1973 AC Model 70 Invacar, Visitors & Occasional Distractions

Given that I've spent quite a bit of money on car bits over the last week or two I had a plan to try to get through this weekend without spending any more money. Oh...wait...



£83 later...we were able to run those few errands.

In terms of the cars I've actually had very little chance to do anything this weekend, had a couple of hours this evening and that was in. The tasks attacked were:

[] Readjust the brakes. I knew there was too much free play in the system, and checking showed that things did need a tweak. On the front in particular quite a lot of slack was taken up. There is quite a bit of play in the actual pushrod that acts on the master cylinder. This is quite a critical adjustment...and I think I may need to change it...but I'm trying to see if there is in fact a way to do that (without the factory tool) without removing the master cylinder from the car. As I don't want to have to disturb and bleed the entire system yet again until I get the new rear flexible hoses made up and fitted. I seem to have spent as much on brake fluid as petrol lately between this thing and the van.

[] Fuel system check. Given the issues I've had with the fuel system lately I wanted to go over it with a magnifying glass. I couldn't see anything amiss, but reterminated things at the tank end anyway, access was quite awkward last time due to the way the car was parked, so I know it's all lined up nicely now.

[] Fuel gauge. As mentioned before, the sender I'd fitted was for the later Curtis/Veglia gauge, so have no reading on the old Smith's moving iron gauge. With my meter I was pretty quickly able to figure out which wires were what, and made up a jumper for the ground connection (through the case on the old one, which is isolated on the new one).

Now I knew in theory it should work...only three wires involved and electronics is an area I'm usually at home with, but would theory work in practice?



Yep! That's exactly how much fuel is in the tank. This gauge is damped, so rocking the car only resulted in a tiny amount of gauge wiggling, but it definitely did move. I'll have to wait to see how accurate the tracking is as the tank is used. There's no wire in the original vehicle loom for the warning light, so I'll need to route a new conductor for that at some point. That isn't a priority though at the moment. If I'm smart, I'll ignore that until I get around to pulling the dash to properly repair a couple of ancient wiring bodges back there and to add some mommon sense stuff like relays.

A friend has found an electric fuel pump I can borrow to either prove or disprove mine as the cause of my current fuelling gremlin too, which will be helpful. Given the rebuild kit for the current pump is £60 or so, I'd rather know before shelling out on it. At that sort of price I'm tempted to actually go with an electric pump anyway. Main reason being safety. If I do away with the mechanical pump I can keep the fuel lines all well clear of everything hot. That's currently impossible as the pump is essentially on top of the offside exhaust downpipe. I can see that causing fuel evaporation issues down the line too given how much more prone to that modern fuels seem to be.

Target for this week? Get it to Newport Pagnell. Not least because I want to see the look on the face of my usual garage's staff when they see it!

Having the electric fuel pump in hand meant that I could start doing a bit of investigative work on TP's fuel system. Step one though was to test the pump and to run a bit of clean fuel through it first, as I've no idea when it was last used nor what it last pumped. Not too much gunk came out really which was good to see.

Attaching it to the car however did pose a bit of a problem. Connecting it directly in place of the original fuel pump was going to be a bit tricky on account of the hose connections on the electric pump being 5/16" rather than 3/16" like on the original. However the tank outlet is 5/16" and I have a reducer up front changing it down within a couple of inches of the tank. So it makes sense to just plumb it in up front - which is where I've generally seen electric pumps installed anyway. Can plumb the existing tank outlet to the pump, then the outlet onto the existing reducer. Annoyingly I don't have quite enough 5/16" hose to sensibly position the pump, so I'll need to go and get some tomorrow. I basically want to hang it from the top tank retaining strap in the front compartment - currently it's cable-tied to the nearest chassis rail.

In the engine bay this left me with a slight quandry as well - as I needed to join the two bits of hose that were the pump was bypassed - however I didn't have a joiner specifically that size anywh...Wait...I think I know exactly what will do nicely.

Going back about a year, one of the things I remembered happening when I was starting to contemplate the fuel injection conversion on the Lada was that the fuel return hose connection barb pulled out of the carb body when I attempted to disconnect the hose from it. The bit of my brain centred around improvisation figured that this would probably make a perfectly good hose joiner if I could find it. Thankfully this didn't prove difficult as I'd stuffed it back into the carb before dumping that in the box of "leftovers" from the injection conversion.



This indeed did the job nicely, and allowed me to tether everything to one of the support struts in the engine bay.



Obviously I'll do some proper hose trimming and rerouting if I stick with an electric pump long-term, but this will do just fine for testing purposes.

Initially running things up hasn't shown any evidence of air being drawn into the system with the engine having run for 30 minutes or so. I have seen the occasional bubble *leaving* the fuel filter, but nothing on the inlet - so this must this is just a certain amount of fuel evaporation taking place within the filter housing itself. It is just the occasional one too, rather than a pretty steady stream we had before.

I'll get some more hose tomorrow so I can secure the pump in a slightly less dodgy way, then will look to do a bit of a road test to see if there's any noticeable difference in behaviour.

While it was a bit of a faff, I actually feel pretty good about today's efforts seeing the end result. Basically I wound up generally tidying up the area under the front service hatch as well as plumbing in the fuel pump.



The cardboard under the fuel tank strap is a temporary measure by the way, I've got some closed cell foam on the way which will be going in there - once it turns up. Yodel have managed to lose track of it somewhere...so goodness only knows when/if it will ever turn up.

The fuel pump is fastened in the old ignition coil bracket from the Lada. Once I packed around the pump with some rubber to keep it quiet it was a perfect fit.

Getting the new fuel pipe onto the fuel tank stub was an absolute pain and must have taken me nearly an hour of swearing. Seriously, if it comes off again the tank is coming out...

Speaking of the tank...something which has become apparent today is that the fuel gauge sender is in the tank upside down. D'oh! Oh well, easy enough to sort next time the tank is nearly empty. On the plus side, the gauge works fine...it's just reversed.

Having spent several hours standing on my head of course I wanted to see if it had been worthwhile. So that meant going out for a spin round the block a few times. Still need to adjust the brakes further as there is still way too much free play, but the front is definitely doing more now and she is stopping in an absolutely straight line now.

While I did not have a huge amount of time, I was able to buzz around for twenty minutes or so. That was well within the point that she had been starting to spit and carry on before, and was still running fine today. Given I was trying to cause high fuel demand, it was very much a "crack the throttle open up to 30, brake for junction, off again etc..." This has done good things for the drive system it seems, as the gearbox feels very much smoother now, and between 0-30 it definitely feels like it's doing what I'd expect a CVT to.

Given I was being a bit more proactive in the "I want to make the car misbehave" department today it has really shown two things. First, she really is bloody quick off the mark...not even passable, properly nippy. Secondly...you really can throw her around the corners... I'm really staggered by the body control. It's hard to describe in words, but it really feels nimble. Reckon that a lot of their reputation must be down to lack of straight line stability due to lack of ballast rather than being actually tippy.

After a couple of tens of minutes running usually the fuel filter would be visibly empty (I know that doesn't actually mean much), with bubbles feeding through.

Not this time...



...I really need to get some clear fuel filters, these opaque ones are annoying as it's so hard to see how clean or not the element is.

Plenty of fuel visible and absolutely no bubbles...that being the important bit. I'll try to get out for a bit longer tomorrow afternoon.

Will make sure the camera comes out as well, and hopefully will rope my other half into getting a few photos or videos from outside - as I imagine given the duct tape exoskeleton she looks rather comical bouncing down the road at the moment...

My initial plan for today was basically to go drive around in the Invacar for a bit and see if anything else fell off after finishing reassembling the indicator stalk.

That bit was done in short order.



While I was doing that I rerouted the throttle cable a bit so that it was less in the way of the indicators. That proved to be a bit of a problem before, especially once the stalk got slightly loose and started wobbling around.

I made an executive decision though and forced myself to do some actually useful work with regards to doing a bit more of a permenant repair to the largely missing bits of body.

Off with multiple layers of duct tape and a large chunk of the metal frame which I deemed to be overkill.



Interesting that it looks like the nearside of the exhaust has been running cooler, I'll make a point at doing an actual measurement of the cylinder head temperatures after a run to see if there's an obvious disparity between the two.

I've just left the one band along the lower edge to help the resulting panel retain a decent degree of rigidity. The original panel would have had a lip moulded into it to help with that, but that's kinda hard to do by hand...so a bit of metal strapped to the back will do.

I then got the foam core board out and set about fabricating a new rear bumper. I love this stuff...It's got way more strength to it than cardboard, doesn't go soggy if it gets wet, but you can easily cut it with a sharp knife and bend it by hand.

Of course I ran out of daylight halfway through this, but this was the end result of the construction of the base framework. Trying to get photos of a semi-matt black surface with little ambient light was a bit tricky, but hopefully you can see that there is something like the shape of an actual lip below the engine cover and a bumper here now.





While I was rapidly running out of time by this point I was determined to get at least some fibreglass laid down over this. I only had a couple of small bits left from the current pack of matting anyway, so figured I'd just use that and then call it a day. This is where we left things.





Don't worry about the bits dangling down under it, that will get a nice clean edge cut in due course. I've realised quite a few errors in my workflow working with the fibreglass here, and that one of the key things to make your life easier (especially when working on vertical surfaces like this) is to work with small pieces of mat at a time, or you end up with finely atomised bits of glass fibre stuck to everything except the surface you're trying to stick it to.

Once I've got a few layers on here though, a skim of filler and some paint on it I reckon we should be able to get a result which should be good enough. I'm not worried about a perfect factory finish here, "presentable from ten paces" will do just fine. A slightly junior level looking bit of fibreglass fabrication is less likely to get me pulled over by a grumpy traffic cop I reckon than having half of the rear of the car made of duct tape.

The only other thing I immediately need to get the fibreglass on will be the mounting points for the front cover hinges, as the cable ties can't stay there long term...

I remember these........vaguely, and am an avid follower of Hubnut and his aim a car, which I have a great fondness of, so I shall be following this invacar with interest!
Looking forward to more!
The fibre glass work looks really good to me btw!
Rich

Excellent thread.
I'll be following your progress.

I had been hoping to actually get out in the Invacar today, but by the time I'd got enough of the day to day jobs out of the way it became obvious that wasn't happening - well, unless I wanted to be out doing test runs at rush hour in the middle of a busy city - which just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Hopefully tomorrow...

With the car mostly fundamentally working now my attention is starting to shift to the list of far more minor bits and pieces which have been patiently waiting for some attention while I dragged the car back into the land of the living.

A couple of these items had just been waiting for me to make a quick run out to grab an assorted box of circlips to replace two which had vanished in the past.

Number one went on this end of the gear selector rod to stop it from falling out of the bracket.



There's also been another attached just behind that bracket to prevent the whole lot from being able to wobble from side to side - important as the handle is really quite close to the seat frame and I don't want to have it touching the frame and causing yet another rattle or buzz in the cabin.



I'll take it out at some point and bend the handle away from the seat very slightly, but that's very much on the "it would be nice to do some day" list rather than anything which needs immediate attention.

The second missing circlip has been added to the seat belt buckle to stop the bar in the middle of it from being able to fall out.



This was never a problem when the belt was actually in use as the tension on everything held it in place - At least I don't need to remember which way to hold it when taking it off now though.

Only other task which has been done was to reattach the front cover. This had previously been held on with cable ties through the bolt holes, but is now properly attached.





Not really much to be said about that! It is nice to have it done though, as I think having eliminated the cable ties - much like the rear valance - helps make the car look more like a car that's actively being restored rather than a wreck beyond all hope.

I don't know why, but this needs a blue rotating light on top of it...

It'd help make you more visible in traffic, too!

Oh I've plenty of ideas in mind, but all little bits and pieces. Nothing groundbreaking, just things to allow the car to be as usable as it can be generally without detracting from the character. A lot will depend on how I actually end up using it I think.


Continuing with the general theme of ticking one little task at a time off, today I attacked the door runners and latches with grease.



Main hope there had been that it might help the offside door slide properly as it has a tendency to stick on the runners. Sadly it still does, though not quite as badly.

While I was there I securely reattached the door seals at the bottom of that door.



Though I always feel that I should use quotation marks around "seal" when referring to those around the doors of an Invacar given the degree of daylight that you can see around them. Reminds me of a Series Land Rover...



I reckon that if I find myself using the car I may well look to install a slightly wider seal as these are pretty useless.

The heater during the first couple of runs out (despite my efforts to clean it out) had thrown finely atomised rust all over the cabin, so it was time to hit it with the vacuum cleaner again.



Much better. I suspect this will be a regular task for a while.

Enough of this faffing around though...a car is meant to be driven, and I'd been trying to kick myself into taking a brave pill and actually taking TP out of our neighborhood and going somewhere...

It's funny...I really don't remember the parking spaces in Sainsbury's being so huge...



Then on the way home, our GP surgery.



Back home, another five miles covered.



Oh, and some groceries retrieved...wonder how many years it is since she last actually did useful work...



Glad to report that she didn't miss a beat. Only gripes were the rear service hatch coming loose (again - hence my plans to improve the securing arrangements), and that there really is far too much free travel in the brakes. Think for the sake of £50 odd I'm just going to pick up a new master cylinder. This one came with my original Invacar and was "NOS" - but looked to have spent quite a bit of time stored in poor conditions, and has never felt quite right, and as such I don't think I'm ever going to fully trust it. Not as though I'm driving around with no brakes mind, she's more than capable of locking all three wheels up, and the handbrake is also more than capable of stopping the car quite rapidly. I'm just not keen on the size of the dead zone before braking starts to happen.