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Apr 30, 2019 22:52:02 GMT
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Given I've been scrambling to get the van ready for a trip later this week the Invacar has taken a bit of a back seat. Hasn't moved since the last trip out when I had issues with the drive system slipping. The basic issue seemed to boil down to the poor shape the surface of the pulleys were in. Dealing with this issue was being hampered by the fact that I hadn't been able to get the pulley retaining bolts out. This was despite having applied enough torque to tip the car onto two wheels. Today I had a bit of free time, and with the van away at the garage figured I may as well see if after soaking for a week or so, if the secondary pulley bolt was any more interested in moving. After a brief fight...  Finally! Doesn't take a genius to see why the system has been struggling and making a royal mess of the belt.  I'd seen that the fan on the back of the pulley was pretty well shredded, wasn't really obvious how bad till it was off!  This may well have something to do with the not insignificant vibration I've been suffering at speed given it will have been making a royal mess of the pulley balance. It's just a thin bit of pressed steel... corrosion and centrifugal force over the years have done a number on it. If I find there are issues with pulley temperature I'll have a look at improving that side of things...we can probably do better than a bit of time with modern electric fans I reckon. For now though I've just pulled the shattered remains of it off, which will *hopefully* significantly reduce the vibration issues I've had. Time will tell.  Astonishingly the moving elements aren't seized, despite looking like they've been dredged off the Titanic.  The one thing I hadn't realised until today through was how mental the preload on that pulley is - I'd originally half planned to take it apart to clean and lubricate the innards - however now I've decided to leave it well alone for now. I have visions of it taking my head clean off if I were to mess with it. The primary pulley is aluminium so was in generally better shape. It was a pretty quick job to clean that up by running the engine in gear and using a sharp chisel as an improvised lathe.  I had planned to do something similar with the secondary pulley using my workbench and the drill...until I realised that the drill is in the back of the van. In a yard at the far side of town. D'oh! So plan B was a bit more of a hack, just attack it with the carbide mop on the grinder. Couldn't quite get right into the grove but should have got most of the running surface I think.   Gave the top a bit of a scrub too.  Just got things back in place (with a new belt - the old one had lost about 1/3" worth of width) before running out of time.  I'll get it bolted back in, adjust the belt and give it a test run tomorrow... I'm honestly really curious as to whether it will make any difference! |
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Last Edit: Apr 30, 2019 23:32:46 GMT by Zelandeth: Missed an image link
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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yikes! I had a Honda Camino moped with the same kind of drive. Come to think of it, I had an Aixam, that probably had something similar.
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75 Range Rover 2 door 82 Range Rover 4 door
84 Range Rover 4 door 78 Datsun 120Y 2 door
78 Datsun 620 Pickup 81 Datsun Urvan E23 86 Datsun Vanette van
98 Electric Citroen Berlingo 00 Electric Peugeot Partner 02 Electric Citroen Berlingo
04 Berlingo Multispace petrol 07 Land Rover 130 15 Nissan E-NV200 15 Fiat Ducato
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I'm curious if that will work to quieten it down any.
Phil
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Rich
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,336 
Club RR Member Number: 160
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yikes! I had a Honda Camino moped with the same kind of drive. Come to think of it, I had an Aixam, that probably had something similar. Basically exactly the same. Open belt dry CVT. me and my dad have used an Axiam drivetrain in an off-road style road legal buggy. |
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whats the fins on the back actually blowing on? just a bit of turbulence towards the engine/diff ?
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whats the fins on the back actually blowing on? just a bit of turbulence towards the engine/diff ? As far as I can tell it's just to keep a bit of air moving to cool the surface of the pulley itself. The primary pulley has fins cast into it for exactly the same reason I'm guessing. I can't see it being enough to actually have any appreciable effect really. |
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Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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they will also effectively increase the surface area of the pulley which in turn gives a larger area to radiate the heat away.
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being famously non pc i did chuckle when i found this....  |
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'80 s1 924 turbo..hibernating
'80 golf gli cabriolet...doing impression of a skip
'97 pug 106 commuter...continuing cheapness making me smile!
firm believer in the k.i.s.s and f.i.s.h principles.
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they will also effectively increase the surface area of the pulley which in turn gives a larger area to radiate the heat away. Mainly convection. </pedant> |
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Today while I was pacing around waiting for the van to turn up I was able to get the Invacar put back together. Plus I was then able to get out for a test run to get a couple of errands run.  The main issues which had been making TP quite unpleasant to drive were threefold: 1. Severe judder when taking up drive. 2. "Slipping" of the drive at speeds over 45mph or so. 3. Low frequency drone and vibration at speed (not unlike a duff wheel bearing but a couple of octaves lower frequency). Apologies for the jiggly camera, I didn't have a proper camera mount to hand so the phone/satnav holder had to do... it's not really rigid enough though. Given I'd only done a relatively quick clean and thrown on a new old stock belt I wasn't expecting miracles. Okay...I underestimated things! The judder when taking up drive is almost gone. Still there to some extent, especially if you give it beans from a standstill. Not worrying about that though as it's apparently just something that the drive system does and isn't a fault. Just a limitation of the design. Slipping has totally disappeared as far as I can tell. Have had her up to 60mph twice today and even cruised there for a couple of minutes. Behaved impeccably. I can conclusively say that this was the cause of the "rumble" at speed. It's now gone...even up at the legal limit...whereas she tended to start shaking herself to pieces as soon as you saw the speedo needle move over 40mph or so. I'm a happy camper. If this is an indication of what I can expect once everything is sorted, she's definitely going to be getting used a lot more as time goes on. Aside from just being fun and different, the drive out today was actually *nice* which was a big step forward. Sad I'm away for the weekend so won't be able to drive her again until Monday now. |
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Last Edit: May 1, 2019 23:57:14 GMT by Zelandeth
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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its actually quite a pleasant engine note isnt it. it has a kind of gen 1 imprezza burble coming off idle.
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Well Done Sir.
You should take it to the weekender and take it up the hill?
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Couldn't resist getting the Invacar out for another run today. Previous to this the furthest I got in one day was 9 miles (having aimed for ten but miscounted).  That's 17 miles today in one afternoon. Doesn't sound like much, but it's progress and is a step towards actually going somewhere beyond this corner of Milton Keynes. Most importantly today that was seventeen miles WITHOUT anything misbehaving or falling off. That is why it's progress.  Because it seems to have become a thing now what I take photos everywhere she goes, did the same today. B&Q was the first stop (looking for some sticky back plastic to tidy up some of the cabinet facing in the van).  This was the first time that I had a proper crowd of people turn up while I was in the store who wanted to know what it was and the story behind it was. One of the folks there did remember them who was very surprised at the complexity of the car beneath the very 50s looking bodywork.   As they didn't have what I needed, wound up at Homebase (who did have it once I'd walked round the whole store five times looking for it). Bonus Lotus in the car park.   Next stop was Morrison's - though the photo from there for reasons best known to the gods of tech has vanished into the void. So you will just have to trust me. The difference in the drive system is night and day compared to before I started cleaning the pulleys up, she is now quite happy to cruise at 50mph. 60 is definitely on the cards but she's obviously more comfortable at 50. I do have a video of this (with a better camera than the last one), however so far it's being stubborn - once I kick YouTube into behaving I'll get it added here.  It is noticeable that the judder when pulling off has become more noticeable today, though it wouldn't surprise me if the belt tension needed a tweak now she's done a few miles. I may well get the secondary pulley back off tomorrow and finish cleaning it - I'm hoping the drill will be able to spin it fast enough to get the pulley sheaves to open up as that will make it a lot easier. We'll see I guess...  One thing which is really obvious now looking far better is the state of the PCV system. There was a lot of mayo in the oil filler originally, but after the run out today that's looking *far* better.   That's more like it. |
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Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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i know most of the countries retail seems to be run by teenagers, but its surprising that people don't know what it is. but they went out of circulation in the mid 70s right ? so i guess the one i used to see on my paper round in the late 80s was probably a freak survivor ?
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When you've got the car cosmetically good you should put it up for film work. I reckon when I was a kid I wouldn't have to walk 10 streets before I passed one of these but how often do you ever see them in period films / dramas? Never?
If a film company had this car for a few weeks you'd probably get paid the value of the car!
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Last Edit: May 7, 2019 22:51:18 GMT by MkX
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Finally managed to kick the video into uploading.
The final Invacars were actually withdrawn at the end of April 2003. They were a rare sight by the end of the program though, so it would have been a rare spot.
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Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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Finally managed to kick the video into uploading. The final Invacars were actually withdrawn at the end of April 2003. They were a rare sight by the end of the program though, so it would have been a rare spot.Had to go flat out to keep up with modern traffic but certainly not the slouch I imagined them to be. Would have been nippy in their day! |
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Finally managed to kick the video into uploading. The final Invacars were actually withdrawn at the end of April 2003. They were a rare sight by the end of the program though, so it would have been a rare spot.Had to go flat out to keep up with modern traffic but certainly not the slouch I imagined them to be. Would have been nippy in their day! Not actually flat out there to be honest. She takes a bit of time to wind up to it but sixty is entirely achievable, probably more once I'm more confident in the drive system not self-destructing (you are quite aware of it only being a couple of inches from your backside!). Fifty which I stopped at in the video seems to be the "happy" cruising speed though. The CVT goes into a fixed ratio "overdrive" at approximately 45mph so that makes a lot of sense I guess. The only area where she feels a bit sluggish just now is initially moving off from a standing start, I think due to excessive belt slip (some is expected and in fact is necessary to allow things to work), so hopefully that will improve as time goes on. |
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Last Edit: May 8, 2019 15:47:36 GMT by Zelandeth
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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it does seem to nip on quite well. how quickly does the required skill set to drive it kick in? looks an odd set up as i didn't realise you brake by dropping the yoke.
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'80 s1 924 turbo..hibernating
'80 golf gli cabriolet...doing impression of a skip
'97 pug 106 commuter...continuing cheapness making me smile!
firm believer in the k.i.s.s and f.i.s.h principles.
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The first couple of miles result in a bit of sensory overload. Trying to remember to do stuff like cancel the indicators is a bit of a struggle, but to be honest it's not bad. The sensation is different enough to driving a normal car that I didn't have much trouble with trying to do the wrong thing. Kind of like the first time I drove a Ford Model-T, going in with no preconceptions was a help! The unique setup is because the intention was to have a car that could be driven requiring only one functional limb. No foot controls at all, and the handlebars could be replaced with either a left or right handed tiller. Or a steering wheel and/or a combination of normal foot controls. 56 variations in total, though this is the "standard" configuration they left the main assembly line in.
The thing which takes the most effort to acclimatise to is how direct the steering is. The first couple of times you try driving at more than 30 or so in a straight line it's very easy to end up weaving as you overcorrect for normal directional drift.
Once you're used to that though it's easy to drive...as it was designed really. Just like a twist and go moped...but (slightly!) more weatherproof and not requiring you to balance.
Ride is a lot better than I'd expect for something this small and light (though unavoidably a bit bouncy), and it handles far better than it looks like it should with the centre of gravity being so low down and the suspension surprisingly sophisticated for what's essentially a 60s design. Brakes are really good too (despite the travel in mine), and despite the lack of servo assistance or anything as extravagant as discs can stop the thing astonishingly rapidly.
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Last Edit: May 8, 2019 19:46:40 GMT by Zelandeth
Current fleet: 73 AC Model-70. 75 Rover 3500. 84 Trabant 601S. 85 Sinclair C5. 06 Peugeot Partner 1.6HDi.
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