Endlich wieder Meilen machen

Zwar hätte es meine Gesundheit so richtig heute nicht zugelassen, aber es war nun mal alles vorbereitet und dann musste es halt sein.

Eine Runde mit dem grünen Crayford Kombi /8. Und das nicht nur zweimal über das Hallengelände sondern so richtig raus. Wie früher. Wie zuletzt 2009, bei der großen Reise nach Süddeutschland.

Nun, ganz so weit sind wir nicht gekommen. Erstmal was essen.





Und dann eine kleine Runde zur Jahrhunderthalle. Vorsichtiges Ertasten der Umgebung.



Das Auto rappelt und klappert, das Getriebe will nicht so recht schalten und hätte wohl gerne ein wenig Öl und einen neuen Filter, die Federung hängt auf Halbmast und der Motor klingt wie ein alter Diesel. Alles egal. Der Crayford Kombi /8 fährt. Mit mir.



Bester Tag seit Langem.

Night photography

Breaker points

After having set the valve clearances some weeks ago, I continued the little tune-up today with new breaker points. They had been delivered to my Mercedes-Benz agent who was surprised to see such an item again after a very long time. Then I visited the local BOSCH agency and obtained some special super-sticky grease for the distributor shaft.

At the car, the distributor cap and rotor were easily off, the distributor shaft cleaned and the new breaker points installed, with the gap pre-set to 0.4 mm when open with the help of a feeler gauge. The most difficult thing was to turn the distributor shaft for the contacts to be open. The car being automatic, there was no use in pushing it to and fro. The remedy was to simple slacken the distributor fastener and turning the whole distributor around its shaft. The ignition timing has to be re-set anyway. After everything was put togeher again, I fine-tuned the dwell angle by carefully moving the breaker points in the distributor and finally obtained the perfect 41-42 degrees.

After every little part of the tune-up, the engine runs smoother and the revs when the engine is idling are rising and rising. Obviously the car enjoys the care that is being taken.

Heavily sidetracked

As announced yesterday, I planned to start celebrating the Crayfords birthday today with a few new parts. The actual status of the engine is: runs well, starts well, does not go beyond 120 km/h and drinks fuel at a very heavy rate.

As engine issues are always due to the carburettors, and carburettor issues are always ignition issues, and ignition issues are always just wrong valve clearances, I started with the latter. Re-set the valve clearances. Should not take more than an hour.



As if! Firstly, this car has twelve valves compared to my other cars eight. It then turned out to be a very long time ago that some garage checked or - god forbid - adjusted the valve clearances. The first adjusting nut was completely locked up. The remedy was to disasseble the rocker arm and then turn the adjusting nut with a suitable socket, instead of using the adjustment tool. The springs that secure the rocker arms are surprisingly difficult to reinstall. Now where do I know that from?



However, I adjusted my way through the twelve valves, the clearances of which were much to small. All of them. With disassembly (the viscous coupling has to come out to turn the crankshaft) and re-assembly this easy task took six hours. On the way, I also correctly set up the cold start unit (which had been renewed a few years ago) of the rear carburettor.



And finally a short test drive was undertaken and everything felt very well indeed.

Happy birthday

The green Crayford /8 estate turned 37 today. It made it through all those years and is now the only one left on the road, with only one remaining brother that is somewhat alive. What an achievement! We wish it all the best and a lot of happy years to come. For celebration, lets see the car back at home, where it was born, at the Crayford factory:



I bought it a number of birthday presents (a new distributor cap and rotor and new breaker points) and am planning for new ignition leads and then a major overhaul of the two Zenith carburettors. It is about time that we get going again.

We have finally succeeded

The title phrase was originally (well, perhaps not for the first time) coined by a group of 70s New York graffiti artists that did a "whole train" - paint ten subway cars in one night with a more or less continuous theme. I kind of feel like I did this tonight. But I finally succeeded - the green Crayford /8 estate is completed again and runs well.

Well, assembly is more or less the opposite of disassembly. So I put the car together again: refill the power steering system with fresh oil and fit a new filter, mount an almost new BOSCH alternator instead of the questionable (but very fashionable) LUCAS item, tidy up the wiring that connects to the alternator, complete all the balancer/pulley/belt stuff again and finally fit a radiator that actually stays at its designated place instead of moving around, because of the formerly missing and now introduced rubber guidings at both sides.

And the result? The radiator fits perfectly and the fan does not touch the radiator any more - finally. The new seals are holding back the oils fine and the car drives again. Did a little test drive. Very well. Dirty fingernails: plenty. Problems fixed: plenty. Lets go.

Running very hot

Not the car, me! 33 degrees centigrade even at 8 pm. Consequently, work on the green Crayford /8 estate was very slow today, but nevertheless steady. Relaxing on my sofa with a pint of Old Speckled Hen in hand, everything is now fine again but in the workshop it was hot!

However, when I arrived in the morning the car presented itself still with the front mainly in parts. I pulled a chair to the car and started work. First task was to remove the power steering pump to clean it and replace the seal ring on the main shaft of the pump. To access the bolts to remove the pump you first have to remove the pulley. You need a special puller for that - a puller I did not own. The puller I eventually scrounged did only barely fit. With a combination of puller, parts from a spring tensioner, an hour of patience and finally a big hammer the pulley was off at last. Because I decided to remove the power steering pump completely, I unscrewed the hoses (one of which did not come off easily and needed a few seconds with a torch - which again I had to scrounge) and then replaced said seal ring with the pump safely on the workbench without much hurry. Then the pump went into the car again. All is well.



Next, in went the other seal ring, the one on the crankshaft. I had already removed the chromed ring on the crankshaft on which the inner lip of this seal ring runs on. The chromed ring was polished and installed again the other way around. After the new seal was carefully hammered in place, I started to reassemble the crankshaft balancer etc. Easy going. The temperatures had meanwile risen to their afternoon heights and I retired.