Team-BHP > Technical Stuff > DIY - Do it yourself


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Old 1st November 2019, 01:38   #391
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

So I decided to take my wonky leave blower back to the shop right away.

The shop I bough it is called Hornbach. It is a German owned chain. The also own similar DIY shops such as B&Q in the UK.

All in Dutch:

https://www.hornbach.nl

I took the leave blower back and they gave me a new one straight away. Put it back in my car and went back into to shop to look around a bit more

I thought I would share some images. I absolutely love these sort of shops. I can spend hours here and I have. We have various DIY chains, but Hornback is the best. The best in price (price quarantee), absolutely staggering amount of stuff they sell, lots of it by piece (e.g. bolts, nuts,) very professional and pleasant stuff. People that actually know what they are selling.

We have 3-4 DIY centre very near to us. And I do pop into them fairly regularly. This one is about 20-25 minutes drive from us. But definitely worth it!

This place is massive. We are talking American size here. Row after row after row. Anything from gardening to any kind of DIY, electrical, wood, tools, plumbing, paint, you name it, you will find it here

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1783.jpg

Plumbing, every type of fitting you can imagine and then some more

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1785.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1786.jpg

You need some castor wheels? these guys have every model, size you can think of.

Attachment 1929194

This is pretty unique for DIY, this was the service territory of the traditional hardware shop run by the owner. Buy one nail, one nut, one hook.

Here you can buy just about all this stuff per piece. The machine lets you print your own labels for the cashier. So you pick what you want, put it in a plastic bag, print the appropriate label. (you have to do this yourself)

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1790.jpg

Attachment 1929196

Same for bolts, nuts etc.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1792.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1793.jpg

Row after row with DIY stuff

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1796.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1795.jpg

Lots of tools, good quality too!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1797.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1798.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1799.jpg

You need a drill bit? Any drill bit?

Click image for larger version

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Electrical work

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1800.jpg

All sorts of paints, for any kind of job. Of course, these days a lot of paint gets made and mixed in the shop to your exact requirements!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1801.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1802.jpg

DIY, gardening etc is hugely popular in many western countries. It is not just it is cheaper, but many people genuinely enjoy doing DIY work on their homes. It is across every section of society, You will find the CEO of an international company in this shop just as likely as somebody who is on the dole.

So took the new leave blower and sucker home. Comes very tightly packed

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1806.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1803.jpg

Takes three minutes to unpack and put together:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1808.jpg

It works really well. A very noticeable different with the old one!

And of course, I could never visit a shop like this without buying some other stuff too.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1804.jpg

When you get to my age, you need to get yourself some signs like this. Not everybody is aware, so can point to it, at appropriate moments in the conversation.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1805.jpg

Came across various little (fridge) magnets with Mercedes logo etc. Bought them all, obviously Goes well with my W123 world record plague!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1809.jpg

I got a call from Cor, my friendly Mercedes specialist I saw earlier this week. The new engine support part had arrived. I will be going around to him next week Tuesday and he will fit it. So much easier on the lift.
At his advice, I had also rummaged around my old W123 parts. Sure enough I had not thrown away the old spark plug cables. One was broken, but Cor has offered to repair that one and advised me to put the whole set back in. As any none MB cable sets, apparently, tend to give less performance.

So we will see if that makes any difference next week.

Jeroen
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Old 5th November 2019, 17:31   #392
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

This morning I took the W123 to my friendly W123 specialist Cor.

Put it on the ramp straight away:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1880.jpg

A bit difficult to see. The rubber of this engine mount had perished and Cor ordered a new one. Under normal circumstances, the mount does not do anything. It is only when you go to fast over speed bumps, or worse, if the sump hits a speed bump it comes into its own.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1884.jpg

Very simple to fit. But I had to come this way to pick up the part and he had offered to fit it too.

Also, I had taken my old broken spark plug cable as well. Cor has the correct crimping tool for it.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1889.jpg

According to him, this is also not an original MB cable kit. But at least it is an original Bosch kit. So I will swap it with the current one, see if it brings any improvements.

In all it took less than 15 minutes. Took a few more photographs of this specialist garage.

Various engines opened up, in various states of overhaul. This is the engine of a MB G wagon. Last time I visited they were working on it. Numerous bolts of the exhaust manifold had broken off. They were trying to fix all of that with the engine still in the car, but that did not work at all. Not enough room, so the engine had to come out. You can see the distribution chain tensioner well on this one:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1877.jpg

At some point in time this will be re-fitted

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1878.jpg

Test rig for injectors

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1882.jpg

This brings back some memories. When I grew up, mopeds were quite popular. I was never that much into them. But most of my friends owned one at some point in time. In order for it to be classified as a moped it was supposed to have an engine of less than 50cc and it should not go any faster than 40 km/h. Mopeds in those days did not have a registration such as cars. But you did need to have a so called insurance plate at the rear. It showed the insurance details. Which effectively looked like a small registration plate. Also, mopeds were supposed to have a yellow reflector mounted over the front wheel fender. It seems to be missing here,

This is an old Kreidler, Florett. This was not a cool moped in our days. Your dad might have one like this. This was the two wheel Opel Kadet of its days. Still, nice to see one again.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1886.jpg

Cor has a number of old cars, mostly various MBs out in the front of his shop. Some do need a bit of TLC, some quite a lot! Not sure if this one is worth saving at all.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1887.jpg

So the next job on the W123 is to replace the spark plug cables once again. I also want to replace the rubber fuel hoses underneath the fuel tank. No matter what, all of these hoses, at some point in time, will start to leak. I know a replaced most, if not all, when I got the car. But that was almost 20 years ago. Also, with Ethanol fuel the problem with perishing fuel lines (and other fuel components) has become worse. E10 is now mandatory for most petrol station and that is catastrophic for old cars like these. Luckily, Shell and BP still sell V-Power and 98, which although rated as E5, does not have any ethanol in it.

In order to disconnect and replace the fuel hoses, I need to drain the fuel tank first. On the way back the reserve fuel light came on. Which means I still have some 5-6 liters left. I will drive another 20-25 kilometers and then have a go at it.

This Sunday a technical event with the Jaguar forum club! Looking forward to it

Jeroen
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My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1883.jpg  


Last edited by Jeroen : 5th November 2019 at 17:45.
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Old 6th November 2019, 01:05   #393
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

So the W123 needs its petrol tank emptying out. So I decided to take it for a little spin after work. The fuel meter was already close to reserve.

Took my wife who always enjoys a little touring in our neighbourhood. She was less enthusiastic when I told her we are going to drive till the reserve light comes on, and then drive another 25 km so I have approxiametly 3 liters left. This is the woman who thinks your car will stop 2 minutes after the fuel reserve comes on. She gets nervous when her fuel meter shows half empty. Here in the Netherlands you are never more than 15-20 kilometers from a petrol station.

Anyway, we did have a nice drive along the river, dikes and little villages. Nature has autumn colours, so it is nice to wander around a bit.

The 3 liters is easy to drain. Also, it is enough to get me back to a petrol station. I need to plan my petrol stops a little more careful. As I mentioned earlier I will only fill up with Shell VPower or BP 98, as it has no ethanol. I have not mentioned it to my wife, because it will make her nervous whenever we go anywhere in our old cars.

Anyway, after the drive, let everything cool down a bit. These bits of fuel line I need to replace are near the exhaust, so I am not taking any chances.

Draining is one thing, but how do you get the fuel back in again? I have formal fuel container with a spout or so. I have two empty plastic containers that I flushed with water and dried out with paper towels and left overnight near the central hearing radiotor.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050010.jpg

Luckily I had bought a funnel that will do nicely some time ago.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050001.jpg

I bought some proper modern fuel hoses earlier, 6mm and 8mm.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050002.jpg

First order of business. Jacking the car up. As the rear will have to go up, you have to fix the front wheels. This is a rear wheel driven car, so you have to wedge the wheels. Obviously I have several sets of these wheel wedges!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050003.jpg

You are allowed to Jack up the complete rear of the W123 by means of a jack under the differential. I never feel entirely comfortable doing that, but it is in the Mercedes Work shop manual. Of course, I put axle stands under the car to take the load of the Jack, before I crawl underneath

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050008.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050006.jpg

Here you see the two fuel hoses. They do look old. The hose clamps look very rusty.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050004.jpg

I just realised I do not have proper hose clamps. I have got some, but they are not very good quality. So I will have to get some later. I decided to douse the old rusty clamps in penetration oil (note not just regular WD40)

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050009.jpg

I also replaced the spark plugs cables and the coil cable. To be honest I am a little skeptical this will make any difference. However, I found that the cable on plug number four, was not properly attached! So that might make a bit of difference!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050012.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb050013.jpg

So hopefully I will have time tomorrow to pick up some hose clamps. I really like to finish this before I get the Alfa Spider back.

Fingers crossed.

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 6th November 2019 at 01:07.
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Old 6th November 2019, 22:48   #394
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Attempt number two on replacing these fuel hoses on the W123.

Preparation is everything; so I had bought another 1 meter length of 10mm inside diameter, in addition to the 6 and 8 mm versions I bought earlier. My thinking is that once I pull of the old hose, I need to be able to put a new hose on quickly and easily, just so I can drain the fuel in the canisters.

I also bought some proper hose clamps. And I prepared two bolts with some teflon tape around it as stoppers. I can push these into a hose to stop the flow of fuel.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb060003.jpg

With that all prepared I jacked up the W123 once again. I also took the left rear wheel off. Gives me a bit better access.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb060002.jpg

I tried to undo the old, rusty hose clamps. Two came apart very easily, two did not. This looks like it will take some hacking and cutting. Impossible to tell how long it will take. I am still expecting to get my Spider back this week as well.

But once I start cutting into fuel lines and hoses, I won’t be able to move the W123 any more. I got myself cornered like this once before, see one of my earlier post 53 or thereabouts. I got myself stuck with the replacement of the hydraulic hoses on the Jaguar. Which meant the Jaguar got stuck half way in the garage.

So I decided not to proceed. Moved the W123 in such a position it is furthest away from the door and with good access to the rear. In this position I can fiddle for days/weeks/months if need be.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb060004.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb060005.jpg

I can park my Spider when it is ready too.

Soon to be continued. As they say, three times is the charm!

Jeroen
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Old 7th November 2019, 23:45   #395
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Bit of fiddling with some car accessoires. I am a huge fan of TomTom navigation system. Nothing comes close.

Earlier this week I got a promotional mail from them. Offering their top of the range The Go Premium X with a huge discount. My wife’s TomTom has been giving her some problems. So I decided to upgrade and my wife gets my old model 6100.

One of the most interesting features on the old and the new model remains the traffic information. These days it is very good, very accurate and in a busy country such as the Netherlands it saves you a lot of time and aggravation. And of course the Speed cameras. Pretty crucial to me!

Your TomTom navigates past the various busy roads, bumper to bumper traffic. It also knows where roadworks are, which roads are closed down etc. So it is really convenient.

This model is larger (6”) compared to my old one (5”). It has like the old one a build in SIM. No extra charge, life long subscription. Traffic information works whilst I roam around Europe as well. And even in the USA.

It also has some additional new functions. Personalised routes, statistics, IFTTT integration etc.

Powered it up, connected it to my home Wifi and it did its first update. A whole new map installed

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1892.jpg

Also note the POI update for the charging stations. Just in case I buy myself an EV!

The old and the new next to one another.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1895.jpg

I had the old and the new side by side to ensure I got all the settings identical. TomTom offers this so called MyDrive experience. It is really cool. Essentially an app where you can plan your route on your laptop, phone etc. But it also keeps track of all your favourites, places etc. Via the SIM the TomTom logs onto your account and has access to all this data. So getting a new TomTom up and running is very easy. Just enter the same log in details on the device and it will download everything. What was amazing that they even synchronised across the cloud as I was using one device. Planned a route on the old TomTom, seconds later it also showed up in the new TomTom.

Which does mean I need to set up a separate account for my wife to use with my old TomTom device. If not, whoever sets up a new destination will override the other destination on the other device. Which spells BIG marital trouble I can ensure you.

This model will be my first TomTom that connects to my home Wife and updates itself without having to be hooked up to a computer. Very convenient too.

I have had some troubles with my home Wifi lately. We live in an old and big house. The standard WiFi routes are not enough to provide coverage in all the rooms. So I had some WiFi boosters. Never satisfied with them.

A colleague of mine told me to look into a Neatgear Orbi system. Not cheap, in fact quite expensive. But these day you order everything, try it out and if it doesn’t work, just send it back and no additional charge.

So I ordered myself this Orbi system. The TomTom and Orbi kit arrived today via the same courier. Quickly installed the Orbi. It was never as easy as they say, took me about three hours to get it up and running. But the difference in bandwidth is astonishing! And my WiFi coverage extends all the way into the garage now as well. So I don’t need to bring the TomTom into the house to update. It will do so, happily, left in the car!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1896.jpg

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 7th November 2019 at 23:46.
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Old 9th November 2019, 21:25   #396
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

I am really, really upset with myself! Last night I thought I would get the Jaguar ready for the Jaguar technical meeting on Sunday. I thought I would quickly run it through the car wash and fill up with petrol.

Well, it was not to be. I do not know how I managed to do it, I have done this hundred of times with no problems, but somehow I managed to smash the left front into the garage door.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090018.jpg

I am really pissed. Such a shame and its going to take time and money to put right again! @#$@#%@$#%!!!

Anyway, today was supposed to be a reasonable day weather wise and I had decided I would cycle over to the Autotron in Rosmalen. It is about 45 kilometers one way. Nice going, coming back very windy and most of the time the wind in my face. In the end I did almost 100 kilometers.

There was a nice little classic car event. Pretty laid back, just a bunch of cars on display and the usual market stall. NO big splashy dealer stands. Just cars on a concrete floor! Cheapest entrance fee of all the classic car events I have been to.

They were doing a special on Opel (Vauxhall). They had one hall full of some 60-70 Opels. But to be honest I am not much of an Opel fan. When I grew up Opel did not have a particularly good reputation in our street. If your dad would buy a Ford Escort he was the coolest dude in the world. If he would buy a Opel Kadet he would be boring fart! Kids can be pretty merciless.

Anyway, just some images to give you a flavour.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090001.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090002.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090003.jpg

One thing, at this exhibition you will see a lot of classic regular cars. No Ferrari’s, exotics or supercars. But a lot of cars that I remember from my early school days and teenage years.

And of course the usual market stall with tools, automobile, books, posters, parts, model cars you name it.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090004.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090005.jpg

One of the interesting parts of this exhibition is the classic car parking lot. If you arrive in your classic they direct you to a special parking place. That becomes part of the exhibition too.

These BMW 5 and also 3 series are beginning to show up more and more on these sort of events. Make very good young timers.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090007.jpg

Only one Spider, but of course, I took a photograph!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090008.jpg

Not that special a car, other than I had a near identical one, Peugeot 404. It was my second car, the first one being, what else, a VW Beetle. I paid for these cars with money I earned doing a paper round daily and working in a toy/model hobby shop on Saterday. This was in the days that as little as fifty Dutch guilders would buy you a second hand car, such as mine. That is about Euro 22! All before we annual MOTs.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090009.jpg

Here you can see the back of the venue, Autotron and some Opels:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090010.jpg

There are only two Opels I really like. The first one is the Opel Commodore. Preferably in Coupe version with the 2.5 liter petrol engine. This colour does not suit it. My boss in the toy / model hobby shop had one of these. Very bright yellow. Lovely car and fast in its days.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090011.jpg

The other Opel I really like is the little Opel GT. Modelled after its American cousin the Corvette. Look at the wheel under this one, they look like little American rims.

A very simple, but sweet and pleasant looking little sports car. Of course, pop up head lights!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090013.jpg

By far the most attractive car of the lot was this stunning Peugeot 404 Coupe. They are very rare and this one was in very good condition. Nice colour too!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090014.jpg

I only bought one little item. Another little measurement device for my little collection. I have one similar to this one. But today’s acquisition is much nicer and many more details!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090015.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb090016.jpg

Tomorrow I will be taking the Jaguar to the technical meeting. Maybe somebody knows a friendly body shop specialising in Jaguars.

Not much luck with my new TomTom. I had it all up and running last night. But this morning it went on the blink. Very frustrating. Now I need to spend time talking to the TomTom Support guys.

On the upside: Goof called and my Spider is ready. I am picking it up first thing Monday morning.

Jeroen
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Old 11th November 2019, 00:41   #397
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Today I went to a technical day organised by the Jaguar Daimler Club Holland. I am not a member. I am a member though of the Jaguar Forum in the Netherlands. Which is sort of an independent group of Jaguar enthousiast. The site is sponsored by an insurance company and members are encouraged to contribute yearly.

There is a big difference between the classic “classic car club” and these forums. On the whole they do not get on at all. However, these two have agreed to explore further co-operation between them, bringing more value to both memberships.

For those not that familiar with the classic car scene it might sound a bit ridiculous. But behind the scene of any club there is always in-fightings and endless politics. My favourite club, the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register is a break away group from the formal one and only Dutch Alfa Romeo Club. A few people disagreed with the then board of the Alfa Romeo Club. It all came to a big bust out during the annual membership meeting. A few people walked out and started the Alfa Romeo Spider Register. They lost their AlfaRomeo club membership. Feuds were established. Since we have organised events with just about any other classic car club, but never with the Alfa Romeo Club. Also, Alfa Romeo the Netherlands has steadfastly refused to talk to us, let alone sponsor us.

So the classic car scene is worse than your typical Peyton Place scenario. Major movies could be made out of this, I am surprised no-one has done so far.

Anyway, the Jaguar forum was supposed to have it’s annual Technical day at G&G. I have reported on two of these in this thread earlier. The idea was to open it up for the JDCH members as well. However, G&G owner Raymond is down with a hernia and we had to cancel our meeting. So, the JDCH stepped in and organised a joint technical meeting. Very cool, very accomodating.

It was held at a Jaguar specialist, of course. (Bongertman, https://www.bongertmanautotechniek.nl ) About an hour drive from home for me. 115 km just about all motorway. So I barrelled down the motorway early this morning in my (slightly dented) XJR. On autocruise, maximum speed is 130 km/h nearly all the way. Sufficient to say, I was not exactly sticking to the 130 km/h. Loverly drive.

Other than the social, get together element, they had three main topics.

1) come and drive/sail a real amphibious car
2) Presentation on SU fuel pumps
3) Presentation on tyres

the amphibious car was owned by one of the JDCH members. He had a gorgeous Jaguar too. But his amphi car was absolutely stunning:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100033.jpg

So you could go with him and sail around a little lake. I passed. I like these amphibious cars, but I could not be bothered to actually go out in them.

I was very interested in the presentation on the sU fuel pumps though. I do not have any cars that use this pumps. But my friend Bernd, from the model car museum does. As you might recall from my earlier post, he bought some new contacts points for one of his cars. I offered to help him install it. I must admit it has been decades since I worked on a SU point.

The very same gentleman, Pel de Haas, from whom Bernd bought his contact points a few weeks ago, was the actual presenter of the topic!

I had a long chat with him. Just like me, he went to naval college. Sailing across the oceans wasn’t his thing though. So he quit, and ended up in the army. When he retired he set up his own hobby shop repairing SU pumps. Quite an interesting story.

I talked to him about the actual fitting and adjustment I might have to do on Bernds pump. So I have that all written down.

So here we go with some of the things I jotted down during his presentation.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100010.jpg

SU pumps have been manufactured since 1934. During the war the initial brass pump casing had to made of aluminium because of the war effort. you will find SU pump mainly on UK cars.

On early cars, there were no fuel pumps at all. The carburator was just gravity fed from the fuel tank. But as soon as cars were used for hill climbs this became a problem, Pel showed us one of the very, first, early fuel pump, called, very appropriately a lift pump;

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100007.jpg

Pel kindly allowed me to take images of his presentation straight of his laptop. So here goes: Quite a few different pumps:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100022.jpg

He gave a very elobarate explanation on the basics of these SU Pumps by means of this diagram:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100021.jpg

Couple of things that I noted. These pumps are positive displacement pumps. But the maximum pressure they can reach is determined by the spring you see in the diagram. When the coil gets activated the pump sucks in fuel, the pressure stroke is done by means of the spring. Stronger springs, means higher pressure.

It is the actual membrane that does the pumping:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100024.jpg

Every single one of these pumps has a built in filter:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100011.jpg

Of course, we talked extensively about the fuel quality. Europe has just made E10 mandatory. These SU pumps, when modified can handle the higher ethanol no problem. The rubber used, is fine. E.g the modern membranes are ethanol proof.

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However, with ethanol tends to come more water. Ethanol attracts water. Pel showed us an extreme example of what water in fuel does. Quite amazing to see this much scaling in what is essentially a fuel device!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100023.jpg

Pel talked extensively about the working of the original SU pump. These have a set of contact points. When the membrane is at his maximum volume, the contacts open up again. It is a simpel mechanism, but it does come with some practicalities in terms of maintenance. Here you can see how the contact look on a typical SU pump. These are cut open models, made by Pel

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100004.jpg

These contact suffer from two different kind of problems. Corrosion and sparking

A few examples on corrosion

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100020.jpg

Quite remarkable! You can just take some fine sanding paper to these contact (400-600 grid) and in many cases you might be able to salvage the contact.

One of the first improvement SU came with was actually something very different. On the first SUs a lot of rust appeared around the coil and contacts. This was mainly due to temperature difference between the pump casing and the coil housing. Trapped air would condensate, water would form and subsequently rust would form. Apparently their very first technical bulletin to dealers was to drill a small 2 mm hole in the casing for the coil to allow any condensation to drain naturally.

To minimise sparking several different options came about over the years. Initially capacitor, then diode and Varistor. Pel showed us some of the different modifications. Some of these meant that the pump become polarity sensitive.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100016.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100017.jpg

Pel offers a modification to the traditional mechanical contact. Together with his American partner they have come up with a modern electronic optical switch. Much more robust. No sparking at all.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100015.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100014.jpg

Here some more details of the various parts

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100005.jpg

Pel does this purely as a hobby. I asked him and he does about 200-230 pumps a year. So that is only a few a week.

Every pump he overhauls, with contact, or the new electronics, gets tested on his own test rig and will have an individual test certificate

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100001.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100012.jpg

Some more of Pel’s collection of various SU parts

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100002.jpg

Pel answered a lot of question from the audience. One of the question was about hitting your fuel pump with a hammer, if if wasn’t working. Well, that is actually sound advice. As long as you hit it with the stem!. The coil housing is made of bakelite. Hit it to hard and it will shatter! Pel brought various examples of coil housing being hit too hard with a hammer

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100025.jpg

All in all, a very interesting presentation. I learned quite a lot and some of my old, very old I might add, knowledge, got re-newed. So I am quite keen to start working on Bernd’s old Riley’s now.

Outside a nice collection of all sorts of Jaguars from the members:

This was a lovery Daimler, just about the same colour as my XJR. Really nice!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100026.jpg

When you have a gathering of (classic) Jaguars you will have some of these. Here in Europe also often referred to a “Morse-car” after the famous inspector Morse detective series of the BBC.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100027.jpg

And of course, everybody wants to see under the hood of everybody:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100028.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100029.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100031.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100030.jpg



The owner of the venue had an interesting car on his lift as well; Lovely E-type. Notice the posters/calendar on the wall. You don’t see that too often anymore Considered politically incorrect of course.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-pb100032.jpg

Next we had a gentleman talking about classic tyres. Which means roughly tyres for cars before 1980 or much earlier. Quite an interesting talk.

A lot of question about aging of tyres. According to him as long as tyres are stored correctly it really does not matter. Anything up to 10-14 years is no problem. Storing correctly means they are stored in the dark (no sun light), upright and get rotated every few months.

We talked about the tyre requirements for the Dutch APK (UK MOT equivalent). According to him, the speed code, or the age is not checked anymore. I was not aware of that. So I could put much cheaper low speed tires on my Jaguar?! I won’t, but it would be legal in the Netherlands, but not in Germany!

I asked him about what causes cupping of tyres, as we experienced with my wife’s Ford Fiesta. According to him it is the set up of the rear wheels. According to him, many car’s rear wheels are set up these days with some toe-in. That makes for good cornering, but also for cupping. It also of course, depends of the car and the specific tyre in question. But I thought it made sense..

Quite a few of the big manufacturers make classic car tyres. But the production volumes are always limited. Say 60-80.000 a year. Michellin still makes quite a few classic tyres. But limited numbers. All these tyres are completely hand made and tested. Michelin does a full check (ultra sound) of the steel carcass in each tyre.

All in all, a very enjoyable day. I learned quite a lot, met up with some new folks. I also ran into an old Spider friend of mine, Leo. He is an ophthalmologist. Remarkably so are his mum and dad and his brother and sister. No guessing what they discuss during family get togethers. I used to know his mum and dad as well. For many years they owned a Spider to and came along on all our events.

Leo has quite a collection of cars, He still has his Spider and he has a slightly older XJR than mine. He just had a huge restoration done on it. Took 20 months and an unbelievable amount of money. Looked good though. I hope to be visiting him soon, to see his garage.

Tomorrow is the BIG day: I am picking up my Spider!! I hope it all goes well. Next will be sorting the Jaguar, again!

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 11th November 2019 at 00:45.
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Old 11th November 2019, 04:30   #398
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
I have had some troubles with my home Wifi lately.
Wi Fi problems are a tricky one to solve, more so if you live in a house made out of brick. I am surprised that the Orbi has solved your problem. Need to read into what they are doing different from the others. Most of the tall claims made on coverage by most Wi Fi router manufacturers need to be taken with a grain of salt.

The best solution for bad Wi Fi, is to pull a ethernet cable to a common area of the section of the house where Wi Fi reception is bad and plug it into a wireless access point. As you are quite the DIY person, this will be easy for you to do.

In any case, it does look like you have solved the problem.
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Old 11th November 2019, 09:50   #399
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

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Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
Tomorrow is the BIG day: I am picking up my Spider!! I hope it all goes well. Next will be sorting the Jaguar, again!
Looking forward to the Spider's homecoming!

As for the Jag - its the worst pain when there is no-one else (even imaginary) to blame for car damage. Thankfully the only hit that will remain is the one on the wallet & rest will get fixed.

It seems 8th-9th Nov were bad days for the front fenders! Some innocent kids in my block used nice rocks to make old-school texture-hammer like hand made designs along both front wheel arches of my wife's car! Nice 1mm deep dents taking away paint. 6 on each fender. Very symmetric. Future generation of auto detailers and designers growing up in front of my eyes . I won't post pictures here to hijack your lovely thread. The car is now in the workshop too to get the drawing board back to original shape!
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Old 11th November 2019, 11:37   #400
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Sorry to hear about the damage to your beautiful Jaguar. It is so frustrating when we do this entirely our own fault. Our ego gets a knock as well as the car.

Been there, done that!
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Old 11th November 2019, 17:22   #401
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Quote:
Originally Posted by sandeepmohan View Post
Wi Fi problems are a tricky one to solve, more so if you live in a house made out of brick. I am surprised that the Orbi has solved your problem. Need to read into what they are doing different from the others. Most of the tall claims made on coverage by most Wi Fi router manufacturers need to be taken with a grain of salt.

The best solution for bad Wi Fi, is to pull a ethernet cable to a common area of the section of the house where Wi Fi reception is bad and plug it into a wireless access point. As you are quite the DIY person, this will be easy for you to do.
pulling an ethernet cable would have been a last resort measure. My wife would have opposed it, because no matter what you end up with an ethernet cable along skirting balls, up walls etc.

I have tried various boosters, including the ones working on top of the 220VAC. Not a great result.

There are quite a number of reviews on the net about this Netgear Orbit. By and large mostly very positive.

This is what one review site wrote:

Quote:
The Netgear Orbi RBK50 is a tri-band router with six internal antennas, making the Linksys Velop its closest competitor. But the Orbi’s three networks are very different from the Velop: The Orbi operates one network on the 2.4GHz band (with a 2x2 radio—two spatial streams up and two spatial streams down—offering speeds up to 400Mbps), one network on the 5GHz band (with a 2x2 radio offering maximum speed of 866Mbps), and a second 5GHz network with a 4x4 radio offering maximum speed of 1,733Mbps. You’ll never see real-world speeds that high—as distance, protocol overhead, and other factors eat away at those theoretical maximums—but you can use them for the sake of comparison.

The Orbi dedicates its higher-bandwidth 4x4 radio to backhaul, even if you operate it without a satellite. The backhaul network uses the higher 5GHz channels (149 and up), leaving the lower channels (36 and up) to the router.
Irrespective on how it works, I can confirm it has made a huge difference for our in- and outdoor WiFi coverage and bandwidth everywhere! Very happy with it, but then they are quite pricey!

I picked up the Spider this morning. Only a 25 km drive back home and first impression is it runs well, i.e. as normal. A few small things I need to sort. My wife was driving behind me and apparently there is some water in the rear lights!

I have also made arrangements for the Jaguar to be fixed. My little local body shop has moved, but luckily not to far. Just a couple of villages down the road from us. The owner still lives in our village. So on 2nd of December he will pick up the Jaguar on his way to work. I do not even have to bring it to him. I was worried about the stripping, but he said it would be no problem to get something very close match.

So back to three cars in my garage for a little while at least. I will do a thorough inspection of the Spider probably tonight, but overall I am pleased with it.

Jeroen
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Old 12th November 2019, 18:14   #402
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

So the Spider is back again!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1901.jpg

My wife was driving behind me yesterday after we picked it up. She said she could see water in the right rear light! Never had any problems before. So I had a quick look:

The boot of the Spider is always full of stuff:

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1903.jpg

But after unloading everything and removing some of the lining I found water everywhere. In the spare tire well, the battery rack etc.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1904.jpg

On the upside it appeared to be wet only on the right hand site. So I decided to undo the complete rear light unit. Five nuts. And immediately I could feel something was wrong

Here you see the unit just as it came out of the car

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1905.jpg

This light unit has five studs fitted to it. Those five studs hold it in place against the chassis with a nut. Three of the studs have snapped!! Where you see the big hole, is where one of these studs should be!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1906.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1907.jpg

So essentially the complete rear light unit was semi-detached from the chassis and it was certainly not sealing anymore!

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1909.jpg

Undid all the wire and took the whole unit apart. It was full of water too. The seal was broken en in a poor state of health.

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1910.jpg

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1911.jpg

Did a bit of cleaning and dried out everything with paper towels. Next I put my electrical heater onto the rear of the Spider for several hours

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1912.jpg

I still need to clean all the electrical connections, fittings, light bulbs etc

My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One-img_1913.jpg

I called my Spider specialist friend Goof. He was happy to hear my initial drive home went well. And luckily he still had a proper new seal in stock as well. So that is on its way in the mail.

It was clear that this has been going on for some time. I never noticed it before for two reasons. My Spider sits in the garage. Admittedly it does get driven in the rain, but only occasionally. And driving it is unlikely to result in much water ingress. It is more if it sits in pouring rain, parked. And that happened when my car was being worked on occasionally. Goof has limited space in his garage. So cars that are not worked on, get parked outside. During evening and weekends he will park the Spider inside the garage. We have had some very very heavy rain. So that must have caused it. You do not notice it as it all happens behind the interior liners. The first time I would have noticed it would have been when i would check the pressure of the spare tyre. That was not going to happen till March next year most likely.

So I am glad my wife spotted it! So I think it is properly dried out. I will have to find a way to fix those studs back onto the light unit frame. Probably some glue / plastic cement, plastic soldering. We will see. It will have to wait as I will leave for a week travel to Bucharest and Madrid.

The one thing Goof’s guy’s did not get completely right was the orientation and alignment of the hood. It looks very good, in terms of a very even gap. But when I pulled the hood released, it doesn’t pop open. And it should, there is a small spring that pushes it out of the release. I managed to make a tiny adjustment in the catch plate of the release. Almost perfect, but not 100% yet. So next time I need to visit Goof he will fix this.

I hope I can fix the light next week. The Spider (and the W123) need to be of the public road by 30th of November. I will be in Madrid this weekend, but home the weekend after. And I really want to take the Spider for a proper shake down cruise after it’s major overhaul.

Also managed to get my new TomTom going. For some reason it would not connect to GPRS, which means no traffic information and no connection to MyDrive. I spend almost two hours with one of the TomTom specialist on the phone.

For some reason the account details of my wife and my TomTom account had become muddled up. It the end all we had to do was reset passwords on both and do a complete factory reset on both, reconfigure and all appears to be working fine. Fingers crossed! TomTom did not have any explanation as to how this could have happened. But I am happy enough for them to spend such a time on the phone trouble shooting and the problem appears to be fixed. So no complaining!

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 12th November 2019 at 18:20.
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Old 12th November 2019, 21:41   #403
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

Interesting to see that the major trouble we here had with the SU fuel pump has not been mentioned - overheating. Our juggad - smothering the pump with a wet rag. (Don't laugh - we also used to do it with ignition coils. Carefully avoiding the bakelite top).

And talking of rags, you'll find this interesting.

Regards
Sutripta
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Old 12th November 2019, 23:52   #404
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sutripta View Post
Interesting to see that the major trouble we here had with the SU fuel pump has not been mentioned - overheating. Our juggad - smothering the pump with a wet rag. (Don't laugh - we also used to do it with ignition coils. Carefully avoiding the bakelite top).

And talking of rags, you'll find this interesting.

In all honesty Pel did mention it, but I did not. Vapour lock on carburetors and these fuel pumps did happen very occasionally. The SU hey-days were probable from the 1940 till 50-60's. Nobody had hear of global warming. When temperature hit 23oC form more than 5 consecutive day, the BBC would report it as an unusually warm summer!

The most problem occurred on cars where these SU carb and or pumps were subjected to a lot of radiation from the engine, or pray, the exhaust (manifold).

We have had the odd and old Spider struggling in Italy in the Alps with ambient temperatures of 35-38oC. The universal cure is wet rags around it.

Loved the article on the rags! Thanks for sharing. I never gave it much thought. Interesting to hear them talk about all these different requirements and quality demands.

Jeroen
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Old 13th November 2019, 01:02   #405
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Re: My Car Hobby: A lot of fiddling, and some driving too! Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123 & Alfa Romeo Sp

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Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
The most problem occurred on cars where these SU carb and or pumps were subjected to a lot of radiation from the engine, or pray, the exhaust (manifold).
Not really. These pumps were selfheating! BMC normally located the pump in the boot.Near the fuel tank, away from the engine.

Regards
Sutripta

PS - Any wonder that British electricals were the butt of jokes. Major blame of course going to Joseph Lucas, Prince of Darkness!

Last edited by Sutripta : 13th November 2019 at 01:05.
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