Round Britain Run 2025

 OK not GT6 or Suzuki related but very much a Triumph thing. I've just got back from attempting the Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run.

Our team was using Mark Smith's 2L MK2 Vitesse, team members, Mark, Glyn Davis and myself.

Here we are at the start, Knebworth Barns on Friday (3rd October).

It all started well, we left Knebworth and headed up the A1M with Mark driving, topped up with fuel on the A1 near Doncaster and then called into the fist checkpoint at Wetherby services on the A1M.

Wetherby Services Checkpoint 1

We then set off on our way, Glynn took over the driving from this point. The route was up the A1M and A1 then turned onto the A68 and crossed the border into Scotland at 00:25am. We then refuelled again at the 24 hour garage in Jedburgh. I then took over the driving, the weather started to get much worse with very heavy winds and heavy rain showers. I skirted around the South of Edinburgh then over the river Forth on the Queensferry Bridge. We saw lots of signs that the Forth Road Bridge was closed) due to the winds) and the Queensferry Bridge was closed to Double Deck busses but not Lorries.

We continued up the M90 towards the next checkpoint at Kinross services. The wind got even worse and the car was getting badly buffeted. Then a few miles south of Kinross the car started to have problems with the rear suspension and was wandering all over the road unless we reduced the speed down to 40 - 50mph. The issue got worse. We checked into the control point at Kinross and discussed whether it was safe to continue with the handling problems, especially as we would shortly be going into the highlands in very inclement weather Mark decided to try driving the car for the next stint to assess it, but after one junction on the M90 North of Kinross we all agreed the handling issue made the car unsafe to drive so we decided to retire from the event. We limped the car back to Kinross services so we could wait in the warm and dry for breakdown recovery. We had completed around 400 miles out of the 2,000 miles of the event.

The breakdown recovery truck arrived about 2 hours after we called the breakdown services.

This wasn't how it was supposed to end!

The breakdown truck only took as about 40 miles south to a service station near Whitburn on the M8 as the driver had little time left to drive on his tacho hours. We then had to wait about 4 1/2 hours for another breakdown truck which took us down to Southwaite services south of Carlisle around 100 miles. Then the next breakdown truck took us down to Lymm Services on the M6, about another 120 miles. Then we had a 4th recovery truck to take us from there to Mark's home in Warwickshire, around another 100 miles.

Loaded on the Final recovery truck

Some of the other teams at the final control point at Popham Airfield

After arriving at Mark's house and unloading Mark then kindly drove me around 70 miles onto to Knebworth so I could pick up my modern BMW that I'd left at the start/finish point for the weekend. I then had the 60 mile drive home from Knebworth. We were picked up from Kinross around 2am and I got home at around 9:30pm, so around a 19 1/2 hour journey!

We may have failed to complete the event, however, we did manage to raise over £1000 sponsorship for Parkinsons UK, so not all bad.

The last control stop on the event before the finish was from 5.24 pm on Sunday at Popham airfield which is only about 25 miles from home so I drove down there in the GT6 to cheer the teams on!

Some of the other teams at Popham Airfield

GT6 Weekend Egmond Am See, Holland September 25

 

I went along to the International GT6 weekend, with my GT6, this time held in Egmond am See in Holland. The annual GT6 weekend is a small private event not affiliated to any particular Triumph Club with limited numbers as it’s based around Hotel accommodation and also runs out every day so anymore than 25 to 30 cars becomes unmanageable. It is therefore by invitation only. I’m fortunate enough to be on the list now and have attended a couple of the events previously in both Germany and the UK.

There were 8 GT6s attending the event from the UK this year, 6 of us were on the same overnight Ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland on the Thursday night. The Harwich to the Hook Ferry was very convenient as Egmond am See is only about 70 miles up the coast from the port.

I had quite a long run from home to Harwich though including running around half of the M25 so left home very early to miss the busiest times on the M25 and arrived in Harwich about 7 hours before Ferry check in and took the opportunity to have a good look around Harwich. I visited the Redoubt Fort museum which was very good and also stumbled across some Banksy Graffiti art on a gun pill box on the headland between Harwich old town and Dovercourt.

The Redoubt Fort

A Banksy on a gun pill box

I then met up with the other GT6 travellers from the UK in a pub restaurant by the port  for a meal before checking in and queuing for the ferry.

Queuing for the Ferry at Harwich

After arriving in the Hook of Holland in the morning I made my way to the event Hotel in Egmond am See then checked in and had a swim before meeting up with the other GT6 owners from all over Europe. There were Dutch, German, Swiss GT6s and owners from Austria as well as the UK contingent. We had a meal in the Hotel Restaurant and then plenty of beers in the Irish themed pub in the basement of the Hotel.

After breakfast the following day there was a run out to the Dutch Naval Museum at Den Helder which was about a 70 mile round trip, everyone was issued with route instructions and we tried to follow each other as best as we could although it's really not possible to have a convoy of that many GT6s (there were 28 cars) so we got split up.

Sadly, one of the GT6s owned by Ron Breukelman had a bit of an incident early on in the convoy.  Ron and his partner Greiteje were lucky to escape without injury. I was about 3 cars behind him in the convoy so witnessed the scary incident. A VW Beetle (new shape) travelling in the opposite direction, lost a front wheel. We saw the wheel bounce up to a good 30ft in the air and it came down right at the front of Ron's car, damaging the bonnet, bumper, valance,  grill, headlamp, spot lamp etc quite badly.  It could have been much worse if the wheel had gone through the windscreen TBH.

Ron’s Car after the wheel incident.

The Beetle that lost a wheel which damaged Ron’s car.

The GT6s parked up at the museum in front of the bridge and 3D Radar tower from HLNMS De Ruyter.

The museum was really interesting and included a Submarine to explore.

At lunchtime we were booked into a local restaurant and then returned to the museum to look around some more before following a different route back to Egmond.

In the evening we had dinner in the Hotel Restaurant and then retired to the Bistro bar in the Hotel basement. One of the traditions of the GT6 weekend is to share whiskey from a Scottish Friendship cup, I don’t like whiskey much (Rum is my Spirit of choice)  but I did have a small sip to keep up with the tradition!

On the Sunday after breakfast there was another run out, this time to a Hotel for lunch. The Hotel De Rijper Eilanden was a rather interesting place, with lots of classic vehicles, classic machinery, classic motorbikes and scooters, other antique curiosities, and a Meccano exhibition on display in the hotel and outside. We then walked around the corner to for a specially arranged visit to the hotel owners workshop and storage area crammed full of mainly classic commercial classics and busses plus a few classic cars, mostly unrestored and sitting waiting for someone to awaken them from their slumber. It was just the sort of place you would see on the “Shed and Buried” TV programme!

GT6s at the |Hotel De Rijper Eilander

Some of the vehicles on display at the Hotel

The Hotel had some real curiosities on display inside

Some of the Mecanno in the exhibition at the Hotel

The Hotel owners private workshop and storage area was cram packed with vehicles.

After lunch some of the GT6s left for home, many had a rather long drive. Some including myself, stayed a further night though and followed a different set route in convoy back to Egmond. In the evening we went out as a group to a rather nice  beach restaurant in Egmond.

If it aint broke don't fix it

 When will I learn to leave things alone when they are working properly?

Over the first year or so that I owned my Suzuki T500 I had a few ignition issues mainly faulty Left Hand condensors that only lasted a few hundred miles. Cheap Chinesium crap sadly. Then I found a genuine Suzuki condensor which I fitted and the bike had been great ever since.

However, the issues I had previously made me want to fit electronic ignition, the popular system for the T500 is the Vape one, which is very expensive as it also replaces the alternator. It's well over £400 and only available to ship from the EU so attracts VAT and import duty on top of the purchase price.

Then I saw a much cheaper ignition system that just replaced the points and condensors for sale via T500 specialists "the motorcycle workshop" for £180. The main man their Pete O'Dell is known as one of the best T500 guys in the business so has a great reputation.  

The item on ebay wasn't branded which concerned me, however, Pete confirmed that it's actually an Accent unit, which is a good known brand. Accent don't list a unit for a T500 but Pete has then made up specially.

I went ahead and ordered one and it looked a good quality unit.

 I fitted it according to the very detailed instructions and sadly it didn't work. I contacted the Motorcycle workshop and spoke to Pete, he asked me to send through pictures of my install and confirmed all looked OK. Pete tried to contact Uwe at Accent their CEO. Uwe was away on holidays. In the meantime I sussed out that the rotor part with the trigger magnets seemed to have a big gap between it and the hall effect triggers on the PCB.

I spoke to Pete about it and he reckons a previous owner has probably fitted an incorrect stator or alternator magnet ring to the bike. He did say that some people make the mistake of fitting the stator from the T250 or T350 and although they look similar they are not the same. 

I spaced the PCB off the back plate and sure enough the LED that indicates the spark trigger came on when I rotated the rotor. I then tried to set the timing, but because I had taken it apart a reassembled several times the rotor was very stiff. I had to use a mole grip on it to turn it. Then disaster struck, I slipped with the mole grip and it hit the main trigger component on the board breaking it. So my electronic ignition unit was now broken and scrap, £180 down the drain!

So I had to de-install the unit and convert back to points and condensors. I then took the bike out to test it, it ran fine but then about 300 yards away from my house it misfired and then cut out, worst still there was smoke coming from the crankcase.

I pushed the bike home and investigated, the connection to one of the sets of points had come loose and shorted out on the inside of the crankcase cover. This had melted the insulated bits of the points and also fried the condensors.

I rebuilt it again with new points and condensors, the Left cylinder had a misfire though, turns out another chinesium condensor was useless! I then managed to find another genuine Suzuki one on ebay, fitted it and now the bike is running again. 

But if I had left well alone and not tried to fit electronic ignition it would have saved a whole load of trouble! 

My son is a bit of electronics whizz and he reckons he may be able to repair the broken electronic unit, it's certainly worth a try.

T500 Airbox issues

I've had an issue with my T500 with not being able to get the hose that goes between the air filter box and the carbs to locate properly and I've never managed to get a good seal at the bottom of the airbox.

In a recent VJMC magazine there was an article on T500 airboxes and the connection hose which explained that Suzuki had made changes to the hose over the years between T500 models.

I could see from the photos in the article that I had a early model type hose from the T500J or earlier, where as my bike is a T500M so should have a later hose designed for the T500K onwards.

The hose part is readily available so I ordered one from Legend motorcycles.

Here are the two hoses side by side , the new type that should be fitted to my bike is on the right. Note that the connections to the carb are further back, this is due to different carb mounting set up on the later bikes resulting in the carb inlet sitting a little further back on the back.

So I now have the correct hose but I found it still didn't fit. On investigation I found that the airbox I have fitted to the bike is the earlier type, the hose connection outlet is bigger and sits further forward. 

The later air filter box is no longer available new so I need to either find one at an autojumble or ebay etc or modify my one to have a smaller outlet connection in a further back position.

As this will take a while I decided to buy a couple of cheap power flow airfilters (similar to K&Ns) which fit directly on to the rear of the carbs. I installed them and removed the old airbox completely.

I just tried the bike and it runs so much better with the new filters, it ticks over more smoothly and revs more cleanly so I may well stick with them for a while!

Suzuki blowing bubbles

 I had an issue with the 2 stroke oil injection on the Suzuki where there were intermittent bubbles inside the pipes on the left hand cylinder. There was obviously a leak somewhere and on investigating I could see there was some oil weeping out at the pump end of the pipe assembly.

To get to the pipe banjo on the oil pump the right hand carb has to be removed, in fact it's easier to remove both carbs. I removed the carbs and tried tightening the banjo bolts, all 3 bolts (the RH pipe outlet, LH pipe outlet and pump inlet pipe) could be tightened so I carefully tightened all 3.

I then reassembled everything and started the bike. Sadly the bubbling on the Left hand pipe assembly was worse then before as was the oil leak! So I took it all apart again and removed the left hand pipe assembly to investigate.

After removing the end of the banjo fell off and it was obvious that the banjo bolt had fractured, this was the source of the oil leak and air coming in to form the bubbling.

Fortunately the banjo on the input end that had fractured is just a plain banjo rather than the more expensive and harder to obtain (Suzuki or Kawasaki part) ones at the engine end which have check valves. 

I purchased a new banjo from ebay, some 4mm id oil/fuel pipe that was a tight fit on the banjo and the original pipe and some clear adhesive lined heatshrink tube to seal the joint. 

I assembled the new banjo, pipe and heatshrink to the end of the oil pipe assembly. 

After reassembling and starting the bike, it was apparent that the bubbling and oil leak issue had been successfully cured. Job Done!

CV Driveshaft upgrade for the GT6

 I recently had an advisory at an MOT test that the Rubber Rotoflex couplings (Donuts) were starting to deteriorate. 

The genuine Rotoflex couplings (made by metalastic) are now very expensive (over £200 each) and the pattern ones like most  rubber components on our cars don't last very long. However, there is now and alternative, an upgraded driveshaft set up which replaces the rotoflex coupling and UJ for  more modern CV joints. This is the set up used in modern rear wheel drive cars like BMWs. I know from covering 125,000 miles in my recently sold BMW 3 series that I'd owned from new that a CV joint solution is very durable as I'd never had to replace them. The CV upgrade to GT6 and Vitesse Rotoflex drive shafts is made by Classic Driving developments. It is quite expensive but will work out cheaper in the long run. It also changes the drive shaft nut on the end of the shaft to a meatier 20mm x 1.5mm from the puny 5/8 unf  (c16mm) diameter on the original which is a weak point and prone to stripped threads.

I therefore decided to take the plunge and buy a CV driveshaft kit, unusually Rimemrs was the cheapest place to buy them as they had a sale on and the kit cost me £714 vs the normal price of £780

The new CV driveshafts

The old driveshafts were removed from the car and the bub/vertical link assembly pulled off the shafts with a hub puller.

Using a puller to remove the hub/upright assembly from the old shaft

My bearings were in good condition so I didn't change them but did clean them and re-pack with grease.

 The bearings on GT6/Vitesse rotoflex suspension are adjusted with shims and if I had changed the bearings then I'd have had to measure the end float and reshim them which is a tricky operation. So with the existing bearings I just had to remove the shims and distance pices from the old shafts and reuse on the new shafts.

Distance Piece on new shaft, this side had no shims

I fitted the new shafts to the car without the uprights and hubs, one small issue I found is that the standard spring lifting tool got in the way and prevented the shafts from being pushed into place due to the inner CV joint being larger than the old UJ set up. So I had to jack up the end of the spring without the spring lifter just to get it into place.

Getting the bolts that hold the CV joint to the diff flanges into place was a little bit fiddly but once in place all was good. The bolts are 3/8 unf x 3/4 and they use a special lockwasher called a schnor washer.

Attaching the inner CV joint to the diff flange

I then added the upright/hub assembly (after fitting the shims/distance piece) and tightened the axle nut on the end. On one side of my car the adjustment of the bearing was correct with just a distance piece which is the one shown in the picture.

Once I had reassembled everything and connected/adjusted the handbrake I put the hand brake on and torqued the axle nut up fully to 105 ft/lb with a torque wrench. The nut is a special flange nut and once tightened the flange is distorted into a groove in the shaft to lock it into place. 

Axle Nut locked into place

The nut is a 20mm x 1.5mm pitch thread, 30mm across flats and 20mm high. I found that several Ford and VW cars use a similar nut so I bought a couple for my spares stash as they will need to be replaced for any jobs where the hub nut is removed in the future.