GT6 arches repaired, sucessful MOT and Breakfast meet in the Log

As per my last Blog, I had an issue with some corrosion on the inner rear wheelarches of the GT6 that had been an advisory on the last 4 MOTs. One of them had got a bit worse this time around so it was time to get them repaired. Cousins hubby John runs a car repair and servicing business (Fleet Mobile Auto Services) and he does welding so I commissioned him to do the work.

Also as mentioned last month when I took the wheel arch carpets and sound deadening out of the car I found a more serious issue on both rear arches, some stress cracks. These were actually worse than first sighted when I stripped the rear seat and rear deck boards out. It seems that Triumph's daft idea of mounting the top of the rear shocks on the wheelarches had stressed the panels and caused lots of cracks. I had moved the shock mounts onto the after market chassis mount brackets a few years ago but looks like the damage was already done and hidden under the trim inside the car and underseal within the wheelarches.

So what looked like 2 or 3 hours work ended up taking a few days and costing a bot more. Still it had to be done. John made a nice job of plating and welding the damage and some corrosion.

Crack along the top of the nearside rear inner arch, there were other stress cracks beneath the rear deck board

This  severe crack in the offside rear inner arch must have been there before I bought the car in 1988, bodged with filler under the sound deadening

Crack after the filler was removed.

Further cracking on the offside rear inner arch where it meets the floor panel over the rear spring.

Corrosion just behind the offside arch in the floor pan

Corrosion to the offside upper shock mount, not used as the shock is now mounted on chassis extensions but needed repairing as it's within the "prescribed area" near the seat belt mounts.

Repairs in progress to the nearside inner arch.

Repairs in progress to the nearside inner arch

Nearside inner arch repaired

Offside inner arch repaired

I had a bit of play in my Mounting steering wheel where the spokes were moving inside the outer wooden rim. Just in case this would be an MOT issue I swapped the steering wheel off the Dolomite onto the GT6 for the MOT!

Anyway, off to Moonface Service Centre where i get my classic MOTs done. Car passed first time with no advisories. However when I got home after the MOT and put the handbrake on to park the car on the drive the handbrake lever failed, with no locking ratchet and it went all wobbly ! Just as well this didn't happen during the MOT.

So a couple of jobs needed doing.

I fixed the Mountney wheel by removing the leather spoke shrouds, and wedging the gap the two spokes that were loose with a short woodscrew and cut down rawlplug into the wooden rim. Worked a treat. Steering wheels were then swapped back between the Dolomite and GT6.

Then I investigated the handbrake. I found that the circlip on the fulcrum pivot pin had disappeared and the pin had dropped out. This had allowed the pawl mechanism to come out of place and the operating rod to disengage so no wonder it wouldn't work. The fulcrum pin was still there luckily as these are no longer available but the circlip and washer were long gone. Unfortunately I couldn't find any spare circlips at home so a quick order placed at Canley's. All now fixed although it was a bit fiddly.


As it was my birthday this week I persuaded the kids that they should let me go to the local classic car breakfast meet with them in the Flying Log on Sunday. Cost me a breakfast for each of them and worst still a shopping trip to Basingstoke for Alice on Sunday afternoon as a bribe!

Anyway here are a few pictures.

The Kids were dragged along in the "Flying Log"

It was Sunbeam Marque Day on Sunday, here's a nice Alpine

Jag XK120

Really cute and immaculate Fiat 500

Morgan 3 Wheeler, not as old as it look's as this was an 03 plate

A couple of TRs

Nice Tidy well sorted Anglia

My Kids thought I was winding them up when I said this had a "WANKel" engine, NSU RO80, very rare sight nowadays.

Very Tidy Mk1 Escort 1300 GT

Gilbern Invader

Moggy Minor Convertible, Alice liked this as she has a toy one for her Sylvanian Animals!

Tidy Herald 1200

Nice E type FHC Series 1, worth lots!

Rover 3500S keeping the Log company

A couple of Cobtras and lots of American Iron as usual

In the paper and rotten arches

A little bit of fame for me and the GT6 this week, the weekly classic paper, Classic Car Buyer did an interview with me over the phone a couple of weeks ago. The TSSC had put them on to me to find someone who had a few years of GT6 ownership to talk to so I decided I could help!  Anyway after a 20 minute telephone interview about what it's like to own a GT6, what I've done to mine they asked me to send in some pictures of me and the car.

That's not that easy, I have lots of pictures of the car but most are taken by me so don't have me in them, others are mobile phone selfies with me and the car which are not exactly of good quality. I also have a picture of me and the car from practical classics magazine photo shoot that would be copyrighted. In the end I opted for a picture from a few years ago of me working on the car taken by my ex missus when we were still married!  Anyway, my bit formed a small part in a larger article about GT6s and Spitfires, here it is.

As the picture is not particularly good quality printed on newsprint, here's the original...

I have a couple of issues with the GT6 at the moment. I was checking it over last week prior to a forthcoming MOT. For the last 4 MOTs there has been an advisory note regarding some corrosion on the inner wheelarches on both sides, not excessive enough to fail but within the "prescribed" area of a seat belt point. Anyway having checked this year I found that the bracket for the top shock mount had rotted right through. The bracket isn't used on my car as I have the chassis mount conversion fitted but the rot would still be an MOT failure due to the proximity of the seat belt pivot point.

Hole rotted through on the redundant shock absorber mount bracket

My welding is rubbish however my cousin's husband John owns a small car servicing and repair business locally so I asked him to take a look as he does welding repairs. He said he could repair it and I booked the car in to have the bracket removed and a plate added to repair and also to have the other side plated where the bracket has already been removed. John asked me to remove the trim and carpet inside before he takes the car in for the work to save time and cost.

On taking the carpet and sound deadening out I found a couple more issues on the inner arch. The drivers side has a large split that had been bodge repaired with filler. This must have been done before I owned the car as the sound deadening has never been off before so the filler has been there about 30 years! The split is within a couple of inches of the seat belt mount so definitely an MOT issue.

Split and filler on the drivers side rear inner arch.

On the other side I also found a less serious split. I suspect this may have been a result of the off road excursion on the 2010 RBRR as there is a bit of damage to the arch around the split. The split has also started to corrode.

Split in passenger side rear inner arch.

Anyway both are repairable so the car goes into Fleet Mobile Auto Services for repair by John next week for some welding to add repair plates.

Busy Breakfast

This morning's Breakfast meet at White Lion Antiques was very busy. I arrived at 10:15 and I was one the the last cars to be marshaled into the car park and I was directed to double park blocking in a few Rover's. Rover was the featured Marque this morning and there were a good contingent of them, largest number seemed to be P4s and there must have been a good 20 of them.

Cars were then directed to park out at the side of the A30 dual carriageway. A rather flash group of supercars turned up in convoy including a Lambo Gallardo, a Noble and a few Porsche's and even they had to park up half on the verge and half on the dual carriageway!

Nice to see Jon Cook turn up in his GT6 that he acquired last week, he's had a few teething problems since buying it, including a broken fanbelt yesterday that I helped him out with...

Anyway here are some pictures from today. Enjoy!

Nice P4

Shelby Mustang, I want!

V8 Pop

Featured Marque Today was Rover

Jensen Interceptor

Lovely MK2 Jag

Jon's GT6

Martini 911 part of a group of Supercars that turned up in convoy together, lead by a Gallardo.

Mini Marcos, I used to have a Corgi car model of one of these when I was a kid!

Mustang Coupe

Noble

Orange Pop and I don't mean Tango!"

This nice Plymouth was up for sale

I like the 100% British beef caption on the TVR Chimera

Lambo Gallado, nuff said

Very tidy Alfa Guiletta

Healey 3000

Carrera 4S

Cobra

A new car for me, a Fraser Nash BMW, obviously pre War, as I'm sure Frazer Nash wouldn't have teamed up with BMW during or after the war!

50s Sunbeam Alpine

Ferrari 360 Spyder

Newish 911

Alpine Renault, a frequent visitor to the Breakfast meets and a car with lots of Rally History.

Tidy Bedford Truck

De-stickering the "Flying Log"

3 weeks on from the Round Britain Run it's time to get things back to normal so I decided to remove the rally stickers and plaques from the Flying Log. A few of the entrants have had issues this year with the stickers taking the paint off the car when removing. The paint on the "Log" is not brilliant to say the least with quite a bit of "rattle can" paintwork so if any car was going to suffer with the paint coming off  it would be the Log, however with a few precautions and a bit of care I had no issue with the proper rally stickers which are designed to be easily removable with low tack adhesive,

The most important thing is preparation before fitting the stickers. I cleaned the areas thoroughly and then applied several coats of wax polish as protection. I also fitted the stickers as per the instructions using a layer of soapy water on the doors before applying the stickers.

The stickers were in place about a month and stayed on with no problems,

Forward a month to today and it was time to remove them. First bit of preparation was to nick my daughter's hair drier! I then warmed the sticker all over and then put some heat on the corner and started peeling whilst keeping heat on the area being peeled.

Warming the sticker

Pic

Peeling, keeping heat on the area being peeled.

Once the stickers were removed a small amount of adhesive was left in place, a bit of lateral thinking was used here. Adhesive is sticky and greasy, just like burnt on cooking fat, so I used some kitchen cleaner to remove the residue!

Some adhesive left on the door.

Kitchen Cleaner removed the reside adhesive.

I then T Cut and polished the doors where the stickers had been, no-one would know they had been there.

T Cut and polished after the Sticker was removed

The only area where the paint was marked was not from the official stickers,. Where I'd taped one of the rally plaques to the bonnet some moisture had got behind and marked the paint. The bonnet on the log has really dodgy paint anyway and a re-spray of the bonnet is on the list of winter jobs to do so no worries!

Damaged paint on the bonnet