Door Locks

Spent the morning fixing door locks on the GT6, the door lock mechanisms are so fiddly it's a real PITA especially if you've got short stubby fat fingers and poor eyesight like me!

Any way, replaced the door latch assembly on the drivers side so I can now actually lock and unlock the door from outside the car. Big thanks to James Cooper who had a spare door latch assembly which fitted the bill, a new one is stupid money and even 2nd hand ones now seem to be getting rarer unless you want to pay Rimmers prices....


Then I fixed the passenger door which wasn't locking from inside. I've fixed this about 3 times this year and the rod that runs from the inner handle to the door latch pivot keeps popping out of the plastic block at the door handle end. |This time I decided to hold it in pace with some electrical tape, to me this is a sensible improvement not a bodge but others may beg to differ!

Anyway all sorted now, except I've now found the Drivers door check strap has some bits missing so I have a new kit on order from ebay, that's a job for another day.

Running Cool

Today I fixed my electric fan on the GT6. The old fan thermostat had packed up, a couple of weeks ago it was sticking on which wasn't too much of a problem, just needed to disconnect it when I stopped and re-connect it when I drove off. However on the way back from Duxford it decided to fail totally and stuck in the off position.  I managed to Bypass it to get home but it was now time to fix it properly.


The old thermostat that came with the Pacet fan kit was a capillary type with a probe that you stuff up the top hose. I've never been much of a fan of these as there is a risk of leakage where the capillary connection enters the hose. So I forked out for a nice aluminium billet housing with a modern sealed thermostatic switch unit from ebay. It was only about a fiver more than a replacement pacet capilary one so well worth the extra.

The instructions stated it was to be fitted on the hot side of the radiator, ie the top hose. I must admidt I thought about fitting it to teh bottom hose because, a there is more space, b it would be measuring whatever the radiator was coping or not and c I wasn't convinced that it wouldn't cause problems due to a lack of flexability in the top hose as the standard hose is a bellows type to allow flex.


Anyway after a few Club Triumph Forum discussions and finding out at my local TSSC meeting that a couple of guys have them fitted to the top hose I went ahead and fitted it there. If I had fitted it to the bottom hose I would have had to experiment to find a suitable switch as the temperature would have been lower so it saves a lot of hassle.

The kit stated that it must be fitted with a relay to switch the fan, the old capillary kit didn't need a relay so I had to do a bit of wiring and fit a relay. Anyway all done now and having tested it it works fine. Temperature sender fitted is a 90/82 degree one which comes on at about 7/8's of the way top the red on the temperature gauge and switches off just above 1/2 way.

New arrangement, billet aluminium adaptor in the top hose and relay fitted.

Old Knackered capillary unit previously fitted.

Duxford Sunday 2nd October

Took me a few days to get around to write this but last weekend had an enjoyable trip to the Duxford all Triumph Day organised by the Herts and Beds TSSC. This was the 18th year the event has been held so a bit of a birthday. I was one of the organisers of the original event as it started off being run by the Essex TSSC area 18 years ago. Right from the start we decided that this would be a general Triumph event rather than just a TSSC event as we invited loads of other Triumph Clubs which meant we had a   great variety of cars right from Razoredges, through to Bergerac type roadsters as well as the more modern stuff. Here's a couple of pictures from then, let me know if you can see your car in the picture after all these years!

 We had a prize draw 18 years ago to win a flight in a Tiger Moth and they gut who won it (Richard)  took the flight there and then at the event. Here's a picture of him with his prize.

Anyway back to this year, as the weather was so great (yes you may remeber we had a heatwave last week), I decided to camp over the night before with my son James. A nice little camp site up the road at Fowlmere had been recommended by Pete Lewis who organises the Duxford event. had a walk into teh nice little village, a curry in the local curry house washed down with a few pints of Abbot Ale in a social club opposite the campsite. The actual event at Duxford on the Sunday was well attended, I understand there were about 300 cars in attendance. Plenty of airborne activity as is usually the case at Duxford with some lovely passes by the Sally B B17 Flying Fortress. On the way home the GT6 started overheating, a problem with the electric fan thermostat which had packed up, easily bypassed with the fan wired in permanently as a temporary fix. However this week's job will be replacing the old capillary type thermostat fitted in the top hose with a nice billet ally housing and modern screw in thermostat switch.