Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

You really couldn't make this up...

You remember that a few weeks ago I sold on my Mercedes S123? Well this letter dropped through our letterbox yesterday. Personal information obviously removed.







I have precisely zero real interest in getting involved myself unless it's very cheap and looks like it could be a quick fix, MOT and pass on (assuming there's no strangeness about "oh my son has the documents" or the like), but as it's been off the road since 2016 I very much doubt it. Obviously if there's any sort of questions over whether it's theirs to sell I'll be out of there no question in seconds. I've got stuck in the middle of one of those disputes before and I've zero interest in repeating it.

Given the value of these cars if it didn't need major work it would be on the road. Plus they can rust for the country even before you start throwing bespoke made bodywork at them.

I've offered to take an objective look at the car for them and potentially pass the details on to anyone who I think might be interested, hopefully steering them away from Cartakeback etc if they've been considering such things.

I'm pretty much expecting to find a bulkhead made of rust though and 35 years of bodges having been holding various systems together since it fell into private hands...God help us if it's ever been a wedding car...

-- -- --

In more normal fleet news, these finally arrived for the Caddy. Actually arrived the morning we set off for Glasgow, but I was understandably focused on other matters at the time and just remembered the box was sitting by the front door this morning.



These are the top mounting blocks for the radiator. Odd setup, but they locate into the top of the radiator and a bolt then runs down through the slam panel into the well on the top of the block, trapping the radiator. It's all a bit odd and I imagine is designed with deformation in mind for crash safety. The blocks in this case we're both long gone and the radiator was floating around held in only by the pipework.

With it properly mounted you can see how far it had dropped back.

The top radiator hose was previously rubbing on the fan shroud. You can see the shiny patch where it was sitting against before.





Good couple of inches clearance now.

On the other side the shroud had cut a deep gouge into this air conditioning line.



Over an inch clearance there now too.

I'm not 100% convinced it's going to stay put so I'll need to keep an eye on it. Whole setup just feels a bit flimsy to me. Though I guess there is just an element of modern car design there,

This is how they sit once in place with the bolt tightened down.



Just looks like something is missing to me!

[rid54]

Well, today I mostly didn't do much at all... scanned the amateur radio frequencies for ongoing conversations, regretted heavily that I didn't learn russian, polish or ukrainian (there is much to listen to in those languages at my place of living) and kept wondering/worrying about the general state of affairs in the world today. Had a couple of beers and watched som escapist stuff on the TV (found some DVD's with "Endeavour", good stuff). Sometimes, being retired isn't all a blessing. My former line of work usually kept my mind on more productive lines of thought. Kept hoping that my choice of car make isn't being construed as a political statement. It is a statement, alright, but more in a technical way; I want a car that I drive myself and one which I can understand. Lada Niva is the car for us oldies who don't need the car to think for us (and for any car enthusiast, really...!).

[Zelandeth]

Had the opportunity to have a very brief look over the Cavalier today. I'd not seen the car since the end of September if I remember rightly, so wanted to see how kind the winter hadn't been. I also hoped to get it running for a few minutes as I'd only had about 30 seconds run time before before we ran out of fuel.

Not too bad seemed to be the assessment. The interior I had expected to be mouldy and musty as I know there's a hole in the battery tray, but seemed absolutely fine.

The bulge in the nearside front tyre has evidently gone "pop" at some point over the winter so that wasn't holding air. Other three seem fine. Can't say I'm too surprised as it looked pretty nasty when I last saw it.

We dug the spare out for examination and it seems to be holding air just fine, so will get that swapped over shortly.

In retrieving the spare wheel I had to retract my comment about the interior having stayed surprisingly dry as the boot was a different story!



Well at least we know there aren't holes in the boot floor! It had been draining via the bung for the fuel line it looks like.

With bungs pushed out on both sides the water was convinced to vacate the premises.



Took an impressively long time to drain through two 1" holes.

With a bit of fresh fuel she started right up just fine, though we did find a fuel leak on the line from the tank to the plastic (nylon?) line under the car. Cutting back the end and stuffing it back on didn't sort it as the line has had it - attempting to do that resulted in me ending up wearing probably about a gallon of fuel. It tastes precisely as unpleasant as I remembered. Six hours, much scrubbing of hands, a hot shower and complete change of clothing and I still smell of petrol.

Will just need to replace that bit of flexible hose. All of it will want changing in due course anyway (including the plastic semi-rigid lines as I don't know what sort of plastic they are or whether they will play nicely with ethanol) so it's a good place to start.

Not properly checking for leaks after putting the first half a can of fuel in was a rookie mistake. Though in fairness I didn't realise the tank is tapped off the bottom until after I spotted the drip.

Didn't stop us being able to let the engine run for a bit though, just long enough for the thermostat to start opening - at which point I noted the (automatic) choke was still on a bit so blipped the throttle...and the engine cut out and refused to restart.

A little detective work quickly revealed that we had lost spark, apparently because the points were stuck open. Sadly I was out of time then so had to head for home. Right up till then though she seemed to be running happily, though quite tappety as I remembered from last time. Anyone remember if these have adjustable rockers, or do you need to faff about with shims?

I'll make a run over there in the next few days to get the wheel swapped over, replace that bit of dodgy fuel line and clean the points - that should be the car pretty much ready for transportation then I think.

I mean it could be moved now, but having four inflated tyres and being actually running always makes things easier.

[Zelandeth]

Finally getting around to addressing one of the things which has been bugging the heck out of me in the Caddy since day one.



The gear lever gaiter has had it. It's shrunk so there's no way to get it to stay on the clip at the top and there are two holes in it anyway. It's just past it. The interior is generally really surprisingly tidy so this really sticks out like a sore thumb.

Used ones are generally all just as bad, yet eBay sellers still want £30-50 for for some reason.

So we've gone for a third party one priced at a more reasonable £15. We'll see how awful quality it is or isn't when it gets here. If it's hopeless I will probably just end up making a new one, it's hardly a complicated bit of construction. Basically just four triangular pieces of fake leather stitched together. Nothing I can't recreate with a sewing machine and a tatty leather jacket from a charity shop.

This is the other matter I need to investigate in more depth.

https://youtu.be/8ZHJGSk_t9I

There's a bit of free play in the steering. This feels like in the column rather than rack or track rod ends. So I need to get the trim under the dash out so I can see the UJs down there while I get a helper to move the wheel.

I will do that checking the track rod ends first though as they're easier to get to!

I do need to check it's not something dead simple like the steering wheel being slightly loose on the splines too as there is a little fore and aft play in it.

I wouldn't say no to finding a leather trimmed wheel either, as the Caddy has the really hard plastic one which A: isn't that nice to hold, and B: Is really quite slippery. Shouldn't be too hard to find one at least given the amount of vehicles it was shared with.

[Zelandeth]

This arrived in the post this morning.



Given the state of the fasteners I opted to leave it soaking in penetrating oil for a few hours while I got on with other things.



After a few hours I returned to it. Took a lot of very careful backwards and forwards spinning of the nut to clean the threads, but it did come off without snapping or stripping anything.

What felt like an eternity huge of shaking and blowing through the housing with the air line then followed. There was a lot of crud floating around inside it and there's no way to dismantle it to really gain access. Eventually it stopped rattling or producing clouds of rust and was in a state I was happy enough to fit it.



Will want a bit of paint at some point but that's hardly a priority.

One last detail I needed to deal with was the support rod which should sit between a tab on the filter housing and an eye on the inlet manifold below it. My original filter didn't have this and it had rusted away to nothing on the replacement.

This doesn't need to be massively strong, it's mainly there I think to discourage the filter assembly from vibrating too much. After a bit of a rummage round the garage I opted for a bit of 10mm microbore copper pipe.



Couple of holes drilled to match the mounting points and that's a job done.







Engine bay looking a bit more like most people expect now.

Goes without saying that copper pipe isn't something to be used for anything structurally important, but for a small anti-vibration brace it'll be fine. The housing is clamped directly metal to metal on the carb, so it's not like there's any real degree of flex available anyway.

The support will get a coat of paint as well when I give the air cleaner housing a going over. I don't actually have any suitable paint in stock just now, so it'll just have to wait.

The end result though is the air cleaner assembly being robustly held in place, which is what we were after.

It was interesting to compare the original air cleaner to the "normal" Steyr Puch/Invacar one.

Well, *nearly* normal Steyr Puch one anyway. In pretty much all other applications the filter seems to face to the right rather than left. My guess as to why this was done is for packaging reasons. If it faced to the left it would make installation of the engine as a pre-assembled unit more difficult. The proximity of that brace I've got my fuel filter attached to would make changing the filter a real faff too.

The "stubby" filter I have does seem to be something of an anomaly though.



My gut feeling is that someone modified this housing sometime goodness only knows how many years ago. Possibly in the search for more power, given how much smaller the intake port on the original style housing is.





A lot of work to go to though...and if you're doing that why would you leave a ridge round the edge still shading half the filter element surface?

It's a lot of effort for someone to have gone to though. There is definitely at least one sign of differences to the standard filter assembly too, in the form of the filter retaining plate.

The original one I had (which made the successful break for freedom a few weeks ago) just sat in the centre of the air cleaner element, the outer edges were left exposed.



Whereas the one I just fitted completely covers the outer face of the filter element.



You can also see how much of the filter element was tucked away behind the housing before.

Would be really interesting to know if someone had altered the old filter housing, and if so to what end. We'll never know, but you have to wonder.

Suffice to say I *have* now fitted a jam-nut on the cleaner retaining bolt! Ensuring it isn't winding itself off will become part of the regular checks.

I will be curious to see if this makes any difference to behaviour when driving. Both in terms of power delivery and in helping calm the intake noise a bit as at speed that could be really quite obtrusive.

Time will tell I suppose!

[Zelandeth]

As I've mentioned before something which had been bothering me on the Caddy for a while was that something in the vicinity of the aux belt was quite noisy. The belt while only a year old was also looking quite tired, with a lot of scuffing on the outer surface.



It actually looked quite a bit worse in person than the photo makes it look.

My main suspect was the tensioner, both because the pulley looked really badly rust pitted and because it seemed to get red hot when the engine was running.



There's also a very distinct groove worn where the belt runs. I'm pretty certain it was sitting cock eyed too and that's not just a trick of the camera. I could never quite decide looking at it in person.

A new tensioner assembly, idler pulley (I figured if you're pulling things apart and taking the belt off it just made sense to do both) and belt weren't expensive, and were available within an hour from my usual motor factor.



I did take a look at fitting it myself, but with how limited access is I could see it being the sort of job I'd run out of patience with in a hurry. Especially given how stupidly strong the spring is. So that was farmed out to a local garage that was recommended by a friend.

That was fitted earlier today, and that area looks a good deal more respectable now.



It's made things much quieter...I hadn't realised there was a distinct rattle coming from that area as well as the whiney hiss of an unhappy bearing. I forgot to grab the box from behind the passenger seat to actually take a look at the old parts to see how knackered they were, that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

This did present me with a slight logistical challenge though as my intended lift to get back from the garage became unavailable at quite short notice, and it's a place that's just a random industrial warehouse in the middle of a farm, so not exactly well connected to public transport.

Helpfully a friend had a car in there that was ready to pick up having just had some work done, and they suggested I just swap them over and we could figure out the automotive Tetris to get everyone and every car back in the right driveways at our leisure afterwards.

Some of you who've been reading my waffling for a while may remember this one.



It's the rules that you're not allowed to show a photo of this car without the interior too...





That dash is utterly bonkers but actually works really well in practice.

Despite being really rough in a few areas, I absolutely love this thing. It's that perfect blend of having a lovely wafty comfy ride and nice squidgy seats, yet somehow the moment you present it with a corner just seems to dig in and grip like hell. Really has a surprising turn of pace too if you call for it - even despite this one having lost the original twin carb setup during its long hibernation prior to being resurrected a couple of years ago.

This Lancia visited me a year or so back to try to address a running issue and to replace all the instrument panel illumination bulbs as only about 20% of them were working.

The illumination issue was easily sorted, but I never did fully get to the bottom of the running issue, which I had assumed to be carb related. I did get it running *better* but not right.

Turns out I had been a complete and utter idiot in fixating on the carb. For no particularly good reason my brain had just decided that someone must already have been through the ignition system, but the carb was known to have relatively recently been dragged out of a long hibernation in a box in a garage...yes, you guessed it...we had an ignition problem.

This was mostly fixed by someone working on the car after me. I noticed pretty much as soon as I set off from the garage today though that it still wasn't quite right. It would pull like a train if you gave it a decent press of the throttle, but was really lumpy on light throttle and was obviously still missing erratically at idle. Nevertheless, it was more than driveable...and I was quite enjoying wafting about for about an hour.

Right up until about 30 seconds away from home, at which point things went all Lancia.



The engine cut out. No stuttering, just off as though I'd turned the key. Conveniently I was heading downhill at the time so just rolled the last 30 seconds or so and slotted into the driveway under gravity.

My hunch based on how it felt was that we had lost spark. A quick check confirmed this hypothesis as correct. Absolutely nothing. The question of course then became *why* there wasn't any spark. Didn't take long for me to find a prime suspect as touching the ignition coil resulted in me just about losing my fingerprints as it was absolutely roasting hot (I hadn't left it sitting with the ignition on or anything). Time to grab a meter and see what it could tell us about the condition of the coil.

While it varies depending on the exact setup, as a rule the vast majority of 12V ignition coils will have a primary winding resistance of less than 5 ohms. For a basic go/no go test the exact number isn't important...just a number in that sort of ballpark.



Our suspect coil here had a primary resistance of 95K ohms...as in 95,000. That's rather a lot more than 5. Pretty conclusively dead.

It's no big secret that my garage is full of junk. As such I was pretty sure I still had a spare coil floating around from back from when I did the fuel injection conversion on the Lada (I mean, who doesn't?). Question was whether it would still be where I thought it was after three or four years...



Drumroll...



Yay!

No idea precisely how closely matched to the original it is, but they're both from cars with hall effect and amplifier based systems so should be close enough for testing purposes anyway. Given the shared Fiat DNA I'd be surprised if they're not pretty much a direct match anyway.

Cue a bit of improvisation to find a convenient bolt to secure it to (the secondary winding grounds through the case so that's important) for testing.



This had indeed restored spark, albeit not a very strong one. The car did now run, but very roughly. What was getting to the plugs seemed far worse than what we had from the coil though...so a bit more investigation was needed.

Few things were found to be an issue right off the bat.

Firstly, the distributor cap terminals aren't the right type for these HT leads.



Secondly there's clearly damage to one of the wiper contacts in the connector to the distributor pickup.



This doesn't actually seem to be affecting it, but if I can lay my hands on the bag of random scavenged connectors and wiring "misc" in the garage I'll replace this. While it's working now that sort of thing is just asking to be a liability longer term. Especially as it no longer securely clips together in addition to the damaged contact.

I very nearly wasted a lot of time then...but just caught myself and told myself to check the basics first...and actually pull the distributor cap off for a proper look. Just because it's nearly new doesn't mean it can't be faulty.

Anyone see something wrong with this picture?



Uuuh...



Well that won't be helping anything. There should be a spring loaded graphite contact post in the middle there, like the one in the original cap which helpfully was in the boot still.



Comparing the two caps side by side shows the new one to be a hair taller than the original (though it's possible that is just in the external moulding), and the new rotor arm was a good 1mm shorter from the contact point to tip.



The old cap also has the correct terminals to receive this type of HT lead.



Swapping these back over resulted in the car running the best I've seen so far, but still not right. Especially at lower engine speeds the spark is still slightly intermittent, and just generally seems weaker than I would expect from this type of system. I did try running without the coil ballast resistor in circuit and that actually made it worse if anything.

My suspicion now lays pretty evenly between the ignition amplifier module or the actual pickup in the distributor. HT leads are near new, I've verified we have solid power to the coil etc, so it's not something that simple.

We're going to try to track down a spare ignition module. Even if it's not guilty in this case it's a good thing to have a spare of.



Looks to be a Bosch 0 227 130 014 if I'm reading it right from the photo. Will have a look in better light tomorrow.



If it's not that it doesn't leave much but the distributor itself...which will be a barrel of laughs to change I'm sure as access to it is absolutely horrible.



So looks like it will be staying on for slightly longer than I'd originally planned. Just makes sense to get the parts sent here so I can try swapping out the ignition module at least.

If that and sorting that dodgy looking connector don't sort it, it'll likely be time for someone else or a garage to get involved...but that's a last resort. This car bested me once, there's a certain degree of pride (or stubbornness!) involved in being determined not to be beaten by it twice. Will update on how we get on as and when it happens.

[Zelandeth]

Been a couple very little jobs done to make the Caddy a nicer place to be ticked off during the last few days.

The old floor mats were driving me mad as the driver's side one kept insistently ending up jammed under the accelerator.

Before:



Solution of course is to get some properly shaped ones made up.

After:





Could have gone with all sorts of lurid colours, but figured black and grey made most sense so it didn't clash with the rest of the interior.

Great service from Simply Car Mats, they really went out of their way to make sure I got the right parts - even down to getting in touch querying what type of retainers were needed as apparently it's unusual for a Caddy of this age not to have any. The grippy backing on the mats seems decent too, they've not shifted at all in the best part of a week.

Second on the list was sorting this.



Which has been making my teeth itch for months.



Much better. It's a very snug fit so I reckon will end up pulling itself off...for £5 though it was worth a shot.

While I had the gaiter off it made sense to grease up the gear selector linkage as it was a bit stiff. While doing that I did spot where the play in the linkage is...



I don't think there's meant to be daylight visible through the bush between the lever and selector rod. Will need to get one of those ordered in then.

Having greased the bushing where the selector rod goes through the bulkhead alone has made a massive difference to the gearchange, it's way, way lighter and smoother now. Doesn't creak going into reverse now either!

A replacement ignition amplifier has been ordered for the Trevi so I'll provide an update on that when that turns up - and hopefully a report of it being safely returned to the owner actually running properly for the first time since it was put back on the road a couple of years ago.

While on several occasions I've covered well over a hundred miles on a day in the Invacar, about 20 miles from home is about the furthest I've actually gone in one direction. That will finally change at the end of May when I'll be making a run over to Birmingham for another event which includes a sort of mini car show as part of the program. Will feel like quite a big achievement ticked off to get the first drive that's not just local errand running done. Good reason to give the car a decent once over first too given that whichever way I go will involve a decent amount of running on faster roads. Will most likely be up the A5, A45 then a few hundred yards of the M42 and I'm pretty much at the door. Wonder how deaf I'll be by the time I get there.

[Zelandeth]

Had the opportunity to get a few things ticked off on the Cavalier today to bring it into a more user friendly state for transportation.

[] Replace the very flat nearside front wheel with the spare.

Old one off...



Good spare on. Job done.



Not including the walking the whole way back to the far end of the field and back because I forgot to pick the key up before walking up to the car, just over six minutes work.

The spare has highlighted that I appear to be missing chrome wheel rings from three other wheels. Sure they grow on trees these days...

[] Replace dissolved fuel line tail between the tank and the main nylon line to the front of the car. No photos of this as it was an awkward and messy job. Especially at the point where I made the discovery that a lot less of the fuel had leaked out of the tank since I left it a few weeks ago than I'd expected. Of course I found this out with my face as I pulled the line off under the car as I ended up wearing a significant amount of the contents of the tank. Again.

Congratulations to Vauxhall for having positioned that connection precisely so that the rear axle and exhaust are *precisely* in the way. Nevertheless, it only took a few minutes to do. Hardest part was getting the old hose tail off the tank as it had welded itself to the stub, though it did eventually release.

I thought I had a photo of the new line in place but my phone claims otherwise.

[] Non Running State. Last time I was at the car it seemed to be running quite well, right up to when I blipped the throttle at one point when it died. A quick bit of diagnosis revealed that we had no spark, and that the points were staying resolutely open circuit. However we were short on time and didn't have the screwdriver needed to get the distributor cap off, so just left it be.

I was initially quite worried as the screws on the distributor cap appeared to have been tightened up by the Incredible Hulk and one was threatening to round out on me. After no small amount of very careful perseverance I did get the cap off. Bit of a scrub of the points with some Emery cloth seemed to sort things out. Flicking the points to see if we got any sparkage proved two things. One, we did have spark. Two, that screwdriver was far less well insulated than I thought it was. That's the third time I've been belted by a HT system in the last 48 hours. The Trevi has got me twice so far!

That sorted she started first touch. Meant I was finally able to move the car (albeit very carefully as the only brakes I have are provided by a very poor handbrake on one wheel it seems). This has also highlighted that the clutch release bearing sounds distinctly unhappy. Guess I'll be doing or getting a clutch done in the not too distant future then.

This is assuming it's a sealed bearing and doesn't need to be periodically lubricated as per the old Skoda ones. Can't really see how you would access it for that though.

First time I've had a look at it not tucked into a corner.







That's very much the good side.



Standing back from the car it's more obvious that the damage to the doors is from the fork lift/loader that was used to move the car around when the previous storage location was being cleared. A shame as it is damage that could easily have been avoided, but on the flip side it's nothing too hard to fix. I'm just grateful it wasn't plucked out by a strap under the roof.

I also seem to be missing the "Vauxhall" text which should be between the tail lights. Hopefully that won't be too hard to track down. I imagine it should be easier than the more model-specific bits at least.

I let her run for a while to get up to temperature...top radiator hose started to get warm after a while...



The temperature gauge apparently thinks otherwise.

Now there are plenty of things I will happily do without in a car, but a working temperature gauge is not one of them. Thankfully 90 seconds of detective work under the bonnet found a stray wire with a spade terminal and a post for it to attach to on the thermostat housing. Result?



Much better!

I still love that dash design. I'm a sucker for anything which doesn't just have boring rectangular or square lights on the dash.



Very much looking forward to getting this home and starting to get properly stuck into recommissioning it.



Such a rarity these days despite being such a common sight in its day.

So stuff I'm missing, seems worth mentioning as I know these cars do have their fans and they're the sort of things someone might have floating around in a box in a shed in some cases.

[] Rear silencer.

[] NSR door rubbing strip.

[] 3 X Chrome wheel rings.

[] 4 X Wheel centre caps.

[] Vauxhall badging from rear panel.

Of course if I have the car in working order and the bugs shaken out by then the big question would be whether I took this or TPA to the FotU?

Probably still TPA really, as there's inevitably going to be at least a couple of other early Cavaliers there. Granted though there might be another couple of Invacars too given how they seem to have come out of the woodwork over the last couple of years!

[Zelandeth]

TPA has been out quite a bit over the last week. Have a few photos...well just because I like documenting things.

A bunch of massive oversized nonsense, and one sensible little city car...











The replacement air cleaner has definitely reduced the induction noise a lot at speed. There's still quite a growl there, but it's nowhere near as boomy. I think any apparent performance increase is purely psychological as the car is quieter so it feels like you're maintaining the same speed with less effort just because of the improvement in refinement.

Oh, and I remembered to put the clock forward at long last.



I did have a bit of a wobble though, just as I was getting back home last time we were out it became obvious I was having a fuelling issue. Felt like she was generally running lean, and the accelerator pump definitely wasn't doing its job.

Followed some advice given by a few different folk and have ditched the glass and metal screen fuel filter. Several folks have expressed concern that it's likely to unscrew itself and I'll die in a blazing inferno at the side of the A5. Given all three components were fixed in place I don't see how it could unscrew itself, but a paper element one definitely will do a better job of filtration, so probably for the best. Looks less blingy too.



Have tried yet another provider, let's see if this one doesn't fall apart internally like the last two.

Place your bets...

Someone asked where it was that I'd got my emergency toolkit stashed these days. Answer is right here.





That bag contains a spare CVT belt, the tools needed to change it, and selection of basic tools. There's a really convenient little void down there that it sits securely in which isn't wasting any valuable actual storage in the car.

The same space on the nearside is where the heater booster fan I plan to fit one day will go.

I really do need to do something about the engine bay splash guards at some point.



Thankfully these aren't critical to the correct operation of the cooling system like one an air cooled VW at least, but they do want patching up. Actually replacing them is an engine out job so that ain't happening in the near future - plus good tinware is really hard to come by so I'd like need to make it from scratch.

I had opportunity to investigate the fuelling issue properly today, especially as I wanted to pull the air cleaner housing off for painting anyway. Didn't take long to figure out the issue...

Remember a couple of weeks ago I had the carb apart to change a couple of gaskets? Yeah... apparently I never properly screwed the top cover back onto the carb. Oops.

Pure dumb user error that one.

Oh well, at least it was a simple fix!

Air cleaner has had a splash of etch primer...



Then a couple of coats of hammered black topcoat.



Stuff in this engine bay gets dusty in a hurry because of the amount of airflow through it, so it'll dull down to being less in your face shiny pretty quickly.

Hopefully get it refitted tomorrow. Not sure if I'll have time to get a test run done to see if screwing the carb back together has sorted my fuelling issues or not. Sadly the school is back from the holiday now so it's back to being a nightmare to try to find enough room to get into or out of the garage.

[Andrew353w]

I saw your panel with the 3 extra gauges, one of which is an engine oil temperature. May I ask how the gauge is attached to the engine, as I'm planning a similar arrangement for my Daf 33. In addition, what are the readings you normally notice when driving around?

[Zelandeth]

I saw your panel with the 3 extra gauges, one of which is an engine oil temperature. May I ask how the gauge is attached to the engine, as I'm planning a similar arrangement for my Daf 33. In addition, what are the readings you normally notice when driving around?

It's a cylinder head temperature gauge. Reading is taken from a K type thermocouple on a ring that's screwed under the spark plug. Quite a common fitment on air cooled VWs and on aero applications. I fitted this on the nearside cylinder as that's the one I'd always expect to run hotter as it's the one shaded by the oil cooler.

It usually sits around 110C when bumbling around town and the engine is doing relatively little work, and 150-160C when at speed. Highest I've seen was about 175C when climbing a long gradient at speed - obviously with a CVT there's no way to drop a gear to deal with things like that in this car.

[Zelandeth]

While I had the painting supplies out I gave the engine cover stay a going over too as it was very conspicuously rusty.

Makes things look a bit tidier.



Carb is better but definitely still not 100% happy, will need to investigate further. I really hope that my leaving the top cover loose accidentally hasn't wrecked the new gasket I just put in there...the £30 odd the kit cost was moderately irritating for what it was, but the month it took to get here from Italy far more so.

I did spot something after the test run today though which had the potential to be really "exciting" if I hadn't noticed it.



See anything amiss there? See the line between the driveshaft and the back of the hub? That's a gap. That should not be there. All four bolts on one side and three on the other were several turns less than finger tight. Now I admit to probably have forgotten to properly tighten the carb top cover screws last week, but making sure the driveshaft couplings were torqued up properly was *definitely* done when I installed the engine. So they have loosened themselves over time.

Given the vibration and shock loading that coupler will be subject to running 10" wheels with the state of the roads around here that's not necessarily a massive surprise, but the potential for Bad Things to Happen if a driveshaft came adrift means it's a checklist item that has definitely been added to the regular service regime. I think I will look to add some locking tabs to there too (there are already spring washers under the heads). Just glad I spotted this as the nearside is pretty much entirely hidden from view unless you're under the car as the battery tray and heater ducting obscure your view. I've put a mark on there with a paint marker now so I can easily visually check if they have moved now.

Think I basically need to just spend a day going over every single nut, bolt, screw, clip or other fastener on this car and make sure it's not managed to shake itself loose based on my experiences over the last week!

[Zelandeth]

Had a bit of a downer of a day today because of the general public being inconsiderate morons, then wasting several hours trying to fix things that an Android update that installed itself last night managed to break.

Oh, and the engine bay undertray of the Caddy decided to eject itself somewhere just north of J13 on the M1 this afternoon. Irked there as it was securely attached when I last looked (albeit with a few fasteners replaced with cable ties - but that's expected on a 20 year old car) and it was likely last disturbed last week when a garage changed the aux belt pulleys for me. My bad there for not checking it was properly secured when I got it back I guess. Hardly the end of the world, just annoying.

I had a couple of jobs which were low hanging fruit to get done on the Caddy so figured I'd tackle those to hopefully lift my mood a bit.

First up was dealing with the missing foglight blanking cover on the offside of the front bumper.



Needless to say that's been bugging me no end ever since I bought it.

The replacement blanking panel turned up a couple of weeks ago, I'd just not got around to fitting it.



Next to it is the replacement expansion valve which will hopefully sort the air con properly.

If you know this model better than me you'll have spotted the problem there. That blanking plate didn't have a recess or cutout in it to accommodate the towing eye.

Well not until I attacked it with the angle grinder anyway.



Not pretty, but it's one of those things you'll never notice once it's in situ, and my patience was already frayed at that point by yet another part being wrong despite my having triple checked the part numbers cross referenced correctly.

That's better.





Next up for the front end has to be getting some paint on the bumper and wheels. Not having a gaping hole in the front though is a definite improvement.

Flushed with success I moved on to the next job, installing this leather wrapped steering wheel fitted to replace the nasty - extremely slippery - factory one. I believe this comes from a Mk III Golf.



Being an identical style to the original one on here meant it was a really simple job.

First step given this car is equipped with an airbag of course is to disconnect the battery. I unhooked both terminals and wedged a roll of tape in between the positive post and the terminal just to make absolutely certain it couldn't drop back into place as the negative was very reluctant to stay clear of the battery post. Made sure to note down the reading on the trip meter as that's digital on this dash so would be wiped when the battery was unhooked.



This serves a double purpose here...one I obviously don't want the airbag to deploy in my face, though the odds of that happening are really small in reality. The second is that I really don't want to trigger a fault in the system as there's no way to reset the warning light without VAGCOM apparently.

Two hex head bolts on the rear of the wheel release the centre/airbag module from the steering wheel itself.



That gives plenty of room to pull the push fit connector out the back of the airbag module and put aside somewhere safe. The ribbon cable and the clock spring assembly is quite fragile so care needs to be taken doing that.





I chose to refit my existing airbag module into the new wheel as I don't know the history of the one that came with the new wheel - see my earlier comment about fault codes. They're an identical type in this case as aside from the one having a leather wrapped rim the wheels are otherwise identical. If they were different styles obviously that wouldn't be possible.

The wiring to the horn buttons could then be unplugged.



The three small Torx screws holding the clock spring housing to the back of the wheel are unscrewed next. Then the main steering wheel retaining nut (24mm) can be undone. In theory.

Turns out it was biblically tight. Not necessarily a bad thing given the application, but a problem nevertheless. Helpfully I do own exactly the tool for this job.



Which proceeded to spin the nut off as though it was less than finger tight. Impact guns are extremely useful tools. This one is heavily and unwieldy in tight spaces, but it's one of the most useful bits of kit I've ever bought. When you need one you really need one.

That step leaves the wheel itself ready to be removed. What you want to do here however is to thread that nut back on a few turns so you can remove the wheel in a controlled way. Give it a firm tug towards you and it should slip off the splines. If you didn't have the nut there you'd probably smack yourself in the face with the wheel and tear the airbag clock spring assembly to bits.

With the wheel loose the airbag and horn wiring can then be carefully threaded out through the old wheel as it's removed.

Reassembly as the manuals love to say is simply the reverse of disassembly. Though unlike VW originally I did take the time to tuck the horn wiring into the grooves clearly intended to keep it tidily out of the way.



Just because nobody will ever see something is not a reason not to do things tidily.

Once the wheel was all back together (after making ABSOLUTELY sure the keys were in my pocket) the battery was reconnected.



Not sure what the deal is with all the residue on top of the battery is, it's definitely not overcharging or anything like that...though being a Euro Car Parts special I don't really have huge faith in its prospects for longevity anyway.

Initially when turning the ignition on I made sure to stand to the side - there's no reason for the airbag to misbehave, but figure there is no reason not to be careful.

This was the thing I was looking very carefully at.



I do enjoy the solution that VW came up with for there being no SRS system warning light on the dash, just sticking it in a switch blank rather than updating the silk screen in the instrument cluster itself.

Thankfully after the self test it did turn back off exactly as it should do.



Then the rigmarole of resetting the clock and everything.



Thankfully the stereo retained everything aside from the time and date data. That's a big positive as doing all the configuration from scratch again is quite a chore.

Doesn't really look any different!



However is far, far more pleasant to hold than the old one. Given it's your main driver control having a nice wheel is kinda high on the wish list. Given that the old one was really quite unpleasant to hold it's an upgrade I'm glad I made.

Nice easy job which has a very tangible positive impact on the driving experience, I'll tick that off as a win I think.

[Zelandeth]

Yesterday the replacement distributor cap and rotor arm for the Trevi arrived.

Not often I can visually show how worn out a distributor cap is with a couple of photographs...



Those contact post surfaces should be flat.



That's the best part of a millimetre of material that has been worn away. It's no surprise the car wasn't running well.

New cap and rotor were fitted without incident (getting to this is merely awkward when the engine is cold...it rises to moderately torturous once it's hot).



Labelled the leads while I was in there as the new cap doesn't have markers for them. They're pretty easy to trace on this engine but I figure it can't hurt.

This resulted in the engine bursting into life and sounding far more healthy.

For about 1/4 of a mile into the test run. At which point I spluttered to a halt in a bus stop. Managed to get going again for about 30 seconds and ended up having to push the car out of the way off a busy road. Yeah...that went well.

Initially I thought we might have got a fuelling problem as we still had a solid spark from the coil. However checking a HT lead showed zip coming out of the cap. So time to burn my knuckles and get the cap off.

Well that lasted well.



No idea if it's a case of the part being wrong or just poor plastic that started breaking down in ten seconds flat. Either way, it's scrap now.

Stuffed the old rotor arm back on and the engine immediately burst back into life and I was able to get back to my driveway to do a bit more fine tuning. While the old distributor cap was obviously wrecked the rotor arm didn't look anywhere near as worn. No idea if it's been changed at some point, or if it's just the cap that tends to wear more.

With a reasonably solid spark at least I coukd start to see where we were at. It was obvious how much better the engine was running as the idle had raised from a stumbling barely 500rpm mess to about 2000rpm.

https://youtu.be/6W4lQNhKEFs

This was the starting point.

https://youtu.be/mknuRd2Tmuc

It turns out that when you've been trying to get a carb set up while the ignition system is barely working that you end up miles off the mark.

I'm not 100% sure that this carb is in fact properly jetted for this engine (on the idle circuit at least) as this is absolutely the highest CO% reading I can get on the exhaust gas analyser, about 1.8%.



For an engine of this sort of age (especially given that Lancia would have set this up with a lean towards performance rather than economy I'd expect) I'd really be looking for 4-6%. While I'm sure about the absolute accuracy of the numbers on my meter it shows the right ballpark when hooked up to TPA, so it definitely gives a good ballpark indication at least. A proper modern exhaust gas analyser is something I really should pick up at some point*.

*The Sun 1215 has a good optical CO and HC meter if I can ever get it going properly.

I reckon based on what I've felt when driving the car that the main is probably okay, but the idle jet could do with being bigger (or smaller if it's metering air rather than fuel - I don't know the method of operation of this carb well enough to say). I decided to ignore the numbers for now and just go for where we had the smoothest idle. The engine responce when you crack the throttle open is nice and snappy, just feels on a light throttle that she's starving for fuel a little.

Nevertheless we got to a point where the car was driving reasonably well and we *successfully* completed a couple of mile test drive.

Given the history it has of stalling at inopportune moments and the low reported oil pressure at idle I've opted to keep the idle a little on the high side anyway.

Fast forwarding to today we picked up where we left off.

Something I wanted to check before running it too much further was see what state the oil was in, given I know this car has had ignition issues for the last two years there was every likelihood of it being badly fuel contaminated. Didn't really seem too bad on that count but was definitely dirty and due a change. I've since had the go ahead from the owner to get that changed.

Then did a bit of gentle bumbling around our neighborhood for half an hour or so. All continued well, so I switched out to the dual carriageway - and then (within reason, I know what state the radiator is in) spent half an hour or so caning the snot out of it.

Couple of reasons...one being that if it was going to play up I wanted to provoke it. Secondly given that this car has had ignition issues for some time I figured there was every chance that the plugs and combustion chambers could be fouled up.

Observations. Firstly, this car is a heck of a quicker than it looks. It really can get a shift on. Secondly, when you've got your foot in it it's absolutely happy. Thirdly... something that's really not obvious from outside...this is a driver's car.

The seats are squidgy. The ride is - honestly incredibly - compliant. The cabin is nicely finished. Yet it can *handle.* On a good road this thing would be an absolute joy.

Why is it that the luxury sports saloon has become extinct? This car is a brilliant example that handling and ride comfort aren't mutually exclusive - even without needing to use Citroen's levels of sophistication as seen on the Xantia Activa.

The level of composure and refinement really can't be overstated. This thing is one of those cars that you really could jump into, do a several hundred mile drive and step out still feeling absolutely fresh.

I borrowed my other half as a cameraman to get a bit of footage from a little later on.

https://youtu.be/eEvpjBM4IvI

The camera really makes it look shaky...it absolutely isn't.

I had been asked by the owner of the car to get some slip covers fitted to the seats. The material of the seats is quite fragile, and the offside bolster on the driver's seat was basically disintegrating more every time you got in or out of the car.

They weren't *tidily* installed, but they were installed. The issue was basically that the seats in the Trevi area a really odd shape, and are about 20% too big for the covers. Nevertheless, they will protect the seats under the covers which is the reason they're there.



I did manage to get them to sit a bit better than this, but they're still not exactly tidy.

The rear ones are worse, because they are really intended to be fitted to a car where you can get to the back of the seat. However the rear seats in the Trevi are fixed, so I just had to tuck them in as best I could.



In getting the bits and pieces for this out of the boot I nearly dropped the boot lid on my head for about the fifteenth time due to the faulty gas strut. The boot lid is really rather heavy and this was getting old. There was a replacement gas strut in the boot, so figured I'd fit it. Just two split pins to remove, then pull it out.

Of course as is basically standard with the Trevi, it turned out that the new part was wrong.



New on the left, old on the right. The new struts had far smaller eyes than the old ones. I did figure out that that the eyelets on both struts unscrewed, though unhelpfully the threaded section on the new struts were significantly larger than the original one. They were plastic however, so five minutes with the drill and a tap solved that problem and the old eyelets were fitted to the new gas strut. Sorted.



Not before I wasted about half an hour looking for the second split pin...which turned out to be in my left pocket.

Had a few errands to run this afternoon and took the Trevi out for that.

She definitely feels like she's slightly lean especially when cold, but once fully up to temperature seems absolutely fine.

Tomorrow I will be doing an oil and filter change. Then give the interior a quick vacuum out as it's full of dead spiders from the winter lay up. Then we'll hopefully get the car dropped back off with its owner sometime later in the week.

It's been an absolute nuisance at times, but I still love this car.



If it weren't for the rarity, parts supply challenges and tendency for them to dissolve at such alarming rates I would seriously consider looking for one of these cars. It just suits me so well.

In news relating to my actual fleet, another package for the Cavalier has turned up.

Not sure if you noticed something very conspicuously missing from the back in previous photos or not...



The Vauxhall badging from the rear panel was missing.

This was very kindly sent my way by a member on another forum.



Perfect. The badge was a surprise, but yes I will absolutely wear that the first time I get the car to a show. I expected those letters to be plastic, but no they're metal. Quite heavy too actually. That will help tidy the back of the car up a lot.

[Zelandeth]

Simple job to start out with for today, oil and filter change.

This really was overdue a change.



It was basically jet black before the engine was run.

Draining the oil was relatively uneventful, though it was demonstrated to be very thin. Didn't smell badly fuel contaminated, just seemed a very light grade.

Which given this oil pressure reading at idle is less than ideal.



That's with the idle bumped up a bit too. It doesn't sound bad though, and I've learned not to put too much faith in Fiat/Lancia/Lada instrumentation of this era. The light behaves exactly as I'd expect.

Then came the oil filter. I've only dealt with this engine in longitudinal configuration before...however the Trevi has it set up transverse. Meaning the oil filter is roughly here.



Wonderful access.



No access from underneath as there's a cross member in the way. There's no clearance between that and the engine on one side or the radiator on the other. I discovered that you can't manipulate the filter to the left that it doesn't fit between the radiator and gearbox to come out that way.

If you pull the whole air cleaner housing off the carb there's just enough room to squeeze the filter out up the front. It really is a royal pig to get at.

New filter on and fresh oil in, and once back fully up to temperature we definitely have an improvement on the reported oil pressure, albeit not a massive change. Shows it was worth doing at least.



When you're actually driving it seems to float around an indicated 30psi or thereabouts.

Even with a proper oil jug it's a faff to get oil into without spilling it either.



I didn't manage to get the retaining screws for the ignition coil fully out, but I did manage to loosen them enough to get the old coil out and my replacement into it. Meant I could get rid of my horrible jury rigged nonsense hanging off the slam panel.

Much better.



Part number was noted down to assist in tracking down a proper replacement.



0 221 122 012 I make that.

The old one was labelled to prevent any future confusion before being stowed in the boot along with the old ignition amplifier module.





Learned long ago that not labelling defective parts was a recipe for much confusion down the line.

Topped off the coolant which had got a bit low, then called it done under here for now.



It's still not absolutely 100%, I'm not convinced the distributor pickup is in perfect health, and I'm absolutely not convinced the carb is jetted right, but it's running a thousand times better than it ever has in my experience so far and is absolutely driveable now.

Just slightly lumpy on light throttle, and the idle should be smoother, especially when cold. It gets vastly better once up to temperature.

The carb we know could do with some TLC anyway (we had to manually jam open a solenoid plunger because the coil was open circuit (and as I recall mostly missing) last time the car was here), so I'm stopping here before I wind up spending another month trying to get us that last 10% of improvement.

If a known good carb or full overhaul kit for it turns up at some point I'll happily come back for round 3. Though I reckon having someone with the knowledge and equipment to actually say whether the carb is set up correctly for the engine would be worthwhile. I simply lack the experience and kit to really do that.

The ideal thing of course would be to return this car to the original twin carb setup it was fitted with from the factory. Sadly I suspect that cost will prevent that happening any time soon.

Last job for the day was to give it a quick vacuum out. Not a full valet or anything, but I wanted to get the worst of the dust and the dead bugs from the winter lay up out.



Hopefully get her dropped back off with her owner in the next couple of days.