Lady Charlotte - 1966 2000SC

Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

happy days said:
Kleenex, not the Aldi cheap ones, see thats the difference, you have style..
Blimey Kleenex, can't even afford the Aldi ones it's Lidl all the way for me :mrgreen:
 
Lady Charlotte

Anyway guys....back on topic :roll:

I'd mentioned previously that the passenger side seatbelt buckle had an annoying rattle so I had a look at it today. The Lady has this type of static belt

Seatbeltbucklefront.jpg


and the offending spring is shown below

Seatbeltbucklesprings.jpg


The arrowed part of the spring had come adrift from the groove it should sit in. You can see the mechanism has 2 springs, one heavier than the other. In order to reset it I had to remove the spindle that holds it all together and re-thread it all back on again with the sufficient tension to hold the buckle firmly in place without rattling.

Seatbeltbucklecirclip.jpg


Removal of this circlip allows the whole assembly to come apart. Then it's simply a matter of relocating the previously pictured spring into the groove as shown above and sliding it all back together. That's not quite the whole story though because once it's all back together it has to be sufficiently tensioned. If anyone has taken the front seats apart it's a bit like retensioning them when put back together.

Seatbeltbuckleside.jpg


The other end of the spindle has a bolt head. With the seatbelt buckle closed this must be turned clockwise to tension the mechanism then once sufficient tension has been achieved it has to be pushed in to lock everything in place before refitting the circlip on the other end. Not an easy task as in order to push the spindle back in you have to take whatever you've used to twist it off. A bit of trial and error but eventually I got it sorted. So the buckle is nice and tight again with no rattling :D

Next.......

Dave
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

Goodness, car totally restored in one afternoon! Well done Dave, and usefull pictures.

Chris
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

Got The Lady's Heritage Certificate today:

HeritageCertificate.jpg


Confirming she was born on 1st August 1966. That makes her almost exactly 2 months older than me.

She was then dispatched to Leigh Park Motors Ltd in Datchet, Slough on 3rd August 1966. All the information I can find on this dealer states it was on Houghton Road in Datchet but Google maps doesn't recognise that street and the company is showing as dissolved now.

Dave
 
Carb rebuild

The Lady has never run particularly smoothly since I got her so after trying to set up the carb and getting nowhere I decided to rebuild it. Here's the kit

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and here's the carb in situ

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Fairly straightforward getting the carb off and stripping it down. Although I did have the instructions that came with the kit and the Haynes SU carb book. I also decided that rather than stripping the entire thing down and ending up with a pile of bits, I stripped it down in stages, taking photos as I went to help with reassembly.

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Took about a dozen photos of this bit from various angles and still had several attempts at reassembly :roll:

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The throttle spindle was pretty worn so hopefully it'll be much better with the new one.

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Old and new jets.....

and finished carb, nicely cleaned and ready to go back on.....

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I haven't fitted it yet because I also wanted to sort the slight blow from the exhaust manifold.

It was, however, pretty good to be able to stop and not worry about having to have the car for work on Monday :D

Dave
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

I guess it's a blessing and a curse to only have one carb to do....

Looks like you did a thorough job though so fingers crossed it's nice and smooth when it's back on.
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

Paul

The carbs on the V8 need doing sometime too so stripping this down is a bit of a confidence boost (hopefully) before tackling the HIFs on the V8.

Dave
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

nice work Dave.

I have had a bit of bother with my HS6 carbs on the P5.

Float levels are important.
jet needs to be centralised.

I rebuilt mine a couple years back, I noticed that i had some spindle play so have stripped them down and the new spindle is worn. To get the bushes which come with the kit fitted you need to have them old ones reamed out!!

After all the work I have done they are now going to a pro.

Colin
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

Very nice job there, Dave! Glad you got it done fairly quickly. A carb rebuild really transformed my car! :D
 
Re: Picking up my 2nd P6 this weekend!

arthuy said:
nice work Dave.

I have had a bit of bother with my HS6 carbs on the P5.

Float levels are important.
jet needs to be centralised.

I rebuilt mine a couple years back, I noticed that i had some spindle play so have stripped them down and the new spindle is worn. To get the bushes which come with the kit fitted you need to have them old ones reamed out!!

After all the work I have done they are now going to a pro.

Colin


All noted Colin thanks

I checked the float level on reassembly.....then checked it again so should be ok. I followed the instructions for fitting the new jet assembly so hopefully it is central. The needle seems to slide in and out easily without getting stuck so hopefully that's ok too.

I knew the old spindle bushes would need reaming out if I was going to replace them and I would've had that done had the new spindle not completely removed all the play. I'll let you know in a couple of years..... :wink:

Dave
 
The Lady is all back together again and running very nicely. I used a Colourtune and the help of my trusty assistant (difficult to see what is happening to the flame when adjusting the mixture from the other side of the car :roll: ) to set up the mixture. Took her out for a drive and she performs very well. More use of gears required to get up to speed than the V8 but she picks up nicely. I'll post some pics later.

She's been drafted into daily use for a couple of weeks whilst I refurbish Verity's heater box after discovering a small leak from the heater matrix. (I'll get round to posting a thread on that sometime too).

Dave
 
Knock Knock

Hey Guys

What's wrong with this picture?

LCHFrontShock.jpg


I'll leave you to figure it out while I have dinner. Easy one really :wink:

Dave
 
I've had my dinner and very nice it was too. 8)

Apart from the shock split pin being in the wrong hole, is that shock sheared off? or is it just my eyes?

Doesn't look like your brake pipes are connect either

Richard
 
quattro said:
I've had my dinner and very nice it was too. 8)

Apart from the shock split pin being in the wrong hole, is that shock sheared off? or is it just my eyes?

If you're referring to the hollow shock mount I presume early cars should be like that since the other side is the same. My later V8 has a solid lower shock mount.

Anyway, the car has been knocking a bit at the nearside front. I had an idea it might be the shock bushes and sure enough when I looked the split pin was in the wrong hole so the bushes were loose. I've compressed the bushes and fitted the split pin in the correct hole (yes I have reused the old split pin....shame on me :wink: )so all should be quiet again. I checked the other side too and it was the same :roll:

LCHFrontShock2.jpg


Amateurs eh. I thought everyone knew about that gotcha by now :roll:

My dinner was yummy by the way. Nice joint of ham :D

Dave
 
Rear Seat Belts and some other stuff.

Having sourced some matching seat belts for Charlotte's back seats I fitted them today. Most of you will know that all P6s have the mounting points for rear seat belts already in place. If you've never seen them there are 3 each side. One behind each back seat upright, one on each D post and one under the seat squab by the centre cushion.

CIMG4679.jpg
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They can difficult to find as they will probably be taped over

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Despite being in good condition it's a good idea to run a tap through each to clean off the paint. I used a small ratchet handle and socket as there's not enough room for a standard T-bar.

CIMG4682.jpg


When I removed the seats and sound proofing for access I discovered evidence of previous work and someone who obviously wasn't paying attention whilst welding :roll:

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So here are the belts

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They're not an exact colour match for the front ones but they're close. I fitted the buckle straps first, one either side of the centre cushion

CIMG4686.jpg


The lower fixing is via a shackle eye that screws into the D post and the top fixing is bolted through the top mount using appropriate spacers

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Pretty neat I think. Here's the finished job

CIMG4691.jpg


The other stuff in the title was a bit of work on the ignition timing. After rebuilding the carb she was still idling roughly and coughing every once in a while. I was having to set the idle speed higher than usual to prevent her stalling at junctions. I fitted a new dissy cap and have a new set of HT leads on order for her but I have discovered some arcing from somewhere in the HT circuit. I can hear it but even in a darkened garage I can't see any sparks. The arcing sounds like it's in the area of the dissy cap and when I refitted the old one again it actually reduced :roll:

I've fitted 4 of the V8's Magnecor leads for now and it's much better. I set the timing using a stobe light and took the car out for a few test runs. Found a nice straight bit of road and timed the car from 30 - 60 mph in top. Adjusted the vernier advance on the dissy by 8 clicks at a time and ran it again. Did this until I got the quickest time to 60 mph without pinking. As a result she is much more responsive now and pulls much better up hills too.

A question for you 4 cylinder types......

The tube that the HT leads run through on the side of the engine......how do you get new HT leads through the holes without pulling the rubber caps off the end? I don't particularly want to pull my new Magnecor leads apart just to route them through a tube.....but I'd like to keep them neat.

All in all a satisfying day's work :D

Dave

ps I got 29.5 mpg on my last tank of fuel, getting better all the time :D

Dave
 
The Lady Takes a Road Trip

Hey Folks

We took Lady Charlotte around the Yorkshire Dales last week so I thought I'd put up some pics of her adventures. Overall she's returning 31mpg on a regular basis now and she got a good workout up and down some pretty steep hills as you'll see.

CIMG4751.jpg


At the border crossing on the A68

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Entering the Yorkshire Dales National Park

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This is outside a community owned pub that we have shares in. Due to open at the end of the year once the refurbishment is complete.

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At the Ribblehead Viaduct

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.....and some steep hills.....

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......that got steeper.......

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Note the way the car is pointing and the direction the road takes :shock:

CIMG4824.jpg


Anyway the Lady coped admirably with everything the Dales threw at her and we had a great few days :D

Dave
 
Some fantastic scenes there...

On your arcing conundrum, did you solve it? I've noticed on the v8 rotor arms you get there's a some variance in height. Makes a difference... I had a choice of 3 and ended up looking for one completely identical to the one i'd removed.

Rich.
 
Electronic Ignition

When we got back from the Dales I decided to fit electronic ignition to Lady Charlotte. She already had Magnecor HT leads so I bought the Simon BBC 25D4 kit and fitted it this weekend.

The kit looks like this

CIMG4899.jpg


and in case anyone has lost their installation instructions

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Before....and after.....

CIMG4900.jpg

CIMG4901.jpg


It was whilst I was making sure that the +ve and -ve were correctly connected that I discovered the coil was wired back to front. ie the ignition 12V supply went to the coil -ve. Looks like it's been like that since it came out the factory as all the connectors look original and the 12V ignition supply wire would not physically reach the +ve terminal on the coil. Anyway it's all sorted now and the car fired up first turn of the key with no further adjustment required :D

Dave
 
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