Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Does it count when I added three of the instruments? Speed, odometer, fuel gauge and four warning lights were all you got as standard!

Yes, it does! And what TPA has as standard is all you get with a poverty-spec. AX!

Trabant only has speedometer and an (uncalibrated) fuel usage meter as standard, fuel gauge was a stick!

[CitroJim]

Now that is minimal on the Trabant Zel!

[Zelandeth]

Fuel gauge!

[Hell Razor5543]

Mum uses something similar on her vehicle!

[MattBLancs]

A calibrated stick though!

I was expecting a much more rudimentary
"stick: wet = some fuel.
Stick: dry = no fuel"

[CitroJim]

A calibrated stick though!:)

Luxury

All the motorcycles I ever rode had no gauges of any type... It was a case of taking off the filler cap and squinting into the tank. And if it was dark, with a torch - not a lighted match or candle

[bobins]

The Four Yorkshiremen of the French Car Forum

Motorcycle !!?? You were lucky to have a motorcycle, I had to make do with a wheel ! etc, etc

[mickthemaverick]

You had a wheel?? I had to make do with two cotton reels on either end of a knitting needle!!

[Zelandeth]

Noticed I had a number plate light out on the Volvo.



Stainless screws securing the light units, for something on the back of the car subjected to all of the resulting salt spray etc that's nice to see.

Really well sealed little unit containing the lamp holder as well. The entry point for the wiring into the lamp holder is actually potted as well.



Sorted.



Nice when a five minute job is actually a five minute job rather than turning into an hour long swear fest.

[CitroJim]

Clearly well designed and built for the harsh climate it was intended to operate in

[MattBLancs]

And a Torx head numberplate screw - guessing is a proper bolt rather than crude self tapping thing biting into the sheet metal of the boot lid. Good stuff.

[Zelandeth]

Probably the most obvious thing which ages the Volvo is the somewhat cloudy headlights.



Evidently these are made of rather harder plastic than the last ones I polished (on my much missed Cappuccino), as it's taking forever. We're getting there though.





The rear marker lights on the V70 are LED based.



I'd assumed the front ones would be the same, but peering more closely at them shows there's a W5W incandescent lamp hiding in there.



Gave the engine bay a quick wipe down, mainly to clean up the fine mist of polish I'd managed to cover everything in the immediate vicinity in.



While in there I noticed that a bit of sound deadening was hanging loose on the offside of the engine bay. After scratching my head a bit I figured out that there were no clips involved - there was a self adhesive strips on it. From which the protective backing had obviously never been removed 17 years ago.



With that removed I was able to properly stick the panel back in place. Hopefully it won't be in danger of getting caught in the pulleys or anything like that now.



If only all fixes were that easy!

Had a bit of a crawl around the back of the car and have identified the bush that's definitely in need of replacement. This one.



Which has been booked into the garage to have done. I think this is a job which could be DIYable, but given the fun and games potentially involved in getting those bolts out I think that can be someone else's problem - someone with a proper lift. Just a shame they're booking five weeks out!

[CitroJim]

Pleased to see the Volvo is turning out good Zel

[Zelandeth]

Anyone want to take a guess at the fuel economy figure returned by the Volvo on a (fairly congested for the vast majority of it) motorway run up to Aberdeen?

Aside from catching up with a long, long term family friend I've not actually seen in person for the last 12 years for various reasons including them spending a lot of time working out the country, I got to pick this up.



Has been sitting in storage for the last ten years as they have been working abroad. This used to have the party trick of being able to make their (exceptionally heavy) sofa walk it's way across the concrete living room floor. I'd never managed to track this exact version down at a sane price secondhand, and mentioned that in conversation a while back and they said they'd rather it was used as intended than sit in the back of their garage for ever more. I did find the lower end variant, but in addition to lacking the Dolby Pro Logic functions, apparently it actually has a far less well featured amplifier stage - which probably explains why it never seemed to have quite the same punch as I remember this being able to deliver.

Looking forward to getting that cleaned, serviced and set up.

If you've seen the boot of this car, you can tell how big those speakers are! They're also exactly as heavy as they look.


Also got a chance to check in on a potential future project for the first time since I estimate 2009, one I've had my eye on since 1992. Not a car, but it does involve an engine.



Buried back in that corner of the garage is an old single cylinder Lister diesel engined generator. I *think* it's a JP1.







Meant to get a photo of the plate on the generator, but forgot.

Anyone able to date this thing? I did have a nose around for any obvious serial number or anything like that (about 20 years ago too), but couldn't see anything that gave any pointers. I'm guessing 50s?

It was last run back in the mid 90s, when it was a bloody godsend when our whole area's power went out for nearly a week, and a fair portion of the village ended up basically living in that house. I spent many hours absolutely transfixed by the thing, and can still remember the ridiculous decibel levels produced outside that wall by the totally unsilenced exhaust.

I've wanted a stationary engine of some sort for basically forever. For no purpose other than the fun of having something to tinker with that's not involved in my ability to get around, and one day might even prove useful. Unlikely though that may be!

Engine is still free, thankfully. Guessing the fuel side of things will be well gummed up after this long, but don't imagine it would take much to get it going. All of the original control gear is still there, including the contactor/interlock gubbins in the control box on the wall which allowed the generator to be used as an electric starter rather than having to hand crank it - imagine that would have been quite a pleasant luxury at the time. Do admit there was more than a bit of temptation to see if it would just run - but that struck me as a good way to potentially break things without doing some research and taking some precautions we just didn't have time to today. So I just left the crank handle where it was.

This isn't going anywhere now, or indeed likely soon. Not least because there's the small question of how the fluff to get it out of there. I probably don't even want to know what that lot weighs, though I know the short answer is "a lot." Imagine that lot is probably not going to be far off a tonne once you've put it all together.

I don't think this will be a "borrow a couple of friends and lift it into the back of a van" sort of job. Sure there are tips and tricks to make it easier that are well known by those who regularly mess around with this sort of kit, though my best plan so far would be to try to get it onto a pallet, appropriately wrapped and get a professional shipping company to worry about getting the damned thing into, strapped down and back out of the back of a truck. Open to suggestions on how to make my life easier there - I've only ever messed with stuff like this in situ before, never actually had to move it.

That's a ways down the road yet, but was good to get a chance to confirm that it indeed wasn't seized and made it clear that I did still at some point wish to re-home it.

[MattBLancs]

Oh, I'm with you on a nice old engine to play with, definitely!

I think the generator that's also an electric starter is a "dynastart" unit, not sure if any direct correlation to the dynastart that's in an Invacar, but same principles anyway.

Harness the heat from the engine (and with greater complexity, the exhaust) and you've a remarkably efficient CHP setup