[Thad E Ginathom]

Silver solder can be built up. One of the lessons we have to learn is not to use too much! The excess has to be filed off. First exercises with simple rings involve a lot of that! But if there is a gap of more than a few thou in the actual join, then it will probably not fill it. And a jeweller has to make soldered joins invisible to the naked eye. Always look at the inside of things like rings, to see how well it was done!

I did a repair once, on a man's wedding ring, to which something very strange had happened. It was like it had "delaminated" on the inside, with large scales of metal sticking up. High street jewellers had said repair was impossible, so it came to me. Hobbyists are not constricted by time and are more interested in a challenge! My theory was that it had been resized without annealing, and, eventually, the stresses in the metal just sheared it apart. I annealed it, hammered it back as far as I could, filled the gaps with gold solder, and filed it all regular and made sure the size was right. Part of the hallmark was filled in, but it was otherwise a fairly invisible repair of which I was proud. Even though it really was a botch up! The guy, a colleague of a flatmate, was delighted.

On car restoration they do use a technique called leading. Which is still done with a small torch and essentially lead. The purist consider leading far superior to using filler. I have done a bit of leading on an earlier panel restoration.

Leading? Wow, car body work is a black art with so many secrets! I hugely admire the skills, which are totally equal to those of the silversmith. Lead has such a low melting point, I guess it would flow easily, but I don't doubt that getting it right is tough. It must be very unhealthy too. I knew an ex professional potter who had to give up his craft because of lead poisoning: his teeth started to go black! His dentist asked his profession and quickly made the diagnosis.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I did a repair once, on a man's wedding ring, to which something very strange had happened. .

Great job on the wedding ring, well done!

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

[b]Leading?.

Here an instruction video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fuTnBS2bE

And on this very same thread, but a long time ago. You can see Dirk here doing a bit of vertical leading!!

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post4428502


Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Great job on the wedding ring, well done!

I did a couple of jobs high-street jewellers refused or quoted lots of money for. But sometimes one has to just tell that it really is impossible, or just so much work to repair that making new would be easier.

Leading...

Fascinating. Super stuff. Thanks!

I have never done filling and shaping like this, but I can see that in some ways, this lead might be easier than resin. The lead could be kept soft, but when resin sets... it sets and that's it.

[Jeroen]

Today I decided to continue with the investigation into what draws the current when the ignition key is in the ACC (Accessoiries Position) position.

Earlier, see above, I measured about 1Amps. So drove the Jeep into my garage.



Set up is identical to my earlier measurements. The fuse link across the battery disconnect is removed. My multimeter is placed across the battery disconnect. So when I turn the knob and disconnect it, effectively I place my multimeter in series into the power circuit. All current flowing from the battery will be measured this way.



The Jeep has two fuse boxes. One as shown in the above image, in the engine compartment. Jeep calls this the PDC or Power Distribution Centre. There is also a fusebox inside the passenger compartment which we will come to in a minute.

The PDC hosts several relais and different fuses. Here a close up:



The relais functions and fuse ratings are stamped inside the plastic cover. But not the purpose or rather circuit of each fuse. Is not shown in the owners manual either. You will have to look it up in the workshop manual.

You will notice two different size of fuses. Getting them out can be a bit of a fiddle. I have this little fuse puller from the Jaguar.



But it was useless. Used a simple flate nose pliers.



So basically how you trace this particular problem is what is known as tracing a parasite draw. You put your multimeter in series to the battery and main voltage supply circuit and start pulling fuses one by one and see if the amps drop.

So I put the key into the ACC position, radio off, and door closed (otherwise the interior light comes on). Under these circumstances I measure about 1A.

I saw a very noticeable drop on two fuses, number 23, small 15A and number 2 a large 40A. Both halved the draw approximately.



I also did the same for each and every fuse inside the passenger compartment, just underneath the glove compartment.



This cover had a fuse puller built in. Marginally better than the Jaguar one, so I kept on using the pliers.



I even found a larger fuse puller, but that was useless as well, the plier next to it did the job. Pushing them back in can be done with your fingers, but you do need something to pull them out.



Fuse number 23 is in the Sentry key Immobiliser unit. But my Jeep does not have an Immobiliser. But with some further tracing, it appears my Parrot unit is hooked up to this circuit. Switching the Parrot off completely showed it was accounting for all the drop in amps when pulling fuse 23.

A Parrot is an electronic aftermarket device which allows your mobile phone to connect to your car sound system (speakers) via blue tooth. It has its own little microphone, so it is effectively a hands free mobile phone system. Switches sound from the radio to the call. Very simple, very effective.

So fuse 2 accounts for the remainder of the draw, about 50%. I could not (yet) figure out which components are powered up exactly, but it is the fuse that is labelled in the workshop manual as the ignition switch.

All in all I am happy with the results. Although I don’t have the exact details on what draws that remaining 50% of the 1A, I am pretty sure all is normal.

So I am quite convinced that the case of the battery being drained at the airport Valet parking was due to the valet guys accidentally switching the key to ACC, rather than just off.

Whilst I was doing all this checking and measuring, I discovered a few other things as well. It is impossible to switch of the main cabin light with the doors open! there is no switch!

I also discovered that the cargo bay light does have a switch but that did not work. So I quickly pulled it out and cleaned everything, works fine now.





Finally I also checked the electrical connections of my tail hook.



A case of hooking up my multimeter to the connector and switching on the respective lights and see if I get twelve volts.



Everything works with the exception of the fog light. Not to concerned about this. I did open up the connector and there is a wire connected to this particular part. So there must be a disconnect somewhere else.

The rear fog light is also installed aftermarket here in the Netherlands when the Jeep was imported in 2002, as it is mandatory here to have rear fog lights.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

All of my four cars have a so called all risk full cask insurance, based on the value as determined by a recognised appraiser. In most cases the value is fixed for three years. My mate Peter is such an appraiser and obviously he does all appraisal for me.

But these classic car insurances come with certain limitations. E.g. you need to have a regular car as well, you are not allowed to use your classic car for commuting, it needs to be parked in a garage at night etc. Also, they have a limitation on the annual mileage. Standard is 5000 km per car per year. Which is more than enough for the average classic car owner. Research has shown that the average classic car in western Europe does less than 1700 km/year.

But I tend to do a lot of driving and also tour across Europe. My insurer does check the mileage on each valuation report. These reports are submitted to the insurance company upon every appraisal. Peter, as a service to his customers, sends the report to the owner’s insurance company.

I did a bit of checking on all four cars. Peter saw them all in February 2020, so that is a good reference, close to three years. The Jeep is from February 2022, so only one year

Spider: 16.320km
W123: 8.047km
Jaguar: 16.259km
Jeep: 4.670km

The Jaguar has a limit of 7500km/year. But as became clear I need to up both the Spider and the Jeep to 7500km/year as well. Not very expensive, just a few hundred euro’s in all.

Classic car insurance are relatively cheap. Because they do a lot less mileage, are usually driven carefully and not in busy towns, they have a lot less accidents and thus the insurance premium is a lot less.

Happy to have sorted that. Of course, last year I did a lot of mileage in the Spider, with a trip to France and a trip to Italy. That raked up the miles. But 2023 should be no different. We have our annual trip to France with out Spider friends already planned. And for our annual Peter/Jeroen Spider trip we have more or less decided to tour around Scotland.

Last Friday I picked up my friend Berndt in my W123. A few months ago Berndt had bought a Rover 200 Cabriolet. He bought it unseen, from the internet for 1200 Euro. To put that in perspective, that is the price of a half decent regular push bicycle in the Netherlands. Berndt has two of these already!! But he likes them and they are really cheap. He bought it as the ragtop on this one was in very good nick. And it might serve as a replacement for one of the other Rovers.

He bought it while he and his wife Loes were staying in their apartment on the atlantic coast of France. So he just paid for the car and two month later after returning back home in the Netherlands he decided to pick it up.

We had to drive to Amersfoort, about an hour on the motorway.



We had a good look at it. Although it was very dirty on the outside, there was no rust anywhere, the electrically operated roof top worked perfectly. Engine started up with no problem and ran sweet.





In the background my W123:



We drove back home in convoy, me following Berndt. Just in case something went wrong I had loaded up the boot of the W123 with tools, jumper cables and a towing rope. But the rover drove fine!

Next another outing with the W123. This time together with spanner mate Peter to my favourite Jaguar X300/308 specialist, G&G Autoservice, run by Raymond and Joke.



I met Peter halfway and we drove on in his gorgeous Jaguar X350. In the past I have shown G&G before. Raymond is an outstanding car diagnostician, his garage is absolutely immaculate and he has all the latest tools and gadgets to work on his beloved Jaguars.

This was one of his Technical days, he organises for the Jaguar Forum members. About 50 guys (no girls I am afraid). Also, his trusted and very experience mechanic Jeffrey was leaving after twelve years. A shame, he will be working on wind mills from now on. But most customers know Jeffrey very well and appreciate him. So a collection was held in advance of the meeting to give Jeffrey a farewell gift. Not sure how many car mechanics get such a send off by their customers.

As always Raymond had invited a few other parties/companies to give some demonstrations. There was a guy repairing key FOB (Gave also a very interesting presentation on how these work), car detailing demo, spot repair, polishing of head lights and so on.

Raymond, Jeffrey and Petra (no female customers, but at least a female mechanic) did all the other demo’s. Which were about alignment, engine and transmission flushing.

This time Raymond spend some time, digging into each topic in some more depth. Here we are at his alignment rig.



Radio controlled.



I had not realised, but these sensors are simply hung over the tyres, not the rims! Raymond explained in depth why this is actually better than the ones fitted to rims.



The car was a Jaguar X358. Raymond and Petra also showed us, how and what kind of mistake a mechanic could be making when aligning cars. This Jaguar has air suspension. So you need to align it with the engine switched on as it gets raised a couple of millimetres. We saw how much of a difference that makes!

Obviously, brake and Steering wheel get fixed. The steering wheel needs to be fixed exactly level.



This machine does an amazing job of measuring every parameter in the car chassis and suspension.



These machines should be calibrated once every year. Raymond, being the perfectionist, gets his calibrated every six months!

Some images of the other demo’s: Key FOB repair



Headlight polishing.



Peter having a go at spot repair. I tried it as well and it is very very difficult. It takes a lot of experience.



Raymond spend a lot of time explaining the working of the Jaguar automatic transmission.



Friction plate. The friction material is just paper.



A mechatronic and a brain!



Raymond ripping apart the convertor.





All in all, another hugely interesting and pleasant day at G&G.

If you want to see some more details of Raymond’s workshop and see him ripping apart a complete Jaguar transmission have a look here:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post4180547

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Does the Rover 200 come from the era when Rover cars were British-built Hondas?

I had a 620, which would have been about, erm, around '97 model. I bought it at 4 years old for about 4k GBP. It was a lovely car, apart from the slush-box automatic transmission which really sapped the performance. The 2.0-litre manual equivalent would, I'm sure, have been very much more exiting

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Does the Rover 200 come from the era when Rover cars were British-built Hondas?

I had a 620, which would have been about, erm, around '97 model. I bought it at 4 years old for about 4k GBP. It was a lovely car, apart from the slush-box automatic transmission which really sapped the performance. The 2.0-litre manual equivalent would, I'm sure, have been very much more exiting

Yes, very much so. Initially they were based on the 3rd generation Honda Civc.

The 620 was quite a nice car I think. I had one as a company car for a short while, before moving on to the 800.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week, Berndt came around to show his freshly cleaned and polished Rover 200 Cabriolet we had picked up earlier this week.

He did a good job of cleaning it. It did look pretty grubby when we picked it up. With lots of birdpoo. But it cleaned up really well.





The original colour was green (similar to Berndt’s other Rover). It is a sort of matt black finish. The painting had been done quite nicely. Although, obviously still evidence of green paint when you start opening doors and boots.



Berndt is very happy with it and rightly so. For this sort of money (Euro 1200) it is an excellent car. Next year he will drive it to France where they own a small apartment. He will keep it there to enjoy the French rural roads. I might go along for the drive.

Tomorrow Berndt and I are off to Brussels for the Interclassics Exhibition. Looking forward to it.

Tuesday I am meeting up with my friend and old neighbour Toon. We are going to do some work on his Smart ForFour Brabus.

Strictly speaking not really a car topic, but it involved a lot of fiddling and use of my lathe and mini mill; Our granddaughter Bella was given a doll’s house by her “soma” (the mother of our grandson). It’s gorgeous and she loves it. It even had a little elevator you could operate with a little winch. Unfortunately, the winch broke very quickly.



So I made a new one. From brass, steel and aluminium bits offcuts.



Nice little job, I really need to get going again with the build of my model Scuderia engine.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I did a bit of a write up on electrical parasite drains:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...te-drains.html (Dealing with Electrical parasite drains)

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Yesterday I met my friend Toon in Nieuwegein, near Utrecht in the centre of the Netherlands. Toon leaves nearby Nieuwegein these days and he joined the AHC, or Auto Hobby Club Utrecht. http://ahc-utrecht.nl

Anybody can join, you pay only Euro 45 per car, per year and then you can make use of their workshop and facilities. You can use their lifts, pneumatic air, workbenches and so on.

The idea is you bring your own parts and tools and do your own work on your car. Toon told me it was mostly modern cars, being maintained and repaired by members. Not too many old-timers.

So I piled a lot of tools into the boot of the W123 and drove to the AHC location. Toon had already positioned his Smart ForFour Brabus on the lift.



As I reported earlier Toon had asked me to come along when he was buying this car. We took it for a test drive and had it on a lift also for inspection. It looked really nice, one of the few things we discovered was that the rear disc brakes were pretty worn down.

So today Toon wanted to change the rear pads and disc and also refresh the brake fluid in the whole system.

Installing new pads means pushing the brake cylinders all the way in. And that means the brake fluid reservoir might spill fluid, so we emptied it out before starting. Also, as we would be refreshing / flushing the system it had to go anyway.

Ready for the lift!



The wheels were quickly taken off.

These brakes have so called floating callipers. Fairly straight forward to take everything apart, four bolts.

Also notice the special tool. These brake piston need to be rotated with a special tool. You can not push them in, you need something like this tool. Neither Toon or I had it, but luckily the club does have quite a number of small tools available to members as well.

Also notice the handbrake cable connect to a lever on the back of the brake cilinder. On these type of brakes, the hand brake lever operates the brake piston.

On many other design you will have a disc brake with a build in drum brake for the purpose of the handbrake.





The disc brake is held in position with one single little bolt. It took a couple of whacks with a hammer to break it free.



We cleaned everything thoroughly, we took one of the sliding pins apart, but it all looked really clean inside and the sliding mechanism worked fine, so we left the others and only cleaned the outside.



Reinstalling everything went smoothly.



New brake pads. Notice the little sort of spring on top of the brake pad. That is a wear indicator. When the brake pad wears down the spring will start touching the disc and make a screeching noise! Very simple, very effective.



With both rear brakes done we proceeded to flush the brake system. I h ad brought both my pressure and my vacuum brake system. But we ended up using the club’s vacuum bleeder. Because it was available and had all the correct fittings.

When you do this job of replacing discs and pads there should not be the need to bleed the system. No air should have entered the system. We just used to bleeder to flush out the system. I have a special brake fluid canister that will fit on top of the brake fluid reservoir and automatically keep it topped up as you suck the fluid through the system with the vacuum bleeder. Unfortunately, on this car the brake fluid reservoir is hidden underneath the parafan with only about 3-4 centimetres of clearances. The risk is you might suck in air if the reservoir gets too low. So we bled the system very gradually and kept stopping and refilling the reservoir.

We did all four brakes. This car also has a hydraulically operated clutch. Toon had been telling me a story about one of his earlier experience where the clutch, after flushing/bleeding would not work anymore. Still Toon wanted to give this hydraulic clutch a try and flush it out. Which we did and then it would not work anymore!!

Luckily, Toon also new the trick how to fix this problem. We took the slave cilinder off. Very easy, just two small bolts. Next we pushed the piston all the way back in against the spring and allowed it to move back very slowly. Effectively pushing any air out and allowing the reservoir to fill the line. The slave cilinder sits almost vertically right below the brake reservoir and is hooked up to the brake fluid reservoir as well.

Worked a treat.



This Brabus variant of the Smart ForFour has a different engine and gearbox, but also stiffer suspension. We had noticed it also had these rubber spring stiffeners fitted on all four springs. We took them off, to see if it would make a difference.



So several jobs completed successfully!

This Auto Hobby Club is really nice. Great facilities. There were several other guys working on various cars. Toward the evening when we were about done and cleaning up this camper was still up on the lift. They were doing some welding to it.



A few more impressions of this hobby workshop:

Some more tools for members to use:



A little relax corner, with coffee and soft drink machine.



I drove my W123 home and this morning I took it to my usual nearby garage for an APK.



Now, I must have owned probably close to hundred cars during the last 46 years. So I have also gone though a couple of hundred APKs (Dutch MOT) over the year. None of my cars ever failed!

But my gorgeous W123 failed miserably due to high CO emission, well over 8%



Legally, because this is a forty year old car, the CO can be 4,5% max. But I know for a fact, that I have been running around 1,5% all these years.

This is the same garage I have been using for the APKs of the W123 and the Jaguar for the last five years. So I know them well. Really nice and helpful guys. They were not comfortable working on this carburettor engine. So they allowed me take the car home and get if fixed. Did not have to pay anything. When I have the CO corrected I only need to return to them, they will check the CO and sign of on the car as everything else was fine.

So I took the W123 home and called my friendly W123 specialist Cor. I have visited him multiple times over the years. Cor is really one of the very few authentic and knowledgable W123 specialists in the country.

I told him what had happened. He informed he, he had just moved home, closed his original workshop and opened a much smaller workshop next to his new home, which is only twenty minutes away from where we live!!

I am going to visit Cor in his new workshop this coming Saturday and hopefully we can fix this CO thing.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last weekend my friend Berndt and I went to see the classic car show, Interclassics in Brussels, Belgium.

https://interclassicsbrussels2022.ti...xpo.com/closed

I had ordered tickets online the day before. Berndt brought his Rover 200 Cabriolet and we sat off on Sunday morning ten o’clock. Berndt has three of these Rover 200 Cabriolets. One is really old and is not in running condition any more. He will use it for spare parts. Then there is his most recent acquisition, the black one, I showed earlier. He also has a green one, with an automatic gearbox and it runs on LPG. I showed that about a year ago. Very nice cars. We drove to Brussels in less than 90 minutes.

The ring road around Antwerp and Brussel can be teribbly congested but on a Sunday morning it was fine. LPG is still cheap compared to petrol and diesel here in the Netherlands. Less than half the price of petrol.

There are a huge number of classic car exhibitions in Europe more or less all year round. During the last three years, because of the pandemic, most if not all had to be cancelled. It has started up again since spring/summer this year. But I had noticed that none of the car exhibitions, or other events we have visited, were at a scale of the pre-Covid period. I guess it takes a while to get all the exhibitors confident.

The Interclassics in Brussel is considered to be one of the high end classic car exhibitions in Europe. And we were not disappointed. Although it was slightly smaller than previous years. But it was a splendid exhibition of some very special and unique classic cars. This year theme celebrated 75 years of Ferrari.

Various main stream manufacturers were out in force, including Ferrari, but also Porsche and Volkswagen.

The very fist car we walked into when entering the exhibition was this lovely 1967 Alfa Romeo Duet. Many Alfisti would consider this the one and only Alfa Spider.

These days a nice Duetto will set you back some Euro 65-75000 (INR 6000000)



Volkswagen was presented with a line up of all their Bus models. From the T1 to the T7. When I grew up, (60-70s) the VW bus was a popular family car. Especially with Roman Catholic families as they had large families. In those days no seatbelt or limitations on how many people you could take. So a typical Roman Catholic family of mum, dad and at least 10 kids could easily fit in a VW bus.



All lined up T1 though T7. First time we had seen a T7 for real!



No classic car show would be complete without a couple of my favourite Mercedes Pagoda’s.



Did I mention Ferrari? How about a2019 Ferrari Omologata. This car is supposed to be a tribute to the legendary 250GTO.It is based on an 812. It was commissioned by a Ferrari collector and took Flavio Manzoni and his team two years to build.





Of course, there is quite a bit of other things to see, besides cars, but mostly car related. The Interclassics in Maastricht tends to be half filled with Life-Style stuff, but here in Brussels nearly everything was car related. From books, models, posters to watches.



Well, a bit of so called Life Style was present. Not sure what it has to do with cars, other than I assume car owners buy this stuff.







An unusual Mercedes, still without its coat of paint



On these Interclass exhibitions they also tend to exhibit a few modern cars. But they are always super cars. So chances of meeting these in the wild are slim. But you might spot them now and then in places such as London, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf etc. A Lamb and a Bentley.



I love this 1964 Bentley S3 Continental. Gorgeous shape and colour. Berndt is a die-hard, hard core, British classic car purist. He did not like this version. The original one had single main headlights. For the American market it became these double ones. (Happened to a lot of cars in those days).



A very special Aston Martin DB9, Zagato.



A very special and unusual Daimler! It is a SP250 Sportwagon. Again, this model was specifically aimed at the American market. It has a 2,5L V8 Semi, 140 HP engine. It could do 200 km/h. When introduced in 1959 it cost UKP 1395 (INR 137900)



Some details of some pre-war car. I love these cars as they are so photogenic.



They don’t make switch gear like they used to!!



A stunning 1954 Alfa Romeo 1900 CSS Ghia. Only 10 build, how rare can you be?



Three exhibition halls, crammed chock full with classic cars!



Another pretty special Aston Martin. This is a DB3 Evocation. This is based on a fully restored DB2/4 chassis with a rebuilt engine, gearbox and running gear. Bespoke aluminium hand made body. One of a series of four. Talk about rare!



Ferrari had a huge stand. I am not that much of Ferrari fan and neither is Berndt, so we hardly spend time here. Took one image though!



Although it is very nice and interesting to see all these magnificent, special and rare cars, Berndt and I do prefer the more ordinary classic cars. They were virtually absent on this exhibition. We did see a couple of nice Mercedes W123 and this 19070 Opel Kadet 1.1. This is an original Dutch car, with only one owner and an unbelievable 30.000KM on the clock. Asking price Euro 13950 (INR 1200000). These sort of cars used to be part of the Dutch streets where we lived in the 70s. Several of our neighbours had Kadetts.



There were also several classic tractors for sale. There were four of these, all in the same colour!! Since we now live in a rural part of the Netherlands in an old farmhouse I keep pestering my wife about buying a classic tractor. I think it would look great in our driveway and very authentic. But so far this fantastic suggestion of mine has been vetoed.

This is an original Lamborghini, as most would know Lamborghini started as an industrial agriculturial type of manufacturer long before they started building supercars. But you have to admit that this tractor does look stunning. Euro 50000 (INR 4300000) and it is yours



Berndt and I spend some four hours. We did not see each and every single car. These exhibitions are just to big. But we had a great time and it was nice to have a proper classic car exhibition after three years of Covid Restrictions.

Jeroen

And some more pre-war cars:





And the final image. Elephants are among the first exotic animals that Rembrandt Bugatti modelled. The small trained elephant was originally designed as a signet for his brother, Ettore, before being rededicated as a radiator ornament for the latter's most ambitious automobile, the Royale.



We drove back home in 90 minutes, no congestion!

Next car related outing: This coming Saturday with the W123 to my old pal Cor to visit his new workshop and get the CO emission fixed.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

With my W123 having failed its MOT due to way to high CO percentage, it was time to get this sorted. I don’t have the equipment to measure any emissions. Also, tuning these W123 is a bit of a combination of knowledge, experience and a proper Mercedes diagnostic tool.

In the past I used to visit Mercedes specialist Cor de Jong. You can find my earlier visits to him in various earlier posts. So I called Cor, only to find out he had moved home and workshop. He moved to a much nicer and cheaper location only a twenty minute drive from where we live!

So I went to see him first thing Saturday morning.

Cor hooked up the W123 to an emission analyser and his Mercedes diagnostic analyser.





It took a bit of fiddling and a drive and some more fiddling but Cor managed to get the CO back to just over 2% in the end.



Its likely to come down a bit more, after driving some more. High CO means incomplete burning of the fuel, so the engine needs to clean itself a bit. So I will be doing some more Highway driving with it in the weeks to come.

We did notice that the engine does hold back a bit now and then, especially during acceleration. We had the same problem before and Cor managed to minimise it then. But we also felt that it is unusual for the carburettor to have deviated so much from its correct settings. Which is probably an indication that the needle or other bits need replacing.

I am going to see if I can get the correct parts, not so easy these days, and then return to Cor to fit the carburettor parts and tune the ignition some more.

But the W123 is in good enough shape to pass the MOT, so I will call them tomorrow to make an appointment

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Congratulations on getting the Merc adjusted!

I had to skim through your previous post the other day, but was able to appreciate it at leisure today. When you go to a classic car show, what camera kit do you take with you? Or do you rely on a good phone camera?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

. When you go to a classic car show, what camera kit do you take with you? Or do you rely on a good phone camera?

Just my iPhone. Not quite sure, but I think it’s a 12 Pro. Mind you I had two it’s lenses replaced already. Not by Apple, just the local mobile phone shop. So 2 of my 3 lenses on this phone are now cheap plastic ones. Doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference on my images, it seems.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

As I mentioned earlier, one of the things I learned during our brazing workshop a few weeks ago is that I need to upgrade my torch. One of my mates from the model building forum has helped me find a very nice second hand set. Original Perkeo.



He is checking it for me and will add some components to it and will provide me with the necessary reducers and so on. I just ordered myself a 5L bottle of oxygen and a 1L bottle of propane. That should keep me brazing for a while. Hopefully end of next week everything will have arrived.

I took the Mercedes W123 back to my MOT guys. Passed flying colours of course!

Another MOT (APK) good for two years motoring!



I have been giving some thought what I want to do with the carburettor. Although it is fine now, the fact that the CO went up this much, is likely an indication it needs a proper overhaul. All the carburettor specialist have given up on overhauling this particular type of carburettor, due to shortage of some critical parts. I checked and as luck would have it, I still have these parts in stock!!

I thought the first thing to check is whether I could find any air leaks.

So after it passed the MOT it was straight back into my garage.



I hooked up one of my analyser, to keep an eye on the RPMs.



With the engine idling away, I then proceeded to spray starter fluid all over the various parts of the carburettor and the various vacuum hoses. The idea being, as soon as there is a leak, the starter spray gets sucked in and the RPMs will raise.



Could not find anything. So I will try and fix the slight engine stutter first. Then re-adjust / check the CO one more time followed by driving a few thousand kilometres and check the CO again. If it has deviated again, I will start work on the carburettor.

Took the air filter off, not too bad condition, but I am replacing it never the less.



I took the four spark plugs out. They all looked in excellent condition. Nice grey appearance, exactly as it should be. But they are old, so I am going to replace them.

Next I checked the spark plug leads, cleaned them. Took the distributor cap apart as well.I have seen a lot worse! Still, I ordered a new one.



Checked the rotor too, again not be bad, but I just ordered a new one as well.







Cleaned all the various parts with my Dremel.



The air inlet filter has a valve which allows air to drawn from the front of the engine compartment, or during cold weather draw inlet air across the exhaust manifold. It is operated by a simple mechanical thermostat. I replaced quite some time ago. Have a look here:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post4630331

Initially it sort of looked ok, but I decided to test it by taking it inside and then bring it back out (it is 4oC here). And it got stuck in the interposition. So I ordered a new one.



Next I checked the oil separator on the inside of the air inlet housing. Not very dirty at all.



Cleaned it and put it back together again.



The oil will drain back into the valve cover, any oil vapour is drawn into the inlet manifold. I noticed that the connection from this small hose onto the tube on the inlet manifold was not very secure. Might have had some false air in there. Did not check it with the starter fluid, as it is more or less hidden under the air inlet filter when everything is installed.



Checked and cleaned all connectors on the electronic ignition. (Yes this is a forty year old carburettor car, but with an electronic ignition.



I also verified the proper working of the vacuum advance. Well, what I did is such on the vacuum line and you can see it turn!

Finally, I swapped the yellow registration plates for the (illegal) blue ones. Yes, they are illegal, but I have never been fined for it. And even the cops will admit to the fact that blue plates look so much better on this car!!



All the parts will start to arrive over the next few days, so hopefully I will have the W123 back on the road by the middle of next week. till then it sits in my garage waiting for parts.



On Sunday I will be visiting Peter. He has bought another car, a little Lancia. We need to work on the brakes.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Couple of my parts for the W123 arrived this morning. So I drove over to the next village and picked them up: Airfilter, oil filter, spark plugs.



In the part shop I also noticed this “Hot” Glue gun. I have never owned one, now I do!



I decided to start putting some things back together, even though most or the parts will arrive early this coming week.

Checked a few more things in the ignition with help from one of my W123 manuals.



The primary coil should be between 1.2 - 1.6 Ohms. Mine measured a little lower.



The secondary coil should be between 7 - 12 Ohms. Mine measured 9,1 so fine!



I changed the spark plugs for no other reason the old ones are about 10 years old. Iridium and the looked fine, but time to swap. The new ones are conventional plugs again, but the came standard with the correct gap. (08,mm). I did check just incase.



New air inlet filter installed. Easy peasy!



I also fixed a few of the potential false air leaks I had come across. This is special tape with a sort of bit bitumen on it. Very pliable and sticky. Works really well.



Also fixed that smaller hose toward the inlet manifold. With everything back together I took the W123 for a short test drive. Definitely runs a bit better, but there is still a bit of a stutter now and then.

Checked the dwell angle one more time. Which at 13o is well within specification (15o +/- 3o).



With the engine and oil warm I did a quick lube oil and oil filter change too.W123 in the usual position so I have easy access to the drain plug. Very easy on the W123, on the side of the sump.



The oil filter on the W123, still a proper oil filter container with a separate filter element in it.



The new filter comes with a new O-ring and two washers, one copper.



The sump plug also has a copper ring. As always I heat it up till it is red hot and then throw it in some water. That allows the copper to become soft again.



Tomorrow I will be driving to Peter, about an hour and 45 minutes. I have loaded up the boot of the W123 with tools. Doubt I will be needing anything, Peter has a lot of tools himself. You never know though.

Jeroen