Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

I think this will be just fine on radials. The handling and stability characteristics of this I think will actually be a lot better than the Reliants. The engine being a flat twin slung low down and between the rear wheels will help for one thing, plus the suspension in general is a good deal more sophisticated than in your average Reliant Robin too - don't let the antiquated looks fool you! I reckon the reputation for them being wayward on windy days is purely down to how little weight is over the front wheel.

Had hoped that I'd have finished the Invacar door Rebuild today and would have been able to get the latches adjusted etc...

Decided I'd "save myself five minutes" by leaving the car in the garage.

Yeah...Absolutely stupid idea. Ended up spending far more time fishing tools back out from under the car when I dropped them and clambering around the car to get to stuff. Next time I just back the car out the garage. Ended up wasting so much time that I ended up just getting the frame done and not getting the glass back in.

I really do need to do a quick run around the car and just collect all the bits and pieces that have accumulated there. There are screws, nuts, bolts, tools, brackets, bits of brake pipe and such all over the bloody place and it's driving me mad.

I think the plan for tomorrow if time permits will be to finish reassembling that door then do a bit of a garage tidy as well as the whole right hand side is turning into something of a game of Jenga and I'd rather sort it out before it buries the Invacar. Also being able to open the nearside door will mean I can optimise things a bit.

Had the opportunity to show it to a couple of friends who have been visiting from the US this evening, suffice to say they were both amused and fascinated by it.

Really funny how getting a few jobs done can improve your mojo with a project.

I did have a good moment of inspiration earlier today with regards to sorting the bodywork. One of the biggest problems I've got is that some areas have quite large expanses of glass fibre just missing. The slightly mangled wheel arch and some general scratches and cracks are easy enough to sort. What I need for the larger areas though is - in the absence of an actual mould - is something to give some structure while I rebuild the areas in question. I'd experimented with some ally mesh, cardboard and chicken wire, but found they just didn't have enough strength and it was hard to get the precision I needed.

What I do have still sitting around from some earlier attempts at costume making are some nice chunks of high density closed cell foam. My plan is to sculpt a base to put behind the panel in question which I can then build the glass fibre over. Once there's a pretty thin shell there it's easy enough to actually build up layers over that for strength. Obviously the foam can just be removed once things are done.

Reckon it's got a better shot at working for the rebuilding of the "bumpers" than my previous approach.

[Zelandeth]

Both doors on the Invacar are now pretty much done and the seals have been refitted.

The latches etc will need to be adjusted, and the runners all need to be cleaned and greased etc...but they're mostly done.

Windscreen wiper is next on the agenda. The bolt holding the motor in doesn't want to come out, so I said to make absolutely sure that it's getting power before I faff around removing it... especially as the donor part is similarly disinterested in coming off the other car.

[Zelandeth]

[] Refitted now thoroughly cleaned front indicator lenses. Output is vastly improved now there are no longer insect nests in them.

[] Removed non-functional windscreen wiper mechanism and established the cable has seized inside the guide tube. Have left it soaking in penetrating oil overnight.

[] Rediscovered the fact I still need to properly wire in the new fuse box.

[] Answered the question of whether the dash needs to come out to inspect and if necessary repair any wiring.



That crusty bit of terminal strip is in the main live feed to the ignition switch. Oh, and I can see another terribly done crimp terminal on the ignition switch - through which every milliamp for everything aside from the headlights flows.

Needs properly sorting, especially given the "minimalist" approach to fusing in the car (two fuses total originally).

Should be a good opportunity to swap the dash for one that's not cracked on the top at least.

[Zelandeth]

This afternoon I waved goodbye to my spares Invacar.



The guy who has taken it on is still planning a restoration on it. I did mention early on this was ambitious, but they reckon they have a contact who can provide panels, so have a better shot at it than I would I think.

While digging through the boxes of stuff to send along with it I did find something very important that I knew was stashed away somewhere safe but hadn't seen in a while.



Will try to get it reinstated in its rightful place tomorrow.

Also successfully reassembled the wiper mechanism (from the spares car) so now have a fully functional windscreen wiper again.



Only wasted about an hour hunting for the spindle retaining nut which was later found in my left pocket...

[Zelandeth]

The Activa is finally back home with the worn out ball joint replaced and a fresh MOT. The downside of small local garages with a good reputation of course being that they occasionally get snowed under.

Someone else asked me how much ducting would be needed to totally rebuild the cabin heating system in the Invacar as they're missing a lot of the ducts. So I went and measured them and created a highly accurate technical diagram (all measurements in centimetres).



Okay...rough approximation so they know how much ducting to order...

Luckily I only need a metre or so as most of mine is still present.

[Zelandeth]

This little package arrived this afternoon.



Was a little tricky to tell from the sales page on eBay, but it does look to be a pretty much perfect match for the original heater ducting still present on the car.

Didn't take long at all to get the missing ductwork reinstated.



I think the original duct was actually routed up into the inner wing down behind the battery, coil and voltage regulator. However I can't really see any particular reason for this so opted for the more economical route which will get in the way less. Getting the battery in and out is already enough of a faff without adding any more congestion to that corner. It's not as though anything will get stretched like this as everything to which the duct is attached here is all rigidly fixed together.

When I first started my old VW T25 up after it had been left sitting for about ten years the amount of crud that came flying out of the heater vents was truly comical. I was expecting much the same here, however that wasn't the case. All we got was this little bit of foam out of the demister vent.



While there's good flow through the cabin heater vent, the windscreen demister is less impressive. It's quite likely the duct is still full of crud though, and the flaps in the control box are a bit stiff. I'll pull it out for a good clean, lubrication of the moving parts and a quick lick of paint at some point soon.



This is apparently one of the more difficult Invacar bits to get hold of, so I'm very glad that it's both present and in working order.

Don't worry about the lack of hose clips on the fuel hose you can see in the above image. That hose is literally just sitting in a fuel can at the moment as there's no tank on the car. The fuel system will all be properly sealed with appropriate fasteners when installed. I'm planning to get some marine grade fuel hose for that given the issue I've had with the stuff from pretty much any motor factors perishing in next to no time lately. At least this thing is a bit less of a fire risk than most Reliants as it doesn't have the carb hanging right above the exhaust manifold.

Given that I didn't want to play automotive Tetris, I wasn't really able to back the Invacar out the garage, so having it running long enough to test the efficacy of the heater meant I had to deploy my extremely technical solution for stopping it filling the garage with exhaust fumes.



The tailpipe on this thing vents directly out the offside of the vehicle rather than out the back, so if not reversed out of the garage it does a good job of filling the garage with exhaust fumes. This results in the lounge smelling of car for several hours afterwards...hence my having come up with a way to convince the fumes to vacate the premises. For all it's hilariously crude, it seems to work.

Speaking of exhaust fumes, I made sure to have a CO detector in the cabin during this test as the exhaust heat exchanger had never been proven before - glad to report that it never twitched during the test. I will fit one in the cabin as a matter of course though as it just seems a sensible safety precaution.

The heat exchanger actually seems to work very well. I was only keeping the engine at a fast idle, I imagine the exhaust will run far hotter with the engine under load. Even so, the air coming from the vents was positively furnace like. I'll tick that off as a result I think.

Before I packed up for the afternoon I finally got around to sorting one of the really minor issues I'd identified with the Xantia. The nearside outer tail light had a small crack in the lens. Not really an issue as it didn't let water in or anything, but I had a good used replacement floating around in the box of bits of Citroen, so seemed daft not to change it.



The seal on the back seems to be in far better shape than the one that came off the car too which I don't reckon can be a bad thing.

Nice when a 30 second job is actually as quick and simple as it should be.



I think the next thing I need to do really is to have a bit of a tidy up to I can see what I'm doing. There are a ridiculous number of tools, boxes of fasteners, bits of various cars etc in the Invacar and scattered over the garage at the moment which is making it impossible to find anything and is just generally hindering me in getting stuff done...so I should sort that.

[Zelandeth]

So yesterday the Activa really struggled to start. Battery was nearly flat.

I checked and the alternator seemed to be doing its job just fine. 14.25V off load, and 13.80V with anything and everything electrical turned on.

I know I've been doing a lot of short runs lately and she was sitting for a while while the garage got to changing the ball joint. So wasn't going to discount that as being responsible. So put the battery on the charger overnight...and it only just managed to turn it over as with yesterday. Balls. Time for a new battery it seems.

Let's have a look...GSF/ECP were asking for around £140 for an identical one to what's in there, Halfords £110 for their own brand one. Let's check Costco...£68 including the VAT for a Bosch one...and I can just walk in the door and grab it, rather than have to faff around ordering things. No brainer really wasn't it.



Will get it fitted tomorrow and hopefully that will be restore normality...and actually let the Lada go back into hibernation for the winter as it was meant to a month ago.

[Neil Chowney]

Well hopefully that will sort it out but those voltages seem OK to me......

[Zelandeth]

Voltages were fine with the engine running, but it dropped like a stone to just under 11V once off charge. Reckon there's a cell gone short.

Started it up this afternoon to check the LHM level and it seemed fine having sat overnight, so hopefully that's sorted.

[Andrew353w]

Voltages were fine with the engine running, but it dropped like a stone to just under 11V once off charge. Reckon there's a cell gone short.

Started it up this afternoon to check the LHM level and it seemed fine having sat overnight, so hopefully that's sorted.

I'd put a new battery in sooner rather than later, as a battery not performing to its best puts a consequential strain on the alternator. Given that we have the coldest part of the year coming up your electrics need to be in top form. Many's the time I've changed a battery for a customer, only to have to attend the same vehicle a few weeks later, to fit a new alternator, which had suffered as a result of the battery's weakness.

[Neil Chowney]

Voltages were fine with the engine running, but it dropped like a stone to just under 11V once off charge. Reckon there's a cell gone short.

Started it up this afternoon to check the LHM level and it seemed fine having sat overnight, so hopefully that's sorted.

Ah, missed the small nugget of information about the engine running..........

[Zelandeth]

I'd put a new battery in sooner rather than later, as a battery not performing to its best puts a consequential strain on the alternator. Given that we have the coldest part of the year coming up your electrics need to be in top form. Many's the time I've changed a battery for a customer, only to have to attend the same vehicle a few weeks later, to fit a new alternator, which had suffered as a result of the battery's weakness.

Yep, it was changed pretty much as soon as I became aware of the issue. Especially given the Activa isn't exactly short on electronic kit and this time of year sees headlights, heater blower and heated seats on pretty much full time.

Haven't been out for a longer run yet, but it's obvious that there's less whine coming from the and belt now at higher revs. You used to be able to hear it particularly between gears before. Be curious to see whether the alternator no longer trying to charge a not chargeable battery will equate to any performance gains.

Hope not to have to change the alternator on the Xantia...I suspect "dismantle the entire car" would be step one given that it's sandwiched between the hydraulic pump above and air con compressor below, and is level with the chassis rail so there's nearly zero access from the side.

Initially had planned to get into the garage to do a couple of useful things today however wound up running out of patience with the mess in the Invacar cabin instead.

The one task I did manage was to sort out the heater controls. The control for the cabin heater was sticky, traced to the cable sheath moving. The termination at the actual heater box isn't great, but fastening the three cables together has solved the problem. Of course it's also made them tidier which is also extremely important.



It was about this point that I knocked a bunch of tools over again, and felt it necessary to do a bit of tidying up.



Fire extinguisher was shoved back in the bracket as I was tired of falling over it, dropping it on my toes etc. Do need to find a proper bracket though as it's had one for the later powder type which is taller.

Having cleared a load of random tools and general debris out of the car it became very obvious how filthy it was...so the cleaning supplies came out.



Slightly more pleasant place to be now. Really need to get a new grip for the handlebars as I'm fed up of finding bits of blue foam everywhere.

Garage itself actually needs the same treatment now...

I've a load of brake fittings on the way which will hopefully mean I can tidy my earlier work there up soon.

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...realised I've a "my cars" thread in that section...and that I really should be posting a lot of this over there rather than in here.

Do you guys reckon I should move over to there (not a huge amount of work on my part to duplicate the thread) or just keep it here? I know things are pretty quiet these days so am worrying less about it than I might on some forums. Kinda feels like I'm chatting to my mates down the pub on here given how long I've known some of these names...

[sch4463]

It is what it is. Life's too short to worry. Hurry up with more 3 wheeler pics lol. If had any spare cash I fancy a reliant. Kids just keep costing me a fortune...

[Zelandeth]

I'll be wanting to make a start on some bodywork soon, so I should have a good opportunity to get a few better photos then.

So a couple of days ago our fridge freezer decided to lose interest in cooling. Of course when it was chock full of stuff for Christmas and New Year. Cue frantically scrambling to get stuff into what's normally used as the drinks fridge these days (the main one came with the house) and the chest freezer in the garage and the fridge in the camper. We *just* managed to cram everything in. The fault was pretty quickly traced to a failed relay. £2.02 including delivery had a new one here, and fitting it took about 15 minutes. No chance you would get someone to come and repair a 15 year old fridge these days if my experience with tradesmen is anything to go by, so the vast majority of households would have wound up binning this for the sake of that relay.



New unit of equivalent spec these days would set you back around £800.

Obviously while it was empty and I wasn't rushing to get stuff done before things defrosted I'd have been daft not to give it a really good deep clean once it was fixed before putting stuff back in.





I actually quite enjoy getting stuff looking factory fresh so enjoyed this more than I probably should.

Back to the cars...

Speaking of cleaning things, the windscreen washer bottle was given a thorough clean and reinstated. The pipework will be more tidily routed in due course once I've finished messing with the wiring up above.



We all remember this ugly looking monstrosity?



I finally ran out of patience with it shedding blue powder all over everything whenever you went anywhere near it.



Much better. Funny how perceptually this makes it feel far closer to a working vehicle from the driver's seat despite being such a minor detail. Handlebars will be given a coat of hammered black paint at some point in the future too, obviously.

Have also picked up some hardener to go wish the resin and glass fibre matting I already have in stock, so am all set to make a start on some of the real bodywork jobs now.

I did however totally forget to pick up a new mastic gun to apply the gutter sealant with...which is what I actually went out for in the first place.