Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

Well doesn't that sound happier?





I'd known something was way off with the carb setup from square one given that the idle speed was very high and I could tell with my nose from fifty feet away that she was running stinking rich. I decided to actually investigate that this afternoon and it didn't take long to work it out. The idle mixture screw was wound all the way in and firmly seated...So the carb idle circuit was doing precisely nothing. The only reason the car was idling at all was because the idle speed screw had been wound so far open that the throttle was held about 10% open and she was actually running from the main jet rather than the idle system.

Winding that open a couple of turns and backing off the idle speed adjustment (as that immediately shot up to about 3500rpm once I started to open the idle circuit up) soon got things much closer to where they're meant to be. I'll hook the CO meter to get it vaguely close to the book value when the rain stops. Now she's not running horrendously rich I'm glad to report that the intermittent but frequent miss at idle has vanished as well. Not expecting to get it absolutely perfect as I've no idea how stale a lot of the fuel in the tank is, but I don't reckon things are a million miles off now.

The even bigger positive of this than a smooth idle though is that apparently backing that adjustment screw out has resolved the issue I had with the accelerator pump being blocked off - that's now working properly it looks like.

Just wish the rain had held off for another hour or two.



Particularly annoying as the oil filter I'd been waiting for arrived this morning, so I really wanted to get the oil and filter changed today. Guess that's a job for later in the week now.

Nevertheless, it did give me an opportunity to get some gratuitous water beading photos on the freshly waxed paintwork...Imagine it's been a few years since this happened!

















Feels like having the carb largely co-operating is quite a big step towards the car being actually drivable now. Rear spheres will be the next big step.

[Zelandeth]

Package arrived this morning for TPA.



Installation was pretty straightforward...Though I still had to fabricate a cable end. I think I just need to go to Speedy Cables or similar and just order a proper cable. The issue seems to be that (unsurprisingly) the cable has a standard motorcycle type barrel connector at the handlebar end...but finding off the shelf motorbike throttle cables more than a couple of metres long is tricky - and this needs to be a touch over five metres long because of the routing. As it is having trimmed away the frayed bit of cable I'm now down to literally millimetres to spare, and it's a bit frilly at the handlebar end so will likely fail again in the not too distant future.

Nevertheless, it does mean that I've now got matching grips on the handlebars which looks SO much better.



The throttle action is also way better...It always felt very much as though it wasn't attached to anything before, so you were never quite sure how much throttle you were applying - and I'm not 100% certain that I was ever actually getting full throttle as the old twist grip was distorted and binding up at several points in its travel. New one is all metal so should hopefully fare better.

New grips are a good deal chunkier than the old ones which I think will be a good thing.



Will have to wait for a test drive to be certain, but just sitting in the garage the bars felt a lot more comfortable to hold.

[Zelandeth]

Nothing much today, mainly just got an oil & filter change done on the BX. No more horrible rusty oil filter.



That wasn't the worst filter to get off I've dealt with, but it wasn't far off. I had to get the chain wrench and breaker bar involved.

Pulled out just over seven litres of oil, just under six went back in.



The discoloration on the dipstick shows where the level has been sitting for quite a while, a good inch above max.

Getting the oil filler cap off was a task in itself - get the impression it's not been off in a while, and it's just a friction fit.

Being the coolest point of the engine doesn't surprise me we've got quite a bit of condensation here.



If it's still looking like that after an hour's blat up the A5 or M1 then I'll look more closely, but there doesn't seem to be any pressurisation of the coolant, it looks spotlessly clean and she idles smoothly so reckon it is just old fashioned condensation. Remember this car was last in MOT in 2011...so she's not had a proper run in forever.

I did spot a couple of electrical things needing immediate attention while I was waiting for the oil to drain. Firstly this Scotchlok on one of the alternator lines.



Note the stub of brown wire...which sits exactly as close to this hydraulic line as it looks like.



Yeah...that's getting soldered and covered with heatshrink ASAP.

I originally thought this was a drain line for some reason...



It appears to vanish down through the bulkhead grommet towards the fuse box. I'll investigate further tomorrow... that's going to be getting removed at the first opportunity.

I can also confirm now that being in the humble RE trim level it doesn't look like this car has an oil level sensor (not sure if the wiring is there, hence if it could be retrofitted easily), unlike the higher trim levels.

On the subject of the instrumentation, the fuel gauge illumination appears to have heard me thinking about it and has resurrected itself.



Have to admit that while I was kind of scratching my head about whether taking on this car when she first arrived was a good idea, I'm really, really looking forward to driving it now.

[Zelandeth]

Today's unexciting update...TPA has had an engine oil & filter change.





I had another shot at a Slow-Mo video of the distributor working in daylight. Given we've got a clear cap on at the moment it seemed something worthy of playing around with the slow motion mode on my camera.



Got another angle where you can see the points opening and closing.



Quite interesting to actually see things working. Can see from the lack of sparking there that the replacement capacitor setup I put in place.

[Zelandeth]

Hey look what was dropped off for the BX today...



These are actually rear spheres for a non-hydractive Xantia rather than BX ones, but they're pretty close spec wise. Will be absolutely fine for the purposes of getting the car into a driveable state. Once she's got an MOT and is driving reliably I'll look at getting the exact correct ones.

So tomorrow (if time permits) the battle to change the rear spheres will begin. I've been regularly dousing them in PlusGas since the car arrived and I've been loaned the right tool for the job but I'm still expecting this to be a royal battle.

[Zelandeth]

Well I didn't see that coming!



I was expecting a battle of biblical proportions to get these off. Nope...They just unscrewed absolutely fine. No huge explosion of LHM when they came off either so the diaphragms are probably still intact.



New spheres went on without any issue, even though the nearside one is a little obscured by the rear silencer.



She has rear suspension again now! Huge step forward.

Unfortunately now being in a position where I was giving serious scrutiny to the rear end of the car I did spot an issue. We do have an LHM leak.



Initially I thought this was coming from the seal on the sphere I'd just changed - but fluid only appears here when the brake pedal is pressed, at which point it appears in quite significant quantities. Looks like we've got a failed brake line then. Not sure if the BX has the same little spiral of brake pipe behind the caliper that the Xantia has - if it does, that's got to be the prime suspect as I've seen that rust out on several Xantias where the lines were otherwise spotless.

Wonder if this might be the fault which originally took the car off the road?

Whatever took her off the road, she's got a step closer back to it today.

[Zelandeth]

The LHM leak is definitely somewhere up above the nearside rear suspension arm.



Didn't have time to get the wheel off to investigate today - the offending line is totally obscured by said wheel so no clear view of it today.

You may recall a few months ago I finally got the correct indicator stalk fitted to the Invacar and took the opportunity to move it over to the left hand side, which makes far more sense from an ergonomic perspective. This did however leave a rusty patch where the stalk assembly used to sit.



This has been bugging me for some time...now I've got new grips it sticks out even more. So took the opportunity to splash some fresh paint around.



Won't be quite that shiny once it dries, should tidy things up a bit though.

Edit:

Yep, that looks a bit better!



Not perfect if you peer at it too closely, but it's a lot less scruffy.



Just helps make the interior look a little less shoddy I think.

[Zelandeth]

Package arrived this morning to allow me to finally hopefully properly sort the throttle cable on TPA.



I know I probably still have a load of cable somewhere in the garage...but this was all of £0.88 a metre so I wasn't going to lose sleep over trying to find it. The important bit is the cable end being the right size to fit the twist grip.



Which is one of these. For future reference when I forget.

I fed the cable through from the cabin end as I've always found it behaves better doing it that way. Every time I've tried feeding it from the engine bay it ends up snagging on something.



Then trimmed the cable once it was attached to the cable end. This has to be done before fitting to the twist grip or it's not possible to slot the barrel in.



Then basically just put things back together before securing it and trimming the excess at the carb end.



I've left enough excess that if it snaps right at the barrel in the future that I'll have enough cable to repair it.

For the first time I have a throttle which is bodge free and has a nice smooth action through the full range. That will make driving nicer.

While I was in the garage I tackled something else I'd been meaning to do for a while - finding somewhere out of the way to stash a spare CVT belt.



That will do nicely. Despite what it looks like in the photo it's sitting clear of the brake lines to frame right, it's resting on top of the master cylinder at the rear. I'll be finding a spare 17mm spanner shortly and leaving that attached to the belt, meaning I'll have everything I need to change a belt at the side of the road if I ever have one fail out of the blue again. Not really expecting it as I'm sure that was down to me using an ancient belt that had been poorly stored, but it's an easy eventuality to prepare for so just seems smart.

[Zelandeth]

Just a quick bit of work done today between the showers. With TPA having passed the 1000 mile mark a week or so back a service was on the cards, a few bits of which have already been done. Today though was the turn of the ignition system.

The points and rotor arm were still the original ones which were on the engine from KPL when she was originally dragged out of a field. However as the ignition system just worked I'd left things alone! Now the engine is in a car in regular use though and I've tracked down a source of the right parts it's time to sort that.

New points in and the gap set to the correct 0.4mm.



New rotor arm was then fitted. This is quite a different style to the one which was on here and is a bit taller. Looking at the old distributor cap though it does look as though it was only just touching the lower edge of the contacts in the cap, so I do wonder if the fitted one was correct.



A new distributor cap then finished things off in this department, the proper one having finally escaped from its extended stay in customs limbo.



The eagle eyed among you might spot that the air filter has also been changed. It's only got 1000 miles on it, but having been present during all the painting, filling, sanding painting (repeat several times) I figured it was probably worth changing. Only the finest OEM parts used of course!



I was not really expecting there to be any obvious change to how the engine ran as she's always seemed quite happy. The idle is definitely noticeably smoother though!



Whether there will be any difference when actually driving will need to wait until a test drive happens.

Two jobs coming up in the engine bay. First being that I really need to adjust the fan/dynastart belt tension as the rearmost one is flapping about quite a bit. Before I can do that though I need to figure out where in my disaster area of a garage the impact gun is as everything else I've thrown at the nut on the fan pulley has failed to shift it. The second job is to fabricate a proper battery stay. The bungee cord and zip-tie solution was absolutely fine when TPA was primarily held together by duct tape and hope, but those days are a fair way behind us now and it's *really* bugging me. Shouldn't be difficult to come up with something, just has taken a while for it to get to the top of the to do list.

[Zelandeth]

While it was a bit breezy really for driving tiny three wheeler vehicles with a kerb weight roughly equal to that of a postage stamp today, I wasn't about to let that get in the way. I wanted to see if the last few jobs I'd done on TPA had any impact on the way she drove. So she was the chariot of choice for today's errands.



Short answer is yes.

I definitely wasn't getting quite full throttle before. Most noticeable when cruising at 60 now, there wasn't a huge amount of travel left (it was very mushy anywhere beyond about half throttle) whereas cracking it open at 60 now results in a very distinct additional bark from the intake and the pace being picked up quite a bit quicker. Wasn't doing any real higher speed testing though today as the roads were too busy and it was too windy.

She is definitely running smoother too...which is nice even though I didn't really realise there was any improvement to be made there beforehand.

By complete random chance when I pulled up back home today the odometer stopped showing 427 - appropriate for an AC built car!

[Zelandeth]

Finally managed to find time to get the webpage for the BX live on my website yesterday.

I really wanted to get caught up on there as my intention is to keep updating it as things progress...which is far easier when I'm not playing catch-up! Nothing on there you've not seen on here as far as I'm aware aside from full resolution versions of all photos used.

Have also applied a bit of common sense and rearranged the list on the cars page so that they're listed by manufacture date rather than completely randomly (think I'd just added each new addition at the top originally) before.

Invacar will probably be the next one to go live - though my earlier comment about trying to get caught up applies there as there's a lot more pre-existing story that I need to get caught up on! Reckon I'm about 60% of the way through it so far.

[Zelandeth]

Today would have been a great day for getting work done on the cars...Instead I wound up spending the entire day faffing around replacing the weatherproofing on our shed roof.



Would have liked to get it a bit flatter, but despite messing about for well over an hour this was the best I could get it. The whole structure isn't entirely square which doesn't help.

The old roofing felt had started peeling off last time we had any real wind (having been patched a couple of times already), so it needed done. Have put an EPDM membrane on there now, so it shouldn't need touching again in the remaining life of the building.

Really just hasn't been much going on in the last week to report on!

[] BX is waiting on a new brake pipe.
[] Xantia is being a working car, though it desperately needs spheres.
[] Invacar seems to be running well, just needs the brake adjustment tweaked now the shoes have bedded in again.
[] Jag is waiting on the proper arrival of spring before I start dismantling 80% of the engine bay to sort the oil leak and replace all the fuel lines.
[] Van is still in winter hibernation...Undecided when I'll get it back on the road - or to be honest if it's even worth doing this year. Though getting it out for a good run would probably be a good thing, even if it is just to the MOT station and back.

Do have a few things lined up for this week though so should hopefully have an actual update soon.

[Zelandeth]

Had a little excitement this evening on the way back from collecting a grocery order.

Had taken the Jag out for a gentle amble. Taking it easy as she's got a few things needing sorted, but with a bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense no problem, and I'd rather not have to deal with sticky brakes etc. These aren't cars that like to sit.

Driving along at 50 - which was the limit where I was, and a lorry decided that sitting on his 56mph limiter was a better speed limit so overtook me.

His outside rear nearside tyre blew out - right as said wheel was level with my open driver's window. Well that's what I figured out had happened a few minutes later anyway!

I honestly (and I'm not kidding) thought I'd been shot. Fight or flight reflex defaulted to "flight" and I buried the right foot, ducked as far as I could and traversed the immediately following roundabout somewhat sideways before I found somewhere that felt safe to pull over and figure out what the hell had just happened.

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened. The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay. I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

This was about 1900, my right ear has just about stopped ringing.

Uh...so if you got cut up by a black XJ-S earlier this evening in MK, sorry! You now know why!

[rid54]

Yikes! You were lucky, I'd say...

A somewhat similar thing happened to me many years ago. While I was approaching a slow lorry going in the innermost lane, the inner tyre on his left rear blew. Very little tyre debris reached my car, but I think every dust particle that had accumulated on the chassis of that lorry over several years, came loose and the lorry all but vanished in a cloud of dust. The lorry started veering to the left and at that point in time, all I could do to save the situation was to step on it. When I calmed down I was going well over the limit, but in the mirror I could see the cloud/lorry pulling over on the road shoulder, so I guess he regained control without further mishap. Lots of energy stored in a big tyre at high pressure...

[Zelandeth]

Out and about again today...

Modern cars are just so ridiculously huge aren't they?





Stopped to grab a couple of better photos on the way home as I've been wanting to grab a couple for profile picture type applications for the web page etc.



The curse of that streetlight strikes again - got a shadow on the roof this time.

...And reflection on the lens from the back of the phone case in the other photo.



I'd honestly forgotten that I'd ordered a replacement for the horn that I fitted way back when I first resurrected her as it's proven very intermittent. Fact is the electrical system just isn't up to an air horn...It'll work fine if you're blatting along at 60, but trundling along at 30 it's 50/50 whether the compressor will run fast enough to actually sound the horn or just make pathetic croaking noises.

Arrived with a load of needless plastic tat over it to try to make it look "modern" I assume.



Thirty seconds of levering with a screwdriver later...



Far better! Will get that fitted next time I'm in the garage. Half the size and about a quarter of the weight of what's in there just now.

Yes, I could have taken the Xantia today, could have taken the Jag...Nope, I wanted to take TPA because we're honestly at a stage now where she's just a fun little car to drive.

Overtook several cars on the A5 on the way back home - much to the surprise of the drivers! I was making a deliberate point of holding her at an indicated 70 (honest...) for a good few minutes as I wanted to see what the temperature did. On a very slight uphill gradient (which let's face it is about the best we can expect her to maintain it on...The fact this car can DO 70 is enough of a surprise for most people) it peaked at 165C, which is pretty much smack on 1/2 way on the gauge - which I'm absolutely happy with. I'm measuring this from the left hand cylinder head, which being shaded by the oil cooler should always be the hot one. Given blatting down roads at motorway speeds wasn't really in this car's design brief was why I wanted to make sure the temperature wasn't slowly creeping up when travelling at higher speeds.