Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

The 1980's truck in the background is the giveaway.

UHaul vehicles go through a lifecycle - new ones go to large markets or earmarked for long hauls, and as they age and wear they get gradually moved to less and less valuable markets until they hit real backwaters like York, PA which have a handful of okay-ish vehicles and vast armadas of absolute heaps that they keep going with part swaps (they usually have a few old boxes up on blocks around the back to swap on when somebody crashes into an overhead obstacle), and peel the stickers off the ones that are close to the end and sell them out to the 'general public'.

The U-Haul places here only 2 years ago replaced the 1980s GMC Kodiak Top Kick's. They were touching 200,000mi O_O
 
Doesn’t feel very 2021.

Why are new fuel stations being built without a charging station?

Over here they're thinking of mandating fast chargers at petrol stations... which of course has sparked outrage from the "small independent petrol station owners" who can't possibly afford that and anyway, any electricity near a petrol pump will blow the whole place to smithereens and it's bloody communism anyway!
 
Cost of a fuel pump is around 300k€. Cost of a charger is 50k€ + people charging will hang around longer and buy overpriced food from your store.

How is this still a thing?
 
well, to be fair, the revenue generated through the fuel pump is much higher... but then again, there's always the talk of how petrol station literally make zero money on fuel... so, exactly: how is this still a thing? :)

Also: if they were actually worried about not making any money off of the charger or it being so much work or whatever, there are a bunch of companies that will happily operate a charger on your forecourt for free if you give them the parking spot - at least if you're not exactly in the middle of nowhere.
 
I know of at least a couple of "fuel stations" that are cafées that just happen to have a cold fuel station outside. The fuel station owners quit the fuel business and switched to renting out a part of their lot to the fuel company. I remember when one of the stations switched over to this business model. It wrought havoc among the elderly that hadn't ever paid for fuel themselves at the pump before.

(FYI, "cold station" is the general Finnish term for an unmanned 24/7/365 fuel station that consists of a roof and a couple of pumps)

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Over here they're thinking of mandating fast chargers at petrol stations... which of course has sparked outrage from the "small independent petrol station owners" who can't possibly afford that and anyway, any electricity near a petrol pump will blow the whole place to smithereens and it's bloody communism anyway!
Wow, so what are those things that help you see at night in a fuel station? What powers them? ?
 
Wow, so what are those things that help you see at night in a fuel station? What powers them? ?


Never mind the fact that the pumps themselves are powered by electricity... Gotta love FUD.
 
Went to a car museum today owned by a local real estate agent. This is a guy's private collection apparently.

 
Mobile Triumph Repairs Ltd.

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Local chap asked for some help with his 1980 Dolly 1300. It'd been laid up for the last 1.5 years and I popped over a few weeks ago because it wouldn't start. Essentially the fuel pump was just too feeble to clear the line of air so I hand pumped fuel up to the carb and it fired and ran no bother.
The fella then unstuck the clutch, changed the oil, ran it up to temp and left it for 5 days. Came back to it and it wouldn't start.

I popped over again today to lend a hand and left after 5 hours defeated by the bugger... As follows is my post to the Dolomite owners club forum...

So, it spins over fine and quickly. It seems to cough a tiny bit, usually on the first turn of the key, just enough to kick the starter out and then dies. No hint of it running at all.

So far the following has been carried out:

Starter motor replaced with a refurbished one, then taken back out and the original fitted, just in case. Both were tested off the car and seemed fine.
All the starter solenoid connections taken off and cleaned and replaced.
The two chassis earths and engine earth have been removed, cleaned and replaced.
Spark plugs taken out, cleaned, gapped and replaced.
Points cleaned and gap set.
Swapped the rotor arm.
Dashpot oil replaced.
Air filter removed to check the carb piston wasn't stuck.
Tried retarding and advancing the ignition timing.

If you pop the dizzy cap off so the car won't try and fire it spins over fine. Spark seems decent, at least decent enough to run the car, and it's firing on all four. It almost seems like it's flooding, but it ran fine the last time it ran so I'm confused as to what'd be causing that to happen...

Both starters also sound quite rough when disengaging, making a grinding noise. The teeth don't appear to be badly damaged and the flywheel also looks to be in decent nick so I'm unsure as to the cause of that as well. One starter is old and fairly worn but seems functional, the other freshly refurbished. The spacing plate is present and correct.

I think next time I pop over I'll bring the compression tester and see if we're getting good numbers just as a matter of course, although the engine turns by hand fine and you can feel compression.

Any advice before I start fiddling with the mixture? I'm a bit loath to mess with the carb when the car was running with the same setup just a couple of weeks ago...

Considering there is nothing complex at all about these cars they don't half love to play silly buggers...
 
TBH that sounds like a coil problem to me.


I agree. Where was the spark checked? From the coil wire?Plug wire? Or, across a spark plug?

Also, for shits and giggles, what is the resistance of the ballast resistor, or the voltage to the coil?
 
Spark was seen at the points and using spark plug testers on all 4 cylinders. I only bothered to check across one plug but that seemed fine.

Checking the coil side of things is going to be the next step I think. Apparently post 1976 cars have a ballast built into the loom, so that may have failed and be causing weirdness.
 
Storm chasing damage:
 
Storm chasing damage:
That vehicle has achieved the theoretical maximum number of dents - any new dent will only straighten out at least one other dent.
 
That vehicle has achieved the theoretical maximum number of dents - any new dent will only straighten out at least one other dent.

Few more dents:

 
Well, it saves time.
 
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