1973 AC Model 70 Invacar, Visitors & Occasional Distractions

Is anyone else having trouble with the photos? or is it just me?

always visible to me.

i cant see images either, but having chronic issues with nearly 50% of the websites i visit coming up with security warning (about expired ssl certificate) which is what happens if i right mouse and open the image in a new tab

only started happening about a week ago

No pics - on my Tab S7+

Pics on the Merc thread are ok though! - scratch that - no pics there either.

as this is an occasional distraction i'm deeming it ok

anyway by a trail of breadcrumbs i found out yesterday its our hardware firewall blocking your photos. not your photos per se, but its rejecting the SSL certificate of your image host.

its a very specific issue but actually a global one for any website that uses an SSL certificate issued by lets incrypt, which BBimage do...

www.fortinet.com/blog/psirt-blogs/fortinet-and-expiring-lets-encrypt-certificates

While waiting on parts from Mercedes for the S123 I figured it was a good opportunity to get a service item on TPA I'd been putting off done. Gearbox and diff oil change.

What came out was quite grim, not glittery though, just very degraded. Was really thin and seemed to have lost a lot of its lubricity. The oil that went in last year was from a very old container, and even though it was still sealed I think it may have broken down over time on the shelf. The new oil that went in today was actually new and hopefully will fare better.



While I was in there I took a look at the condition of both CVT pulleys and the belt - these items live quite a hard life so it's worth checking for any signs of distress whenever you're in the area, especially as we've been experimenting with a current belt type rather than the exact one originally specified.

Everything looks fine though, looks like the Dayco HP2020 belt is able to stand up to the job.

It's been on there since last August and has about 1500 miles on so far.







Main reason I had been putting it off was that getting to the level plug for the diff is an absolute pain in the tail. It's not quite so bad now I've done it a few times as I know where it is (you can see it or touch it, but not both at the same time), but is still bloody awkward. I'm sure the intended way of changing the oil was to have the car on a lift in which case it would be dead easy. Having the original seat would make it easier too actually as the backrest can be easily removed from that, not possible on mine so you're working around it.

I've found that cracking the level plug off from in the engine bay but then unscrewing and removing/refitting it from in the cabin and then doing the final tightening from the engine side seems to be the easiest solution.

The "light scattered showers" the weather forecast predicted this afternoon proved to be anything but. "Persistent and mostly heavy" was a better description. So we got a few more typical photos of her out and about rather than just when it's nice and sunny for a change.





My weatherproofing improvements have definitely helped, though I do still have a little water getting in around the offside of the windscreen occasionally.

Somewhat to my surprise, the demister actually does just fine when you're on the open road so long as you keep a window cracked slightly - problem is that as soon as you drop below about 50 it basically ceases to have any effect whatsoever - and the cabin being so small means that it fogs up very quickly. Obviously there's no way to direct air to the side windows either so you really do need a demisting cloth to live in the car.

Windscreen wiper does a better job of clearing the screen than you'd think with how tiny it is, though an intermittent wipe function would be nice...you really want two hands on the handlebars whenever possible so having to keep turning the wiper on/off gets a bit tiresome after a while.

Not that I generally plan to use the car regularly in monsoon conditions, but if I get caught on a longer run in poor weather it's nice to know that it's not a huge problem.

Or fit a 3 position wiper switch and fit a VW style delay programmable relay?

www.carbuilder.com/uk/programmable-intermittent-wiper-relay

Phil

Made a point of unearthing TPA in the garage today and clearing up enough of the mess that I can actually walk through the garage again. She got somewhat buried when I was clearing out the van prior to a weekend away a couple of weeks ago.

Last time I didn't drive her for a couple of weeks she played up a bit, refusing to idle properly and generally behaving as though there was crud in the carb idle circuit. This sorted itself after about an hour of driving. Sure enough when started up today she behaved exactly the same. Engine would rev just fine, but fall on its face as soon as the revs dropped to idle.

This was the point at which I spotted a very likely cause of issues - that the carb was visibly wobbling independently of the engine. Both mounting nuts were barely finger tight.

With them nipped up (which is fluffing fiddly because of poor access), she started and idled absolutely perfectly. So I'd obviously had a huge vacuum leak from the carb base. I'll stick a couple of shakeproof washers under the retaining nuts next time I get a chance.

Goodness only knows how long that's been causing a leak to some degree... curious to see if there's any noticeable change to how the car runs in general now. Hopefully get her out for a drive in the next couple of days so we can find out.

Aside from anything else, it's been a few weeks and I've missed driving the little rattle box.

This was posted on a Faceache group I sometimes frequent. I think it's you...