[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by 1.2GT3GT

May I know the name and purpose of the green grid marked numbered surface on which the thermostats are shown to be resting after testing?

Not sure what the official term is. It’s a model building placemat. It provides a nice flat solid, yet soft structure.

The lines are for keeping things straight when you aligning pieces and so on. I know some people use them as cutting underground too.

Jeroen

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by 1.2GT3GT

May I know the name and purpose of the green grid marked numbered surface on which the thermostats are shown to be resting after testing?

I believe you are looking for the term "cutting mat".

[Jeroen]

Last Saturday saw a so-called “open day” at the Alfa Specialist Garage “van Neerijnen”. I have known the owner, Koos, for many years, if not decades. He has helped me out with my Spider in the past. Also, during the decade we lived abroad, Koos had my cars in storage.

Koos often facilitates club car meetings at these premises. E.g. the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register has been a regular as well, for its technical days. If you go through this thread, you will find several posts and images from Koos and his team over the years.

Koos also arranges for a spanner mate and Classic Car Valuator Extraordinary Peter to be there. So, folks can get their car valued, usually for insurance purposes.

If you ever find yourself going to a Dutch party, don’t be surprised when this is how you will be received. Coffee and cake! After all, when all is said and done, the Dutch are Calvinists at heart. It’s one thing to own a hobby Alfa Romeo, but that’s where we draw the line on all this frivilous behaviour!



Always plenty to see in Koos ' garage! Mostly Alfas. But there was one distinctly out-of-place car, the Fiat Multipla.It was being attended to have a few small dents fixed. And also it was on Peter’s list to be valued.







Nice pair of 916s!



Outside, Koos had a really interesting car: A 1952 Fiat Topolino. It weighs all but 610kg and has a whopping 600cc, 15HP engine!





The formulae for these events are very simple; Koos sends out an email to all his customers, puts a few notices on various social media. He calls Peter for the valuation parts. He provides the coffee and the cake, and folks just rock up in their cars, mostly Alfas. And mostly classic Alfas too, of course.





A rare Alfa Sud. Nice cars, very few left, even for an Alfa this thing was legaue on its own when it came to rust.



A nice looking Spider Duetto, 1300 junior, about Euro 55K.



Not my favourite one, but still pretty special, Zagato



Alfa’s galore!



Always a nice event. I got to talk to some new folks, met up with some ones I had not seen for a while. Did not get to talk to Peter much. He had some 18 cars to value, so that kept him and his son Marco who sometimes assists pretty busy.

Nice outing in my own Spider!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I mentioned it before, I had been noticing a tiny oil puddle under the Jaguar now and then. Time to investigate!



Jacked up the Jaguar on one side and put an axle stand underneath.



I spend about 15 minutes under the car. It’s nothing obvious, I have cleaned everything. But I have the distinct impression it could well be the front crank case seal that is on it’s way out.

It is very difficult to see, I used my mirror, scope and endless torches. For now I am just going to leave it. It is just a tiny leak.

I suspect replacing that seal is a huge job! I have done it on the Jeep.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post5345956 (My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One)

Lets see how it develops. The first long run with the Jaguar is in a few weeks time as I will be driving to Paris to attend the Airshow at the Le Bourget Airport.

fingers crossed!

Jeroen

[AKTransAM]

Jeroen, good thing you're not into the old American muscle car hobby! You'd go crazy with the oil leaks that are par for the course even with well maintained cars Old muscle cars always seem to leak when they sit. My 1988 Firebird is the first "old: car that I've owned that doesn't have an oil leak, and that's because it's "modern" enough being only 37 years old.

The open day at the Alfa garage looks like a great gathering-cool cars! Out of curiosity, how's the old muscle car scene there?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by AKTransAM

Out of curiosity, how's the old muscle car scene there?

I am not so sure about old muscle cars.

There is a sizeable classic American car market here too. They have their own events. On some classic events and shows you will see classic American cars as well.

One of the main problems with American cars in a country as the Netherlands is their size. They won't fit into standard size garage, or any parking place.

These American cars are, by and large, pretty easy to work on. Main issue, as with all old cars, is rust.

Jeroen

[AKTransAM]

I guess I never really thought about the size issue, but I can see how that's a very practical problem. Agreed, the old pushrod V8s are really easy to work on. I'll have to admit, as far as European cars go, I've always had a soft spot for the XJS. Love the lines on that car. I don't know that I'd ever want to work on the V12 in it though.

[Jeroen]

Recently, I noticed the horn on the Mini was not working properly. No, the horn is not an issue for me. I rarely, if ever, use my horn. But it is a mandatory requirement to have a working horn that produces a certain amount of Decibels. Without a horn or a properly functioning horn, your car will fail its MOT.

As always with these sorts of problems, check the fuse first. And what do you know, it had popped!! I replaced the fuse and tried again. Sure enough, a bit of horn, but pretty pathetic. On many modern cars, there are two horns, a low and high frequency one. It appeared my high one was working, but the low one was not.

Time to break out some tools. Horns are often tucked away behind bumpers and so on. The Mini was no different. I jacked up the right side, put an axle stand underneath and removed the right front wheel.



That gives me easy access to the wheel well. There is a sort of inspection cover inside the inner wheel well lining. Technically just for replacing bulbs, but I was hopeful it might be enough to remove the horn.



According to the Mini Workshop manual, you need to remove the inner wheel lining. Which will mean you will break a lot of the plastic fasteners. I have some in stock, but I thought I would give it a go first, through the little hole.

I was lucky, the low tone horn was sort of accessible. All you need to do is pull the connector off and undo one nut and you can wriggle it out!



I tried the horn by applying 12VDC to it. Nope, nothing happening.



Next, I wanted to make sure that with the new fuse, this low-tone horn circuit was getting Voltage. I was just by myself, so I had to improvise a bit.

I applied to test leads to the connector coming out of the wheel well. Connected my Multimeter too it, put my iPhone on video mode on a stool and made a little video of the multimeter while I pressed the horn on the steering wheel a couple of times.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUyBilS...YMGz8WwvHPHw_K

As you can see, and hear, the high tone still works and the multimeter sees 12VDC on the connector of the low tone when the high tone sounds. So, electrically speaking, we are good to go!

With the old horn out, I also had the exact brand and type number, so that makes for easy part finding.

I checked online and found the “toeterwinkel.nl” (horn shop.nl). They did not have the exact same one, but it was the same Brand and looked fine. I spoke to the guy and he told me it should fit. Well, at Euro 13 I thought it was a good deal.

I checked with BMW/Mini too. The exact same horn would cost 5 times as much and they did not have it in stock!

Put the wheel back on and drove around for a few more days with a horn missing.

It arrived yesterday so first thing this morning, I put the Mini back in my garage.



As per my usual procedure, comparing the old and the new one. The new one had the connections 180 degrees different. In the end that did not matter. The one thing that matters is that the open end of the horn points downwards. (so water can’t collect in it.)



This might be just a Euro 13 simple horn. But it came with a huge leaflet, explaining everything there is to know about horns. Which is a whole lot more than I knew! It also specified the exact requirements for car horns in the eU. How loud, at what distance and it made a big deal of how loud their horns are and that you should wear at least earplugs (provided FOC) when testing them, but preferably proper ear protectors!





It also came with some brackets and two different kind of connectors.



Because of my continuous quest for the answer to live, the universe and everything, I decided to open up the old horn to understand what was wrong with it.

These things are not meant to be opened. Well, tell that to my angle grinder!!







I could see no obvious signs, although the coil looked a bit blackened and had infinite resistance, so truly broken.



Anyway, just in case I need to blow the horn, or need to take the Mini to its next MOT, I’m all ready for it!!

Jeroen

I installed the new horn, put the wheel back on, torqued it to its specified 140 Nm.

[Jeroen]

This weekend I went to a nice event, Vintage Stationery Engines. I visited it before, see https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/inter...therlands.html (Stationaire Engine Show Nuenen, The Netherlands)

Unfortunately, this year the weather was atrocious, turning the field in one big muddy affair. Many exhibitors stayed home, and it rained the entire time I was there, so I have no images of the event. But I did pick up a few new “treasures”.

If you have followed this thread over the years, you will know I collect vintage measuring instruments.

I spotted this intriguing one for Euro 5. That is the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.









The guy I bought it from had no idea what it was. I thought it was some sort of resistor bank. I am a member of a vintage electronic test equipment Facebook group, and I posted some images. Within minutes, several people responded:

It looks like a wheatstone bridge for resistors.
You place the earphones on your head & insert connector into the "T" socket. Connect the resistor you want to measure to the "R" socket. Turn on, listen to variations of the tone in your ears and watch for variation on the needle-meter.
It works like this: you have to rotate that "Morse key" around the scale to get the needle-meter in zero position. Then use the two precision knobs on the "Morse key arm" (marked with letter H or the red dot) to fine-tune that rotation, so the tone in the earphones disappears completely. Read the scale, there's the resistor value.
The 3rd knob is used either to select the type of external power supply, or to select between the needle-meter and earphone

For some more details on Wheatstone bridges have a look here;

https://electronicscoach.com/ac-bridges.html

I am very pleased with it!

Here is something I am not so pleased with. Have a look at the front window of my Jeep:



It's amazing; over the last couple of weeks, our cars have been targeted in what I can only call “precision bird pooping”. There are no trees here. Somehow, these birds manage to hit the front window only. No poop on the roof or the bonnet. A few weeks ago, we had the same thing happen to the Fiesta. Only bird poo on the rear door. Not on the roof, not on the rear window of the rear door, only on the metal part of the rear (5th) door! How do they do that?

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

A rainy windy day today. So I decided to play with my cars and stay in my garage all day.

Well, I did have to go out for the first little job. A few weeks ago I got a new battery for the W123 from my trusted battery/alternator/starter expert Ton.

I had not put the battery on the trickle charger yet. The W123 has virtually no quiescent draw on the battery. The only thing that remains powered is the clock.

So I checked with my battery tester a couple of times. I noticed that it showed a state of health (SOH) of 88% last week. Just for good measure, I drove it for a couple of hours to see if that made any difference. But the SOH kept going down.

So, first thing this morning I checked again. SOH had dropped to 82%! So I popped over to Ton and checked with him. He has a far more accurate battery tester than I do. Nevertheless, he came to the same conclusion. Something is wrong with this battery, so he gave me a different one.

On this one, the SOG is 100%. Let's see how long that lasts!



It's remarkable how many brand-new parts have failed almost immediately in the last few years!

Next, I wanted to have a go at the odometer. As I mentioned before, it gets stuck now and then. It is the day counter that gets stuck on the last digit, 9. But on these old mechanical odometers the overall and day counters are driven by the same mechanism. If one gets stuck, they both get stuck.

My W123 only needs a few more thousand kilometres to hit 200 K. A W123 is not considered “run-in” unless you have at least 200K on the clock!

Its a bit off, on newer cars we like to see as little mileage as possible. More mileage brings the price downs. But once a car becomes a classic, it wears it miles as a sort of badge of honour. The more the better!!

To get at the odometer the complete instrument pod has to come out. I had done this several decades ago to install a pulse unit for the cruise control.

Its fairly straightforward on a W123.



You just drop the knee board below the dash, three screws. That gives you just enough room to get your hands behind the instrument pod.







You just push it out gently. There are several wires and connectors that need to be undone before you can remove it completely. There is one wire for the clock, one mechanical cable for the speedo/odo, one multiwire connector and two wires on the back of that pulse device. I could not get the bolt of the pulse device undone. Two decades ago, with great difficulty, I soldered those two wires to the pulse unit. In the end I decided to just cut these two wires.



Here we have the back of the instrument pod. Notice the black little box on the rear of the speedo? That is the pulse device. I added it when I installed the cruise control. The cruise control was an aftermarket. It got its speed signal from a reed relais mounted near the drive shaft that had a magnet attached. I found that was not a very stable set up. As luck would have it, I happened to have been given an official MB pulser to be fitted on the back of the speedo.

Next to the pulser device you also see the speedo cable attachement. This is where the mechanical speedo cable comes into the speedometer. It drives both the speedo as well as odometer/daycounter.



The lighting of the total pod can be controlled by a dimmer at the front. However, even with the dimmer fully opened up, the light is still pathetic. Also, all these dimmers wear out, which leaves you with no dashboard light at all! So here you see the typical W123 modification. We leave the original dimmer in, just short circuit it so it doesn't do any dimming, and is just always on!



Some six little bolts undone and a bit more fiddling and the speedo comes out.



I had to figure out a way to drive the speedo. The speedo cable has a square end that fits into that connector on the back of the speedo. I did some measurements and it was about 2,6 mm square.

So I decided to manufacture a little makeshift speedo drive thingy from a piece of brass round bar. Minimill to the rescue, of course.



In the end, it took some grinding and filing, but here we are. One speedo drive thingy!



Works perfectly!!



I did not want to take the complete odometer mechanism apart. I just tried to find the point at which it locks up, so the most right hand digit of the odometer on 9.



I carefully blew compressed air all across it. Moved the digits some more and blew some more compressed air. I added one or two tiny, tiny drops of very thin oil. The stuff I used for my model trains. You want to be very careful with oil as it will attract dust and dirt and might make things worse instead of better!!

With the whole instrument pod out and the speedo out, I could also fix one little detail that has been annoying me for the last twenty years or so. Last time I had it open, a small bug got inside. It died, and it was stuck right at the bottom, in the middle of the display!!



At long last I managed to get rid of the little bugger, pardon the pun!!



I am keeping the little speed drive thingy in my special MB parts and tools box for future reference. I hope I dont need it for another twenty years!



I put everything back together again. Total time was about 4 hours. Other than applying and checking the electrical circuits all seem to work I haven’t taken the W123 on a test run yet. Weather is too awful.

So I did some more little odd jobs. One thing that needed doing on the Spider was to oil the master clutch cylinder assembly.

You will have seen me do this about ten years ago or so. Here is an old one.





The actual cilinder is pushed by the rod and it is a metal to metal connection, inside this rubber sleeve. So you need to undo the fork at the end which is connected to the lever of the clutch pedal. Undo two bolts that hold the master clutch in place and that gives you enough wriggle room to pull the sleeve back and squirt in some oil and grease.

In the end it was reconnecting the fork that took the most time. To be more precise, finding and fitting the correct cotter pin that locks the pin inside the fork.

I have a box full of cotter pins



More cotter pins that I could ever hope to install in an entire lifetime, let alone in the lifetime that is left for me. Still, none fit properly.

Luckily, I had even more spare cotter pins. Found one that fitted perfectly!!



I decided I would also clear out my Alfa Spider parts. I have two shelves full of parts. But as I have converted the Spider to carburettors, a number of these parts have become obsolete. I also needed to create some shelf space for my Mini One parts.

I enjoy going through all these bits and pieces now and then. It’s a bit of trip down memory lane, and it gives a bit of a refresh to your memory as to what you have in stock!



I checked a few things on the Jaguar. This Sunday, I am driving to the Paris airshow. I will be doing about 1000-1100km in two days. Checked the engine oil, brake fluid, and coolant. Checked tyre pressure, including the pressure on the spare tyre!

I also checked spare fuses in the Jaguar and my other cars. You really need to make sure you carry the correct type and rating of spares for each of your cars.

Did a bit more cleaning and tidying up of my garage and tools. Very happy boy, just fiddling with stuff and doing some little odd jobs.

Jeroen

[that_sedate_guy]

I thought I was the only one who liked tinkering with my bike or car even if it was mechanically normal and was driving just fine.
Your garage, the pics of working on the cars etc are less "Typical mechanic" visuals and have a more calming and shoul I say, delicate effect. It's like that scene from the movie called "Toy story 2" where a restorer shows up to make Woody spic and span. He works with a lot of small tools and has a very experienced and calm aura about him, the same exuded from your posts. They even reminded me of some interesting cars I saw during my work trip to Papendrecht.
Love seeing these auxiliary systems getting attention, even that tiny bug, haha.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by that_sedate_guy

They even reminded me of some interesting cars I saw during my work trip to Papendrecht.
Love seeing these auxiliary systems getting attention, even that tiny bug, haha.

Thanks for your kind words, much appreciated.

If you don't mind me asking, what brings an aerospace engineer to Papendrecht?

Jeroen

[Jaggu]

I just finished writing another part of the Mercedes-Benz trip, and this is the perfect thread to catch up on. The amount of detailing that is there on these pages is amazing! Always a joy to drop in and read. Thank you, Jeroen.

[that_sedate_guy]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks for your kind words, much appreciated.

If you don't mind me asking, what brings an aerospace engineer to Papendrecht?

Jeroen

Pleasure's mine!

I was there working in Fokker B.V. I was an employee of GKN Aerospace. I've moved from there since then into a Semiconductor MNC though.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by that_sedate_guy

Pleasure's mine!

I was there working in Fokker B.V. I was an employee of GKN Aerospace. I've moved from there since then into a Semiconductor MNC though.

I seem to recall GKN Aerospace acquired Fokker? Or what was left of Fokkker by that time.

Fokker was an interesting company and had some great innovations at the time. They more or less pioneered glueing as a production technique. I must have visited most of the Fokker premises on those days, but not the Papendrecht fascility. Was it just an office in those days or did they produce anything?

Jeroen