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

[Zelandeth]

Had another poke around at the kickdown cable on the Rover. I think I've figured out the reason it's been a bit erratic. Someone at some point in the past has kinked the inner cable so it doesn't always return properly when the tension is released - which is going to be why it seems to sometimes hold first gear when you've pulled out of a junction on a light throttle. You could tell something was amiss with the cable as often when you looked at the cable it would be bundled up outside the top of the ferrule. I've done what I can to flatten out the kink and lubricate the cable and it seems to be behaving a lot better now though I've not had a chance to do a test run yet. I've also replaced the random bolt I was holding it on with before as even with a locknut on I'd already lost the bolt twice.

I honestly don't know what type of fastener should be in here as it was totally missing when I got the car, but for now we've gone with "comedically oversized R clip."



It looks ridiculous, but it's not going anywhere nor does it catch on anything, so it will be fine until I find what should actually be in there.

I'm not actually sure which of the two holes in that arm the kickdown cable should be attached to - I went with the outer one as that is the one which had witness marks on to suggest it had been used before. Though it doesn't pull the cable straight. However the other hole in the arm also pulls the cable at an angle in the other direction, so neither looks to be perfect.

While in the vicinity I have found evidence that I still have a small water leak somewhere on the top of the engine.



Exactly where from is anybody's guess as there's so much going on around the heads and inlet manifold. I'll need to investigate that further at some point, my prime suspects are the thermostat housing or the flange the heater hose in the middle of the photo above is attached to are my prime suspects.

I had a dim memory somewhere that I'd noted the car still had the ballast supply to the ignition coil in play. I've now confirmed this is the case.



Which would be fine if this car hadn't been fitted with a Petronix ignition system, which calls for a direct 12V feed. Running them on a ballasted supply can actually damage the unit over time and apparently can mess with how the dwell setting behaves, so it really should have the ballast bypassed. I've no idea if this coil is the correct type to be used on a direct feed though, and the label with the details on has long since vanished. The primary resistance is 2.9 ohms, which is within 0.1 ohm of the coil on TPA which definitely has a direct feed, so I reckon this coil may be fine. That's a job for another day though. On the plus side, I do have an ignition switched 12V line right next to the coil from when I was messing about with an electric fuel pump which I'd had fitted in that corner. So that's handy at least. Be curious to see if having a full 12V there makes any difference, given the engine actually seems to be running pretty well as it is.

[CitroJim]

Kinky Bowden cables can cause all sorts of problems Zel

The thing you need to replace the big 'R' Clip is a Clevis Pin.

Something like this...

Then a little 'R' Clip or more traditionally, a split-pin through the hole to secure it...

Yes, a ballasted coil will be unhappy on an electronic system with 12V on it all the time... There should be one available that's compatible with your Petronix system.

I'm enjoying seeing some P6 updates Keep 'em coming

[xantia_v6]

The kickdown cable should have a clevis pin with a small split pin. It is probably the same size as commonly used on handbrake cables of the period.

Typically with those transmissions the cable is adjusted so that under very light acceleration the transmission changes up to 3rd gear just below 30MPH.

Using the inner hole would reduce the kickdown effect at high throttle and make things a bit more sedate, which may have suited a typical Rover driver.

[Zelandeth]

Thanks. It was one of those cases where I knew the thing I needed but my brain was utterly determined that I would be able to name every type of connector you could use in situations like this *except* the correct one. It was bugging me all evening yesterday.

Pretty sure I've got the cable connected in the right place, the hole that's further to the offside of the car is far smaller and would need a different type of connection I'd think. I wonder if that might be used as an actuation point for a cruise control assembly? I think it was a rare option but was something you could specify from the factory.

Most likely I'm a long way off the mark and it's just meant to have a return spring there or something like that. The throttle mechanism on this car is absurdly complex, and the number of pivots and couplings involved means there's about an inch of free play at the pedal before anything actually moves at the throttle plates on the carbs. Why they couldn't have used used a cable I don't know!

[Zelandeth]

Distraction time today.

We discovered when we moved in that (among MANY other things) that the thermostats were essentially useless. They did still click on/off, but the setpoint range had drifted so far that there had to be something like a 10C swing to actually get the system to cycle properly. So I had to just grab replacements based on what I could find locally on the spot back then. Due to the way things had been set up originally we basically had to go with a wireless solution. Using a modern wired control would have required me to pull new four core wiring pretty much the whole length of the house - and routing cabling in this place is a PAIN as due to the way the place was built there's no access to the wall cavities from the loft.

So as it was we ended up with some very cheap and nasty units, which did *work* after a fashion, but with a laundry list of annoyances.

[] No hysteresis adjustment.
[] No sane sample rate to prevent short cycling - between that and only having a 1C resolution there's a massive amount of short cycling every time you get even vaguely close to the set point. I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with why the ground floor heating zone valve has failed...
[] Programming it is about as much fun as writing a novel on a ZX81.
[] Endless appetite for batteries.
[] Clocks gain about 5 minutes a week.
[] Completely randomly deciding to de-pair the base station and remote unit.

Yesterday however the upstairs one decided to de-pair itself, and no amount of faffing with it would get it to pair up again. So out I went to grab a new unit, and set about digging into this.



In we go.



The fuse carrier was already in my pocket when I took this photo, and we had confirmed everything was dead.

Quick and easy job really, just four wires. Power, neutral and two connections for the relay contacts. So only actually took ten minutes work.

It always gives a great feeling of confidence in a product when it's completely and totally devoid of any branding whatsoever doesn't it?





Quality with a K right there.

I think we may have also found the reason that it always feels warmer than we'd expected downstairs when the heating was on...



Yes...a four degree offset between the temperature reported by the Nameless Wonder versus the new Drayton unit. That would indeed explain why it always felt too warm.

New unit was put in place in the bedroom upstairs - it is actually level, the light switch isn't!



Wasn't more than 15 or 20 minutes and we had everything buttoned back up and up and running again.



I reckon I'll be doing the same for the downstairs circuit shortly as well. Aside from the temperature offset (there's no compensation adjustment available), this new unit was just so much easier and more sensible to set up. Also has a couple of very nice to have features; one being a "fail safe" mode where if it loses communication with the receiver you can set it to run the heating at essentially a 30% duty cycle so that you're not left without heat. Second is a valve protection feature which ensures that even without a call for heat, the thermostat will turn the system on for 1-5 minutes every week to ensure that you don't have the classic problem of pumps or zone valves seizing up over the summer when the heating isn't used. Really feels there's no excuse for that not being available on everything like this in this day and age.

Anyhow, for today the priority was to get upstairs heat again, and that's done.

Sadly I do need to try to fold myself under the utility room sink to change out the zone valve that's jammed (thankfully open). I'm seriously considering actually removing the sink first as access is so poor, and I'm pretty convinced that I'll need to remove the whole "manifold" that the three zone valves are connected to as I don't think there will be enough clearance to get one out without doing that. Why they couldn't have just put those in the loft I don't know! No, wedged under here was far better...



That's waaaaaay over in the corner behind the sink. I can juuust about get one hand to the lower to at full stretch as it stands, so it's a right git if a space to work on.

Yes, that's been seized up for about a year now...I cannot quite stress enough how much I do not want to do this job. I can absolutely do it...I just really don't *want* to! The pump is on the opposite side of the sink and is orders of magnitude easier to get to, and changing that took me a whole afternoon of swearing at it...

[MattBLancs]

I guess that all went in when the Utility was a bare room, then units built around it all. Though all compression fittings it is at least pretty neat, and comprehensive labelling! Valve tag numbers and descriptive printed labels - wow! With the MV1, MV2 etc tags I'd guess there's a nice schematic, or was at some point.

Your old anonymous thermostat/programmer is identical in form to mine with Worcester branding:

[Zelandeth]

I guess that all went in when the Utility was a bare room, then units built around it all. Though all compression fittings it is at least pretty neat, and comprehensive labelling! Valve tag numbers and descriptive printed labels - wow! With the MV1, MV2 etc tags I'd guess there's a nice schematic, or was at some point.

Your old anonymous thermostat/programmer is identical in form to mine with Worcester branding:

I'd be very surprised if that stat/programmer you have isn't the very one that the ones I have here are pretending to be, the resemblance in the case design seems far too close to be coincidence.

You're absolutely right. If the pipework didn't go in long before the room was fitted out I'd be astonished.

While some of the decisions made with regards to how the roofing was constructed may be a little questionable (not surprising given the degree of prefabrication went on here when that was still quite a new idea...Heck, there was still a lot of arguments going around as to whether timber frame buildings were even safe and mortgageable), the electrical and plumbing systems were all done to a really high standard, with every bit of gear being Thorn or Satchwell branded, all good kit...When they were fitted. Unfortunately a huge portion of the bodgery which has happened over the intervening 43 years not so much...Especially between 2003 and 2014. Very much the "lowest bidder" syndrome has applied there. We've been here ten years plus change now, and I'm STILL finding new things held together purely by duct tape and good fortune.

Those tags are indeed quite useful...Especially as the list that went with them does (by some miracle) still exist.



Especially useful as quite a few of the valves for the no longer present bits of the system (solid fuel, TOTEM and a heat store) are still there but with the power heads just dangling by their wires - I've already nicked the head from one of those (MV6 I think) to get the downstairs heating going the day after we moved in which is why it's of a slightly different type to the others in the last post.

The electrical schematic for the heating system also still exists - which has been most useful in trying to unpick some of the bodgery - and resulted in me bashing my head against the wall somewhat when I figured out some of what they'd done.



That whole bundle of things in the top left corner was originally a big, complicated looking control panel that lived on the wall in the kitchen. Among other things that had the ability to chose between heat sources (less of an issue when everything aside from the solar and gas was left), but also handled a lot of the "housekeeping" such as ensuring that the water pump continued running to allow the boiler to cool, actually control the flow temperature and such...Yeah, when the previous owners decided they didn't like the look of it when they wrecked...Sorry, I mean modernised...the kitchen rather than relocate it...No, they just twisted together the bare minimum of wires to keep the system actually functional, ripped the thing off the wall and buried the resulting mess behind some (very poorly fitted) plasterboard and tiles. JUST WHY?!?

Guessing about as much logic was involved there as picking what have to be the most incredibly stupid and annoying cupboard doors ever conceived by human kind. They open outwards and hinge up - but they don't (and never have) held themselves up...so you have to hold the (not light) door up with one hand or balance it on your head while loading/unloading things with your remaining hand. It's one of those designs that you kind of wonder if someone produced it as an April fool's joke, but it somehow ended up in production. The fact that they paid nearly ten grand just for the units and worktops says about all you need to know...They then didn't spend a penny more than they could get away with installing it, which is why the fancy granite worktops aren't even level. The layout also makes about as much sense as those cupboard doors...The kitchen is about four times the size of the one in my parent's house, which despite having about as much floor space as three phone boxes you could comfortably have two people working - three at a push so long as you knew what you were doing - this one however is very much a one butt kitchen, and having two people in there is just asking for trouble as there's just no way not to get in each other's way. Every single drawer is about 1" shallower than it really needs to be as well - which is why the ladle lives in a cupboard rather than the cutlery drawer, otherwise it quite effectively locks the drawer shut at least once a week.



I...Hate...It...If we were planning to stay here long term we'd absolutely have nuked it from orbit and started from scratch with it by now - probably following a layout far more similar to the one that was originally fitted, funnily enough!

Better than just the lists above though, the original layout drawings are still here too...I'd have been in a very happy place if I'd been tasked with drawing these.





The technical drawing class was probably one of the ones that I enjoyed by far the most at secondary school - especially hand drawing diagrams like these. Didn't mind when we did the same by computer (and I still have a copy of the same version of AutoSketch, which I do still use from time to time), but I never actively enjoyed it the same as I did hand drawing things.

This whole place was designed in partnership with the BBC for an episode of the Money Programme where they were trying to take a look into how home building might be, at that point in time, twenty years in the future. As such they were experimenting with different heat sources, for the time ridiculous levels of insulation (the original windows were one of the most obvious elements of that as they had a hugely shiny IR reflective coating on them), and used a lot of pre-fabricated construction, and used a lot of automation to ensure that the relevant bits arrived on site exactly as and when they were needed - which is how they built the place in record time. It's quite interesting to see - if anyone would like to see it drop me a PM and I can make a copy available - it used to be on YouTube along with a huge library of content from around that era, but BBC put a copyright strike against it - despite the fact that they don't have it available anywhere paid or otherwise, have no intention to ever make it available - and indeed didn't even HAVE a copy of it until we sent it to them...Makes me roll my eyes a bit.

[MattBLancs]

Gosh, what an interesting place and backstory too! Thanks for detailing all that, an enjoyable read!

[Zelandeth]

Gosh, what an interesting place and backstory too! Thanks for detailing all that, an enjoyable read!

It's a giant pain in the proverbial rear is what it is!

It's just big enough/odd enough that the vast majority of contractors won't touch it with a barge pole. However the commercial outfits (who originally built most of it) won't touch US as we're not VAT registered business customers. Which is immensely frustrating, as it's really not THAT odd - it looks strange, but is basically just two normal houses joined together at 90 degrees, with a conservatory filling in the L shape between them. The fact that it's such a mission to get anyone to even quote for getting anything done around here at the best of times it just makes everything more difficult. It also means that for all it looks like a really big house, it's really short on storage space because of the layout compared to the actual square footage. A few of the rooms are also just stupidly laid out with space in the wrong places. My bedroom for instance is perfectly square, and given the position of the door, window and radiator that renders a solid half ofhe wall space useless for positioning any furniture, shelves etc against. Which is Really Annoying.

It appears that the range of the new wireless thermostat is slightly poorer than the old one, so it occasionally drops out - if I have the control panel closed. If I open the door a bit it seems to be fine. Think the solution here is going to be simply to put a cover over the hole where it lives and surface mount it on the outside there - hopefully should work better than having the poor thing essentially mounted inside a thick metal box...can't think why that might interfere with radio reception. Worst case, I just stick it on the wall next to the box I guess. On the plus side this one TELLS you when it has communication issues rather than just sitting there like a lemon. Oh, that's another modern day annoyance here - there's metal foil insulation in most of the walls which plays havoc with wireless communications in general exactly as much as you'd expect it to.

In other news I've done something I've been procrastinating about for a long while this evening, and have submitted a bid to DJ one of the dance sets at Scotiacon next year. Obviously no guarantee I'll be picked as I don't imagine they're in any way short on applicants, most of whom have a load more experience in the field. I'd honestly be surprised if they picked me over names the team will actually recognise. However it's one of the aspects of the conventions that I've got a huge amount from, and it would be nice to be able to give something back - and am pretty certain that I could put a set together which would go down very well on the dance floor. At least I hope it would! ...Would hope that after eleven and a half (if my math is right) conventions I'd have got a decent feel for what's likely to go over well by now. I figure nothing ventured, nothing gained. They can only say no.

[Zelandeth]

Do I *need* random readouts on the power supply here above my desk via proper industrial style panel meters? Of course not. Was I going to let boring logic like that get in the way? Hell no! My workstation is all about silly nonsense like this.



Bought these years ago and have been meaning to make up a panel for them to live in ever since. These has been a good deal of rage tidying going on here over the last week or so as I ran out of patience with causing random avalanches every time I so much as walked across the room too quickly.

The logic here was if they're screwed to the wall they're not taking up space in a precarious pile on the shelf above the desk.

There is a 10A current meter as well which will be added to an enclosure with all three at some point, but that wouldn't fit in this enclosure that was laying around (also in the way) and wiring that in will involve cutting in to the supply to my whole workstation...and I can't even remember where the heck that's plugged in to. I suspect behind the printer that weighs as much as a small moon. So that's a job for another day.

On the plus side, I can actually see the desk over by the window again - I don't think I've seen that desktop in about three years!



Slow progress, but progress is progress!

[CitroJim]

Loving the meters Zel They bring back a few memories from my professional adventures!

Good work on getting a bit of clear desk

[bobins]

Here's a couple of 'leccy meters of slightly unusual origin. They came from the power room of a Soviet nuclear weapons store They are probably, quite literally, bomb proof

Sov electricity meter - own work

Chunky Sov electricity meters - own work

[CitroJim]

They came from the power room of a Soviet nuclear weapons store They are probably, quite literally, bomb proof

And glow in the dark too

[bobins]

Apparently the storage chambers had to have chiller plant running as the contents of the store would heat the place up

[CitroJim]

Apparently the storage chambers had to have chiller plant running as the contents of the store would heat the place up