Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

Got the new lights in the van a proper after dark test run.

Up until these arrived I had never actually seen phosphor yellow/amber LEDs in person so it was an interesting technological experiment in itself.



The colour definitely brings to mind old school low pressure sodium (SOX) lamps albeit with surprisingly good colour rendering for an amber light.





The really heavy rain we had a couple of days ago revealed a couple of issues with the Jag. Firstly the somewhat embarrassing degree to which it leaks oil.



The second leak wasn't entirely unexpected given their reputation for leaks here.



We'll be getting some Capt. Tolley's on there soon - I'll also get the rear seat out again to make sure we don't have water pooling under there again. I did that earlier in the year given they have a reputation for leaks here rotting complicated box sections out from the inside where the water collects above the rear suspension mounts. It was bone dry back in January...Not so sure that will now be the case!

One fault that's been on the to do list to sort for the last few weeks has apparently decided to fix itself without requiring any manual intervention at least.



The bulb check warning light decided to quit working a couple of weeks ago but randomly sprang back to life yesterday afternoon. Further confirming my suspicion that we've got a dodgy contact at the lamp holder. That'll be a rainy day project. There are a few traces on the back of the instrument cluster that I want to repair to prevent future issues - and to investigate to see if I can figure out why the oil pressure gauge is still playing up (it does register pressure changes, just has a huge positive offset on).

On the to do list also is properly sorting the trim above the driver's door.



I keep wedging this back in place above the trim (or "crash pad" in Jaguar terminology) where it stays until the first time I drive above around 30mph with the window open. I need to get in there with some proper adhesive to see if I can get it to stay put.

I had been wanting to try to get a decent recording of how different the Jag sounds and behaves when just gentle bumbling around (and with how different the character of the sound is with windows open vs closed) for a while. So I just set the camera recording and went out for a wander...Then got lost in a housing estate. It is literally just me wandering around for about 20 minutes, so don't expect anything exciting. Sound and video are just straight off my phone stuck to the windscreen up next to the rear view mirror.




In the van I've finally gone around most of the shelves, drawers and lockers with the non slip matting.



This will hopefully do a bit to cut down on the clonks and rattles. It's definitely helped as it's noticeable how much less drumming there is just opening and closing the doors.

The inverter has now been mostly hooked up. The control panel and socket are now in place (note the red socket face to help highlight it's its own thing rather than part of the wider AC system).



Bit irked I fouled up the alignment so the socket sits a bit too high.

The green DC on light was bugging me too. I'd hoped to be able to get it to fit better.

Knowing I had a spare one of the mains indicators floating around I decided to pull that to bits and convert it for 12V DC use.

Surprising how many bits is inside a simple mains indicator!



I had a play around with a few LED options but couldn't find one that really gave a usable spread of light, so opted for a small incandescent lamp instead.



In place...



Then reassembled and tested out.



I'll get that dropped in tomorrow hopefully. The only other inverter task I've got to do is to actually hook up the supply leads in the main vehicle battery box which should see that up and running. Oh, and get some labelled printed off so it's clear what it is.


The new exhaust has now arrived for the Xantia.



Yay...The new exhaust is here so I can get that sorted.

Boo!...That means I need to fit the exhaust. Have I mentioned that I truly despise exhaust work? It's a big step towards the car being back in service though...I'm *hoping* that the spherical type joints used will at least make it a bit easier to get this pattern system in place without too many headaches. I do note that judging from the logos stamped on it that it's from the same makers as the one on the van...Let's see if it has any more baffles in than that system does!

[Zelandeth]

A brief tangent here as some of you seem to find the occasional bits of obscure, ancient or otherwise noteworthy technology to be interesting.

In a moment of weakness a couple of days ago I caved and bought another old computer on eBay. This is something I've generally been trying to avoid doing...but I've a serious weakness where early portable machines are concerned, the odder the better.

This was a bit of a gamble...the listing was shall we say, minimalist, and had only a handful of photos most of which looked to have been taken with a late 90s webcam. Often these end predictably with the item not really being fit for anything aside from a complete restoration or to simply be a parts donor. Occasionally though the gamble does pay off. The price though was right so I put the order in...we'd just have to see what turned up.

Fast forward to this morning when a box turned up. This was an encouraging start as unlike the last two packages containing fragile technology it didn't look like it had been dropped from low earth orbit without a parachute.



Compliments to the seller on that count, this was actually very well packed.

So...we were saying that sometimes this sort of buy can be a disaster or bargain. Initial signs seem to suggest this is the latter.



The carry case was in all honesty a bit gross. Very dusty and in a few places mouldy...which I didn't reckon boded well at all for what was inside it.





What emerged from the case though was quite a pleasant surprise.









I've obviously given everything a wipe over given the current situation, but didn't remove anything visible aside from a bit of dust around the carry handle...



Even the keyboard was pretty much spotless.



Biggest surprise so far...the screen detent actually works! Can't remember the last time I came across one of these where something hadn't had to be improvised to hold the screen up.



So far the only damage found is a tiny what looks like a cigarette burn on the carry handle and a missing foot on the one end.



...Which I'm pretty sure has actually just been pushed into the case as there's something which sounds like that rattling around in there.

The extremely flimsy hinges on the port cover are all fine.



Likewise the catches for the battery tray. No rechargeable tech here...if you want to take the off-grid you need to track down TEN C Cells...which will be good for an hour. Ish.



I initially thought the badges on the case were peeling before realising that no...they still have their protective film on.





The usually grubby area around the power switch tells a story of very little use I think.





This was also in the box.



Which includes the original software discs *and* sensibly, backups of them.



Plus what looks to be a spreadsheet program.



Remember when the manuals shipped with software were that big? The 640 page one for Windows 3.0 always sticks in my mind. Looks like this software shipped with both 3.5" and 5 1/4" discs...these have probably never been used.



I was quite surprised by how heavy this thing isn't. It's hardly a MacBook Air, I'm guessing around 5kg...but by the standards of portable computers in the late 80s it's perfectly reasonable. An amusing "but" to that is that they have managed to make a reasonably light portable computer...and then shipped it with a transformer power supply that weighs over a kilogram itself!



Of course anyone who knows computers of this age knows that looking tidy and being in working order are two very different things...so there were no guarantees that it would power up or the two double density floppy drives would work.





Promising start...

Stuck the DOS system disc in there...





We appear to be in business! ...Really quiet drives too.



The display is hilariously bad. The actual LCD doesn't seem bad, but it desperately needs a backlight.

Only had a really quick poke around but all the main software I got seems to work fine.

Tasword.



Which appears to be about as friendly for new users as VIM.



Can I have a help file to help decipher the help file for Tasword please? Information overload much?





Mirror II, which looks to be a file transfer/backup program with network support.



PPC Organiser, which looks to be a combined diary, word processor, contact list type deal.



I've got quite a few old DOS programs I've been waiting on finding a machine old enough to run them properly on...so looking forward to experimenting.

The carry case was emptied and unceremoniously dumped in the washing machine on a delecates cycle...I just didn't want to touch it otherwise.



I was worried it might disintegrate...but it seemed a risk worth taking as it was unlikely to get used otherwise...

Came out unscathed though, looking (and smelling!) infinitely better.





Have only had a chance to very briefly investigate it so far, but definitely pleased with it so far...and as someone with a soft spot for early portable machines it's definitely worth having.

World's away from the Toshibas though... they're built like tanks. This is very much creaky, squeaky, bendy plastic and obviously built down to and below a price. No less interesting though...and still has a surprisingly nice keyboard (which both looks and feels so similar to the Acorn A3000/3010/3020 ones that I'd be startled if they're not made by the same OEM).

So that's my one eBay gamble win for the year used up then!

[Zelandeth]

Back to getting to the inverter installation in the van done.

It was brought to my attention that the green light being next to the red socket looked wrong...I couldn't argue with that logic so when the improved DC on indicator light was fitted I swapped them around.



Better.

Time to start hooking things up. DC input control supply connected (via a 2.5A fuse - smallest I had on hand)...this gave us a happily clicking relay when the switch was operated and the "DC on" light working.



Then added the main high power supply line. This was meant to be via a 20A fuse but I couldn't find another inline fuse holder to save my life, so I disconnected it again after testing everything worked, until I pick one up.

Yep...it still hums impressively.



Borrowed a desk lamp to test it would deliver power under a load.



This was tested both with a modern LED lamp and an old magnetically ballasted one just to see whether it would play nicely with an inductive load, it did.

You're not seeing the wiring as I've also run out of cable ties so it's a right mess. You can see it once I've restocked and tidied things up.


Had an hour or so to play around with the Amstrad PPC512 today.

Observations: While it's downright bizarre, it's actually not a bad form factor from the perspective of an early portable machine. It's not unpleasant to carry and the top of the case gives an ideally shaped space to put discs while you're using them. I also am a great fan of the keyboard - which I'm now convinced is mechanically identical to the Acorn Archimedes ones. The key action isn't like any other board I've ever used...and while not as tactile as the Model M, has a very progressive spring action which means you don't tend to wind up bottoming out the key travel. It seems to be a keyboard well suited to ridiculously fast typing...which suits me just fine. I could see this machine ending up on writing duties if I find a word processor I get along with (haven't had a proper look at Tasword yet).

What follows is basically a bunch of screenshots which hopefully will be interesting to folks like me who find things even familiar stuff working on different machines and display technology interesting.

This display isn't actually dire to use... it's not great but it does the job. It is however an absolute *swine* to photograph! I will have to experiment a bit and see if I can come up with a better solution.

I had a particular experiment in mind for today though, getting some software going that I've never actually had going on a physical machine running. Step one was a lot of this.



Onwards to...



Then (somewhat astonishingly on the first try) we were in business.



Hello Windows 2.0.





Let's have an aimless wander.

Calculator.



It's easy to forget how huge the overhaul Paint got for Windows 3.0 was.



Likewise how basic the control panel used to be.





While it gained a digital mode and colour makeover in later years the clock looks quite similar.





Reversi. Which I made a point of not getting sucked into. Especially as it's a pig to play without a mouse. Replaced by Minesweeper in 3.1.





Write is probably the program which feels like it remained unchanged the most through to 3.11.



As a quick test to see if Windows 2 would run on this system though it has been a resounding success.



If anyone wants to see anything specific attempting to run on here let me know, or I'll probably drop back here to the car specific things on topic for this forum!

[Zelandeth]

Right...for the best part of the last two years I have been trying to ignore this mess.



I had already pruned quite a bit out of here by the time I took this photo.



After a couple of hours of multimeter bingo I'd figured out where *almost* everything went. We've still got one mystery red wire. That has been left disconnected and safely terminated until I figure out what (if anything) isn't working. It's quite likely the answer is "nothing" as there has been a huge amount of bodgery going on in here. I've pretty much decided that this side of things will be gutted and rewired at some point down the line. Because everything disappears into (by this point in time very brittle) ducting the moment it appears under the floor it's nigh on impossible to follow anything without some pretty major destructive surgery.



It's still hardly pretty...but everything is securely connected, is labelled and is sensibly fused.

I'd really like to know where all the ground wires come from as it seems utterly unnecessary...it wouldn't surprise me is 50% of the voltage drop we see when high power things like the water pump are used is because the ground lines run the full length of the van and are unreasonably skinny. I may well see if I can improve things in that department a bit.

While tracing the wiring out I did find continuity through to what appears to be the split charging relay in the other battery box.



The split charging system has never worked since I've had the van. This far I've never really done much to investigate this as it seemed a bit of a lost cause given the state of the spaghetti surrounding the leisure battery. Having sorted that out though it was worth a look.

Turned out the 5A fuse in that white fuse holder, running to one of the coils in the relay had blown. Not sure how that could have happened...though given the degree of messing around I've seen it could have been hooked up wrong at some point. Replacing the fuse and starting the engine resulted in...



Yep...the split charging system is now working again.

I need to route this lot under the floor to the battery box at some point or enclose it in a little duct to tidy things up. Once everything was back together and we'd gone over everything with the vacuum cleaner looked a bit tidier.



While I had the vacuum out I gave the cab a going over as everything was covered in a fine layer of sawdust from the kitchen work.



I also finally lost patience with that bit of trim over the door on the Jag coming loose and attacked it with some spray adhesive today.



Hopefully it will stay stuck this time.

[Zelandeth]

Abby has been suffering from blinding toothache for the last couple of weeks and was finally able to see her dentist today.

Given the Jag has no functioning A/C (yet), I opted to park in the shade and get out to wait outside (given the heat soak through the transmission tunnel is bad enough when it's not 29C outside).



I made a discovery today in that the *back* of the car ends up nigh on too hot to touch after an hour on the motorway. That kind of puts in perspective how ridiculous the amount of heat that this engine chucks out!

[Aaron]

Very excited to be reunited with an old friend. It may have been 25 years since i last rode this, for most of that time it has been gathering dust in my parents garage.

[Neil Chowney]

Cor! remember them!

You still got the 1600 and is it finished yet?

[Aaron]

I have been thinking about the SLX, I've recently finished another big project. You may recall that last september I was going to renovate a house in 3 weeks. Well that was more like 9 months but now it's finished...

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-fo ... 89085.html

I was actually inspecting it today with a view to possibly doing something. Although it has been a couple of years since i last looked at it i don't think it has deteriorated much since then. Although some of the holes are bigger, essentially the rusty bits that needed replacing still need replacing and the bits that were sound are still sound.



I think i'd like to work on the bike first though. I bought a new battery today but she didn't start. I suspect she last ran about 16 years ago when my father borrowed her so i wasn't getting my hopes up too much. I've also got a technical problem with my old motorcyle jacket. Back then i could wear a jumper under it, but it seems to have shrunk in storage to the point where i can't even zip it up.

[Zelandeth]

Very excited to be reunited with an old friend. It may have been 25 years since i last rode this, for most of that time it has been gathering dust in my parents garage.

That looks like a lot of fun! Can't be much between it and running...clean the points (assuming it's got them at that age), clear the crud out the carb and I'll bet she'll go. Cleaning the fuel tank out probably the most "fun" job you've got waiting...

----

Decided it would be fun to spend a couple of hours outside in unreasonable temperatures today arguing with the air con on the Jag. Said temperatures being the main reason for having moved it up the list.

Nobody this side of the Atlantic seems to have the compressor to condenser hose actually in stock, despite a number of places listing it. My local hydraulic guy I'd usually use for this sort of things is only doing trade work at the moment. Fair enough.

So I snugged up the hose clips a bit to see if it would do anything...leak immediately stopped as far as I can see. Did get a good couple of extra turns on it. We'll see if the pressure has dropped in the morning.

Next challenge. Excuse the rubbish photo, this was the only way I could see what I was up against because there's a bonnet in the way - whoever thought that front hinged bonnets were a good idea?!?



Getting the 14mm nut off the compressor pulley involved downright alarming levels of force but did eventually crack off.

Unfortunately that is as far as I got as apparently I finally need to actually buy a puller. The clutch assembly is well and truly stuck on the compressor shaft. Old school levering and swearing isn't going to cut it this time.

On the plus side the brake fluid leak does indeed appear to have been sorted by fitting the new hoses from the reservoir. Still bone dry now.





At least that's one thing I can tick off it looks like!

Will get a puller ordered and then resume battle with the air con. The bit I'm really not looking forward to is that I need to remove all the other belts again to put the air con one back on...that was so much fun last time.

[Neil Chowney]

I was actually inspecting it today with a view to possibly doing something. Although it has been a couple of years since i last looked at it i don't think it has deteriorated much since then. Although some of the holes are bigger, essentially the rusty bits that needed replacing still need replacing and the bits that were sound are still sound.

Yeah, i've discovered that with rust, doesn't matter how long you leave it, it doesn't self heal...... damn inconsiderate, it's not like it got anything else to do.....

[Aaron]

I thought i should start with the fuel tank. encouragingly its in good shape, no rust or sludge. Fuel filter pretty clean too.
I'll look at the carb next.

[Zelandeth]

Couple of things done today.

First was a general fluid etc check. I didn't expect anything to have moved on anything aside from the Jag, but everything on that is treated with complete suspicion at all times. Especially given how much oil it appears to leak.

Nothing had moved...to be honest, as usual. Had been meaning to properly check the gearbox oil for a while though beyond "there's some in there."



Can't complain there. Slightly high reading is expected due to the slope of our driveway.

Had a look at the A/C, I left it with about 35psi in it after nipping up the leaking hose clamp a couple of days ago.



That's an improvement...it was down to about 5psi after this time last time. I really need to find my proper gauge set. It's in the garage somewhere. Will check it again in a week and see if the gas has continued to stay put.

While I was out there I did a bit more investigation of the ticking noise I've noticed over the last couple of weeks. Sounds very much like an exhaust manifold leak...and has now been traced to the furthest back cylinder on the offside (6A?). As disconnecting that injector makes the noise stop.

YouTube Link

Hmm. There was a brief period where I thought it might just be a noisy injector, but that hope vanished when I discovered that unplugging the spark plug lead had the same effect. Oh.

So... Exhaust manifold gasket, cracked exhaust manifold, cracked spark plug...or something more sinister like head/head gasket issues? Place your bets...

I'll get plugs ordered in (was sure I'd included them in the last parts order but apparently not), then whip that plug out. At least it's probably the easiest one to get to! At least it looks that way...I may well come to eat those words when I come to actually pull the plug out! If nothing else it will give me a chance to do a compression test on that cylinder, to *hopefully* rule out head troubles.

If the exhaust manifold needs work, a garage is getting that job. I'm not playing that game.

Speaking of exhausts though, the misaligned tailpipe tips were driving me mad. I needed to do something about them...however discovered that they had now welded themselves into the tailpipes and stubbornly refused to shift. I figured it would be easier to separate them from the silencer off the car. Thanks to being stainless it came apart easily enough and indeed being able to get at it with a hammer meant separating the tailpipe tips took five minutes.

It would have been rude not to test out how things sounded without two huge mufflers on the back... especially as this system is quieter than the factory one, and I'd like to hear the exhaust at least a bit..albeit nothing over the top. An experiment needed to be conducted though.

YouTube Link

Yes...I think I will be speaking to someone about making up some slightly less silenced tailpipes for the Black Cat.

Things have been reassembled for now.

The only other thing of note today was spotting the heating controller in the van flashing at me that there was a firmware upgrade available - and being web connected meant that with a couple of button clicks we had the upgrade on the way.



...And done. 3.2.1 is the current version.



If only all modern technology behaved this well!

[Zelandeth]

Things I learned yesterday: You need a special tool to wind off/on the clutch pulley on GM/Harrison A6 air conditioning compressors. A normal puller won't cut it, and obviously won't get the pulley back on - it's a friction fit on the compressor shaft, the nut is a safety feature rather than the main means of retention for the pulley.

If I'd used half a brain cell and read up on the job before starting I would have known that and made sure I had said tool in stock. It is now on the way, but if I'd used me head it could have arrived with the new clutch.

Ah well, live and learn!

[Aaron]

On the 28th My simson fired and ran beautifully. Much encouraged I booked it in for MOT.
Since then it has stubbornly refused to start.

[Zelandeth]

Following the rear silencer delete experiment I wanted to at least get a ballpark figure for likely costs involved, however it turns out that our local stainless specialist looks to still be closed. Fair enough to be honest, not really surprised. To be honest there's one over in Cambridge which I'm probably going to be using anyway as several folks have recommended them to me.

It's also about item 28374638 on the priority list. The horribly out of alignment tips had to go though as they made it look like I'd reversed into a low wall and made my OCD twitch every time I walked up to the car.

The only way I could make them sit even with each other resulted in them pointing upwards by about 20 degrees, meaning the system filled up with water whenever it rained.

The purists will probably hate me for it, but I reckon this both solves my immediate issue and actually looks better than the stock exhaust tip arrangement anyway.







No it's not stock, but I think it doesn't look out of place.

In my opinion, the spindly little double elbow looks right on the saloons, but something like this suits the XJ-S better.