Manifolds off

The car coolled down enough after a couple of hours to allow me to work on it. The manifolds are now both out. I'd forgotton just how awakward Triumph made it to get at some of the lower mounting bolts, not enough room to get a socket, offset or straight ring spanner on some of them and the only way to undo is to use an open ended spanner at an angle. Good job they were not too tight or rusted, as it was I managed to skin my knuckles!

I knew that I also have a weep from one of the core plugs under the manifold which I've never bothered to fix so I'll be doing that as well while the manifolds are off.

The only other issue I had is that the heater cable shared off and I couldn't under the retaining nut on the heater valve. Hopefully I'll be able to do this on the bench now the manifolds are off the car....

Block and head with manifolds removed, leaky core plug visible, also that red stuff on the 3rd headstud from the front is my blood from my skinned knuckle!

Blown Gasket

The GT6 has had a bit of a blowing exhaust under acceleration recently, so I checked out the exhaust system today. I did find a slightly loose clamp where the downpipe meets the mid section but having just taken it out for a test drive that wasn't it. I've also had a few issues with pinking under acceleration lately especially when the car gets hot.

Having revved the car up on the driveway after the return from the test drive I can now hear that the blowing is coming from the manifold gasket. That's probably why the car is pinking as well as the gasket is a combined inlet and exhaust manifold gasket so it may well be leaking on the inlet leading to a weakening of the mixture at high vacuum.

The car is hot now so I can't really fix it yet as I haven't got asbestos fingers!, but at least I know what I need to do to sort it out later...

That's Better!

After all the struggles to sort out my wheel bearing over the last few week's I took the car down to Moonface for an MOT this afternoon at at long last have a MOT pass certificate.

Car is now already for the Triumphing season :-).

I noticed a subtle chnage to the MOT certificate this year, as well as the current mileage it also show the mileages and dates of the previous 3 MOT's to try and prevent people clocking thier car. Not a bad idea if you are a car buyer and shouldn't be a problem if you are selling a car unless you have something to hide....

Back together

Halfshaft is now back in the car. Everything is bolted into place, flexible brake pipe, and handbrake cable back in place, brake adjusted.

Tomorrows job will be bleeding the brakes then hopefully the GT6 will be ready for an MOT re-test at last....

All back in

Halfshaft rebuilt and going back on the car

I finished assembling the halfshaft tonight, fitting the brake shoe assembly and hub, bolting the inner halfshaft to the rotoflex coupling. Once the coupling was bolted up it was time to cut off the steel compression band that comes fitted to new rotoflex couplings.

I then did a bit of preventative maintenance to safe hassle later on. The long lower outer wishbone bolt has a tendency to seize up on rotoflex suspension. When I replaced the bolt and wishbone trunnion bush  assembly a few years ago I used copperease grease to try and make the job easier. This has worked as the bolt still turns and can be pushed out reasonable easily, so I took the opportunity to re-grease with copper ease. The nylon bushes still have no play so I haven't replaced them this time around.

Then it was time to get the halfshaft back on the car. I wriggled it into place and replaced the diff UJ flange bolts to hold the shaft in place. Then played about with jacks and prybars to get the lower inner wishbone bush into place on the chassis bracket and got the bolt in place.

Copperease added to the lower outer wishbone trunnion bolt hole

Cutting the Temporary Rotoflex Compression strip fitted to a new coupling

The next job ids the toughest one on rotoflex suspension cars, replacing the upper vertical link swing eye bolt. The essential tool here is the famous Triumph spring lifting tool. It was getting late so I've set everything up ready but will leave it until the weekend to get the jacks and prybars etc out to get this into place. Always a job that requires plenty of cursing and swearing!

The Rotoflex Springf Lifting Tool in use

Getting Ready for replacing the upper vertical link spring eye bolt, the toughest job when replacing a Rotoflex halfshaft

Coming back together now

I feel like I’m starting to make progress at last

I went up to the Triumph Spares Show at Stoneleigh where I had arranged to meet Tim Ward who kindly donated a couple of unknown quality Rotoflex hubs. I checked them out quickly at Stoneleigh and one looked like it would be OK the other had some wear on the inside face. Richard Brake had also collected some 5/8 unf nuts, they were supposed to be the thin type like the original fitment but they are still thick like the ones all the Triumph Suppliers are providing, however it doesn’t do any harm to have spares…

Once Home I cleaned up the two hubs that Tim had given me, one was definitely too worn and also had a big burr  due to previous big hammer abuse that would have stopped the drum sitting flush without some major filing but the other one looked good, the splines inner face and bearing faces in good condition and I checked the flange for run out and it was true. The only issue was that the two holes for the brake drum screws both had screw shafts stuck in them with a slight counter sink which looked like someone had probably drilled the heads off the screws to get a brake drum off!

Anyway, a bit of work carefully drilling them out with a pillar drill and re-tapping the threads had them sorted. So I now had one decent hub. I then changed over the wheel studs pressing in the new extended ones.

The rest of yesterday evening and this evening was spent assembling the drive shaft assembly to check spacers and shim requirements, building up with dry bearings to check end float and then packing with grease, reassembling and finally torqueing up the driveshaft nut with a new nut and Loctite threadlock.  I also re-checked the hub for run out on the final assembly  and it’s fine. I’ve now run out of time and I only have a couple of hours on Thursday night available to work on the car this week which should give me a chance to a chance to build up the brake assembly and bolt on the inner drive shaft  but it will be the weekend before I can start putting the shaft back in the car.

Plenty of grease used to pack the bearings



Replacement hub Torqued down with new nut on driveshaft locked iwth locktite threadklock and new Extended length wheel studs fitted.