All's well for start of 2015

There's not much going on with the Vogue at the moment. It's my daily driver to and from work and is completely reliable. I do have to keep a check for charger failures but they seemed to have settled down. We are not getting the 40 degree days that are typical of this time of year so the Vogue is very pleasant to drive. The odometer reads just over 13000km.

Once minor change a few days ago is that I implemented a regenerative braking "boost". I have regen. set at the maximum I think is safe to run for wet roads etc. but every now and then, mainly when slowing down for a right turn lane, I'd like a bit more. (I also have it set so I don't exceed 2C to the batteries.) Now, when I press the reverse-interlock pushbutton on the dash, the regen. ramps up to 200% what I normally run. The ramp is over a 1 second period.

I don't seem to need to use it more than a couple of times a week but it's nice not to waste the energy with mechanical brakes.

Hi to the folks in France who seemed to have topped the Vogue blog page views last week.
Feel free to leave a comment...

New Master Cylinder Installed

My "new" Master cylinder is installed and I'm back driving the Vogue this week. It took a huge amount of time to bleed the brakes - does anyone have a trick? The drivers side brake caliper was forward and straight down from the M/C and I think the air wanted to come back up the line all the time. Anyway we got it done.

I had to file back the flare on the brake pipe fitting as it would not clamp the in-built olive on the end of the pipe - the pipe would still rotate. It was also stopping the fitting going into the brake master cylinder easily. I got it to the point where it clamped OK but when I got to work there was a a tell-take drip on the pipe. I'm not sure I dare tighten it up any more. I'm ready to hand it to a brake shop to fix that one (it stopped leaking - see next post).

Shiny new(ish) Brake Master Cylinder.

I also stuck the rear view mirror back onto the windscreen with silicone adhesive - we'll see how that goes!

Yes, it's raining in Melbourne again!

Flare Nut Spanner worked a Treat!

The Master Cylinder (M/C) brake line took about 30 seconds to loosen with the flare nut spanner. I did the inevitable bruised knuckle as it let go. I removed the brake line from the M/C and the four-way brake line distributor as it was only about 200mm away.
(Old picture taken during conversion)

I have cleaned up the threads and the line itself ready for re-installation.
I haven't put the new M/C in yet because I took the opportunity the clean up the firewall where the M/C mounts and repaint it. I now have to wait for my bruised right thumb to get a bit better (totally another story) before I put it all back together again. Brake lines cross-thread easily so I don't want to mess it up now. I'll pick a day with good weather later this week (it's gone all wintery again here) and go home from work a bit early to get it done.

Brake Master Cylinder Problem

A problem noted back at the start of the year (see point 2) with the Vogue's brakes came home to roost last week. We were not careful enough when bleeding the brakes when I changed the brake light switch and allowed the piston to be sent all the way into the cylinder. It's a known issue in older cars. The piston encounters parts of the cylinder that hasn't been used for 48 years and tends to sieze. (The trick apparently is to place a block of wood under the brake pedal when bleeding the brakes to stop this from happening.)

Anyway, the brake pedal has been a little reluctant to return fully for a while now and the problem has reached the unsafe stage (no leaks - just internal in the M/C).

I found my spare master cylinder under the house and dropped it in to a recommended repair place last week. They have re-sleeved it in stainless steel and done a total restore. I picked it up yesterday.

The old Master Cylinder (taken during conversion). It's about the oldest, ugliest looking thing under the bonnet.

Now the sticking point. CRC soaked and all, I could not loosen the brake line going to the Master cylinder. It's thoroughly rusted in. So based on some classic car forum advice (Rover I think), I just bought this:

It's a Flare Nut spanner (wrench) - 3/8" and 7/16" AF.
Ideal for difficult pipe fitting - like brake lines.
We'll see how it goes...
The fitting is soaking in CRC56 as I type.

It's kind of ironic that we are having a little petrol (gasoline) delivery crisis in Victoria right now and my EV is off the road due to a siezed pipe fitting.

Issues to Resolve - not quite finished

A number of people have congratulated me on finished the Vogue. Getting Vic Roads approval was a goal but unfortunately isn't the end of the project.
Back at the end of 2012 this ended one of my posts:
"My target for the moment is VicRoads approval so everything else can wait. I pick up the polycarbonate partition for the boot tomorrow and I'll be preparing the car for inspection over the Christmas to new Year break."

So now it's approved but not quite finished.
Known issues:

1. Tailshaft speed vibration - I suspect differential pinion angle. This is the big one and stops me driving it too much until it's sorted.
2. Brake master cylinder. Pedal is not returning fully. Not a big issue but indicative of a problem. I have a spare (I think) so I'll restore that and do a changeover. We caused this when we flushed through new brake fluid - a common problem in cars that haven't been driven in a while.
3. Winding window outside weatherstrips. I need to dis-assemble all doors and replace the clips - they're falling off inside the doors. Getting the correct clips is a pain as the originals don't fit due to a difference in the weatherstrip. (I kind of knew I had a problem when I fitted them then warned the family not to wind the windows all the way down.)
4. Slight "thump" when starting from stationary. This is a controller programming issue. It's fine going on and off regen when actually moving - it's just when starting. Annoying.
5. Front end work. Knox Tyrepower noted that while most of the front end was fine, there are a couple of bushes that need replacing. While at it, I'd like to get prices on lowering the front about 20 to 25mm.
6. Remove and modify all 12 chargers. I am not at all happy with how they balance the packs at the end of charge. I have modified one of my spares and it worked well so I now need to remove, modify and replace all chargers. The rear ones are easy - the front not so. While I am at it I am going to replace all M4 nuts and bolts on the front controller tray with rivnuts so I can get individual items off the tray without having to remove the tray as I have to now.
7. Front parcel shelf (below the dash). Laurel wants it back in. It doesn't really exist anymore as it was a total wreck. I kept the metal front though.
8. Car Radio and speakers. Also mounting for the little Lenze (motor controller) keypad and display.
9. The "other" controller - the 75kW version. I have all the parts for the upgrade but it's pretty low down on the priority list. Unfortunate, as more power would be nice.

There is other stuff but they are the main issues.
We are renovating my daughter's bedroom while she is away for the next two weeks so the Vogue fixups will wait until that's done.

Brake Light Switch changed and Brakes Bled

This morning, I changed the brake light switch for the one I bought from the UK on eBay (QH- XBLS8). Tammy (daughter) did the foot pumping while we bled the brakes. We flushed about 250ml of brake fluid through the system. Sorry no pics.

I have two three major things left to do before getting the engineer out for final inspection.

1. Install and wire the inertia switch. The wiring is there so all I have to do is drill two holes and terminate the switch connector.
2. Mount and test the heater controls. This really means soldering two connections and connecting up the heater flap cable - then two screws to mount the controls.
3. Finish and install sunvisors (added 14 Jan 2013).

I also have to do a quick user manual, driving and charging.
Meanwhile house renovation is taking a fair bit of time.We're trying to get the bathroom painted before the end of this coming weekend. The heat (weather) may slow us down.

The Christmas Break

I took time off from the 21st December to 1st January. I got a little bit of work done on the Vogue but mainly it was stuff around the house - painting bathroom etc. Not much rest I'm afraid.
One of the Vogue's mechanical casualities of the drive to work was the hydraulic brake light switch. When I got home the brake lights were no longer working. The regen. system was turning on the brake lights but the Vogue's original system was not.

This is the culprit - the hydraulic brake light switch.

I had already ordered one from eBay (a UK seller advertising stuff for Hillman) but Laurel thought I'd be better speeding things up a bit so I bought another one locally. Upon removing the old one - the threads were different. It turns out I need 3/8" UNF, 24 TPI whereas an 1/8" NPT 27 TPI is more common. So I'm waiting for the eBay one to turn up which should be in one or two days. Meanwhile I couldn't be bothered bleeding the brakes when I'm going to open the system up again in a few days - so definitely no EV final inspection yet.

I did fit the polycarbonate boot partition - I'll get a picture soon. Not much to see as the partitiion is clear and it's kind of hard to see. I should have ordered it slightly tinted.

Brake Pedal Assembly

The brake pedal assembly has spare bolts for the clutch which I don't have (a clutch that is). The bolts form part of my battery tray mounting so I thought it would be more impressive if I cleaned it up somewhat.

Before.

The firewall under the assembly. The rust was surface and easy to treat.

 
After. I forgot to take photos before fitting it.

There was no undue wear in the main pivot but it took the better part of 45 minutes to re-assemble it once it was greased and ready to assemble. I had a lot of trouble getting the anti-rattle washers back in. The pedal rubber came back to life with some scrubbing and Glycerin treatment. (Later addition. I also swapped the rubber sleeve on the return limit bar with the one from the other side - for the non-existant clutch pedal. Interesting that it's exactly the same mounting for a manual but the actual pedal must be narrower.)