[Jeroen]

We went to visit my good friend Bernd and his wife Loes last night. They had just returned from an 8 week stay in their apartment on the coast of Normandie, so we had not spoken for a while. Good to catch up.

Bernd had bought me some interesting goodies; This set of electrical crimp connections and a pretty nifty wire strip pliers. I have various wire strip pliers but nothing like this. Also, some connectors I have not got. He also bought some special nuts and bolts and gave me 3-4 of each size. Always good to have some stock of everything, no matter what it is, or how rare.





I have also found another Sourieay engine analyser. Bernd and I will go and have a look at it during the next couple of days. If it looks good and we can snap it up for little money, we will buy it. Hopefully I can make one proper working one, out of two!

Jeroen

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Bernd had bought me some interesting goodies; This set of electrical crimp connections and a pretty nifty wire strip pliers. I have various wire strip pliers but nothing like this. Also, some connectors I have not got. He also bought some special nuts and bolts and gave me 3-4 of each size. Always good to have some stock of everything, no matter what it is, or how rare.

Its quite a nifty tool. I have one in yellow instead of the Dutch colours . The adjustable stripper assembly is quite smartly designed. Capability to strip multiple wires together with the same length is also very handy! Built-in crimping notches are also quite good for various relay pin / thimble crimping on the wire. A must have for any DIYer who works with wires for sure.

[Jeroen]

Bit of a bummer last night; The Dutch government announced new restrictions due to upsoar of new Corona infections the last few weeks. It meant we had to cancel our trip later this week. Such a shame, but then again there are much worse things in life. At the end of the day, as long as we are staying healthy this is just an inconvenience.

I have the week off, so I will be spending most of my time doing a bit of fiddling with my cars, working on Debbie, riding my bicycle. And no doubt visiting my favourite tool shop HBM a lot!

I did manage to fix the squaky door on the Spider. Sprayed some special lubricant on it and when I took it out earlier not a sound!

I did notice a problem with the electric window though. It is getting very slow winding down, up is fine, down is a problem. Which means I need to take the door card off to get acces to the window mechanism. As you might recall I have had this door card off numerous time in the last few years. I am never quite happy with how it fits, it always works loose. Somehow the passenger door is fine, gets less use I guess.

So off it comes once again:



This is (part of) the problem. These plastic bits don’t seat well in the door card.



But as I have a box full of new ones, I thought I could fix it.

Old and new:



It is supposed to have a slight sort of cut into it. That way you can sort of twist it into the hole. So I cut a bit off:



I thought I was all good to go, until I tried to install it. Somehow the new bits did not line up properly with the holes in the door.

I have called my old pal Joost, the car interior restorer who did a great job on the Jaguar seats. I talked it through and send him a bunch of photographs.

It should not be to difficult to make new door cards. I checked, new ones are still available, but at al totally ridiculous price. I told Joost I will remove all bits, armrests and trim. So all he has to do, cut a new piece of wood to the correct size, drill all the holes in the correct orientation, take the old fabric off and put it back on with new foam underneath.

I could probably do this myself, but I am not very good with fabric and foam. Getting it properly fitted, with no greases is probably way beyond my skills. I would rather have Joost do that. I am waiting for a quote.

Had a go at checking, cleaning and greasing the mechanism of the window. It goes up and down a lot smoother, but I am not totally convinced yet. Here is the problem, taking the little e-motor out is a very very tricky job. Because you have to take out the complete winding mechanism. Which included the drum onto which the wire winds. As soon as you get any slack in there it becomes one big spaghetti bunch.



I made this mistake once. I spend days trying to fix it and was only partial successful. In the end I got so frustrated I took it to my pal Rolf and asked him to fix it. He spend some 5-6 hours on it. And even he could not get it right completely. The passenger window still does not wind down completely. Not a problem as my wife keeps the window up at all times.

lets wait for Joost, see if he can fix the door card for a decent price.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Yesterday afternoon Berndt rocked up in his Rover 75 estate. We went to see a man in Bemmel about an engine analyser! He lived in a little village about 70 km east of us. Only about 45 minutes drive

Due to the Corona and the fact that Bernd and I are getting on a bit, we decided to use face masks in the car.

The guy, Rob, was very nice. He is a “Wegenwacht”, the Dutch equivalent of the British AA road assistance. These guys know a lot about cars, all cars. I have met some of his colleagues over the years at various events. Most of them are serious petrol heads too. So their job is fixing cars, stranded along the road, and very often their hobby is repairing/restoring cars too. Rob was no different. He had three classics all three Saabs. He showed us his latest restoration project.

He told us that the Saab from the late 60s till early 80s are terrible rust buckets. I had never heard that before. I always thought Saabs were pretty indestructible and well made. Apparently it related to the steel they were using at the time.

Sure enough his Saab 96 needed a lot of welding.

Rob showed us the Soureau analyser. It is a type 1631, mine is a 1630. It was in much better shape than ours, all the cables came with it. I am not sure what the difference in functionality is, although, going by the cables, this one hooks up to a car engine via a central plug as well as all these different cables.

Rob got his from a neighbour some years ago, he put it in his garage and never used it. So he could not tell us anything about whether it works or not. It did power up properly, but so did ours. But it looked really smart, so we agreed a (very small) price and stuck it into the Rover and drove home.

Big estate cars are ideal for this kind of stuff!

So know we have two. Just like the first one, Bernd and I decided to go Dutch (what else) on this one too!



We had to take all the cables off, as a precaution, to be able to slide it into the Rover. I am going to inspect and clean all cables first, so they had to come off anyway.



Pretty pleased with this one. I will try and get it going in the next couple of days. Get Bernd to come over in his Mini, as we need a proper old, total analogue, car to check all the functions!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Had a first go at our new engine analyser.

First thing I did was to open it us, see what’s what:



Two things spring to mind; The inner bits of this one are completely different from the other one, so not many parts I will be able to swap. It’s also unbelievable dirty

Tried it out:



As soon as I turned on the ignition, one of the test wires started to smoke! Something must be shortened. Whereas this analyser is much more modern thant the previous one, the test wiring is in a poor state. So I will swap the various test cables, because they are identical. More to come

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Got a Whatsapp from Joost last night. He has already finished my door panel.

By the way, this is real leather! Not just some plasticcy skai type of stuff.









I also stopped by at Goos van Pelt to look at some more of the window scraper seals. I have been phoning/mailing/googling around the world to find original ones. Not to be found. Everybody has non-original ones on sale, but they look very differently. I got something from Goos that will do. Looks very different too, but it will do.

But then I got a message from an American Alfa Spider forum. I had put a message on and somebody had spotted the original one on Ebay.de!

https://www.alfabb.com/threads/inner.../#post-8582529

So I bought it right of the bat! ridiculously expensive, but at least it is the proper original one at long last.

It will arrive next week, so weekend after next , I will be putting it all back together again.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Yesterday started out as a reasonable day, so I took the W123 for a spin, only to end up in a thunderstorm and hail.

Today started similar and I took the Jaguar for a little drive. As usual across some pontjes (ferries)

I was on my way to an Juxbox event! I figured this was a 60-70s event and they would probably have a few things I might enjoy too!



Lots of Jux boxes! I had not realised how big a thing this is these days. there is a whole industry catering for your every need when it comes to Jux Boxes!







Any part you want for your Jux box, you can get it here!





Of course, when there are Jux Boxes around, Betty is around too!



You want to start your own 1950/60 Diner? You can get everything you need brand new!



From the days when a microphone looked like a piece of art, or at least vert technical!



Punters were encouraged to bring their own classic cars. This is what Jux Box lovers drive:













And also a few others, like this very nice original Toyata Corolla!



Or a Citroen CV2 and a Ford Taunus



Of course, everything for the vinyl lover!



Managed to pick up a few new signs for my garage too.

Back home I started putting the door card of the Spider together

Bit of a fiddly job, but in the end I was pretty pleased.





Some good use of my machine clamp!



Used the old wood to re-check and re-allign some of the holes:



Had to re-drill one of the holes too



Waiting for the window scraper seal to arrive and then the panel should go back on, smoothly and firmly I hope!

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

What a great day out! Your Dutch spelling caused my brain to go into scrambled mode (easily done) and I could not think of the English spelling: was it Jook or Juke? Haha... Jukebox

That first picture of your magnificent Jaguar on the ferry is a real winner. Fantastic

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

What a great day out!

Thanks. Our Corona numbers have been going through the roof during last week. We are expecting quite severe restrictions to be announced today/tomorrow again. So it is likely that this was just about the last little event of the year I will have attended.

Even though they had organised this very well. Very wide aisles, you had to order tickets online, with a dedicated time slot to enter. Most people were wearing mask and at no point did I feel crowded at all. In fact, it was a bit sad as it was quite empty with few visitors. But then again, I also went early on a Sunday morning, it might have gotten a bit busier later on.

I doubt they will allow these sort of event to continue. I am booked on two courses in the next couple of weeks. I am very doubtful as to whether they will continue as planned.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Worked on the Spider a bit last night. I had received the window scraper seal earlier. Figuring out how to fit it together. I also had a new piece of top trim. I have had that for decades, not sure how or why I got it.



Just some images on the state of the old scraper seal!





I decided to take the new scraper seal and put it into the new trim. Might as well replace everything now it is all apart. I hope, once done, I will not have to remove the door card for a very long time.

First bits to go back onto the car:



I double checked the working of the electric window again. And again it was not winding down smoothly. Spend about an hour double checking everything. I had almost taken the decision to start removing it altogether (which is a huge PITA) when I remembered something. Some time ago I had a problem with the blower fan having got stuck. I managed to get it going by spraying some rust penetration fluid into the top bearing. Worked a treat. It is somewhere in this thread.

Would that work here? Sure it did!! Within 20 seconds my window was powering up and down like it was new from the factory. Added some WD40 into the mix and kept opening and closing the window for ten minutes. We are good to go now.

Next I decided to put back some plastic foil. These doors are factory sealed with plastic. But that has disappeared a long time ago. It is just a little extra protection against moisture finding its way from the inside in the door into the back of my brand new door card. Don’t tell her, but I used my wife’s cling wrap as that is the only plastic I could find.

Used just ordinary gel clue to attach it to the door frame



Next was mounting the doorcard. As always getting the various clips to line up with the holes is always a pain. You start from the top and work you way down along both the front and rear side. Then you find yourself left with the bottom ones!

Which took a while to get them in properly





Still need to clean the windows, polish the doorcard, handle and such. But it looks good. I also think it fits much better than before. So I am hopeful this repair proves successful long term. fingers crossed!



Jeroen

[Jeroen]

The last time I drove my W123 I was still not happy with the alignment. It keeps pulling to the right. As I have shown here, I had it aligned twice already.

I had also swapped wheels, at least I thought so. Could not remember, so I thought I had better try that once more.

Two jacks, Handbrake on, in gear and some chokes around the wheels on the left side.



Pneumatic equipment at the ready, takes all but 15 minutes to swap front to rear.

When you try this, do check whether your tires have these rotation marks on them. If they do you can swap front to rear, but not left to right



For good measure I also used my pneumatic brush to clean the inside of the rim and the respective parts on the car as well.



My handy little DIY tabel came if useful. Both the torque setting for the wheels as well as the tyre pressure.

.

I had checked the tire pressure before and I thought it was fine. This time all four tires were at around 2.0 bar. The rear ones should really be 2.2 bar. They are now.

I will try and take it out in the next few weeks. I don’t have that much time left. Come November 1st this car is not allowed on the public road until 1st of March.

Jeroen

[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The last time I drove my W123 I was still not happy with the alignment. It keeps pulling to the right. As I have shown here, I had it aligned twice already.

Jeroen

Car pulling to any side is really disturbing. Did you double-check the camber angle? Being a RWD, this should have slightly positive camber, somewhere between 0 degree 5 to 0 degree 10 minutes.
What I have experienced is the side which is more positive is the direction in which the vehicle pulls.
All the best

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by KkVaidya

Car pulling to any side is really disturbing. Did you double-check the camber angle? Being a RWD, this should have slightly positive camber, somewhere between 0 degree 5 to 0 degree 10 minutes.
What I have experienced is the side which is more positive is the direction in which the vehicle pulls.

Yes, the car has been checked twice already. First time it was slightly off and there was a noticeable improvement. Just not perfect yet, so I had it checked again. Well within spec, so we tweaked it a bit. These W123 are finicky cars when it comes to alignment. Very few have no issues. It is frustrating as mine was perfect until last year when I also put four new tires under it.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...spider-38.html

To be continued as they say.


Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last night I was checking the papers of the W123 as I thought its bi-annual MOT (or APK as we call it) was due soon. I will get a formal letter reminding me as well.

I checked the previous APK report. It passed at the time, but with one remark: The steering knuckle had a bit of play. Not enough for a fail (less than 1mm), but enough to be noticed. I had forgotten about that. I think it might be the reason for the problems with the allignement. Irrespective it needs fixing.

I have just booked the car in for its MOT/APK early next month. I will replace the steering knuckle during the winter. I hope it is still good enough to pass it’s MOT/APK. Because I don’t want to rush this job. Also, I want them to check in which knuckle the play is. I can’t remember and it is not specified in the report. I am pretty sure it is the right side.

I have started looking into the replacement procedure. I have replaced steering knuckles before, but never on my W123 yet. I can see some more tools being required perhaps. We will see

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Not a very nice Sunday, weather wise. So in the morning I worked on Debbie and in the afternoon I decided to spend some time on my latest test kit, Bernd and I bought a few weeks ago.

As you recall I had opened it up already, noticed everything was very very dirty inside and had a quick test. So I opened it up again, this time I cleaned the inside with compressed air. Gently, don’t want to bend anything, but at least I could start to identify the various components.

One of the first things I noticed was that the big connector on the rear of the tester had come loose. Which also meant on the inside it pushing the PCB on which it and other components were soldered out of whack. Putting stress on various soldering connections.





So I drilled out the old, broke rivet and tried to to put a new one in. Turned out that was not even possible, so I had to come up with a little extension on my rivet tool.





In the end I managed to secure the connector properly to the casing again.

Next I carefully studied each PCB. Just take a very close look at every component, feel very carefully if anything is loose. Check the relay contacts move, take out the fuses, check the fuses, clean the fuses. etc etc.

I found two component that had broken loose. A bit difficult to see, my index finger is resting on a connector.



I have remove the other side, holding a wire. I can actually wiggle this little item about 1mm back and forth. When looking at the other side of the PCB it could be clearly seen that it had worked itself loose from the soldering



Quick fix with the normal electric soldering gun.

I also found one of the glass fuses blown. It was very difficult to make out what rating it was. It was a bit corroded, so I cleaned, very lightly polished it. I could make out T63Ma. The lettering was all wonky, not nicely aligned. The 6 was larger than the 3, the M capital and the a not. Still, I think this is just a Time lag (T) 63 milli Amp fuse. It had a tiny, tiny wire inside. Of course, I do stock a huge variety of these fuses, but alas not a T63. I did have a T100mA, but better not risk it. I have already ordered a box and they should arrive tomorrow.

One of the relay was stuck and I had to take it out, clean it and now working fine again. I used pneumatic air and contact cleaner on all the control switched and buttons on the front.

Had to take the various control knobs off, undo some nuts and everything came off.



I had noticed that the stroboscopic lamp would not switch on properly. I sort of had to hold the switch in between two positions. Which might mean it is worn or just very dirty. Well at least the latter was true. So I gave it a very thorough cleaning.



The one thing that caught me out, the knob does not have a fixed position on the switch shaft. So it was a bit of a puzzle to get it set up properly.

Would not think working on some electrical components brings out these many tools, but it did





I took every PCB out, inspected it, felt every component. Really, I should have taken antistatic precaution, but this type of old electronic equipment is very robust, much more so than modern electronics. There you really need to take proper caution against any static discharge.







I put both these tester next to each other to verify the working and position of the switches. They are essentially the same machines, able to perform identical measure, only the internal bits are different.



Waiting for my 63 mA, slow fuse and hopefully I can test it soon.

Next Saturday, Toon is coming again and we are going for the second attempt on his window on his W123. If anything we know how to take it apart!

Jeroen