctions.

Have been a little more daring today and can vouch now for this car having downright tenacious levels of grip compared to what you'd expect. Yes she wanders about in sidewinds a bit and wobbles in a strange way unique to three wheelers on uneven surfaces, but there's a lot more cornering ability than you'd think.

[Zelandeth]

Had a spare hour this afternoon so figured it would be a good time to start tackling the snagging list on the Invacar.

The repainted engine cowl was reunited with the engine.



Being such a visible thing in the engine bay this immediately makes it look far less decrepit.

I then turned my attention to the slow puncture on the nearside rear wheel. This has lost roughly 5psi per day ever since the tyres were fitted. As such my suspicion was always that there was a leak from the rim rather than in the tyre itself.

Five minutes with the leak detector spray later, we have a winner.



Bubbling merrily from the bead right behind the larger balance weight. There's another smaller leak I spotted just after taking this photo just out of frame.

I've faffed around fitting tyres at home before and have deemed it to be considerably more trouble than it's worth (until such time as I inevitably pick up a tyre fitting machine) so decided to entrust sorting this to Formula 1 over in Newport Pagnell. My usual go-to for tyre stuff, only reason they didn't get the job of fitting these originally was that they literally wanted double the price for what were inferior tyres.

Suffice to say this being in the workshop caused a few scratched heads.





The gent who was working on the car for me couldn't have been more than 18 and was really enthusiastic which was nice to see.

Once the tyre was off it was obvious that no effort had been made to clean the rim up beforehand...bit disappointing given the tyres were fitted by a specialist not Kwik-Fit. Five minutes with the wire wheel had things looking far healthier, and we flipped the tyre around (they're not sided) to hide my horrible overspray. Was all going great...right up until this happened.



Gent doing the work was being careful and was doing everything by hand - that stud just decided it had had enough. They're happy to cover the cost of sourcing replacement and fitting no questions asked. So I'll have a dig later today (I still have the parts manual here waiting to be scanned because I'm so disorganised) to ascertain exactly what spec the studs are and will then get replacements ordered. Hopefully they're straight from the Mini as those will be plentifully and inexpensively available.

I'll plan on replacing all of them as a matter of course now. If one has failed without being abused in my time with the car there's no reason to believe the rest are in any better shape. I had one fail on a car before (can't recall which one) and the very next time I had the wheel off I recall a second stud snapping...so they're all getting done.

Once they're done they're done...one less thing to worry about.

Just hope access to the back of the hub isn't a problem.

[Zelandeth]

We all knew this was not going to be simple didn't we!

So far I've ascertained that the Model 70 does NOT use Mini wheel studs. They're screw in ones rather than the splined knock-through type.

It became immediately apparent once I pulled the wheel off that my intention to change all the studs was sensible. Despite knowing they had never been overtightened or otherwise abused during my ownership, one additional to the one which snapped was bent (and cracked I discovered on closer examination).



Here's what came out. Going theory is that the thread is 3/8" UNF.







Anyone who recognises what they're out of I'd welcome your input.

The first three - including the snapped one - wound out nicely. Of course this was going too smoothly...the last one immediately stripped the moment I applied any torque to it.



Balls.

Picked up a tap and die set this afternoon in the hope I can possibly cut a smaller thread onto it and wind it out that way. I realise this is almost doomed to failure, and I'm going to wind up trying to weld a nut to it.

In slightly better news, a nice little improvement arrived today from Tipper's Classic & Vintage Plates.





Nicely retro reflective unlike the current ones which have become transparent!



Looking forward to getting these fitted to the car, they'll look so much better than the current scruffy, delaminated acrylic plates.

[Michel]

22mm is standard modern motorcycle handlebar diameter. Depends how tied to originality you are, but a set of bar-mounted motorcycle switchgear would work well...

Not worried too much about originality for things like that. It's a car that's going to be used rather than a show queen...hence considering adding a few things to make the car easier to live with.

I don't need all the buttons and switches bar mounted, just the throttle. The stalk works just fine for the indicators and such and I've no issue with that.

I was more thinking of future- proofing and reliability than ease of use - I have had to obtain parts for older British motors such as Reliant Robins and the DRK in the past, and it can be tricky and not of the best quality, even from some of the more well known suppliers, whereas Japanese motorbike switchgear that's built to live outside in all weathers... No such issues.

[RichardW]

Get a set of these Zel, will fetch that stud out in no time: Reverse flute sockets (You probably need this expansion set as the smallest one in the std set will be too small for what you want.

As to getting newstuds, no idea - I had a quick look and ones this small are not common as screw in. You might have to get an engineering shop to make some, or just get some straight 3/8 studs and thin nuts, fix the nuts on with non removable loctite, or a tack weld, and away you go (or does the drum mount on those non threaded parts, and therefore it needs to be round?)

What do the ones on the other side of the car look like....????

Edit... or just get a pair of stilsons on it - if it's tight, then apply some heat!!

[xantia_v6]

Have you checked the thread size on your wheel nuts?

Triumph TR3 etc use a similar looking stud in 7/16" search for "stud 100869"

[xantia_v6]

You had better check whether the threads on each end of the stud are the same, the inner end could be anything (10 mm?)

[Zelandeth]

The threads appear to be the same on each end, the least mangled stud was quite happy to screw into the hole it had just come out of when flipped around 180 degrees.

Annoyingly, the hubs also appear to have metric holes present - just in a 4x98 rather than 4x100 stud pattern as that was used by the Fiat cars the suspension was originally sourced from. Frustrating that's just slightly different enough as to be useless for me without sourcing new wheels (which weren't available in 10"). The factory has redrilled the hubs to allow them to fit the Mini wheels as they had access to those cheaply and locally.

We think we might have found it on the Rimmer Bros website, just waiting for an email back with specs as the specs section is helpfully completely blank.

A local friend has signing their thread gauge set for me so hopefully we can confirm what the thread actually is soon so we're flying less blind.

Though I do find myself wondering if there's any good reason we couldn't screw wheel bolts into those holes rather than studs and nuts?

It's a shame that removing the hub is such a debacle (well removing isn't...reassembling it is, setting the preload on the wheel bearings involves use of a special tool) as otherwise this is the sort of thing that would probably take a specialist five minutes on their bench to sort.

The stubborn remaining stud has already had me hanging off it with the stilsons while it was cherry red, it appears to be made of the softest and most slippery metal known to man. It's been soaking in Plusgas overnight so we'll see if it's any more inclined to play nice later today.

[RichardW]

Might be worth a mirror behind the stud to check that someone hasn't put a blob of weld on it if it's partially stripped in the past....

Sometime you can help them out with a bit of percussion - get the hub flange hot, apply some torque to the stud, the hit the end of it a few time with a hammer - the impact is rather like a rattle gun and helps to loosen it off.

[Zelandeth]

It definitely wouldn't surprise me if they had tacked the end of the stud in at time of manufacture. The term overkill appears regularly on this vehicle - would also support the look of the studs which came out (no sign of damage to their thread in the hub section - that's all happened while I was wrestling the wheel nut back off it).

A little closer examination of a slightly less mangled stud has me now pretty certain that we're looking at 3/8" UNF. That would be 9.52mm when it came fresh off the cutter...



A friend locally has a set of imperial thread gauges which should help us confirm the details when I get a chance to swing by their place. Once we've confirmed that sourcing replacement studs or bolts shouldn't be hard or expensive.

Another little accessory arrived for TPA today which I had honestly forgotten ordering.



Got to have a marque appropriate keyring...which reminds me that I really need to find a nice Mercedes one for the van sometime...