Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

Really need to get a petrol powered pump of some sort here at some point, would make changing the water in the pond an order of magnitude order...takes forever with buckets! Might be the excuse I need to finally get a little vintage stationary engine of some sort...

Have had a bit of a play around with the engine diagnostic machine today. Have changed a few duff lamps and given it a bit of a clean. It seems the longer it's been powered on the more things are coming back to life. Laziest thing seems to be the analogue meter, though that's working reasonably well now - the signal for it follows a torturous route through a heap of switch contacts so they are most likely to blame.

Scope part seems to work just fine though - especially once I realised that you *must* have the coil SW and CB terminals connected for it to do anything (including showing the alternator charging waveform) as it triggers on the pulse from there. Would be nice if the manuals had information like that in them...as it wasted me about half an hour...

Here's some of the stuff it can do...

Skoda's ignition system trace - it's really hard to get a photo of the scope output as it is effectively drawn in realtime so the scan rate is very slow as far as a camera is concerned. My camera does have a "light painting" mode which in conjunction with a tripod might get me a good shot...



Here we have the charging waveform at the battery, showing that all the windings are working as are the rectifiers. Right hand end of the trace has been cut off by the camera...



Finally some more basic stuff - battery voltage and a pretty precise RPM readout (which is shown on the digital display in some modes too).



Took me a while to get used to keeping track of the fact that it jumps between scales to give the best possible resolution! Especially as several of the lamps illuminating the arrows were blown when I got it.

Fun toy that's for certain, need to set about giving it a proper clean up soon as it's still kinda gross in places!

[excossack]

Chopped some wood for the chimenea. Was planning on using it tonight, but looks like rain could be here for a while

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...

Changed out the halogen lights over the dining table and in both bathrooms to LED. 550W in total down to just over 50W, and more light. Most interested in that being less heat chucked out than anything else just now! Bathrooms have had the colour shifted up to 4000K as well which better suits the décor I think.

[Zelandeth]

It's nice to know that rubbish service doesn't only hit the private individual from time to time...have been trying to arrange to go and view (and probably buy) a car for the last two days, but have been thwarted by the dealer who has it trying to be nice by putting a fresh MOT on it, still has two months to run. A bit of a nice gesture I thought on a 23 year old motor. Most places would just throw it out the door as is.

However the garage they have been using have managed to get swamped and despite going in for the test on Wednesday first thing, they still don't have it back. ...which means I'm still waiting. Judging from the tone of voice when I last spoke to them, they are more than a little hacked off with the garage in question.

They're away on a family trip tomorrow, and I'm busy on Saturday...so hopefully on Sunday we can work something out. Two and a half hour trip to get there so glad I called first!

[Geoff Stainer]

Funny about the clutch return spring. Mine is missing too. Haven't got round to checking my spares car yet. Had a major problem with my Niva clutch recently. Just wouldn't go into any gear and if I tried to start it in gear with the clutch fully depressed it tried to move. Ended up getting underneath to check all components, (which wasn't much fun as the car was parked on grass so I couldn't raise it), and I found that the lock nut on the slave cylinder push rod is missing! The adjusting nut had moved so the clutch was permanently engaged. Heaven knows how it happened because the adjusting nut and fork are between the locking nut and the end of the push rod.

[Zelandeth]

In the short term I wouldn't panic too much about a missing return spring but long term I would want to see it replaced. Otherwise there is potential for excessive wear to the clutch release bearing because the piston in the slave cylinder might not fully retract - just like if you were to keep your foot resting on the clutch pedal while driving.

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...

Got the train all the way from Milton Keynes up to Edinburgh (strangely was only three quid dearer to go first class, so did...definitely consumed more than three quid's worth of complimentary coffee...even if I was buzzing for most of the remainder of the day!).

Then I went and bought an L plate Lada Riva 1.5E Estate.

Now at an overnight stop at a hotel before the drive back home tomorrow. More details will of course follow.

...Been far, far too long, but I am officially a Lada owner again!

[Neil Chowney]

Now that, sounds like a worthwhile day......

[Zelandeth]

Couple of rubbish photos from the hotel car park. Light was fading so they're horrible. Better ones will follow tomorrow when I get home.





Wing tops are crusty, but there are two new wings currently in the back seat. As are the original wheels, which I actually prefer to the silver (Russian spec I believe?) ones, so I'll probably get them refurbished and powder coated and back on the car, along with the centre caps etc (brand new ones in the boot). Likewise, the standard steering wheel (a smaller, thicker one has been fitted) will be going back on as soon as the car is home...I *like* the bus-like wheel!

Had a poke around underneath and couldn't find any rust of significance. Couple of tiny bits of surface rust, but nothing that needs any attention beyond a bit of a wire brush, dousing in Kurust then a good coating of Dinitrol. I get the impression that this car has spent a lot of its life in a very dry garage.

Currently it *really* doesn't want to idle, but goes just fine. Reckon there's either a blocked accelerator jet or vacuum leak (on a 1.5E surely not!) as there's a brief "intake of breath" before she starts to pull when you apply the power. Nothing that can't be worked around until I get home though - and I get the impression that the car hasn't had a really good run in a while, so it's entirely possible that will have sorted itself out by the time I get home.

The way it's "hunting" while trying to idle immediately makes me look suspiciously at the emission control system solenoids etc, but I'll deal with it when I get home and see how much I can remember from working on my previous one!

[Tom.]

That looks very decent.

[Zelandeth]

Drove it 385 is miles home. Aside from the slightly sick carb didn't really miss a beat the whole way. Indicator flasher went berserk when I turned the headlights on at one point, it also blinks once when you turn the ignition on... shouldn't do that. Still, wouldn't be a Lada without some form of electrical infidelity! Have already spotted a random relay in the fuse box I'll need to investigate. Suspect some hackery may yet be found!

[Zelandeth]

Since getting the Riva home...

Changed the oil and filter - it looked like Indian ink.

Changed the air filter.

Reattached the air cleaner to carb...it was held on by one bolt.

Replaced missing bulb in check engine light.

Reconnected main carb solenoid to its feed from the AFR module rather than a 12V feed.

Switched the connection between the main and idle solenoids on the carb as they were switched.

Sorted the none working handbrake light.

Vacuumed the interior and gave all the plastics a going over as they were very Matt grey.

Removed modern steering wheel and replaced it with the original.

Adjusted the idle speed so even though it's not happy yet, it will mostly idle.

Have come up with all manner of excuses to go out in it.

Took somewhere in the region of 150 photographs...

Have I mentioned I'm kinda happy to finally own one?

Hoping tomorrow I'll have a chance to hit the paint with some elbow grease and see what sort of a shine she can take, very Matt just now.

[Zelandeth]

Tracked down the annoying clonking noise on the Riva that started yesterday. After a merry old dance finally traced it to one of the steering idler mounts on the nearside bulkhead in the engine bay - appears that there is play allowing the innards of the idler to rock back and forth. Need to have a look at the diagrams to see if there is any adjustment or service possible or if I'll need to replace it. If so that's when I pray it's not a RHD specific part.

Also discovered that decent quality fabric is expensive...just dropped slightly north of three hundred quid on supplies for a costume project that's in the works (and massively behind the original plan), don't want to do the math to figure out exactly how much has been sunk into that now, as it must be over six hundred quid now... I've bought (decent) cars for far less than that!

[Zelandeth]

Well I've wound up in the situation here that if I were to farm the work out to someone else for the level of detail that I'm aiming for here that I'd probably see little change out of two grand - and would be looking to drop myself into a couple of year long waiting list too. ...then get battered by a couple of hundred quid of shipping fees and import taxes as well...which I just can't justify! So a do it yourself job it will be!

Think we have all the basic stuff here now so just the task of putting everything together now. Probably work on that a fair bit next week when we're on holiday as it will be a rare occasion of us actually having some spare time. The swearing will probably be clearly audible from over there as I discover for the first time personally how horrendously annoying it is trying to sew (faux) fur fabric, especially the shorter pile one which is really slippery. I'm also quite prepared based on stories from people who have been here before for the build area to wind up looking as though a cat exploded...vacuum cleaner will be ready on standby!

...not that in our house you would usually notice thanks to the dog being half husky!

[mt500]

Won a spare wheel cover for my Niva for 99p on ebay.