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

[van ordinaire]

Sorry as the XJS is more XJ40 than Series XJ, I'd quite forgotten it retained the original IRS.

The trick with P6 rear brakes was to chose a nice day & just accept that you were going to be under the back of it, armed only with a screwdriver, for a very long time. My only experience of Jag inboard discs, despite having run a '65 S-type for a while, was getting an E-type that had a leaking diff output oil seal M-o-T'd. Fortunately careful cleaning of the brake assembly on that side, a little fiddling with the handbrake & refilling the diff with snake oil immediately before driving the short distance to the garage was enough to get it passed. Actually, I'd now consider replacing the rear shoes on a C15 at least as challenging as either of those worst rear brakes in the world to do benchmarks - & we won't even mention "Flying Pigs" (that's Mk4 Zodiacs for those with short memories or life spans).

Personally, I'd only consider a V12 in an E-type (apart from recalling it was quite nice to drive) simply because access has to be better.

For some reason your "take the entire car apart first" (not something I've found to be true) reminded me of the "Autobooks"(?) MkII manual on replacing the clutch 1/ disconnect battery, 2/ remove engine & gearbox. Priceless!

[Zelandeth]

Given the Lada is going to a friend I'm trying to deal with a few of the items on the to do list before handing it over.

The exhaust has been a mess since before I got the car. The front section is fine, the cat is fine (and healthy judging from the MOT emission test result), the tailpipe is a bit last it's best but gas tight, the intermediate section however is utterly knackered. This section however is unique to the cat equipped Riva - which only existed for a couple of years, and as such have always been hard to find. The one supplier which did carry them.however has ceased to exist in the last couple of years, and even a thorough dig around on eBay etc couldn't find one anywhere.

Cue a trip round to a local stainless specialist. They're quite happy to make me up a replacement in stainless steel for around £150, but requested that I provide a fresh tailpipe as they didn't want to mess around with crusty looking slip joints. They're only £30, so I'm fine with that...and fair enough. I hate dealing with crusty exhausts too. Especially if you're trying to reuse stuff.

One bonus was that at least judging from the diagram in the listing, it does in fact look to be the correct one for the estate.



The saloon one just comes straight out the back of the silencer, the estate one however is cranked towards the offside. This is because the bumper on the estate is slightly lower, so the saloon exhaust sits really close to the towing eye (which is attached to the bumper mount), and quite often will clonk against it when the engine stops. The estate ones are harder to find and most people don't know there are two types, so most have incorrect one fitted. Once that arrives I'll get that booked in to be properly sorted. Will be the first time the exhaust will have been properly gas tight in my ownership of the car.

The heater in the van had finally drained the five litre can I had been feeding it from, giving me a good opportunity to swap it out for a proper fuel supply. Eventually this will be spliced into the feed from the vehicle tank...however the plumbing I want to get at is hidden above the fuel tank. I do want to drop the tank at some point both to rust proof above it and to hopefully clear the vent line out properly so it takes less than a week and a half to fill. For now though we're going to use the ten litre one the heater was supplied with. I've stuffed this in the area the gas locker will surround once I finish rebuilding it. It's out of the way and nowhere near anything that gets hot, so I'm not bothered about it being in the cabin...diesel isn't exactly the greatest fire hazard in the world.

The fuel line has been clipped to the wall since the photo was taken.



It's not mounted off level, the drive I'm parked on is on a slope.

Of course having fitted a new fuel line I had to prime the system again - cue truly comical clouds of smoke when the burner finally did fire up again. This blanketed half the drive before eventually clearing its throat.



Talking of smoke... let's take a bit of a closer look at that Lucas diesel smoke opacity tester shall we? The progress to date had been to get the computer element (which turned out to be a Psion Organizer II - much to the glee of the retro technology geek in me) up and running...even if I was still unsure how to actually use it. The machine itself though is designed to run off vehicle power, so I'd been waiting until I could shuffle the passenger seat forward and work on it at a sensible enough time of the evening so I could have the van running (as it pulls a couple of hundred watts).

There are only two buttons on the machine aside from the computer itself. One on the "remote" which also has a four digit seven segment LCD display and one on the "console" for want of a better term. Oh, and a knob which appears to be the on/off switch.

Pushing the one on the console initially scared the living daylights out of me as the printer chattered into life.

[YouTube]SIZm3ye1VBA[/YouTube]

Astonishingly despite sitting idle for goodness knows how long, the printer ribbon still had a enough ink on to just about produce a ledgible printout.



The ribbon clearly needs replacing though. Tiny little thing.



Helpfully unlike some I've come across it does have a number marked on the back.



A quick poke around on Google shows this to be used by a plethora of printing calculators and receipt printers, so they're readily available for less than £2. I'll get a new one ordered in soon. However I wanted to try an old trick. Back when dot matrix printers were the norm it was normal to get a bit more mileage out of a ribbon by giving it a scoosh of WD40 into the casing. I still have the Panasonic KX-P2624 I used to use that trick on! Wonder if that would work on this one too.



That will be a yes then! Looks like the new ribbon can wait a bit. They're so cheap though I'll get one ordered in anyway as the existing one is a bit frayed in a few places.

I wanted to take a closer look at the light source to see if it was anything special.



Not really from the looks of it. The metal rim is a little unusual on a lamp like this in recent years, but not so much back when this thing was made. Haven't seen any markings on it from a quick glance, beam doesn't look to be anything particularly unusual either...so I suspect it is indeed a pretty normal MR16 dichroic halogen lamp. Pretty narrow beam, but nothing too special.



Hopefully the manual will tell me more when I eventually find one. Those of you with better search skills than me, feel free to go digging. I'm sure there is an electronic version out there somewhere.

This is one of the reasons I could do with a manual.

The user interface isn't exactly...intuitive. Here are a few examples of what it throws at you.







Those "floating" segments move up and down too, so definitely indicate something!

Pressing the button cycles through each of the functions.

Forgot to get a photo of them but I think I've figured out two of them - one suffixed with L I think shows the air flow rate through the machine (presumably in litres/minute) and the other suffixed with the letter C, which shows the airflow temperature. The rest however I need some help with!

This message at least makes some sense!



I'm assuming this is showing "line voltage low" as it was shown when I had it hooked up without the van engine running. As soon as the engine was started it went back to showing the usual nonsense...which I'm sure isn't nonsense, I just don't know how to interpret it yet.

Would also be nice to know the intended use for these connections. They sprout out of another box on a massively long lead which hooks up to the unit itself with those lovely horrifically expensive twist lock connectors.



Guessing battery ground and alternator W terminal so the machine can estimate the engine speed?

No idea whether the computer is used for anything yet either...though given it's specifically user accessible I'm guessing it's meant to be used for something. Possibly just entering the reg number and tester name or something like that I reckon...but it's not immediately apparent how.

Yeah...a manual would be useful.

[Zelandeth]

Stumbled across a video on my phone I'd forgotten about.

So what does an OM.601 sound like with what is essentially a straight through exhaust on it?

Something like this.

[Youtube]urDtyv_PILs[/youtube]

My phone was left sitting about 6" from the tailpipe which is right below the step into the living area, so probably sounds a bit more obtrusive than it is.

It's a bit ridiculous around town but surprisingly isn't really that noticeable on the motorway unless you're dealing with a major gradient.

Old school diesel with a straight pipe isn't something you come across these days.

[Zelandeth]

My intended task list for this weekend:

[] Re-seal the tail lights on the Lada to hopefully put a proper stop to water getting into the boot (they all do that).

[] Oil & filter change on both Lada and van.

[] Wash both of the above and the Citroen. It's not going to be moving till spring, but I'd still rather get the salt it's already caked on it off.

[] Empty the Lada's boot of all the bits of Citroen and goodness only knows how many bottles of LHM are in there. If anyone needs any I have way more than I'll ever need...

[] Dig out and reinstate the Lada's glove box.

Didn't have a huge amount otherwise planned for the weekend so had hoped to get started on that list today...life of course decided to intervene today.

Our boiler has been kettling badly for last few days. It's always done it to some extent, but has been a lot more noticeable in the last few days. My intention (having recently managed to actually find the very well hidden drain down valve) was to drain, flush and freshly treat the system in the spring. Not really wanting to knock heating and hot water out for a full day in December.

Said detective work was made easier by having things like this to hand.



This one just shows the supply side, I've got another one showing the feeds from the various tanks - yes there are four.

I have been trying to get a professional in to do it since we moved in. In 2014. However suffered a critical lack of interest from tradesmen usually getting the "it's not worth my getting out the van for..." Or "you need a new boiler, mate" without them having been given any information from me beyond that I want the system flushed, treated and the boiler checked and serviced.

I really don't get the "it must be replaced because it's old" mentality.



Yes it's been here since 1981. However it has barely any moving parts, zero electronics and has a record of perfect combustion test results on every documented service. I agree, once something on it beyond the pilot light thermocouple fails it will not be worth repairing...but until that point I intend to keep it going. Our gas bill is hardly anything so I can't see a replacement paying for itself quickly...

Anyhow...back on topic. Having given up getting the system serviced, I figured I'd do it in the spring. However as it had been sounding distinctly unhappy in the last couple of days I figured there was little to lose by sticking a dose of silencer in there. If it calmed things down for a month or two, excellent. If not I'll just have to do it properly anyhow. I'd had the bottle of silencer solution floating around for years, may as well use it!

Before I could add it though I needed to drain a bit of water from the system so it wouldn't just pool uselessly in the expansion tank. Sounds simple enough.

Whereabouts does the drain down valve live? Oh...yeah...here.



Which looks like this if you're not wedged against the underneath of the utility room sink.



The valve is roughly where the arrow points.



Not great forward planning. Cue ten minutes of work with the jigsaw.



Mmm...crusty. Get the feeling this hasn't seen use in a few years.



Sure enough it required a not insignificant amount of persuasion to open...but we got there in the end.



Barfed a huge lump of crud when we first opened it, and then proceeded to leak like a sieve like virtually every one of these things things I've seen.



Stopped when we'd drained ten litres or so off (and the water was stone cold so obviously being drawn from the tank rather than the circuit) and went and dumped the additive in the expansion tank.

This has definitely helped, restoring the kettling issue to a distant "grumble" which I'll call progress. Radiators are very noticeably warmer too so it's definitely improved something.

Unfortunately as is traditional with this house, in sorting (albeit temporarily bodging in this case) one problem always generates at least one additional piece of work. The drain down valve now won't seal fully. Dripping persistently once every few seconds. Not trying tightening it any further than I already have for fear of totally shredding the sealing disc.

So tomorrow I will instead of working on the cars, have to drain the entire heating system down and replace the drain down valve.

Obviously I may as well get the appropriate treatments dumped into and flushed through the system if I've got to drain it anyway.

The drain valve will not be replaced like for like. For a start compression fittings will be the order of the day, secondly I'll be fitting a good quality lever operated ball valve and terminate it in a hose barb...will make future drains of the system far less hassle.

Simple enough...just a bit awkward standing on my head under the sink (I can see that whole wall in the cupboard being removed to improve access) and annoying as I can think of a load of things I'd rather be doing.

Of course once I fix that something else will no doubt go wrong...that's how repair work in this house works!

Maybe I'll get to servicing the cars on Monday?

[Zelandeth]

I went into today's job with a couple of avenues open to me.

Firstly was as suggested elsewhere, I could try to change the washer in the offending valve. This would obviously save me a bit of time - though I still would need to drain the system fully which was of course going to be the biggest time waster.

I made a point of getting the necessary fittings for replacing the valve entirely, ideally as insurance that the simple option would work. I'd really rather get a ball valve in there long term anyway so I can drain the system without it leaking everywhere.

First contact with the enemy.



Drain hose was hooked up again. Conveniently we've got ground level drains in our conservatory below the solar panel drain valves...



Which meant that I could just dump the water into there rather than having to leave an actual outside door open to let all the heat out.



Before I actually set about draining anything I obviously wanted to make sure the boiler didn't fire and the pump wouldn't start. Simple enough here as the main switch on the control panel knocks everything out.



That panel is a bit of a blast from the past...no titchy little PCB mount relays here!



While there were a few chunks of crud washed out what drained was nowhere near as disgusting as I honestly expected given it's been in there since at least 2006.



I had half hoped I could just ship the core out the old valve and swap it with the new one. Sadly the new one was quite a bit smaller - though the washer was virtually identical so I was able to grab that and transfer it over. The cause of my having to go through this nonsense?



Guess it's allowed to be a bit crispy after 38 years.

I have a sneaking suspicion from the look of the surrounding woodwork that it's been weeping at some point in the past, probably stopping when the sediment clogged the cracks up.

Once that was reassembled with the new washer it was time to dump a fresh dose of corrosion inhibitor into the expansion tank and start refilling the system. Thankfully the valve has indeed been repaired it appears.



Then there was lots and lots and lots of this.



A.k.a. "How many times in one day can Zel lose the radiator key?"

The answer is "always at least once more" it seems.

Then stuck the necessary details on the label and put it on the boiler...last one dated from 2006...so this was massively overdue.



The system could really do with a proper flush I imagine, and I'll get to that in the spring...I need to drain it down again anyway as of course an additional problem surfaced...this crusty looking vent of course decided to weep once the system was bled up.



If I'd seen it was this manky before I started I would have changed it before I refilled things. See also my earlier comment though about any job on this house generating at least one more item of work though...it's like a perpetual expense engine...

In this case though it can wait. It's barely even weeping and probably has been for years from the look of it. For now though the boiler is now running silently again, so I'll call that a win.

So much for my plan to get the cars serviced this weekend though!

[Gibbo2286]

I'm too late for your weekend job but you don't need to drain down the system to change those washers, use this stuff to freeze the water in the pipes either side of the offending part.

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Pipe-Fr ... clsrc=ds

[Zelandeth]

To be fair...the system was last treated in 2006 as far as we can tell, so it was in desperate need of it...and that was why we wound up here to start with. The radiators now are an order of magnitude hotter than they were and I keep having to look at the window in the boiler to see if it's on now because it's running silently again (it doesn't even have a fan!).

The idea of deliberately freezing a pipe still puts me off after having repaired so many ones burst by freezing in the winter when I was growing up!

[myglaren]

The idea of deliberately freezing a pipe still puts me off after having repaired so many ones burst by freezing in the winter when I was growing up!

I have used this technique - a long time ago now - and it all went well.
Same thing, changing a faulty valve for a thermostatic one.

[Gibbo2286]

My old mate's wife came on the phone in a panic, he'd tried to change the radiator valve for a thermostat without turning the heating off and was sitting in the corner with a pile of towels trying to stop the boiling water flooding the place.

I dashed over there 'three miles' and with a struggle managed to get him out of the mess he'd caused, I used a piece of heater hose on the new thermostat and popped it in double quick when he moved aside.

We both got quite wet and left his missus to mop up.

[Zelandeth]

Have a few radiators here I'd like to fit TRVs to. Downstairs is fine as the whole floor pretty much is open plan. Upstairs though there is only one stat as with downstairs but a load of rooms. The biggest issue though is that we only ever actually really need heat in maybe two of them (getting heat *out* of this house is far more of a challenge generally than trying to heat it), and they're vastly different sizes. I'd really like to get TRVs on the radiators in the smaller bedrooms. The north wing master bedroom is the coolest room in the house and is where the thermostat is...so if that has master control of the upstairs heating it's fine as the other rooms are never going to want heat if it doesn't realistically.

Quite a few radiators have seized valves that I should really change...that may well go on the list for the spring.

[Zelandeth]

The new tailpipe for the Lada arrived today.

Annoyingly it's not the same style as ordered - correct numbers stamped on it compared to the catalogue...so the manufacturer (Euroflo) are just being lazy and only producing one type of silencer now it appears rather than separate ones for the saloon and estate. Not as though it won't fit...I will just know it's not correct!

Diagram from the Euroflo catalogue...this is the correct shape for the Estate.



Which looks like this on the car.



Photo borrowed from somewhere on Flickr a long while ago which I now can't find to link to. I've not actually seen one in person in probably a couple of decades.

The car is currently fitted with the saloon one - which was generally fitted by everyone as replacements as they were more readily and cheaply available. Note the difference in where the tip should be - I've roughly indicated the correct location with my keyring.



This is what actually arrived (oriented approximately how it sits on the car)



Which plainly isn't what's in the diagram despite both the labels and stamped part numbers matching up.



The kink at the tip isn't on the OEM system, though it should help make it sit square as it normally sits at a bit of an angle.

It weighs a tonne so hopefully will last a decent amount of time.

If I'd known that it was going to be anything other than the correct part I'd have just ordered it from Lada directly as I know they have the saloon type ones in stock...if it wouldn't cost me £20 to send it back I'd return this one and just buy one from Lada...however paying £20 to return something that cost me £30 seems daft.

Even more annoying is that the box was devoid of mounting hardware...so I need a set of hangers (only one of the three originals is serviceable). Cue nearly three hours of driving round in circles trying to find a set of hangers. Completely without success. So I've now ordered the hangers from Lada...where I should have bought the whole lot from. Should really know better by now.

Annoying.

Exhaust place is closed until new year mind you...so not losing a massive amount of time as it won't be getting fitted until then anyhow...it's purely annoyance value.

Tomorrow it's getting a service provided the weather decides to co-operate.

[] Engine oil change.
[] Oil filter change.
[] Fuel filter change.
[] Gearbox oil level check and top up - will lose a bit when I change the reversing light switch which I will be changing as it's been rattling round the boot for a year.
[] Steering box oil top up.
[] Rear axle oil change.
[] Grease propshaft UJs etc.
[] Will check the air filter, but it's done less than 20K miles so not expecting it to need changing.

[Gibbo2286]

Have a good moan at them they might give you a partial refund without having to send it back.

The position of the outlet on the estate is done so to stop fumes coming in through the tailgate and putting you to sleep.

[Zelandeth]

Have a good moan at them they might give you a partial refund without having to send it back.

The position of the outlet on the estate is done so to stop fumes coming in through the tailgate and putting you to sleep.

Seller is away until 10th Jan anyway, so not much I can do until then.

Reckon I'll get nowhere given what I've got is the correct part number - the issue is with the manufacturer not having updated their catalogue rather than any mistake by the seller.

Even Lada UK haven't been able to reliably get the correct one for a few years now so I can't really blame them.

[Zelandeth]

Didn't quite get as much done as I'd hoped today, mainly because I wasted about two hours trying to sort an air leak on the pick up tube on the Pela - without success. Eventually gave in and dropped the oil from the Lada the old fashioned way.

This did involve me dragging myself across the driveway at the end of a six foot breaker bar. This was seriously tight.



Thankfully being on the Lada the head is large enough that there was little danger of it stripping.

Oil dropped, new filter was spun on - that at least came off without a fight because I put it there (hadn't had the sump plug out myself before as I generally just use the vacuum draining method these days).



Photo was actually taken about half an hour later when I was doing a running leak check, but you get the idea...

While the oil was draining I also changed the fuel filter - this had been on the to do list for a while because I managed to lose the new filter (for about a year).



The old one came from the donor vehicle I pulled the injection system from - and I have a horrible suspicion that it may have been the original.



The air filter was checked but left alone as it still looks exactly the same as when it was fitted (the paper has always been a slightly more greyish colour than most I've seen).



I did rotate it through 180 degrees at least.

While I was in the engine bay I also gave the bonnet stay and hinges a bit of treatment with the spray grease.



Then did the same for the bonnet catch. This gets pretty well drowned regularly as if it sticks and the release cable snaps (or the sheath slips out of the catch) you are in for a world of pain trying to get in. Been there, done that. Thankfully not on this car or there would be scars from it!



Not quite sure how it took me until this week to actually buy a proper oil pouring jug.



It makes things SO much easier. Especially on a car like this where the oil filler is a bit awkwardly placed where you've got to stretch and/or reach around other things to get at it.

Oil was re-checked and topped up once the engine had been run for a few minutes (looking for slightly over the maximum reading due to the slope of our drive).



Then just did a general check over. Tightened up a couple of hose clips which had worked slightly loose and tucked a couple of wires back into their clips. Added a tiny splash of coolant to just bring that back up to the max mark (level with the top of the strap holding the expansion bottle in place).



It's never really going to be a tidy engine bay, but at least it's a reasonably clean one.

Hopefully will get the steering box, gearbox and rear axle oil done tomorrow.

One additional thing I did was finally change the second number plate light on the van. One got smashed a while ago when someone drove into the back of it. The other one however had already got a cracked housing and they didn't match.



This really is only fit for the bin.



Ten minutes later, symmetry was restored.



Much better.

[Gibbo2286]

That fuel filter looks very much like a new one I have on my shelf here, I've never checked what it's supposed to fit and can't remember where it came from, it's marked as Halfords Fuel Filter HFF219, if it will do your car you can have it free gratis and clear another space on my shelf.