Nice Way to Spend the last day of 2009

I went along to the informal CT meal down at the Bridge Inn near Amesbury today. A nice way to end the Triumph year. A 100 mile round trip out down the M3 and A303 to give the GT6 a rare reasonably long run out for this time of year, only issue was that the overdrive packed up due to an electrical fault.




Had a nice meal , and good conversation with like minded Triumphers at the pub and a chance to take some photo’s afterwards beside the River Avon .



My Boy James enjoyed himself as well although he did eat the majority of the Baileys Rice Pudding desert we had agreed to share!



Joined up Panoramic picture of the Triumph’s.

 
 
Mark caught on camera pumping up his flat tyre!

Entry in for the CT Round Britain Reliability Run 2010

My entry is in now for the Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run (RBRR) which is taking place first weekend in 2010. This time around I'm co-driving for Mark Bland in his 2500S Saloon rather than using the GT6. Well that's the plan anyway, last time I was down as a Co-Driver for Jason in his Vitesse he broke it on the way over to pick me up for the event and we used my GT6 at the last minute.

Photo below is of  RBRR 2010 team 30, not sure whther we'll be wearing the team shirts for the run though, it get's a bit chilly for Hawaien shirts at John O'Groats in October!

Starting issues tonight but fixed quickly

Over the last few week’s my GT6 has been taking longer to start. It’s never actually failed to fire but need a lot of turning over before it would start to run.


Tonight was worse though, it would turn over and almost catch but wouldn’t actually start. Of course it was one of those nights when I really wanted to use it as it was our local TSSC meeting.

As soon as I opened the bonnet though I saw what was wrong straight away. On twin stromberg carburettors only one carb actually has a choke mechanism. There is a little plastic tube that joins the choke on one carb to the inlet of the other which provides a richer mixture on the carb that has no choke. I saw straight away that the tube had come away from the carb with no choke. So One carb would have had choke whilst the other one would have been running weak. Diagnosis in about 30 seconds flat! I can only assume that over the last few weeks the tube was just starting to fall off which was why it had become more difficult to start.

Only problem was the tube had hardened with age and wouldn’t go back on. No problem though, I shortened my washer bottle tube slightly and used the piece of tube that I cut off to replace the tube between the carbs. Job done!!

Diff Post Mortem Result!

Just got the result back from Canley’s strip down of my old diff as this impacts how much of a refund I got on the exchange deposit. Seems it broke in a big way, the note from Canley’s states; “Lost Tooth, hole in rear case – scrap, Run without oil – carrier scrap!”. Obviously the run without oil was due to the oil escaping from the hole in the case as I had only topped it up 1500 miles before it broke!

Duxford All Triumph Day

Had a good day out at the Duxford All Triumph Day organised by the Herts & Beds area of the TSSC. I've always got a softspot for this event as I was one of the orgnaisers of the first one back in 1993 when it was orgainsied by the Essex area of the TSSC.  One thing we did right from the start was to invite all Triumph Clubs and encourage Triumph's outside of the marques then represented by the TSSC to attend. Add the excellent venue with a museum with enough to keep anyone interested for more than a day and it's easy to see why this event has remained a success.

Today's event was graced with a nice sunny if breezy day, as usual there was a bit of flying going on with  Harvard up above the airfield carrying out a few aerobatics. A pretty good turn out of Triumph's as well, must have been a couple of hundred at least. The interesting thing was that the MG club had a meeting at the other end of the site which only had a handfull of cars in attendance!

                            

A few interesting cars as usual, including this stag engined Vitesse.

                             

Good to catch up with a few old freinds and family, including ex Triumph enthusiast my sister Lizzie and her husband and my mate Colin with his Sierra Cosworth Turbo Engined GT6.

Plus it was the first chnace to test out my car on a long run with it's new 3.63 diff. Crusining is a little better on the motorway with 70mph at 3,500 RPM in o/d top, that's with speed measured by satnav, the speedo is still somewhat optomistic and was showing 80mph!

Back on the Road!

After my mishap with a broken diff at the TSSC International in Stafford my GT6 is finally back in one piece and I drove it around the block this evening. The 1st time Ive managed to drive it for 7 weeks!

The Diff that Dave at Canleys built me seems nice a quiet so thats good news. Hopefully take it for a run out of town tommorow so I can see how much difference a 3.63 differential makes over the original 3.89 ratio.  I'm hoping that besides giving me a better motorway cruising experience the speedo may even be a bit more accurate as it was overreading quite a bit. The change of ratio should help this.

Just need to give it a good clean now to get all the greasy finger prints off. The target was to get it on the road for the All Triumph Day up at Duxford on Sunday 4th October so it looks like I'll make it. If you are going up to Duxford look out for the nappy cack yellow GT6 and come and say hello!

Diff Picked Up and Fitted !

Picked Up my new Diff from Canley's this afternoon so I've been busy tonight fitting it. Well at least the Diff itself is in the car bolted up with new Polybushes. I've owned Spitfires and GT6's for 25 years but I've never had the pleasure of fitting a diff before, one of the few mechanical jobs I've never had to do. A bit of a tough job lining everything up single handedly. Still managed it in the end.

Need to reconnect the driveshafts and put the rear rotoflex back togther tomorrow.

Cookie Now has a Blog!

OK, So I keep seeing all these blog type things on the club Triumph Website so thought it was about time I started one!

So what am I doing Triumph wise at the moment?

Well, having broken my diff at the TSSC international in Stafford I'm in the middle of changing it. I've got a new unit being built by Canley Classics and I'm upping the ratio from the standard overdrive GT6 3.89 to a 3.63 as fitted to the later 1500 Spitfires. As I understand it, not only will this be a bit more relaxed for motorway cruising but also it's supposed to be the strongest set up.

While changing it out I'll add a few replacement poly bushes in place of the original rubber.




I also had a few problems with the overdrive on the way up to Stafford with the wire through the gearstick shorting out intermittently and chattering the overdrive in and out when in the switched out position. No big deal just need to replace the wire, something that seems to go wrong every 18 months or so. Wires in a constantly moving and hot and oily environment do have a habit of chaffing their insulation!




I also had a little job to do re attaching the front numberplate which got half broken off when the recovery truck hauled my car on when the diff was broken. I've tucked it up a bit closer to the front valance this time so it'll be a bit less vunerable.


While working on my car I've also found a small crack in the chassis near the rear lower nearside wishbone mounting. This has been fixed once before about 15 years ago. I'll be looking to get this fixed professionally once I get the car back on the road.

I pick up my new diff on Monday and the target is to get the car back on the road in time for the Duxford Triumph day on the following Sunday so I have my work cut out next week.