[Jeroen]

Worked on the Jaguar and the illustrious P1121 code.

I have been studying some of the wiring diagrams to figure out which connectors and earthing points could be related to this problem. One advantageous of older cars; typically the workshop manuals are easily available. Jaguar has this system called JTIS (Jaguar Technical Information System). I have it on DVD, but I also have various PDF printed as I find paper much more convenient then screens. Especially when it comes to wiring and electronic diagram.

By and large I find the various manuals from Jaguar pretty comprehensive.

Some pages from the electrical/electronic manual:

First you need to have some idea where the various bits are located:





Next, how it is all wired up together, which connector goes where.





The various sensors on the throttle body are all connected to the ECU or ECM as Jaguar calls it.

I decided to open up the ECM. Again, on these somewhat older cars it is usually very easy. Although this one was sealed and I would void the warranty. As this is an almost twenty year old car you can imagine I am not that impressed by these sort of stickers anymore.





You could argue what you can actually do once you have opened one of these boxes of electronic trickery. Truth is, not to much. But you can do a very thorough visual inspection. Components might come loose, Soldering on the PCB cracks. I have had a BCM (Body Control Module) with a cracked soldering that caused all sort of problems. On these electronics you can just re-solder it your self.

There are specialised companies that do a full re-soldering of all joints on these sort of electronics. It has been known to be very effective on some of these Jaguars!

So a visual inspection means opening it up and checking, with a loupe ( I have a fancy one with built in LED) inspecting everything. I also run my finger across all the joints to see/feel if everything is still firmly in place









I have found that on cars the actual electronics tend to be very robust. Professional, in the Telecom world, I would never ever handle PCB as casually. You would need to wear at least an earthing strap to ensure static electricity can not cause and harm. Lots of electronics can get damaged by just touching it!

This is what the Jaguar looks like with its ECM removed:



Proper earthing is a hugely important factor for proper operation of electronics on any car. The Jaguar is particularly susceptable to poor grounding. So disconnect them, clean them, put them together with some di-electric grease for protection





I could not find anything amiss with the ECM so put everything back together again. All connectors get a good soak with some electric cleaner.



Remarkable the ECM is not bolted down at all. It just fits into this box! With a few pads on top so it is pushed down and (hopefully) stays put!.





Although this is a British build car, in the early 2000, essentially only metric bolts and nuts were used. And a few special Torx bolts to hold the cover on the ECM in place. Not so sure why they decided to use Torx for such a cover?



I am also very happy to report that the clip on the air filter house is still holding!! (see my earlier reports, I believe this was the third attempt to glue it back in place and still holding!)



Bolted back the air intake with the mass air meter etc.



Started up the car and ran some more diagnostics.



My Autel OBD analyser can also read a lot of live data. That means switch positions (reported as 0 or 1) or values (reported as % or voltage)



The live function I used was to verify the integrity of the signal coming from the various potent meter. Slowly pressing the accelerator shows the signal rising steadily. I tried it numerous time up and down. Not once did the signal drop or go haywire on me. Which would have indicated a problem with the potentiometer.

This test is far from conclusive, but it is worth just checking.

Finally took the Jaguar for a test drive. On the motorway within five minutes I got three Fail Safes! Managed to turn around and drive home without any further issues, but it is back to the drawing board I am afraid.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Over the weekend I took the Mercedes for a test drive. This car has been of the road for almost three months now. New Membrane on the carburator, new timing chain and tensioner and the steering box overhauled/adjusted.

So time to put it through it’s paces.

Good news first; I am very happy with the way the steering feels now.

Only thing, the steering wheel was not exactly dead centre when the car drives straight on. So despite my ridiculous expensive little adjustment tool, I still got the sleeve one tooth out of the correct position. That was quickly adjusted, so now that was perfect too.

Idling was a bit erratic. When I checked the RPM the engine was only idling at about 550 RPM. Adjusted it to 850 RPM and all is fine.

However, there was another problem. The engine makes a distinct whining noise. At first I had not noticed it so much. Thought it was the V-belt that needs to settle a bit. But after 10 minutes driving the whining did not get any less.

So I started checking all the bearings with my stethoscope. The usual suspect with a whining noise like this is the hydraulic steering pump. Or bearings on the waterpump and or alternator. But after very careful checking I determined the noise was coming from the drive shaft of the distributor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn0Er8lMbBg

We had been messing with the distributor to some extent. But still. So I posted this little video on my Dutch W123 forum. Various members were quick to point out that it might be too high tension on the chain.

Sure enough I had not installed the tensioner properly!

So put the Mercedes in it’s familiar pose.



Pulled the tension out



Here you see the tensioner. You will notice the so called pressure bolt sticking outside the sleeve quite a bit! The pressure bolt pushes against the chain guide inside the engine and causes the chain to tension up.



Her you see the pressure bolt removed from the sleeve





I had not fully realised this but the pressure bolt has a ratchet mechanism. You need to install the sleeve first, then insert the pressure bolt till it fit snuggly with its retainer ring in the sleeve. (see drawing below). Next you mount the spring and the large retainer nut.



What had happened is that most likely I had pushed the pressure bolt into the sleeve, to its maximum extension and mounted the lot in one go!

So after re-installing the tensioner in the correct way the engine sounds a lot healthier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh-T5SJK2fg

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Yesterday I received the second flat cable for the radio of the Spider. Would you believe it, again the wrong one!! Not much luck with this. This cable costs next to nothing, so I have now ordered it from two more companies. If all goes well in the next week or so I should be receiving 2-3 cables. I hope, fingers crossed!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week I finally received the correct flat cable for my radio!

So on Friday late afternoon, straight after work I got going.

Fitting the cable and rebuilding the complete radio was simple enough:
You can see the nice new straight cable fitted and the old one, all bended on top





Hooked it up to the cables before I slotted it back again. Everything seemed to working correctly. So I pushed it in, no problems. Than I noticed one of the speakers wasn’t working at all. This car has four factory fitted speakers. Two at the front, two at the rear.

The right front speaker wasn’t working. So I tried to get the radio out again. Would you believe, no matter what it would not budge. Even with the special tools it just wouldn’t come out. Which meant I had to dismantel a lot of stuff to try and get access to it.







Finally got it out again. Took hours! These days all cars come equipped with radio’s. So it has been quite some time since I last had to install- remove an aftermarket radio from a car. Most have done dozens in the past. Simple enough job in essence, but often difficult as you can’t get good access to the cables, to the rear of the radio etc.

I always keep all manuals of whatever I buy. So finding the old Kenwood Mask radio to check the wiring diagram was easy.



Got the old trusted multimeter out. Simple case of measuring for continuity on all four speakers. Sure enough right front speaker had a problem.



The wires have been spliced multiple times over the year by as many owners, including myself.



I was “hopefully” it was one of the splices. So I checked visually first. Just pull gently, twist and tweak the wire gently. See if it might come loose or sometimes you can actually feel it not fitting properly. Then measured the continuity across all splices. Unfortunately, all were well. Which meant the problem is in the wiring to the speaker or the speaker itself. My money is on the speaker. Look how that speaker is mounted:



In order to get access to this particular speaker you need to remove the AC condensor and the AC fan!! How is that for some fancy Italian engineering. No problem with access to the other three speakers, but this is the one that requires at least a full day of spannering!!

I can’t be bothered with that. At least not for now.

Just a detail on how this radio hooks up to its little frame.

Here you can see the side of the radio with the little extraction tool inserted. You can see a little hook at the bottom of the radio. The extraction tool can only lift the hook when the mask panel is in the open position. This was designed specifically as an anti-theft device. With the Mask panel closed it would be difficult to remove the radio. Of course, any junky thief worth it’s salt simply rips out the whole lot, radio, frame, whatever part of the console needs to come out etc. But the idea was neat.





So we are good to go again!

Here you see it. Installed and all other bits fitted to the Spider. Checking all its functions. This is a radio, cassette player and a CD-player (six CD changer in the boot). In its day the epitome of after market Car HiFi Audio systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPYCubZ5-ig

Checked the tires. This weekend there is the so called Auto Moto Italia. A nice car event, with a, you guessed it, Italian theme. So only Italian cars, and Italian life style stuff. My Alfa club, The Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register has a stand. It is going to be very nice weather on Sunday. I have already planned a nice tour across some rural windy road to get there.

[Jeroen]

Today I visited the Auto Moto Italia. A big Italian car event. Used to go there every year, but had not been since 2008 due to the fact we had been living abroad. So the format has changed somewhat. But it was still good fun. Met with lots of people from various clubs I belong to. Some vendors I know.

These days not too many vendors. But there are always a few selling various Alfa bits



And of course endless red cars as you would expect



It started at 10.00am so I drove from home on the motorway in my Spider. Just under one hour. But on the way home I took a very windy rural way home. Almost three hours. It was a very nice day, probably one of the last this year as autumn is setting in:



At an Italian Car show you have to buy a car, obviously. So I bought another Alfa Spider. Identical to the one I have got already. Absolutely rust free and it fits easily in my garage!







My Spider drove really well. Except the clock and the mirrors weren’t working. Back home I checked and a fuse has blown. Replaced it and all seems well. Must be due to all the work earlier.

Also, I noticed a small cooling water leak. So another job coming up!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

So during our trip to Wales I noticed the typical odour of cooling liquid. It is a very distinct smell. Even very small quantities can produce that smell.

I checked under the hood several times, kept a very close eye on the level of the cooling liquid in the expansion tank. Could not find anything.

When I came home last Sunday I managed to do some more thorough checking, with mirror and torches. Found a tiny leak on the hose coming out of the top of the radiotor. Absolutely minute, only maybe a drop every few minutes.

So tonight I took the hose off:



Pushed my special open drain canister underneath the Spider and undid the hose clamp and pulled the hose of the radiotor.



I inspected the hose very carefully. I could not see any obvious damage. So I cleaned the pipe on the radiotor and for good measure put a new hose clamp on it. Filled up the cooling system, took it for a test drive.

Whenever you have worked on the cooling system, you must make sure the system properly purges. Put the heating controls on maximum, drive off and check the level of coolant now and then and replenish when needed. The Spider has one purge valve on the highest point in the circuit.

Did all of this and when I got home checked everything again with mirror and torch. Not hundred percent conclusive, but I think there might still a bit of seepage. So I am going to order a new hose and replace it for good measure.

These rubber hoses do become weak after decades of use. Sometimes they just don’t ply very easily when compressed with a hose clamp.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I mentioned it before I think. A while ago the door stop on the Spider broke. I did order replacement parts, but I had not gotten around to fixing it.

Truth be told, I was dreading this job. It seems straightforward enough. However, it is far from simple. The problem is you have to get it out by going inside the door. The real problem is that my Spider has electric windows. And the winding mechanism is in the way. It is incredible tight fit to start with.

Some twenty years ago I replaced both door stops as well. I ended up taking the winding mechanism out. Which is essentially a large mounting plate with an electrical motor and a reel with steel wire. The steel wire runs across the inside of the door to the window and pulls the window up or down.

At the time I made the mistake by just unbolting the mounting plate. Which means the wire becomes slack, jumps of the drum, the guiding wheels etc. etc. It took me many many hours/day to get everything back in.

I have been doing some research and found two guys who claimed they managed to get it done, without removing the winding mechanism.

So last night I started optimistically:



Inside door trim all removed:



My Spider (as has the Mercedes) has had an antirust Dinitirol treatment. Which is good. Until you need to poke your hand/arm inside little nooks and crannies. You are going to get extremely dirty. So some makeshift protection



Finally managed to extract it!! YEAH!!



I had my wife take these images. I had her on standbye. Her hands are a lot smaller than mine, but she doesn’t really like to do this sort of stuff. But she doesn’t mind taking images!

It took me many many hours of endless fiddling. I had to use screwdrivers, pliers, mirrors, flashlights, endoscopes and it was still near impossible to see what was going on. In the end it just came out purely on feel alone. And some scraped knuckles.

On the workbench, you see the old assembly with the broken strap. And a new strap and two new rollers.



The rolls are kept in place with simple sort of dowel pins. Just punch them out, put new rolls in with a bit of grease and Bob’s your uncle as they say.



Here the new parts installed. You can see that the new strap is tappered and has an indent. It actually has two of these indents. At the sort of half way open and fully open position of the door. These straps are made of metal with a very thick rubber coating.





Now for the next trick; getting it back into the door and into position. I made up this very nifty “door stop installation tool”. Some might just see a bit of string. But sometimes the best inventions are very simple!



I have been at it for about an hour last night. No luck yet, getting it back in.

To be continued. I have also ordered a new radiator hose as I don’t trust the old one. So that needs doing as well.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Getting the old door stop out was a lengthy fiddly job. Getting the new one back in was an ever more lengthy and fiddly job. Despite my clever insertion tool.

It is just impossible to get a good enough view inside the door to see what is happening. So it’s all by touch, feel and a lot of luck

This fiddly job just take patience. The minute you want to rush it, it will never work. I made three attempts over the last few days. Each time I spend 30-40 minutes fiddling with this blasted doorstop and trying to get it inserted back into the door. Just would not go. In my experience you should just stop after a while, of for a walks, sleep on it, do something different and try again another time.

Tonight, fourth try and the door stop slid in almost immediately!

Here you see the new door stop all hidden inside the door, except the bit that is attached to the door frame as it should!



Last look on the inside of the door. I spend quite a bit of time checking if I had not bend anything out of place with all this fiddling, Made sure the window electric winding still worked and the electrical mirror too.



Final result, as new!!



I have received the new cooling water hose for the Spider. So that is a little job for maybe this weekend.

I need to replace the spark plugs and check the various belts on the Jaguar soon as well. Also, the problem with the fuel tank of the Jaguar not filling completely is still there. As well as the silly audio signal on the indicator. More electronic jobs to figure out.

On Saturday 17th of November I’m off to see my friendly Jaguar expert Raymond of G&G. I wrote earlier about the transmission overhaul workshop he did last year. This year another workshop with various different topics. Looking forward to it.

Still need to fit the speed sensor on my son’s Golf GTI.

And my former next door neighbour wants to replace the distribution chain on his W123 as well. He will come around for a day of spannering somewhere in November/December

Plenty to keep me busy.

Jeroen

[shankar.balan]

@jeroen
The spider does it for me!
Is it the same model as the Day of the Jackal Alfa?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

The spider does it for me!
Is it the same model as the Day of the Jackal Alfa?

Thank you!

No, the Spider in the day of the Jackal was an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider.

Sp that is a very different, much older Spider. Worth a lot of money these days.

https://motoringconbrio.com/2010/09/...e-jackal-1973/

Spider/spyder is Italian for two-seater convertible sports car.

My Spider is a so-called Serie III belonging to the 105 series. The 105 series platform was used on quite a few different Alfa’s including the Spider. The Spider 105 series started with the Duetto, Coda Tronca, Serie III, Serie IV. All these car have essentially the same underpinnings, same range of engine etc. Just some of the bodywork is different and on the later model electronic injection was introduced, electrical mirrors, AC etc.

Of all the Alfa Spiders, the Duetto is probably seen as the most iconic one, not least because of its appearance in the movie the Graduate with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft

You can find any car in any movie on IMCD, have a look:

http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles_make-Alfa+Romeo.html

Although their naming convention is a bit messy, it is easy to find all the variants.

Mine is a Serie III, QV made for the US market. At the time Alfa produced three Serie III variants, The Graduate, The Veloce and the QV. The Graduate was the most basic variant and the QV the top of the line.

The QV came with various extra bits of body kit. But also with electrical windows, electrical mirrors, AC and a more plush interior. Many petrolhead think that QV’s are tuned versions, but with Alfa a QV variant is very often just an optical illusion, at least from an engine point of view.

I did not like the QV body kit, so all of that was removed. So my Spider Series III looks like a Veloce. Many people would call the Coda Tronca the Veloce (so does IMDC by the way). But it is not correct. The Coda Tronca is sometime referred to as Series II, which at least from an historical point of view is closer to the truth.

Confused? Well, there is very little rationale to Italian cars. These days a concours state Duetto could fetch Euro 100.000,-- and a concour state Coda Tronca about half. The series III are actually the cheapest. You can still find a nice, good model for less than Euro 10.000. The Series IV is quite popular as it is somewhat newer and also came with power steering. Prices Euro 20-30.000. To put that somewhat in perspective, that is the sort of money you would pay for a mid range Volkswagen Gold or Ford Focus.

By and large the serie III and IV are the last of the “affordable” ragtop sports cars in Europe. Still quite a few about. Parts availability is by and large very good and there are lots of Alfa/Spider specialised that can help out.

They are relatively easy to work on, but sometimes fiddly. The only criteria for an Italian car is that it needs to look goo. How it looks underneath, let alone give something mundane as maintenance any thoughts!

To prove that point: The AC was a factory fitted option. It does show in the owners’ manual. But the workshop manuals don’t mention it (or very sparsely)

Earlier on in this thread I changed out the V-belt and had to remove the radiotor and the V-belt of the AC compressor, which meant dismantling the crank pulley. Just for a routine maintenance job!!

These days no two Spiders are identical. Partly because different bits and pieces were used in the factory. Also, over the years owners make changes. But it is interesting. You come to our Spider Register meetings and there could be say a hundred cars. 25 of each variant. Other than the colour of course, there will be endless differences in different details, including under the bonnet.


Jeroen

[Jeroen]

It is really autumn here in the Netherlands. Leaves are falling, beautiful colours in nature. But also rain, lots of wind and the sun sets early. We also just switched from summer time to winter time.

Anyway, this weekend we had gorgeous autumn weather. Cold, but dry and the sun was out. I had not driven the Mercedes for a while, so my wife and I set of an early Saturday morning for a nice country drive to Heusden. And old “walled city” . https://www.hbtheusden.nl/why-to-visit-heusden

We often go there, but this Saturday was a bit special as they held a Brocante market. We like visiting those sort of things.

Nice 90 minute drive along endless little dike roads and across rivers on little ferries.

Here the W123 on the ferry just outside Heusden.





The Brocante market. All this old stuff calls for some B&W photography!



We did not buy anything at the Brocante market. Just spend an hour and a half looking at everything.Next,we strolled around Heusden as it has many nice little shops and some cosy cafe's and restaurants Bought myself a new cap!



Back home I wanted to test drive my new cap in my Spider. It should stay on my head up to 130 km/h or I will exchange it !

First, I quickly exchanged the wonky cooling liquid hose:



Doesn’t take much effort, or many tools for that matter



Here you see the old and new one side by side for my usual comparison before fitting the new part



Old one coming off.



Here you can see the old one. Although I could not detect any tears of anything it still leaked, no matter how tight I adjusted the hose clip.

On these old rubber hoses, that will sometime happen over time. The rubber is compressed to the max and won’t seal anymore properly. Time to replace!





Fired up the Spider. Heater of full heat to ensure all air is pushed out of the system. Drove for about 15 minutes. Made sure the thermostat had opened. (you can see that on the temperature gauge. The needle will rise, it will go just passed its normal operating temperate and fall back a notch. That is the moment the thermostat opened and started controlling the temperature.

Pulled over, checked the radiotor, checked the reservoir. Opened a purge valve but everything was fine.

I drove all the way on little rural B-road to Tiel. At Tiel I picked up the dike running along the Waal and started heading home along the dike road. (almost 45 km on one dike!)



Spider ran really well, but occasionally, when pulling away in low RPMs I heard a pecular noise. I have heard this before. Could be the nuts on the exhaust manifold are coming loose. The exhaust gasses start to blow past the gasket and the pipes which causes a very distinct sound.

Back home I checked them:



In order to get access you need to have these special spanners. Nothing else will do. And sure enough I found three nuts I could tighten quite a bit!



I will need to take the Spider out for another drive to double check.

A few little jobs, checking oil and various other fluids on all cars.

[Jeroen]

I have been driving the Jaguar extensively to ensure I don’t get any more electronic issues. Next weekend I will need to do more than 1200 km, so I want to make sure it is working perfectly!.

Yesterday I had the whole day to myself. Good day to test the Jaguar. First thing, 0800am in the morning was to drive over to a village some 20 km from home. I have joined a local political party. In two weeks time there are local council elections so, we are busy promoting ourselves. The council has arranged for this little bus for all ten parties. We are taking this to various locations. On Saturday morning we were at one of the local shopping centres trying to get people doing their weekend supermarket shopping interested in local politics and in particular vote for us.



From there I drove on to the Autotron, about 50 km south. Various car shows are held here throughout the year. This weekend was the last of the season classic car show. I met up with a good friend of mine. Good fun. We chat, we roam around the show, look at parts, books, tools, cars, have a coffee.



It was quite a nice show, with a decent selection of cars and a very good turn out of various vendors selling all sorts of stuff. The theme of the event was around BMW. So lots of BMWs around. I have been looking at classic Beemers. A well maintained early 5-series with decent mileage will cost you less than the most basic brand new Ford Fiesta! Running such a classic is dead cheap. No road tax on cars over 40 years. Fully comprehensive insurance on a classic car is very cheap and third party coverage would set you back the price of two Starbucks coffees per month.

Lots of parts:



Of course I had to buy some stuff. Here you see it laid out on my work bench back home:



Some wax and stuff to blacken plastics. Some cool new signs for on the walls on my garage. Some rubber attachments for the jacks and some very interesting “vintage” measuring instruments

The first one I spotted was this little multimeter. It came with its lead, manual and special resistor. With the resistor you can measure the dynamo current. Never seen this done before, so I need to look into that:







Next I also found this handheld “vintage” battery tester:



I also bought two of these rubber pieces. They will be handy for using on the two jacks I have:



I beginning to have quite the little collection on “vintage” electrical measuring tools. I will have to dedicate a whole shelve to it!

At around noon, we were done. I set off to Utrecht, to visit another huge event centre, the Jaarbeurs, for the annual model train exhibition. I used to be a very keen model train enthusiast. When we moved home last year I sold all my model train stuff. I have been lugging it all around the world in boxes for decades and I just don’t see myself getting back into it. But I do like to go to these sort of exhibitions.

Some of these train set ups are just incredibly good. This is an international exhibition with model train clubs from all over Europe displaying their tracks and modelling skill. Still quite a few Dutch club showing their stuff. It doesn’t get any more Dutch than this:

A Dutch freight train speeding along side the bulb fields



Some more amazing trains scenery:









There was special exhibition on little diorama’s. Just small set ups, the size of a decent shoebox. I was very surprised to come across this Chicago Scene from one of the best movies ever: The Blues Brothers!



How is this for some outstanding modelling skills?



After spending about 2,5 hours looking at the model trains I decided to visit my favourite toolshop, which is only about half an hour drive west on the motorway from Utrecht.



Remarkably, I did not buy a single item this time. On the way home I stopped at a very good friends of ours. Spend about an hour with her and then drove home. This being the Netherlands, driving is likely to get you onto a little ferry or “pontje” as we call them. Especially if you drive cross country on rural roads, rather than motorways



I arrived back home at 19.30. Put about 200 km on the Jaguar, no problems, none whatsoever! Next weekend I have a Jaguar workshop, we are invited to a very fancy watch/jewelery do and I intend to visit the Retro Classic Car show in Cologne. So that will add up to 1200 km in two days!

I will need to replace the spark plugs and the super charger drive belt this week before I set off.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

The Jaguar has two V / Drive belts. One belt drives the usual stuff, such as dynamo, waterpump. The other one drives the supercharger.

Both have tensioners with an idler pulley.

As the belts wear the idler pulley mechanism takes up the slack. Both have some markings to show you how much wear and or when to replace.

Mine are close to the “replace” point. Sorry, can’t take a photograph as they are difficult to see. Needs mirror and torch.





Also, Jaguar workshop manual provides some guidance on how to visually assess the condition of the belts.



As a DIY mechanic getting your hands on as many manuals, documentation, technical bulletins etc as you can is extremely useful. These days with the Internet, it is a lot easier.

This particular Jaguar XJR workshop manual is part of the so called JTIS (Jaguar Technical Information System). I have it on CD as well. But on various Jaguar forums around the world it is available as a simple downloadable PDF. In this case a 2500 pages PDF! These Jaguars are complex cars!

New belts and sparks plugs are on their way. Ordered everything from SNG Barrett. Not cheap, but very good and reliable quality.

This Friday I will have to take the Mercedes W123 for it’s bi-annual MOT (or APK as it is called in the Netherlands). I am not expecting any problems, but you never know. I’m taking it to one of the quick fitters (Euromaster) and although these guys are quite good and pleasant (visited them before) they are not that knowledgeable on classic cars. Fingers crossed.

I was just going through the maintenance records of all my cars. I must refresh the Mercedes braking liquid some time. Both the Alfa Spider and the Mercedes W123 will need to be off the public road from 1st of December till 1st of March due to some silly interim classic car arrangement our politicians cooked up. So plenty of time to get this done in the next few months.

Jeroen

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The first one I spotted was this little multimeter. It came with its lead, manual and special resistor. With the resistor you can measure the dynamo current. Never seen this done before, so I need to look into that:

It's a shunt. Quite common with all in one meters meant for automotive use. Be careful that it doesn't short to body. Also at full amps, heats up quite fast. Meant for a quick spot check.

Next I also found this handheld “vintage” battery tester:

With modern batteries one does not get access to each cell individually. Limits the use of these discharge testers.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

It's a shunt. Quite common with all in one meters meant for automotive use. Be careful that it doesn't short to body. Also at full amps, heats up quite fast. Meant for a quick spot check.

With modern batteries one does not get access to each cell individually. Limits the use of these discharge testers.

Thanks, I do not see myself using any of these “vintage” measuring instruments. I just like them as collectables. Makes for a nice shelf in my garage!

Jeroen