1968 AMC Rebel

[LynehamHerc]

I always think of USN aircraft when Grumman is mentioned, not vehicles.

[AMCrebel]

I always think of USN aircraft when Grumman is mentioned, not vehicles.

Not just USN - I have flown on one of these -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_Gulfstream_I

operated by

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingha ... an_Airways

[LynehamHerc]

I flew in one from Leeds/Bradford to Oslo once, Brown Air - not the best name for an airline.
It was a Cessna 400 series coming back where we had fantastic views of the North Sea oil rigs, had a packed lunch box as catering and played cards with the co pilot. There were only 6 of us.

[AMCrebel]

Went to Sainsburys in the AMC today, did our weekly shop - I do it as Ms Rebel hates shopping and I don't mind.

After that decided to take a look at the fuel and temp gauge issue (they have never worked).

I should have know the fact that neither of them works is an indication of a supply problem rather than something at the sensor end, but decided to do the easy thing first - connected the feed to the fuel gauge straight to earth in the boot. Tried the same with the temp sender connection under the bonnet - both resulted in no change.

I did try to measure the resistance of each but in my experience this isn't an exact science - they both showed open circuit - and that may be true (senders could be fucked as well).

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Next step will be to take the dash apart and have a look at the voltage stabiliser for the supply to the temp and fuel. I didn't have time for that so decided to try and figure out why the screenwash isn't working. It's a Lucas one so was either fitted on import or afterwards - I nicked it from the 67 parts car. The original AMC arrangement was a plastic bag hanging by a couple of hooks in the engine bay - this is a bit more robust and has more capacity.

Connecting a wire straight to the washer motor had it going - so I knew the issue was wiring or the switch. The original switch was part of the wiper switch - push to operate - spring loaded. That had been bypassed to a separate push button - presumably because it was fucked.

Next stop the switch - power at the supply and bridging the contacts making the washers spurt into life again means that is the main suspect -

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Of course I have a momentary action toggle switch in stock somewhere - but can I find the fucker?

Given up for the day but not discouraged - slow progress.

[AMCrebel]

I see that I mentioned the brake servo before.

When I bought the car the brakes were Ok but not amazing - with quite a hard pedal for a car with servo brakes.

Fuck alone knows what the servo that was fitted was from, but it turned out not to be the right one.

I was unbelievably lucky to catch one on ebay in the USA from a seller was was OK to ship to the UK (they won't always).

When I took the old servo out the push rod for the brakes was made of two bits of rod that had been sawn to the approximate right length and just dropped into the end of the servo/master cylinder. the servo was also fitted to the bracket with about 400 copper spacing washers.

Once I had the right servo and master cylinder and the pushrod from the 67 parts car the transformation was astounding. The brakes don't have the feel of a modern car (or ABS obvs) but they are very powerful and confidence inspiring.

[fried onions]

The brakes don't have the feel of a modern car (or ABS obvs)

Thanks God.

[Hooli]

One thing I hate on modern cars is the massively over servoed brakes that need a gentle glance at the pedal to stand it on it's nose & then there is nothing more all the way down the pedal.

[fried onions]

Modern vehicles are completely numb. At least the old cars were made by real engineers. A servo should be totally self-effacing.

[AMCrebel]

One thing I hate on modern cars is the massively over servoed brakes that need a gentle glance at the pedal to stand it on it's nose & then there is nothing more all the way down the pedal.

Er....that's actually a pretty good description of the AMC braking experience - it's much more pronounced than my Disco or Ms Rebel's CR-V

[Hooli]

One thing I hate on modern cars is the massively over servoed brakes that need a gentle glance at the pedal to stand it on it's nose & then there is nothing more all the way down the pedal.

Er....that's actually a pretty good description of the AMC braking experience - it's much more pronounced than my Disco or Ms Rebel's CR-V

It's why I couldn't drive my mum's Pony X2 years ago, if I even thought about looking at the brake pedal both front wheels locked. I've no idea how she drove it.