Zel's Eclectic Fleet Blog (Volvo, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & Occasional Distractions)

[Zelandeth]

I believe there's a get together of car enthusiasts tomorrow morning. My intention at this point is to get along to it. In preparation for this I figured I'd at least blast the worst of the grime off the Jag.





Plus side of me having waxed it to within an inch of its life a couple of weeks back was that it scrubbed up pretty easy.

Still reckon this was one of the best bits of cleaning gear I bought in the last year.



50m hose which bundles up to fit in the washing bucket and is thus far 100% kink proof. Expensive for a hosepipe but the amount of aggravation it saves is well worth it I reckon. These expanding hoses are really strange but well clever.

[Zelandeth]

So despite the weather I decided to try to get to the breakfast meet up this morning.

Despite a not insignificant amount of debris on the road there I got there without incident. 1700kgs of very low car is a pretty good formula for "doesn't care about side winds."

I wasn't the only one mad enough to be there either!























This was the point that I got the call telling me that the roof was about to blow off the shed, so I had to leg it back to base.

Despite the legendary hate that all British cars are apparently meant to have for rain, the Jag handled getting well.and truly drowned today without complaint. Though I do apparently have a point of water ingress I'll need to look into.



Chasing that is a job for when there are less bits of tree getting blown around and inserted into my ear by the wind. To be fair though, she had been travelling at speed through absolutely torrential rain immediately before I spotted that so I don't really begrudge the car for letting a bit in.

Hopefully next month I won't need to depart in a panicked powerslide because my house is flying to bits in the wind...

[harvey]

The Dodge pickup's looking a bit sorry for itself.

[Zelandeth]

Seems a good representation of how they look in the wild to me...tidy compared to a load on the roads in northern Michigan. The body isn't even holding the chassis together...

Little care package arrived this morning.



Contents:

[] Air filters (X2).

[] Distributor cap.

[] Rotor arm.

[] Oil filter housing gasket (not sure if I need it yet, but it was £1.34, so made sense to get it in stock).

[] Number plate light lenses (X2). Quarter of the price of used ones on eBay for some reason.

[] Drive belts (PAS & Alternator/Fan).

The sheer size of the distributor cap still surprises me. Keyring for scale!



I've also got a set of timing cover gaskets (the later type as used on the 6.0 version which are apparently actually oilproof) on their way too. Once they arrive I'll get stuck in. I want to clean up and lubricate the distributor advance system, but given the amount of bits that need to come out to get at it, I figured that it made sense to get everything together so I could tick as many things off in one pass as possible.

I know the distributor cap was changed back when the previous owner had the car, but the stub for the breather system has snapped off (looks like someone has tried to glue it back on at some point), so it needs changing.

Need to confirm the hose sizes involved then will get some marine hose ordered up with a view to getting the fuel system gone through end-to-end so it's all guaranteed to be ethanol safe. Given the lack of any markings whatsoever on most of it my assumption is simply "I don't consider it safe until you've changed it." Especially in light of the V12 XJS being somewhat known for engine bay fuel leaks with the obvious potential for fire as a result even before they went and stuck ethanol in all of our pump fuels!

[gazza82]

I thought sorting the leads on 6 cylinder was bad enough!

Although the twin distributors on my old Alfa 75 Twinspark was an interesting sight!

[gazza82]

As was this Porsche engine bay ...

porsche.jpg (123.98 KiB) Viewed 3753 times

[Zelandeth]

I want to hear that used in anger... C'mon, you can't show us a photo like that and then not tell us all the tasty details...

Definitely need to shift tyres up my list. Wound up with her managing to get at least somewhat sideways on me half a dozen times today when going anywhere near more than about 10% throttle when moving off. It's always going to be quite twitchy if you're cavalier with it, but this is just silly.

Will go and have a chat with my usual tyre place tomorrow and see what they can offer. Annoyingly 215/70 R15 is generally a van tyre these days (which makes trying to look them up on the likes of Mytyres or Black Circles a pain) and obviously I don't want that or something intended for SUV/off road use with stupidly solid sidewalls. She's currently wearing 205/70s which are incorrect - this is probably why! The wheel alignment will be checked when the new tyres are fitted too as I'm not 100% sure it's spot on as she does like to tramline. Though having 17 year old tyres on the front probably won't be helping there anyway!

[gazza82]

I want to hear that used in anger... C'mon, you can't show us a photo like that and then not tell us all the tasty details...

The Porsche engine bay? I can't actually remember what model .. it was at Goodwood in 2014 and I was just in snap-happy mode .. Ooo Google helps .. Porsche 917 ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o8E4WCC4F8

https://www.motor1.com/news/72321/the-m ... ver-raced/

https://www.supercars.net/blog/1971-por ... prototype/

Definitely need to shift tyres up my list. Wound up with her managing to get at least somewhat sideways on me half a dozen times today when going anywhere near more than about 10% throttle when moving off. It's always going to be quite twitchy if you're cavalier with it, but this is just silly.

Will go and have a chat with my usual tyre place tomorrow and see what they can offer. Annoyingly 215/70 R15 is generally a van tyre these days (which makes trying to look them up on the likes of Mytyres or Black Circles a pain) and obviously I don't want that or something intended for SUV/off road use with stupidly solid sidewalls. She's currently wearing 205/70s which are incorrect - this is probably why! The wheel alignment will be checked when the new tyres are fitted too as I'm not 100% sure it's spot on as she does like to tramline. Though having 17 year old tyres on the front probably won't be helping there anyway!

17 years!!! Are they not starting to crack??? Rubber must be rock hard by now ...

[Zelandeth]

Ah yes, the Can-Am cars are always some of the best sounding things to go up the hill.

Though for me getting to see the Napier Railton actually in motion - albeit understandably driven very carefully - has always been a highlight. Got a huge grin a couple of years ago when a pair of complete lunatics went up there in something from 1917 if I remember rightly, and they were emphatically *not* taking it easy and were very much intending to put a competitive time in. Braver lads than me...driving a bus from 1929 is about of a demonstration to me of how much you need to take stuff from back then by the scruff of the neck and let it know you're not afraid of it.

Astonishingly there's no serious cracking visible. Tiny bit starting in a couple of places, but no worse than I've seen on tyres three years old. I reckon they probably are more plastic than rubber by this point though, so they need to go! Rears are from 2012 I believe so are well past their best before state as well...at least they are still the right side of the ten year mark though!

[Dick]

If your tyres are 17 years old change them now! I had a tyre lose its outer case on the motorway.. it stayed inflated but smashed the rear arch up.. in France now if you have an accident and tyres are over 10 years old insurance won't pay out..