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

[CitroJim]

That's a serious piece of engineering Zel

Mick, your reasoning makes a lot of sense

[xantia_v6]

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

Jaguar sub-contracted the design and manufacture of the A/C system to another company Delaney (or something like that), the system was named Delanaire.

The Delanaire Mk1 was fitted to the series 1 XJ6 and XJ12 from 1968 (very rarely in the UK), and was entirely vacuum controlled, including the temperature flaps being controlled by a vacuum controlling ambient temperature thermostat. They are reputed to be very troublesome and perhaps never worked as intended. I have not personally worked on one of these, but always thought that they would make an interesting challenge.

The S2 XJ6 introduced the Delanair Mk2 in 1974, and this is the system fitted to the XJ-S until replaced by the Mk3 system in about 1988. I assume that the vacuum actuators are remnants of the earlier Mk1 system, but the microprocessor barely existed yet, and even digital logic was rare in the automotive industry (I think that the first digital fuel injection may have been introduced around 1976). Digital stepper motors and controllers were pretty specialised things at the time.

I think I read somewhere that Delaney were taken over by Smiths, but I don't know where that was in the time-line. I believe that the Delanaire systems were also used by Rolls Royce. Not sure if the Rover P6 was (rarely) fitted with the Delanaire or something else.

When introduced in 1975, the XJ-S boasted electronic ignition, electronic fuel injection and electronic climate control, but between them there was not a single integrated circuit, all the electronic systems were built with discrete transistors.

[Zelandeth]

This morning I was expecting a package to arrive. What I wasn't expecting was a PALLET to arrive. It had this cocooned on top of it (we had to de-pallet it as that was too wide to fit through the door).



We only nearly died twice getting it up the stairs, but sensibly decided to hold off fully unwrapping it until it was situated on the desk which is its new home.



We had the scales to hand in the room so weighed it - 47.8Kg. Not as heavy as some of the early LaserJet models, but plenty heavy enough that you don't want to move it often!

The company we'd bought it from (who had also reconditioned it) had helpfully printed out a status page before wrapping it up. Nice touch. It's worth bearing in mind that this model was rated by HP for a duty cycle of up to 85,000 pages per month. Being from 2002 you'd tend to expect this to have pretty well earned its living by this point. Especially being the top end version with the duplexer fitted.



Yes, that does indeed show a total page count of 4830. The term "barely run in" springs to mind. Kind of like finding an XUD Xantia with 30K on the clock.

The supplies were listed as having a minimum of 40% on any of the toners and a nearly new transfer belt and fuser. The consumables printout confirmed this was a bit pessimistic really.



Can't complain at that...and this seemed to be borne out by the status readout when I turned the thing on.



In a domestic setting that should last for ages.

In theory what should have then followed was plugging in a network cable, setting the network configuration to "auto" and calling it good. Of course that's nothing like what happened. Not least because of the fact that our router (seriously...I can't wait until we're rid of it) is beyond awful and the DHCP server will seemingly randomly take exception to certain devices and refuse to allocate them a valid IP address. No huge issue...setting up a handful of addresses manually isn't the end of the world.

Two and three quarter hours of swearing and bashing my head against several walls later I figured something out. You can set IP addresses manually...however the fluffing Sky router won't actually speak to anything that's manually configured above 192.168.0.20. So my having picked ...150 because there was nothing else on the network in that vicinity of course resulted in no network connectivity. Well...that's not actually strictly true. I could *see* the printer on the network, to the extent that my PC would spot it and set it up...but couldn't then establish communication to talk to it or print anything. I must have wasted over an hour chasing my tail here...until trying a low end address...and suddenly when I tried ...17 (I've got other devices on 16 and 18) it "Just Worked."



Finally.

This then allowed me to get into the configuration page and prove that it does indeed have a crazy low page count.



With it now working (and several test prints run through which came out lovely) I was happy enough to scoot it all the way back into its corner and to rebuild stuff around it.



For the £120 I paid for it I'm well pleased. It seems to be barely used, has £150+ worth of transfer belt and fuser in, and is incredibly clean - which given it's kinda prominent on my desk is nice. Tucked away in the corner it doesn't actually take up much bigger a footprint than the Epson it's replaced despite obviously being far greater in actual volume.

Being from 2002, this must have been one of the last of HP's products before things really started to go downhill in the mid 00s. Still can't quite get my head around the concept that this is 18 years old.

Anyone want a 2017 Epson ET4550? Mine is now rather surplus to requirements as it's been rather upstaged.

[CitroJim]

I used to work on and repair those printers Zel They are very good and consumables have a long life...

You're right, one of the last of the old-school HP printers...

Good to see the Fuser and Transfer Unit has a lot of life left

Well bought! £120 was a steal

[myglaren]

Excellent!
When the toners get low I found a place that supplies them very cheaply and even instructions on how to refill on my Laserjet Pro M254dw.
Shame they can't supply drivers as well - I have to email my s**t to HP who bugger about with it so the printer can deal with it then email it to the printer. Not everything works.

I must have bought the only HP printer that they never produced Linux drivers for.

[CitroJim]

HP 4600 Toner Cartridges are 'chipped' to thwart refills Steve, unless there's a way to defeat them now...

I've never had a problem running my HP4050 mono laser or HP4550 colour laser under Linux...

Amazed you're having a problem as HP lasers traditionally always 'spoke' a very similar language whatever the model... PCL 5 or 6 drivers would generally work at a basic level on virtually any of them...

[myglaren]

Nothing works Jim. Annoyingly it works well with my son's Windows laptop (HP).
Tried various drivers for similar models and - zilch. Oddly enough the laptops will send a test page that works perfectly, anything else is just a scrambled mess.

There is an instructional video showing the refill procedure for mine, no chips involved.
Somewhere
Just seen that a set of cartridges cost £368 More than twice the cost of the printer!

I think the refill kit was about £60.

[Zelandeth]

Yeah, the book price is something like £100 each, though looking around they seem to be pretty easy to get for £50-70 - and given they last for 7-10K pages I'm not too bothered by that. I'm not going to be changing those regularly. Generic ones are a good bit cheaper too - and I'm pretty sure the magenta one I've got is a generic one as it's not reporting a serial number. Given how long they last I'll just be getting proper HP ones though.

Language wise this one speaks PCL5, so drivers shouldn't be an issue. Have set it up on 2 Windows 10 machines so far, and while they didn't find it automatically and I had to point it to the correct IP address it then just worked.

[bobins]

I've never had a problem running my HP4050 mono laser or HP4550 colour laser under Linux...

If you've still got your 4550 Jim, do you want a set of unused genuine toners, transfer belt, and fuser for it ? I finally got rid of mine earlier in the year as I think it was causing subsidence in the house I've still got the spare consumables if anyone is interested

[CitroJim]

I've never had a problem running my HP4050 mono laser or HP4550 colour laser under Linux...

If you've still got your 4550 Jim, do you want a set of unused genuine toners, transfer belt, and fuser for it ? I finally got rid of mine earlier in the year as I think it was causing subsidence in the house I've still got the spare consumables if anyone is interested

Thanks Bobins I donated mine to a needy charity a couple of years ago now to enable them to print their flyers and leaflets. I let it go with a complete set of consumables too...

Jolly good printers but for occasional use the time it took to warm-up was a bit tedious and also, being so lightly used the fuser collected dust which stank as it burned off It set off the smoke alarm a few times too

I find all my printing needs well satisfied by my LaserJet 4050 That's almost a vintage printer now. A fantastic workhorse in the finest HP tradition...

And both Windows 10 and Linux Mint is happy to talk to it fluently despite its great age

[Zelandeth]

Had the Jag out for a brief run yesterday. For the first time since I picked the car up, the heater was toasty warm the whole time...so much more pleasant.

Looks so much better with decent tyres on the front too.



I know a couple of people have asked about how the Nankang tyres behave in the wet. My observation so far: they're solidly average. Nothing like the wet grip of the Uniroyal RainExpert line, but they're absolutely fine so long as you use a bit of common sense.

[CitroJim]

Looking good Zel

[NewcastleFalcon]

Had the Jag out for a brief run yesterday.

Nice pic.

I know the enjoyment for many on the FCF its in the sorting out and fixing up, but on the other side of the coin make sure you take advantage of the good days to enjoy a bit of old fashioned motoring....and interesting location "brochure-esque" photography Even the oft forgotten atmospheric lighting nightime shots, and the comforting glow of the dashboard lights.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

I know the enjoyment for many on the FCF its in the sorting out and fixing up, but on the other side of the coin make sure you take advantage of the good days to enjoy a bit of old fashioned motoring....and interesting location "brochure-esque" photography Even the oft forgotten atmospheric lighting nightime shots, and the comforting glow of the dashboard lights.

Oh Neil, you make, for me, what is still a huge chore and best avoided sound so romantic

Each to their own but I still much prefer spannering 'em over driving 'em anywhere by several orders of magnitude...

I drive only out of absolute necessity and that's for shopping, visiting my 'bubble' and going to running/cycling events only!

[Zelandeth]

Decided it had been far too long since TPA had been out. Had intended to get her out last week but torrential rain ended up putting paid to that plan, mainly on account of the windscreen demister being pretty much useless. Issue is basically that because the duct is so long and narrow there just isn't enough airflow. The heater really needs a decent blower which can both shift a decent volume of air and also produce decent static pressure so it doesn't just get choked by the ductwork. That was the issue I had with the axial blower I tried originally...it shifted masses of air in the open but couldn't handle the back pressure from the heat exchanger and all the ducting.

It was obvious on start up that she wasn't happy. Just wouldn't idle properly, no matter what I did. Felt more like an ignition than fuelling issue to me so decided to go over the basics.

Gave the distributor cap a wipe down and the contacts a scrub up.



Wasn't terrible but equally could be better. Given this is the cap which came with KPL and spent goodness knows how long open to the weather I really should just change it...

The rotor arm looked fine so just gave it a very gentle clean. That's not a dark spot by the way, there's just a polished spot where the centre contact sits and it's reflecting shadows.



Pretty sure dirty points were to blame as there was a bit of oxidisation present. Gap was fine though once the contact surfaces had been given some attention with some fine Emery cloth.

While I was in the area I changed the somewhat ropey crimp terminal on the switched line from the coil.



I have previously noted that I could stall the engine by wiggling that wire before so had been meaning to change it for a while.

I did note when testing that there's a bit more of an arc at the points as they open than I'd like. So I reckon the condenser is on the way out. May well be behind the original issues today.

Given how terrible the quality of most automotive replacements these days I'm not even going to bother with them. These condensers almost always seem to be in the 0.1-0.3uF range that I've seen values stamped on, so as I've got good quality polyester film caps in stock in 0.22uF/1kV I'll just be fitting one of these.



I will probably gut the can of the original and stick it in there so it'll be a nearly invisible upgrade. This cap should essentially be a fit and forget solution as these caps don't tend to degrade appreciably and damp doesn't affect them as they're properly hermetically sealed.

I still keep expecting this engine to use oil for no really valid reason and it keeps surprising me when the oil level never moves.



With the ignition system back together she started up first touch and idled properly again.

Reckon the points might have wanted a clean for a while as I'd swear it feels like we've got more low end torque now.

So off we went, first stop for the day was to pick up more dog food.



Then off to pick up a few other essentials in a few different locations around town.





Most of the travel between these locations wound up being straight up and down the A5 as town seemed to be really snarled up most of today for some reason. Sure I remember there being a time when "big" roads like that were something I generally tried to avoid wherever possible in this car...whereas now we're quite happy to use them and buzz along quite happily at a shade over 60. About 63 seems to be where she gets into a groove on roads like that for want of a better term.

Still find it somewhat amusing that the speed she hates doing the most is 30. To look at it you'd expect this to be most happily bumbling along at that sort of speed, not blasting along the open road at 60 plus change. The dissonance between the appearance and actual capabilities still makes my head spin a little and never ceases to amuse.

Glad to report that the adjustment of the nearside door front striker has both reduced the door rattle noticeably and has vastly reduced the draught which used to come in around the leading edge.