Before I could conduct a test drive of the Invacar (which involved a run out to get essential supplies) I had a couple of minor jobs to finish. Reattaching the front mud guard and draining off a bit of brake fluid as the pressure bleeder as usual left the reservoir too full.
Job done.
Mud guard is still a bit scruffy but given the location I think it's absolutely fine.
Also found an ideal stowage location for my cover prop (which is actually one of the old floor mat retaining strips).
So on to the test drive. Well, after ten minutes of car Tetris anyway. Slightly concerned by whatever on earth this is under the Jag that it left behind when moved.
Nothing has visibly dropped, though given the capacity of most of the fluids on this thing that doesn't mean much!
Answers on a post card? Wondering if there's just enough oil leakage that it's emulsified with the recent rain?
I have proven that there's ample room to park the inbound BX behind the Xantia.
If the Jag and Xantia can fit there, Xantia and a BX should have room to spare.
In the Invacar we got almost exactly 20 miles covered today.
Which I think gives the game away that the test was successful as otherwise I'd have turned around pretty much immediately and headed back to base.
Instead we got all the errands run without incident. Yes I diverted by 1/4 a mile to take a couple of photos to prove she's actually moved.
Observations:
Really wish I'd done this sooner. The difference in braking performance really is night and day. Previously you had a degree of free travel followed by an inch or so of very firm travel where all braking effort took place.
Now there's more travel - but delivering progressive braking throughout. It used to be just about possible to lock a wheel if you absolutely threw your weight on the bars, but it took a lot of effort. Now I'd say the effort required to deliver that amount of braking force is on par with any other car that doesn't have ABS. The overall feel of the brakes is *massively* more confidence inspiring.
Regarding locking up the wheels that was something I was most concerned about, so one of the first things I did was find a deserted bit of industrial estate and do a bunch of 30mph emergency stop tests. She isn't any more prone to locking up than anything else without ABS, and there doesn't seem to be any tendency for the front to lock up overly easily. I think the forward weight shift under heavy braking helps there. I wasn't able to detect any tendency for control to be compromised at all.
Limited to 50mph at the moment while the new belt is run in, but braking down from that sort of speed for a roundabout/junction is no more effort than in the Jag or van. The brakes honestly feel pretty decent now.
Handbrake is fully applied seven clicks out it seems, and is quite capable of stopping the car, no slower than in any other car really.
Obviously she's not been worked particularly hard given I've got to obey a 50mph speed limit for the first 50 miles of the life of the new belt, but I was pleased at the cylinder head temperatures we were seeing. Bumbling around at low speeds it sits pretty solidly at about 125C.
Highest I saw on a long uphill stretch was 165C. Perfectly reasonable numbers, and it seems to be pretty stable.
Interesting to see that - I'm assuming because it's bristling with cooling fins - that this engine doesn't seem to suffer the sort of heat soak issues I'm used to seeing with water cooled engines. The Xantia is particularly bad for that, the temperature on that if you come back to start it up after a brief stop can be quite alarming. This just seems to immediately start dropping in temperature from the moment the engine stops. Which being a thermocouple gauge you can actually see as it's self-powered, so doesn't shut off with the ignition.
Speaking of confidence inspiring...I honestly had no idea how much the seat was moving around before! That actually staying put really does make the handling feel far less wayward, as I'm not subjected to an inch or two of what feels like oversteer every time I change direction. It was also apparently a source of several rattles.
I can't say I noticed a huge difference in the steering, though it *might* be slightly more stable in a straight line. Hard to say how much of that is just placebo effect though.
Brake fluid level reassuringly hasn't moved at all during the journey.
Glad that fluid is staying where it belongs!
On the subject of fluids, it looks like I might have also been successful in sorting the gearbox oil leak. Bit hard to tell because of historic deposits, but this area would normally be visibly wet after a run, rather than just "a bit oily." The upper part in particular you could usually see where it was running down from the top cover plate join.
I will obviously monitor that to make sure the oil continues to stay where it belongs.
While I'm still treating it gently at the moment I can't say I can tell any difference so far between the HP2020 belt and the NOS actual Invacar one which came off. Will keep you up to date on that.
Here's a brief snippet from the first few minutes of the run out. This was done by attaching the phone to the rear view mirror with rubber bands...better than the actual proper phone mount, but still horribly shaky. Plus it meant the mirror wouldn't stay put. That was the main reason I called time on video and pulled over to stop it, I wanted my mirror to behave given I was going to be doing a lot of stops/starts for a few minutes.
It's early days but the initial impressions are that these improvements have been precisely that. The braking performance improvement in particular and having a seat that stays put both make a *huge* difference in the overall driving experience.
Can't say I notice any real difference in the noise levels having pulled the flashband off the service hatch. Definitely not worth the few kilograms of extra weight for all the difference it was making.
Today also gave me the opportunity to do something I'd meant to for ages... actually get a photo of all of the cars together in one shot.
They're all filthy...but better than nothing!
Of course in two days this group will be out of date and I'll need to get an updated one!
Given there's been quite a bit of work done there it feels quite good to actually have tangible improvements coming out of it.
