My 1966 Bellett 1500 sedan

[Bellett_EST]

Well done and congratulations on the placings.


Are you burning the oil (smokey) or is it leaking out?

By the looks of the rear bumper there could be a bit coming out the tailpipe

Stickman has it correct, the oil dissapears through the exhaust. Actually I was told before I bought it, that the engine smokes. It's not visible smoke, but the result is visible on the bumber.

I guess I need to check the compression in cylinders. If compression is unequal, I would suspect that oil rings are stuck, if compression is OK, then I suppose the problem is in valve rod gaskets (What is the correct term in english?).

I think I need to dismount the engine anyhow, because there is a broken bolt in the exhaust manifold, which needs to be replaced.

[Bellett_EST]

Some pics from Special Stage.
As you can see from the 2nd picture, the brakes are still uneven. Left is locked while right one still spinning. But it didn't bother at all.

Full gallery here

[Bellett_EST]

Got the compression checked today. All cylinders have almost equal 130-150PSI (9-10bar), that leads to two theorys: 1) The engine is badly worn, thick oil itself causes good compression.
2) Piston group is OK, oil leaks from valve seals.

But question is, why and how is there no visible smoke and no marks of oil burning on the sparkplugs. I think there should be with that kind of oil consumption.
Sparkplugs are OK, only 4th cylinder's was bit darker than others. Fuel mixture may be bit strong, soot on rear bumper comes from that.

Has anyone else had anything like that, oil dissappearing mysterically?
Could it be through the crankcase ventilation? Why?

There is no visible leak, I haven't found any oilspots under the car.

Need to figure out what to do with the engine. Easiest should be to replace the valve seals and see what happens.



I also got some info from Finland today. My car first arrived in Finland 19.07.1965, and was bought 02.04.1966 by a guy named Martti, just like me.

[GerryBellettGT]

This has been a great read,love your car,and the photo's,my first Bellett was a Tear Drop,not left hand drive,but was a very similar blue,great lookin car,Gerry

[Bellett_EST]

Thanks Gerry, I'll try to keep up!

Today I was lucky. During some random googling, I found my Bellett from the internet for sale. The ad was many years old, but there was a phone number. Of course I called, and got in contact with the first owner in Estonia.

The car had been a gift for his 16th birthday in 2000. His friends had bought it from Finland for a bottle of vodka. In Finland, it had been in a barn for a long time, it had literally been sunk in the ground.
When brought to Estonia, it had been under original color, light beige.

He also told me, that original door upholstery is still there, under the white covers, but on the front doors, there have been holes cut for speakers.

It was also confirmed, that the car had never been inspected (street legal) in Estonia before 01.02.2018. The first owner only drove it illegally on some smaller roads round his home. Most of the time it stood in the garage.


On the pics in the ad, the car looks much better than it does now. Chrome parts seem to be almost spotless.

Pics from the ad:

[Bellett_EST]

It has been quiet here for a while.

Last weekend we celebrated our Independence day, 100 years since Estonia declared its sovereignity.

One part of my celebration was taking my Bellett for a run - participating an Adventure Rally - 100 kilometers of fun and adventure near Tallinn.

A Video from the start.

Some pics here:
It was quite a weather in the morning


Our club was out with 3 cars - our national colors: blue, black and white. Therefore I got to be the first car all day.






Some nice places we visited




Nice pics with some modern cars




Some nice activity for the end of the day. Go-karting in winter is fun.



And finally - a hundred made of cars.

[Dean]

Awesome photos!!!!!!!

[Glenn]

Love those picture. Snow is a bit of a novelty for most of us down under. ie we rarely if ever see it.

[Bellett_EST]

Eventually, something like spring has fallen upon Estonia.

Last week I bought summer tires for my Bellett, and got the car out of the cage after a while.

First drive was terrifying. There were all kinds of unusual noises, rear shock absorbers squeaked a lot and everything seemed to be bad. It also overheated a bit.

The car looked like this:


Second ride was much better, no more unfriendly noises, I can almost say it was a pleasureable ride.

Anyhow, I should probably change all four shock absorbers and full set of bushings on both axles. It also seems there may be a little backlash in the left driveshaft, must check it.

Few weeks ago I finally found some motivation to visit the Garage. Main topic was the door upholstery. I took them off, removed the ugly white covers. What I found, wasn't pleasent, but wasn't hopless either. Took them home, and started scraping...

End of first day. On the left is the first one I took up.


2nd day. Before and after.
As you can see, front ones are ruined, need to find something to cover the holes.



Anyhow, It took three full days to complete the task, finally all the door covers were almost clean of dirt and glue. Still have a problem with those speaker holes.



But generally, it seems pretty good.




Today I dedicated my friday evening to the exterior. Cleaning and polishing (what is left of) the chrome.

The result is not too bad actually, when the critical view distance before was 25 meters, I can now say you can look at the car from 5 meters without getting your eyes bleeding.








After I finished all the cleaning today, my main regret was that I didn't buy the whitewalls for tires. It would have looked so much better with them.

[Bellett_EST]

A bit of information, mostly for myself for the future.

The guy, I thought was the first owner in Estonia, wasn't the first anyhow.
My friend searched an old database of our local number plates and found that 200AOO was registered in late 1992, and there was a name of the owner too. The owner from 1992 had died in early 2000.-s, but another database gave me a name of his son. I found the guy from facebook, and sent him a message. After many weeks I got an answer, and oh boy, it had some positive emotions.

The Bellett had been his first car, he had spent his youth with it. Had some nice stories with the car (some short ones he told me, but left the better ones if we meet and he can pat his old car), but for unknown reason his dad gave the car as a birthday present for his friend's son (the guy I thought was the first owner).

New information is that the car was brought to Estonia in late 1980's or early 1990's, the first Estonian owner had been working in Finland 1989-1994. He had found the car left abandoned in a warehouse and paid 4 bottles of vodka for it. The son of the first owner thought, that it might have been brought in late 1980's, because a foreign car was really a rare thing on the streets of Tallinn these days, and he had felt really proud for that. He also claimed that the Bellett had had Soviet era number plates, which means, it must have been brought before summer of 1991.


Anyhow it means I have pretty good history line for the car being in Estonia, but probably no possibility to find out its earlier history in Finland. But still, it's a good result, I don't think many owners can go back in their cars history with 5 owners and 25+ years.

[KJB]

The cleanest Bellett in Estonia.................!

KB

[BULLITT]

great storey brilliant history too it ...wow............

[Bellett_EST]

Hello again, haven't posted for a while.
Bellett runs, but has some problems. Today I dismounted one rear shock absorber, and as I had thought, it was completely dead.
Tried to find a replacement, but had no luck. The one it had was made by Girling De Carbon and had part no. 70094512a dn43. Little check from google, did nod give any referrence. I only found that Girling is out from the shock absorbers market, only produces brake parts now. Motorcycle shocks operation was taken over by Hagen, but they do only motorcycle parts.

Does anyone have any knowledge, who may have suitable shocks for Bellett in production? Any part code would help.
Front and rear are the same, so I would need 4 of a kind?

[KJB]

In Australia probably the most common Shock Absorber used for Belletts is -

" Monroe GT " to suit 1968 "HK" model Holden.

Holden was an Australian made car.
For the Bellett Front and Rear are the same.
A very small amount of grinding is necessary (only about 1 mm.) to give them clearance through the front suspension arm.
KB

[Bellett_EST]

Thanks. I already got info from Finland, that almost all the GM B-body fronts should fit (And also Volvo 100-series).

Another thing - Ari told me that Toyota Corolla KE20 has the same ends on speedo cable, but the cable itself is too short. Do you know any other models, which could share the cable? Or even better, any spare part code still in production?
I would really like to have my speedo counting again.

[KJB]

Someone else may know more on cables....
KB

[Glenn]

Someone else may know more on cables....
KB

I recently bought a speedo pulse adapter for an early Toyota Landcruiser and it seems to be the same as the bellett gearbox end of a speedo cable.

So it might well be possible that the Toyota cables are ok if long enough. You would need to check the actual instrument end though.

glenn

[Stickman]

I've bought and used a couple of these ones and had no problems.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HOLDEN-RODE ... SwPhdVC2iH

[Glenn]

I've bought and used a couple of these ones and had no problems.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HOLDEN-RODE ... SwPhdVC2iH

Yes i bought one of these and its in the Sport. Seems fine.

[Bellett_EST]

Got the shock absorbers changed yesterday. Big thanks to Ari in Finland, who provided the info, that Volvo 140-series had the same shocks.

Again, I must say I am quite amazed how easy it is to repair the Bellett. I wouldn't have imagined, that I could change all 4 shock absorbers in my back yard, on the grassy ground in less than 3 hours.

Today I took it on a test drive - improvement was remarkable. Now I can drive without having to hold my breath before every pothole or railroad crossing. Quite smooth and silent ride.


But there is another problem, which I am getting worried about. It's the overheating, or sensibility for outside temperature. If it's over 20C outside, the temperature tends to raise to the hot mark on the gauge. And if the cooling system is filled before the ride, it flushes out some water when the car is stopped. As the problem has some straight connection with the outside temp, I suspect, that the radiator may be clogged at some parts. And another suspect is the radiator cap of course.

Actually all the water what comes out from the system is really rusty. I would need to wash the system completely, but I don't have any good ideas how to do it. If I remove the upper hose from the radiator and direct tap water to the filling hole, would that do the thing.
After cleaning the system, I would replace the tap water with coolant of course.
The other idea is to fill the system with vinegar solution and run it for a while.

Any good suggestions about the cooling part are welcome!