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

[mickthemaverick]

There are loads on ebay Eric, just search 'Brother Typewriter' mostly less than £20

[Hell Razor5543]

Zel, you might want to watch todays' "Antiques Road Trip" on the BBC iPlayer. They have a section where the AC Invacar makes an appearance (and Natasha has a drive in one).

[Gibbo2286]

There are loads on ebay Eric, just search 'Brother Typewriter' mostly less than £20

I think I got the last two for her off Ebay Mick but they're very long in the tooth now so always a gamble.

[Zelandeth]

This is more in your dept than mine Zel, an old friend never got into computers so for the last umpteen years has used Brother typewriters, nobody it seems makes them any more so she asked if I could get one working for her, gave me these two, so can I get one working with bits from both? That's the task but...................
As you can see the innards a completely different.

Start with the basics...see if there's voltage coming out of the power supply on either of them. It looks at a glance as though the printing unit on them is identical - so it might be possible to transfer that from one to the other. Not really something I know much about, but they're basically just a really simplified computer and a printer in one case...

If it's not something simple amiss though it may just be easier to get a working one from elsewhere, I don't imagine the later ones are particularly sought after. I do have an electric typewriter from I reckon the late 70s in my to do pile...however it's not been in regular use since the early 90s at the very latest so needs a complete going over.

-- -- --

This morning I was setting out to go drive the P4 120 miles south to swap over to the Trabant. The P4 has many good points, but currently the heater delivers approximately 15% it's rated output and there's no way to direct air to the windscreen. The wipers are also absolutely awful.

Of course it dawned a cold, humid, rainy morning. Perfect!



The first hour of the journey was basically spent frantically wiping the windscreen every 30 seconds. Having the passenger window wide open and the driver's quarterlight open would *just about* keep the screen clear if I was on the open road, but every time I stopped it would almost instantly fog up again. It made the trip between MK and Oxford really quite stressful as the traffic was stop-start in several areas. Stress levels weren't helped by my phone's windscreen mount exploding about ten minutes into the trip. Thankfully thereafter it cleared up and I was able to engage juggernaut mode on the dual carriageway/motorway down towards Portsmouth. The remainder was a fairly pleasant trip aside from being freezing cold. I regretted my decision not to take gloves as my fingers were well and truly numb by the time I got there.

I then spent far longer than I had planned sitting here waiting to head for home.



Simply because I had to wait for Hagerty to answer their phones...which usually is a matter of about 30 seconds. Of course today it took 20 minutes. Nevertheless, I eventually got through and they then got the policy transferred from the P4 to the Trabant in less than five minutes and we were off.

Two and a half hours later we arrived home.



Only actually ten minutes later than Google had estimated which I reckon wasn't bad at all.

I can't quite say she didn't miss a beat, as she did have one singular cough after I'd been sitting in a queue for about 15 mins at one point, I'm guessing one of the plugs had just loaded up a bit as it never happened again. Aside from that though she ran flawlessly and was quite content to buzz along at 56mph with plenty more to go. I was deliberately taking things easy as I know this car hasn't been in all that regular use for a while, so a 120 mile motorway run was a bit of a trial by fire. So I just slotted myself in with the HGVs and bumbled along.

We used almost exactly half a tank of fuel, which by my math equates to approximately 45mpg, not bad at all. I'll get exact figures when I fill up.

This is quite possibly the strangest little car I've ever driven.







Okay...*nearly* the strangest car I've driven...that title probably falls to this little menace.



I guess my brain was kind of prepared for it to be in some ways reminiscent of the Lada, but it really isn't (other than being exceptionally noisy at speed). In the Lada everything is heavy (except the excellent gear shift) and fairly vague. This is really the polar opposite. All of the controls are light (the clutch in particular you could press with a finger), and the car feels light and really nimble.

Actually gets up and goes a lot better than I had expected given the blazing 26bhp on tap.





The fact they have put sound deadening on the underside of the bonnet to attempt to tame the ridiculous amount of noise generated by that engine does somewhat amuse me.

The vast majority of my experience with two stroke engines has been with a couple of Detroit diesels...which share one thing with this, the fact that biblical amounts of noise are generated...I don't think a bit of padding really is going to make much difference!

The car was absolutely happy to buzz along at 55mph and definitely had more to give it needed - but I was definitely taking it easy on the trip home. Not least because I was having to lean halfway into the passenger seat to see where I was going because the driver's side wiper is loose on the spindle and only wipes about 1/3 of it's intended stroke (most of the time).

Ride is a little bouncy but not at all jarring. Kind of unavoidable in such a light car, especially with such a comically short wheelbase. Surprisingly comfortable I found, even if the driving position is exceedingly odd.



The seat is very low to the floor, and because of where the wheel tub is the pedals are massively offset to the right, the accelerator being well over the centre line of the car I think.

Nice little period accessory on the dash, intended to track fuel usage.



This currently seems to be jammed up but I'll see if I can get it working. Would be nice to be able to set it to when I next needed to plan to refuel.

A feature this car shares with the Lada is a heater which could double as a blast furnace.



It is *fiercely* effective. First air cooled car I've driven which actually has a halfway decent heater, even if it did take me a few minutes to figure out the controls.

Which is a good thing as otherwise keeping the windscreen demisted might have been a bit of a chore given I've apparently got the optional indoor swimming pool specified.



Not particularly surprised. The windscreen definitely leaks and there's signs of water ingress from around the rear windscreen too - I'll look into that in due course.

There are some areas where the wiring will definitely be needing some TLC.



We've ascertained that there's also an earthing issue somewhere in the vicinity of the offside headlight as the indicator is back feeding into the sidelight circuit.

The fuel usage meter is currently dead as when the tank was replaced the sender for that apparently was also removed. They're pretty cheaply available though so that should be simple enough to reinstate. It doesn't actually give you any numbers, it's just a bar graph based on flow rate. There is a kit you can get which gives you an actual fuel gauge to fit in the same space in the dash, that's something I may also consider picking up as I do admit that I'd kind of like to have a fuel gauge.

The taped in switch was originally for a fog light installation, that will be ousted for a correct switch which actually fits in the dash which I'll probably run a reversing light with as that's actually useful.

With a really good deep clean throughout and a little bit of paintwork I think she will be looking a lot better.

There's been quite a lot of work done in the last couple of years. The rear suspension has been completely rebushed, a new exhaust has been fitted, new front brakes (including an upgrade to the disk brakes as fitted to the later VW engined cars), a new fuel tank was fitted, and all new electronic ignition components have been fitted.

All in all, quite taken with it so far. It's a wonderfully bizarre little car, and my immediate reaction is that yes it has shortcomings, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad in any way as the urban legends would have you believe. Yes it is basic, it's lightweight, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as thrown together as the Ladas I've owned. It strikes me as a much more cleverly designed little car.

[mickthemaverick]

Well done Zel, it looks like a worthwhile project to me. Possibly will end up as the prettiest car in your fleet!! I'll look forward to seeing it !!

[CitroJim]

Magic That covers it all! Looking forward to many future tales of this little car Zel

I did enjoy the read

[Zelandeth]

Progress report.

The issue with the headlights/indicators has apparently self-healed.



No amount of pushing, pulling or wiggling any wires in this vicinity could cause the issue to reappear...so I'll just need to keep an eye out for it I guess. I will be tidying a couple of wire joins in that corner that are currently taped up with proper adhesive lined heat shrink to save future hassle.

The wonky windscreen wipers were actually really simple to sort.

The arms are held onto the spindles with grub screws.



Said grub screw on the driver's side was barely finger tight. There is a fair amount of play in the spindle itself, but there's now about an inch of rotational play in the system rather than being able to move the wiper a good 1/2 the way up/down the screen freely.

Well this definitely won't be doing the weather proofing any favours.





Not sure if there should have been an infill in there originally or if the seal has just shrunk. Either way I'll be plugging that hole soon.

You can see daylight through the gap in the seal on the rear screen too, albeit a far smaller gap.



It doesn't look like there's any provision for the gutters to drain at the front of the car unless I'm missing something and there's a plugged hole in there.



This will have been encouraging water to run down into the door aperture, and I've no real idea how weather proof or not the door seals are. I'll park the car facing uphill from now on to prevent that happening. The gutters just end at the rear so there's no similar water trap there.

I did attack the carpets with the wet vac today to try to pull at least some of the moisture out as there's a lot of water in the car. Unfortunately removing the swimming pool in the rear foot well was hampered by it getting down to -5C here last night so the water in the carpets there was basically a block of ice.



I'll need to revisit that obviously. Likewise the passenger door pocket which has about 1" of solid ice at the bottom of it.

I did get a load out of the rest of the carpets though.



Doesn't look much different, but there was a good 3" or so of water in here when I was done.



Shame my dessicant dehumidifier died, as that was perfect for jobs like this as depending on the setting it also worked as a 600/900W fan heater. Was absolutely magic for drying out damp cars. If they weren't so expensive I'd definitely pick another one up.

While I was vacuuming I discovered this under the driver's seat.



Hmm...I see absolutely no evidence at all that this car has ever had a history of electrical gremlins...there are plenty of dead ones rolling around the car as well.

A definite issue while driving was that the gear shift was really stiff in the horizontal plane, making shifting between 2-3 really awkward and reverse a right struggle to get into.



A thorough greasing session around all of the bushes (I think it was the one immediately behind the dash plastic that was the main issue) has sorted this. The gearshift is now nice and light and really precise actually. I've really not driven many manual cars with a column shift but this is definitely one of the better examples that I can recall.

High on the "Okay now I've found that I need to fix it..." List is having discovered that the front bumper is currently affixed using nothing but a couple of zip ties. The mounting points for the older style bumpers that have been fitted at the front apparently don't line up quite with those for the square style ones. Nothing I can't remedy with a metal plate with a couple of holes drilled in it. That will be one of tomorrow's jobs. Likewise is adjusting the fan belt which I think is a touch loose.

Something I'll be changing soon as well are some slightly crusty tyres.



Two of the tyres are really quite old and have perished badly (the inside sidewall of this one is way worse than this side), and are random budget brands. Two are Toyos I think but are also pretty old (I can't remember the date code now, but they were definitely not made yesterday). I'm just throwing a set of decent rubber on so they all match and I know it's been done. A tyre was supplied with the car destined for the spare (which looks to be the original, and is in about the condition you'd expect), though it's a different size to what is actually on the wheels. I think it's close enough for the spare though, and would be absolutely fine to get me home in an emergency.

The tyres would probably be fine for ages yet, but having had a blow out at speed in the past it's just something I'm paranoid about. Plus having seen how awful the budgets on the Partner are in the cold wet weather compared to what I've come to consider normal has just reinforced my belief that cheap tyres are a false economy. They're a massively safety critical part, and I treat them as such.

A replacement panel I could really do with is a bonnet as this one has a crack in and a little chunk out of the leading edge.



I imagine whatever impact caused the crack was also responsible for detaching the latch (held on by the bolt) and having the badge exit into the scenery. Unless that is somewhere in the giant box of bits that I've yet to have a rummage through.



At least there's a better looking washer bottle in there.

The bits were immediately obvious that I needed to put the passenger door back together. The card is still hanging off, but at least the handle and window winder are back in place so it can easily be opened from the inside again.



Had the car out again today to run a variety of errands and yep, it still has me grinning like an idiot.

Had several people looking very confused when I opened the bonnet to put fuel in though. Speaking of which I didn't spot yesterday that the fuel gauge is actually present and correct.







It is actually graduated in 2 litre increments to show how much fuel is in there. Something you'd need to know when adding if out of a can or something as you need to know what's gone in to add the appropriate amount of two stroke oil. Not so much of a problem from a fuel pump obviously as that clearly shows you what's gone in with far more precision.

Looks like my visual guess at usage yesterday was a bit off as I got a figure of 38.9mpg, but that's probably a worst case for this car given it was all motorway work - plus there may have been a bit of give/take in whether I stopped with the fuel in the tank at exactly the same level, we'll see what it averages out at. I don't honestly care what the number is, I'm just honestly curious.

Do I regret making the swap I did for the P4? Nope. They're very different cars which each have their pros and cons. I think for chucking around MK roundabouts this is probably the more fun of the two though.

[CitroJim]

Another most excellent blog Zel

[mickthemaverick]

Agree with you about the tyres Zel, except I would find some 'nearly new' quality tyres to fit rather than buy new quality ones! You don't want to make the tyres worth more than the car!!

[bobins]

I guess these'd run somewhere between 40:1 and 50:1 premix 2-stroke ? Are there great debates in Trabant circles as to the 'best' oil for the job ?

[Armidillo]

Synthetic or mineral? Outboard (Marine) for water-cooled 2-strokes.

Just found this claim on a Stihl (chainsaw manufacturer) 2-stroke oil ad:

"Burns with extremely low residue due to ash-free additive. " Que?

[CitroJim]

Synthetic or mineral? Outboard (Marine) for water-cooled 2-strokes.

Just found this claim on a Stihl (chainsaw manufacturer) oil ad:

"Burns with extremely low residue due to ash-free additive. " Que?

Or, if you want it to smell nice, Castrol R40!

[bobins]

Normally on a forum, if you asked what engine oil to use you'll get 40 different answers from 20 different people. I wonder if in Trabby world it's more of a down to earth - "Meh, as long as it's oily it'll do "

[bobins]

Just found this claim on a Stihl (chainsaw manufacturer) oil ad:

"Burns with extremely low residue due to ash-free additive. " Que?

Is that a similar version of Colin Chapman's 'Adding lightness' to cars ?

[myglaren]

Agree with you about the tyres Zel, except I would find some 'nearly new' quality tyres to fit rather than buy new quality ones! You don't want to make the tyres worth more than the car!!

I was on a bus yesterday and saw a lorry with a huge red "Remoulds" sign on the front, heading toward a local pre-worn tyre fitters.
I thought that remoulds were a thing of the past..