Cookie's Blog: Stoneleigh, Dolly Breakdown, ebay bargain and Breakfast Club

This last week started off with a trip to Stoneleigh. Gave a couple of local Triumph friends a lift up in the BMW. I had been contacted a few day's before and asked if I could display my GT6 on the TSSC stand, especially appropriate now I'm the club's GT6 register secretary. However as I'd already made arrangements to give a lift and as the car would have had to be there on the Saturday and I'd have needed a hotel it wasn't practical. Stoneleigh was very busy this year with it being a combined MG and Triumph show. It was good that it was busy but I must admit I treat Stoneleigh as much as a social event as a spare show and there were lots of Triumph comrades who I knew were there but I didn't bump into. In terms of purchases I didn't get anything too radical this year, a new fuel gauge for the Dolly (as the old one was showing white rather than green light), a passenger door mirror, a silicon rocker cover gasket for the allow rocker cover and a TSSC and club Triumph sticker for the window of the Dolly. The real bargain of the day wasn't exactly a purchase though, I mentioned to Clive (Cliftyhanger) that the Dolly had some play in the rack and he happened to have one that he was giving away free (Cheers Clive!!). Seems like a good one too so I'll give it a strip down, clean up and fit to the Dolly before the next MOT as the old one has started to get some play in it. I didn't take many pictures at Stoneleigh but here are a few.

Dolly Sprint Pick Up

Jigsaw Racing CLM replica team

Anyway the Dolomite decided to "reward" me for spending some money on it by breaking down on the way to work on Tuesday. I was queuing in traffic and it just conked out and wouldn't start. I was getting fuel through but it wasn't firing. Unfortunately I had no tools on me either. I happened to have a spare rotor arm so I changed that just in case but to no avail and then called out the breakdown service included in my insurance which is subcontracted to the AA. The AA chap found pretty quickly that it was an ignition issue as I had suspected and then after some troubleshooting determined that the Piranha electronic ignition that had been fitted to the car years ago had packed up. As luck would have it I had the remnants of a service kit in the boot with an unused set of points and a condenser. This was enough of a kit to allow the AA chap to convert the distributor back to points and I was on my way within 20m minutes of him turning up. Having now set the points gap and timing up it's now running like a dream touch wood. I realised that it must ne the best part of 15 years since I set up points timing on a car as the GT6 has electronic ignition fitted since about 15 years ago...

Then a stroke of luck on ebay. The Dolly has developed a split in in Nylon Corduroy material of the drivers seat cushion and the fabric has worn extremely thin. I noticed that a job lot of Dolly spares on ebay included a cushion cover in chocolate brown. I contacted the seller to check on the condition and explained that I wanted to be sure it was better than mine before committing to a round trip of over 100 miles as the sale was pick up only. He offered to just sell me the cushion cover if I won the auction and post it to me. I put in a bid and nobody else did so I got my cushion cover for a mere 99p (plus 3 quid postage). What a bargain and although it isn't new and has some minor wear to the piping and vinyl it's loads better than mine and the corduroy bit is brilliant. A little job for me to do then to replace it at some point.

Seat Cover 99p on ebay, Bargain!

Then on Sunday the weather made big change for the better 19 degrees and sunshine,wow! And to top it off it was a date for one of the local breakfast meets at While Lion Antiques. I had the kids this weekend so had to use the Dolomite and bribe the kids with the offer of a cooked breakfast in the tea rooms but glad I did as it was packed with the classic car parking area overflowing onto the main road leading to the grass verge of the A30 dual carriageway being lined with expensive classics! See below for some pictures of some of the nice cars that were parked up.