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

[Hell Razor5543]

OK, I hold my hands up to that one. If I hadn't been posting up bargains from Aldi/Lidl you might not have known about the plasma cutter!

[Zelandeth]

OK, I hold my hands up to that one. If I hadn't been posting up bargains from Aldi/Lidl you might not have known about the plasma cutter!

You're innocent on that one (this time!), someone mentioned it on another forum. It's a tool I've found myself thinking on a few occasions "this would take me five minutes if I had a plasma cutter..." but had always pictured them costing many thousands of pounds so pretty much immediately decided to see if I could find one then.

Would have been done yesterday but I deemed that nowhere near important enough to venture out in that weather to get.

I've been meaning to wire up a 32A outlet in the garage pretty much since we moved in too (in recognition that there's inevitably going to be an EV in the family at some point, especially as they're starting to filter through to the company car scheme for Chris now - and I've personally been quite taken with a couple of Kia's offerings lately), so this is a good nudge to get on with setting that up. It should actually be fine running from a 13A outlet so long as you're not running it at full power I think, but obviously has a 16A plug on. We'll hook it up to the camper's adaptor to make sure it works at least.

Conveniently the fuse box is in the garage and we have free breaker positions, so I can just drop straight down from the box about 3' to site the new socket...so that's simple at least.

[myglaren]

Have you seen these EV point installation videos.
Most interesting and informative.




Several more highlighting some of the problems. Can be quite involved.

[Zelandeth]

Have you seen these EV point installation videos.
Most interesting and informative.




Several more highlighting some of the problems. Can be quite involved.

Yes, it's definitely something I'd need to read up on first. Though I'm at least half prepared for it to descend into a "replace the whole consumer units first" type job. In which case I'm out. We're not going down the road of spending that much time, effort and money when we're not looking at staying here long term. I've no reason to believe more issues won't be unearthed (pun intended) when they start pulling things to bits to rewire based on my experience elsewhere in this house. Which could mean things turning into at least a partial house rewire...just no! Especially keeping in mind you can't easily drop cabling etc into the wall voids from the loft because of how this place was built which makes running cabling a major pain.

[Gibbo2286]

My Pod-Point charger came without any set backs Zel a simple addition to the meter box (The unit to the right ) on the outside wall and wired from there to the charger just a foot away.
They checked the earth/ground points on the gas and water mains and that the main fuse at the meter was 100amp, although he said a 60 amp fuse would do.
The down cable is from my solar panels and the little round black top right thing is a remote reader for the water meter.

[Zelandeth]

Interesting, so that's tapped in directly upstream of the consumer unit then via its own cutout if I'm interpreting what's what correctly. That scuppers any potential for fitting any of the hardware myself (which given we've basically ascertained that it's basically impossible to get hold of tradesmen here means it's basically off the table unless Chris' work will arrange it themselves).

We were planning to do a solar installation here too, but that's been shelved given we've pretty much decided that we'll be moving north again long term, and given the nature of the installation (PV glazing in the atrium & replacing the cladding above it) we were looking at it being at *least* a £50K job...so no, not bothering with that if we'll be gone before really getting anything back from it.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I've put up a piece on EV home charging using a commando socket/cable on the Electric Vehicles Infrastructure thread here. Seems to me even though its the simplest, a commando to type 2 charging cable of the right capacity in itself is an expensive item (£350 to nearly £450 for a "smarter" cable like this and by the time you've added on the work of installing a new circuit for the Commando Socket. Its pricy for not a lot of functionality

viewtopic.php?p=710081#p710081

I think if the first electric vehicle likely in your household will be a new one, then I expect the manufacturers/retailers will have mutually beneficial home charging point arrangements with leading home charge point providers which will be hard to match on an independent install.

The car will determine what potential benefits in functionality are available eg speed of charging, vehicle to grid, vehicle to home, vehicle to load (on board the vehicle AC sockets to power appliances.) Sparsely available right now, but likely to rapidly become more widespread. Selling point if nothing else.

A smart charger which they virtually all are now in combination with a smart meter, can unlock both cheaper tariffs, and an opportunity to opt in to V2G two way connection Vehicle to Grid and vice versa if the car allows it. A very useful long term tool for the grid, and for that reason alone an area which will develop as number of EV's expands.

Regards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

That vehicle to load V2L adapter is offered at over 400 Euros at the moment Neil but I'm not sure the Zoe can be set up for it...........yet.

[Zelandeth]

You really couldn't make this up...

You remember that a few weeks ago I sold on my Mercedes S123? Well this letter dropped through our letterbox yesterday. Personal information obviously removed.







I have precisely zero real interest in getting involved myself unless it's very cheap and looks like it could be a quick fix, MOT and pass on (assuming there's no strangeness about "oh my son has the documents" or the like), but as it's been off the road since 2016 I very much doubt it. Obviously if there's any sort of questions over whether it's theirs to sell I'll be out of there no question in seconds. I've got stuck in the middle of one of those disputes before and I've zero interest in repeating it.

Given the value of these cars if it didn't need major work it would be on the road. Plus they can rust for the country even before you start throwing bespoke made bodywork at them.

I've offered to take an objective look at the car for them and potentially pass the details on to anyone who I think might be interested, hopefully steering them away from Cartakeback etc if they've been considering such things.

I'm pretty much expecting to find a bulkhead made of rust though and 35 years of bodges having been holding various systems together since it fell into private hands...God help us if it's ever been a wedding car...

-- -- --

In more normal fleet news, these finally arrived for the Caddy. Actually arrived the morning we set off for Glasgow, but I was understandably focused on other matters at the time and just remembered the box was sitting by the front door this morning.



These are the top mounting blocks for the radiator. Odd setup, but they locate into the top of the radiator and a bolt then runs down through the slam panel into the well on the top of the block, trapping the radiator. It's all a bit odd and I imagine is designed with deformation in mind for crash safety. The blocks in this case we're both long gone and the radiator was floating around held in only by the pipework.

With it properly mounted you can see how far it had dropped back.

The top radiator hose was previously rubbing on the fan shroud. You can see the shiny patch where it was sitting against before.





Good couple of inches clearance now.

On the other side the shroud had cut a deep gouge into this air conditioning line.



Over an inch clearance there now too.

I'm not 100% convinced it's going to stay put so I'll need to keep an eye on it. Whole setup just feels a bit flimsy to me. Though I guess there is just an element of modern car design there,

This is how they sit once in place with the bolt tightened down.



Just looks like something is missing to me!

[daviemck2006]

The wheel hubcaps on that would be good on your camper Zel!

[Zelandeth]

The wheel hubcaps on that would be good on your camper Zel!

Sadly they wouldn't fit! The ones they made for the commercial vehicles while looking almost identical have a deeper dish. Those ones will be about an inch too shallow to fit over the hub.

I've arranged to drop by on Wednesday afternoon to have a look at it. The messages exchanged were actually in both coherent and polite English which is always a pleasant surprise. Sounds like the guy who had originally planned to restore it will also be there so that should give me a bit of an insight into what the barriers they see to it returning to the road (or indeed what took it off the road).

Of course one of the big questions I've not even touched on yet is what sort of money they're likely to be after for it. I suspect the answer to that question will render me out of the picture pretty quickly. Though I already am I reckon as I have no room for another car, as with the BX this would fill no particular role in the fleet so while it has alure (c'mon, who wouldn't*want* to buy it?), the answer from me has to be no! One of the big decisions I made this year was that everything on fleet had to have a specific purpose, and that was one of the reasons I made the decision to move the Jag on, and jumped at the opportunity to pick up the Caddy.

This year's resurrection project slot is already claimed by the Cavalier.

[Zelandeth]

Yesterday I had arranged to take a look at that W123 limo for the owner. I was offering nothing beyond an impartial and to my knowledge realistic appraisal.

My initial reaction on pulling up was "Oh she's crusty."







Though after a bit of a walk round and a bit of a crawl around underneath I've realised she's far less of a lost cause than I initially thought. Let's list the grot.

I Had Concerns about the bulkhead on account of this given the tendency it has to dissolve.



Given the state of the screen surround I was expecting to find that I could poke holes straight through into the cabin. However much to my surprise it looks to be sound, both sides. No amount of poking or prodding resulted in that sickening "scrunch" any owner of cars this age have come to dread.

Offside:



Nearside:



I was really surprised about that. I've seen really tidy looking 123s with holes in there. I did peel quite a bit of the crusty seam sealer off on the nearside and the metal under it was still solid.

Bottom of both B pillars is shot.



Probably the most difficult MOT relevant repair on the car just due to the amount of interior you'll need to remove to make sure it doesn't catch fire.

Offside outer sill needs some love around the rear jacking point.



I suspect that hole will be a lot bigger before sound metal is found, especially running up into the rear quarter, though it felt more solid than I'd expected.

Floorpan seems absolutely fine, couldn't see anything crusty around the suspension mounts etc, underside looks astonishingly fresh aside from one bit on the bottom of the spare wheel well.



I did notice this odd looking panel behind the offside rear wheel. Possibly an old repair? It seems solid enough though.



Both inner front arches need some remedial work, though I wasn't able to poke any holes by hand - I'll make sure I have an MOT tester sized hammer next time. Not really the worst job to fix as there's not much in the way save for a bit of wiring. Keep in mind the wings are bolted on so they can come off to improve access.

Offside:



Nearside:



Contrary to those crunchy bits the bodywork does have a few things going for it.

They often seem to go around the fuel filler flap, that's spotless on this car.



I thought there might be a hole in the rear pillar where that trim had come away, but it's the fastener itself that has rusted away. Though the surface rust there obviously needs catching before it gets deeper.



Rear screen surround where I've seen quite a few of these go is spotless.



I *haven't* had the boot open yet as the lock is jammed, and I didn't have good access to mess with it as she's parked about an inch from the car behind. We'll come back to that.

Oh, and there's the all important flag pole socket.



Wheel arches in 3/4 cases seem to be surprisingly free of the almost standard rust around them on unrestored cars. Only one that's really crispy is the nearside rear.



The engine bay is generally grubby but very free of apparent bodgery. Given the fun and games I had with someone having historically messed with the vacuum system in mine this was nice to see.



Radiator still had spotless green coolant in. Oil needs a change and smells a bit fuelly but I've seen worse. You remember the mess under the rocker cover on my S123? Take a look at this for a contrast.



How clean is that for a 39 year old 115K mile engine?

ATF is spotlessly clean too.

I wanted to spin the engine over to see if it would build oil pressure (hence the jump leads in the earlier photos). She only went and started!...and immediately started peeing fuel out of a perished line on the side of the carb. Fair enough, I hadn't been planning on engine running tests so hadn't checked anything like that. No knocking or anything even the moment it fired, and the oil pressure gauge pinged up to max immediately as we would expect. However we also had it immediately shown that the exhaust doesn't appear to be connected to the engine. She definitely seems to want to live though.

Can't believe the carb was working well enough for her to fire up and that the fuel pump wasn't totally gummed up. The carb is huge by the way. Don't have a photo of it, but it's a stinking great four barrel job that's wider than my hand of the sort of size I'm more used to seeing on huge great American V8s. I guess one thing in our favour is that she was laid up before ethanol was in all fuels...I suspect if it had been a year or two later we'd have got nowhere near as far as this.

Now the really, really sad bit though which could scupper everything.

Can you see the problem here?



Look closer.



Yep. The reason this car came off the road originally is that some lowlife nicked it to break for parts. The car was recovered before they got far through stripping anything, having only taken the seats apart in the back. However they made a huge mess getting into the steering lock.

They also smashed one of the limo specific windows.





Though as you can see, by some miracle the owner managed to get hold of a replacement. If I don't do anything else I'll get that installed to get the car weatherproof again.

I think that film has actually been doing a good job of keeping the weather out until the winds last weekend as the upholstery is in fine shape and there was only a little bit of water in the footwell, no rust or mould which would point at long term damp issues.

While it's in bits all of the rear seating is there i think so just needs bolting back together.

This car definitely has lived an easy life until the last few years, there's very little sign of wear and tear inside.



Really nice seeing original touches like this still present.



Granted she is barely run in.



Yes, the thieving scum who stole it managed to smash the face of the instrument cluster as well while they were making a total hash of breaking the steering lock, adding to the list of replacement bits needed.

Being an earlier one than mine the centre console doesn't have the veneer.



Yes, I want to know what the green switch does too. Guessing it's for the auxiliary cooling fan.

The air conditioning definitely still has gas in, though I'm sure it will need to be recharged - and I'll bet this is still running R22 (or maybe even R12!) so will need to be converted. On the "plus" side, the dash needs to come out anyway...

That dash damage is a big problem, probably *the* problem really. Mechanical parts are generally not too bad to get hold of for 123s for the most part. However bits of trim and the like are eye-wateringly expensive. So finding another full dash moulding, in the right colour is likely to cost a packet. Plus it's also (and I have pulled one of these apart in a scrap yard to get the heater box out) an absolutely HORRIBLE job to get the dash out of one of these. Merc went to great lengths to try to make sure things didn't creak, rattle etc and they didn't envisage it ever needing to come apart in the life of the car. So it's Not A Fun Job. It took me a whole afternoon, and that was in a car which had been rolled and where I didn't care about breaking things. Getting it out without damaging bits of the rest of the interior (I think I ended up kicking the windscreen out) and then getting things back together without breaking anything will be a nightmare.

So my assessment of what she needs sorting for an MOT.

[] OSR outer sill holed.

[] Both B pillars holed at the base.

[] Both inner arches corroded near enough to the shock towers to be a fail.

[] Tyres are perished.

[] Handbrake has been on since 2016...Plan on overhauling the whole brake system.

[] Exhaust rear downpipe is missing about a foot of pipe between the downpipe and collector.

[] Fuel leak at carb.

[] The MOT history mentions issues with the wipers...so given they're sitting halfway up the screen figure that needs to be rebuilt.

[] Attack the dash with a hammer and enough duct tape to get rid of all the sharp edges.

[] New front reg plate as it's delaminated.

Additional you'd want to do:

[] Rust around windscreen surround needs sorted.

[] Nearside rear wheel arch is crusty.

[] Bootlid currently doesn't open.

[] A million vacuum lines no doubt need changing.

[] Goodness only knows what electrical systems work/don't.

I'm going to arrange to visit again with more time and some tools. My target then will be simple:

[] Sort the fuel leak so we can run the engine for more than 20 seconds. That should allow us to do a test on what systems on the car work and don't. Should hopefully also allow us to move it forward so I can have a bash at getting into the boot and to move it out from the fence so I can see the nearside properly. Oh, and see if the SLS works, or is going to flood the driveway with hydraulic fluid.

[] Install the replacement rear window to get the car weatherproof again.

So yeah...bit of a mixed bag. She can definitely be saved, not a hopeless spares only job. However there's an alarming amount of hours work needed there. If you're looking at it pragmatically you'd absolutely break it for spares as that will no doubt be worth several times what the car is in running order. I could be wrong, but I imagine it's probably actually worth less than a normal W123 250E would be because the limo is going to appeal to a smaller audience.

There's nothing I found today that's specifically a show stopper, probably the biggest headache is actually the damage to the dash.

I don't know. If I had no other projects on the go I actually would have been tempted to give it a shot. As it stands though, I do...I already have the Cavalier incoming and really want to reduce the fleet size by one. Time aside this could be a fair money pit too...full set of brakes, tyres, front exhaust, dash, I could see a parts bill easily into four figures.

I think it's just too much of a project for me to be taking on on my own. Aside from the fact it's six metres long!

At the very least we can hopefully get it weatherproof, secure and movable in the short term.

Will probably offer to give it a wash too as getting rid of the moss and pumping the tyres up properly would make the car look a lot less sad.

[mickthemaverick]

What a tempting project that would have been to take on when I had my barn workshop in which we rebuilt the Stag. I'd estimate 100-150 hours work in total on that but because of the nature of the beast I cannot see it being financially viable. Even in absolute tip top condition I doubt it would draw more than 70% of the price of an equivalent W123 Saloon. So for me, as tempted as I'd be it would not be a viable option!!

[Zelandeth]

What a tempting project that would have been to take on when I had my barn workshop in which we rebuilt the Stag. I'd estimate 100-150 hours work in total on that but because of the nature of the beast I cannot see it being financially viable. Even in absolute tip top condition I doubt it would draw more than 70% of the price of an equivalent W123 Saloon. So for me, as tempted as I'd be it would not be a viable option!!

Pretty much where my brain is at. Especially given how much the parts are worth bearing in mind that all the exterior brightwork is pretty much spotless, the engine and box look to have been very well cared for and that (aside from the dash) the interior is pretty much like new. I reckon there's easily five grand worth of parts there if you had the time and space to break it. Which probably ain't that far off what it would be worth when fully sorted.

If I had somewhere to work on it and keep it under cover I'd definitely be tempted. Heck, even if I just didn't have other projects on the go I'd be tempted. As it is though I don't have a covered working area and already have one project car too many!

[Zelandeth]

I had plucked some numbers out of the air to produce "around £2500" for getting it back up and running. A little while back I sat down and actually looked things up to see how far off the money I was.



Not far it seems! Though I know full well that number will rise as soon as you actually touch anything...plus it doesn't take into account any transportation costs. Which would sting a bit given it's less than three miles away!

That list is a great visualisation I think of one of the main reasons there are so many unfinished projects floating around out there. Folks run headlong into things in a huge fit of enthusiasm without looking at the financial side of things, then suddenly realise they're in over their head.

Worth noting that of that £2500 figure a little over £1300 is simply dedicated to recommissioning the car from the seven years of slumber... obviously some things might not be needed - brake calipers for example are £300 odd and the ones on there might be serviceable. I'd rather budget for replacement and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around.

I'm going to see the car again tomorrow armed with a few tools this time. Hopefully get it running for more than a few seconds and do a bit more "aggressive" in my rust exploration. Hopefully will have a decision made then.