Something is happening - honest!

Not much reported but I have been "helping" Bryce on non Triumph car stuff recently.

Fitting a 190BHP K Series engine to his special for example (mainly holding stuff on my part really) and bleeding the brakes on his Mini (mainly pumping the brake pedal this time).

There is something happening on my cars though.

A cleaned up steering wheel from our collection of spares for example fitted to the 2000. I am keeping an eye out for a centre pad marked up as "Triumph" for this.

The big and expensive news though is regarding PMW's original engine. The crank, lightened flywheel, pistons, clutch cover and front pulley are all away for balancing. At the moment the crank is being reground.

This engine will have had about £1000 spent on it by the time I am finished and it will still be only a refreshed 2000 engine, no firebreather or anything but it is the car's original engine so I will be pleased to have it reunited with the car.

I have never had a bottom end balanced or a crank reground before so it's all new to me. I just hope I assemble it all correctly with all the new bits and it runs sweet and smooth!

Somewhat unexpected

So, to the nearside today on the brake dancing front.

Actually this went very very well. Both calipers came over quite happily as did both discs and hubs. I then bled the uprated brakes on UNJ and all was looking rosy.

So, on the wheels and give it a little test.

But then came the unexpected bit. Both cars have 13" alloy wheels on with UNJ having it's OE standard wheels but they fouled the Volvo calipers. That was quite a surprise so I had to swap over the black "minilites" and put the standard wheels on BRP.

I think UNJ looks pretty good though with the minilites so I am happy enough at the end of it all. Oh, and the brakes work (but not on BRP so that has a notice in it to remind me it only has a hanbrake).

Here's UNJ with the minilites

Brake dancing

I have a number of brake set ups on/for my TR7s and always seem to be in tranisition to where I want to end up - two steps forward and one step back, or is it the other way round?

Well, with no driving to be done for 50 weeks now seemed a good time to make some more moves.

Here's the standard disc set up on UNJ which doesn't look too bad until you see the comparison with --

the uprated BMW/Volvo combo I have on BRP

 

Apart from the surface rust of course, the major differences are the much bigger dimensions of both the vented disc and the 4 pot calipers giving much improved fade resistance.

I had hoped originally that this set up would be fine for historic rallying but it was not to be. "Proper Group 4" brakes were necessary and so these were purchased and the necessary machining done etc. I have never actually fitted them though due to the interruption to my rallying plans but they are going on to BRP at some point as I still aim to compete in stage rallying co-driving in the car.

My plan now though, was to fit the BMW/Volvo combo to UNJ and so uprate that car's brakes from standard and ideally fit the Group 4 brakes to BRP. If I actually did the last bit though they would then be on a car that is unlikely to turn a wheel in anger for maybe 2 or 3 years which wouldn't do them any good.

So, still going down this route I removed the offside brakes from UNJ and BRP and whilst I was at it put all three set ups next to each other as a comparison - see below

I then trial fitted the Group 4 brakes on BRP and they do look the business

It was good to make sure all the bolt holes lined up - that was quite a relief! As I said though, it wasn't my intention to leave the Group 4 brakes on so I packed the disc and caliper away into their packaging and back into storage for the day when they finally do get fitted.

What was actually accomplished was the offside BMW/Volvo combo removed from BRP and fitted to UNJ and the standard set up fitted temporarialy to BRP so that it can still roll (but not brake!).

Alot of work but as always, getting closer to the end result.

The nearside will be the next job.