at the start

At knebworthsagely,

We leave after 6

ready for travel to the start

At Marks, car loaded, ready to go.

Despite the medias attempt to stop us the RBRR is go go go!

 So despite the BBC and other media causing an unnecessary  fuel panic buying crisis by publishing fake news of a fuel shortage the RBRR is still on. We may have to be creative in the way we keep our fuel tanked up with large gerry cans and syphoning fuel out of other entrants cars if we run out but we are going to give it our best shot!

I intend to provide regular updates on the Blog, so keep tuned and wish us luck.

It's RBRR (Round Britain Reliability Run) Time again

 Time to drive 2000 miles in 48 hours around Britain and raise some money for charity again.

This time around I'm not using one of my own Triumph's and am acting as a co-driver driving Mark Smith's excellent "Flying Bogey"  Vitesse Saloon. In fact it's the same team of drivers that completed the last RBRR in my Dolomite as we are also being joined by Glynn Davis who I've shared the run with several times in the Dolomite.

Mark's Vitesse

As usual we are part of the wider Club Triumph RBRR event and collecting sponsorship for charity. This time the chosen charity is Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA).  The charity is very poignant this time as one of Mark’s friends has recently been diagnosed with MND. For me the disease always brings up thoughts of the late Professor Stephen Hawking who suffered from MND for 55 years of his life until he passed away aged 76. Sadly though, unlike Stephen most sufferers of MND only live for 2 years from diagnosis so it is usually terminal. 

Over the years Club Triumph has raised over 700 thousand pounds for several charities. This year’s event takes place from Friday 1st to Sunday 7rd October with over 130 classic Triumphs due to take part. 

Please consider helping  me to support the Motor Neurone Disease Association for the amazing work they do, because MND is such a debilitating condition that means a difficult end to a severely shortened life. 

Donating to our JustGiving page is easy - just follow this link and click Donate: 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Mark-Smith-RBRR2021  

As I have done before I intend to provide updates during the event via this blog, so please follow our progress!

It's not supossed to wobble like that!

 So, now the lockdowns are starting to ease I've been starting to use the GT6 again. It started off last month by deciding that it wanted to penalise me for the lack of use by having a clutch hydraulics failure, so the seals were all replaced yet again. The last lot of master cylinder seals failed within a year, probably due to lack of use during the Covid lockdowns.

Anyway, with it back on the road, I've now started to use it for some local events/meets.

Out for a Run with Fleet Classic Car Club on Drive it Day

At TSSC East Berks local area Mmeet up

Now I've started using the car again I noticed a bit of a knocking sound on tickover. I investigated and found that the waterpump bearing is shot, what is surprising it that it's not actually leaking. 

Checking the waterpump, it's not supposed to wobble like that!

A new Water Pump has been ordered and will be the next little job on my list. The last one was installed in 2012 but has only done about 15,000 miles. I think the one before was original and had done 160,000 miles, even at that point he bearing was still OK but the seal had just started to weep. The quality of replacements is just not up to the original standard!

Farewell to the Flying Log

 I've now sold the Flying Log, my 1500 HL Dolomite.

A previous owner of the car, Darren Sharp (secretary of Club Triumph) contacted me to ask if I would consider selling him the car as he fancied having it back to restore. As it happened, I going to "tart it up" and give it a respray this year and sell it on anyway. It had cosmetic corrosion above the headlights and along the bottom of the doors, the rear wing, although solid, had always needed some attention from a previous poor repair and the paint was pretty flat all over. Darren was prepared to take it as it was so this saved me a lot of time and effort so I was happy to let it go.

I also got rid of all my Dolomite spares (unless they were common with the GT6) including a rear wing repair panel. 

Dolomite Rear Wing Repair Panel

I also gave Darren the paint I had purchased ready top spray the car, 5L of Russet Brown top coat, 5L of filler primer and 5L of thinners, all in acrylic commercial vehicle one pack paint. A little tip I had from the bodyshop that resprayed my GT6 was to use commercial paint if you are not having a bare metal respray as it doesn't tend to react to any other paints underneath unlike 2K or cellulose car paint. It also covers very well and only needs 10% of thinners for spraying and also can be applied with a brush or roller which is useful for touching up or painting areas like chassis or engine bay.

So the end of an Era, I've owned the Flying Log nearly 8 years and it's served me well. The main point of buying it was so I could still go along to classic car events when I had to look after the kids, but now they are older (they are even classed as "growed ups" now they are over 18!)  they can stay at home alone and its very rare that both would want to come to a classic car event anyway.

I did the RBRR , 2,000 miles in 48 hours 3 times in the car and it performed well despite being thrashed to within an inch of it's life each time, the only issues experience were running out of fuel due to a sticky gauge and a blown exhaust flange gasket so pretty reliable.

At Lands End on the 2014 RBRR with Glynn Davies, Paul Bodiam and Me

At John O'Groats during the RBRR in 2016

At John O'Groats during the RBRR in 2018 with Glynn Davies, Mark Smith and Me

I also did many TSSC and Club Triumph events including using it in anger around the Donnington Heritage Loop at TriumFest.

On the Heritage Loop at TriumFest Donnington in 2015

So bye to the Flying Log, and at least I'll see you at future Club Triumph evets being driven by Darren.

Darren Leaving my House after picking the Flying Log up, ready for the drive up to Lincolnshire

GT6 Hazard Flasher woes

Hazard Flasher Switch Woes

I recently had a Hazard switch failure on my GT6, basically the switch internals were worn and locked up, this was a big problem as although I rarely use the hazard flashers it ended up shorting out the flasher relay so my indicators also failed.

A new switch was ordered along with both a new flasher relay and hazard flasher relay. Changing the Hazard switch on a MK2 or Mk3 GT6 is pretty fiddly, I removed the tacho for access but couldn’t get the switch to release in situ and also it was a struggle to see the connections. So I relented and removed the Speedo, disconnected the Choke Cable, removed the eyeball vent and pipe and de-installed the whole dash panel in front of the driver, in fact the centre dash panel had to be released too. I did leave the wipe switch in place as I didn’t have to completely remove the dash panel from the car.

Photos and notes were taken of the hazard flasher wiring and the faulty switch was then released.

I then installed the new switch and connected it up and also replaced both the hazard flasher and turn flasher. That’s when the problems really started! Although I had put the wires back in the same order it didn’t work. In fact I had the hazard flasher dash indicator light coming on constantly if the ignition was on and the indicators wouldn’t work at all!

My immediate thoughts were that I must have a faulty hazard flasher switch. So it was time to investigate. The factory workshop manual wasn’t great in that it had the connections on the wiring diagram but not the switch internal connectivity, so I worked out how it would connect and drew it up on an extract of the factory diagram.

Hazard Switch Connectivity Logic

Then I got my multimeter out and buzzed out the contacts. What then became apparent is that the front of the switch was upside down compared with the original. As the terminal numbers were a bit small for my eyesight I’d just connected it in the same way as the original switch rather than by terminal number. Armed with this knowledge I got the switch working when connected up. However the logo on the rocker is upside down with the point of the triangle facing downwards to get it to work properly with the on position being with the bottom of the rocker depressed.

Hazard switch contacts and rocker front new vs old

I did contact my supplier, James Paddocks and it turns out that all of their stock is the same! The brand on the box is SNG Barrett group who are Stag specialists, the same type of switch is also fitted to some Stags, TR6s, early Dolomites etc. The chances are that most of the recent stock at all the Triumph specialists is probably the same as they [probably all come from the same factory somewhere in the far east!  Yet another part to look out for a NOS item at autojumbles if you need decent quality I think!