Warm welcome to Team Torpedo at the Crooked Billet

We had a visit from Team Torpedo at our local Club Triumph Meet on 3rd September, a group of Americans who have come across the pond to take part in the Club Triumph 10 Countries run. The Guys have purchased 4 cars in the UK to take part in the event.
T1 is a 2000 Estate, looks a little tatty around the edges and has already had to have a repair to the radiator today and sounds like it has a knocking UJ. Hope it makes it around guys!
T2 is also known as Flipper, a 1300 fwd car that as it's new owner Joe Earnest says "drives better than it looks thank God!", although it's a bit tatty it does look reasonably solid. It's had a rather chequered history having been recovered from a scrap yard by one of our local area members (Marty Dolomite) a few years ago and re-commissioned. He has owned it a couple of times since and may even want to buy it back from Joe at the end of the run! There was one little mishap at the meeting, Flipper decided to shed the nut from the crankshaft pulley, luckily eagle eyed James Cooper noticed it lying in the car park and it was bolted back into place.
T3 is a well sorted Dolly Sprint that will be well known to Club Triumph and Dolomite Club members as up until now it has been owned by Jon Jackson (known as Trackerjack on the CT Forum). Now owned by Billy Ray it's going to be shipped back to the US after the run.
T4 is also known as Casper, a very tidy 2000 Saloon which has been prepped ready for the run and looked after for the last few weeks by Roy Boy Lacey. Now owned by Doug Jenson this car is also going to be shipped back to the US after the run. The Guys all looked the part anyway with their rather fetching team Shirts!
As the visit to our meeting was prearranged I had put the word about to try and get as many people along to the meeting as possible to welcome our American Freinds. And indeed the turn out was great, we had approx 18 Triumphs and 36 Triumph Enthusiasts at the meet, Roy and Julia had even travelled from as far away as Telford! At times the car park was totally full with no space for other pub visitors!
Anyway, good luck to Team Torpedo for the run and also good luck to the UK Club Triumphers taking part in the run which takes in 10 European Countries in 4 days over approximately 2,500 miles. Wish I was going.

T3

T1

T4 Casper

T2 Flipper

Fixing a rattly GT6 rear seat

I finally got around to doing one of those little jobs that has been on my to do list for ages this evening.

My GT6 is fitted with the optional occasional rear seat conversion. To be honest it's not a brilliant seat as there is no leg room so it just allows one very small passenger to sit sideways in the back, however it does finish off the interior nicely! I fitted the conversion shortly after buying the car having managed to get hold of a brand new Stanpart kit complete with all fittings and instructions. These are as rare as rocking horse poo!

Anyway that was about 80,000 miles ago and for the last few years the seat has become very rattly. The reason for this is Triumph's rather crude design whereby shoot bolts like you get to hold a loo door closed are used to hold the seat in the upright position. What's more rather than having a block to locate the bolt into like one on a loo door the bolt simply runs up against a flat steel bracket. Over the years the bolts have worn about 1/2 of the way through allowing about 3mm of play which causes an annoying rattle.

Bolt in place (one fitted at each side of seat)

Wear on the end of the bolt shaft which is causing a rattle, both are worn in the same way.

The parts for the seat conversion aren't listed or stocked by any of the Triumph specialists, however as they are pretty much the same as a standard loo door shoot bolt I went off to B&Q to find as close a match as possible. I found one that was slightly too long which I was able to cut down and also cut some slots to match the fixings on the original.

New bolt slightly longer than the original

New bolt shortened and with slots added to match original as closely as possible.

I then installed the new bolts. Also to help stop rattles I used a short piece of windscreen washer pipe split over the bracket which provides a cushion and makes it a tight rattle free fit when the seat is held in place. Job done !

New bolt in place with split washer pipe anti rattle cushion.

A Great Weekend away in Stafford

I've just got back from the TSSC International weekend in Stafford, I always enjoys myself at this event, for me it's more of a social event that a car event, however the car side was pretty good this year.

Due to family commitments I couldn't leave to arrive for the Friday evening part of the event but not wishing to waste away Saturday travelling I left home at about 11:30 pm and drove up in the GT6 through the night (Good practice for the Round Britain Run!). Due to roadwork's closing part of the M6 I had to follow a rather complicated diversion through the streets of Birmingham in the small hours but apart from that I made good time and arrived just after 2am. I quickly pitched my tent and set up my airbed and sleeping bag and then went a joined a few friends at about 2:30am who were still up drinking and partying.

A Late Couple of Beers after my arrival at 2am with Jonathon Ingram and Richard Philpot



The following morning after a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast it was time for a wander around the show with Darren Sharp. A few unusual cars this year, we decided a GT6 with very big wide wheelarches needed some further investigation and fortunately the owner was around to open up the bonnet. It has a Volvo T4 Turbo Engine fitted, Volvo Gearbox and Sierra rear axle and suspension. Plus all the body work had been hand crafted in steel unlike most cars of this ilk which normally have body mods made out of fibreglass and plod!

Body Mods all hand crafted in steel, not your usual fibreglass and plod!

Volvo T4 Turbo Engine in a GT6

In the hall on the Saturday there were line ups of big Saloons and Bond Equipe's due to the 50th
Anniversary of the Triumph 2000 and Bond Equipe.

Lee Godfrey's ;lovely MK1 Estate

Display of 2000s and 2500s behind me

Display of Bond Equipe's

After the show it was off to the excellent Holly Bush Pub restaurant with Darren, Anne-Marie and Glynn for some nice scoff before the evening party. As usual there was quite a bit of fancy dress going on, I'm afraid I was guilty of partaking in this!

Less said the better, me as captain caveman!

As usual Jonathon's fancy dress was impressive.

 

 

After a late night partying another visit to the show the following day. Sunday is concours day so lots of OTT polishers at work. Concours doesn't actually give me much of a thrill but there was one car that particularly impressed me, there was a Triumph Italia with about 7,000 km on the clock. As well as the rarity it was totally as found and unretored, There were a few issues with the paint wehere it had started to crack off in places but it really was an impressive car. There were also quire a few other interesting cars on display that were not concours cars but were just there as they were interesting.

Unrestored Triumph Italia

TR7 V8 Rally Car Replica

Irish TR6 nicely prepped for the track

Belgian Vincent Hurricane

Jigsaw racings fleet of Lemans Spitfire Replicas.

Zetec Engined Spitfire

 This Zetec Engined spitfire also had a one off space frame chassis in place of the normal Spitfire chassis.

Zetec Engined Spitfire with the bonnet closed, note the one piece front valance.

A few nice shiny cars....

This 2000 has been purchased by Doug Jensen from the US to use in the CT 10 Countries run, he is shipping it off to the US afterwards. Doug is part of a contingent of Americans coming over for the 10CR this year calling themselves "Team Torpedo", there are 12 of them in 4 cars, all purchased in the UK from afar. The white 2000 is affectionately known as Casper and Roy lacey ahs been helping to prep it ready for the event,

Casper

Casper Interior Shot

After the event I camped over and left on Monday for a leisurely drive back home. The car started playing up before I'd got out of Stafford though. I'd let the fuel get pretty low and this had pulled through some sediment to the rear carb so I ended up taking the float chamber apart on the roadside and cleaning out the float valve. This fixed everything and the car behaved itself for the rest of the journey.



Breakfast meet, this time arrived before the end!

This time I arrived a bit earlier to the Classic Car Breakfast meet at the White Lion Antique near Hartney Wintney. Had a nice breakfast which set me up for the day and enjoyed mooching around the cars for an hour or two. Some pictures below:-

My GT6

This 1934 Nash was pretty special. Love the period set of golf clubs on the parcel shelf!

This well sorted Lotus Elan Sprint is owned by Antonio, one of the Engineers I work with..

 

Camaro

 

Nice Lancia Fulvia

 

Stag

RS2000

E Type V12 FHC - Nice

 

XK150

Mustang

Rover 3500