A tale of 3 weekends

On Friday May 10th Deana and I drove down to Tintern to stay over with relatives and then next day took part in Club Triumph's "Taith O Amgyclh Cymru" which was a two day tour of Wales starting near Ross on Wye.

Here we are at the start - and that was the best of the weather!

Mind you , we kept the hood down all day despite plenty of rain and even hail just before the halfway overnight in Aberystwyth.

It's a shame the weather was so bad but we both enjoyed the event and will be back for more.

Then last weekend I was at the North Yorkshire Triumph Weekend at Runswick Bay. Again the weather wasn't great but it was by no means as bad and I was there with a number of Club Triumph friends.

In addition as a sort of stag do for Bryce (no pun intended) my brothers, Bryce, my brother in law and two other close family friends came along too and we went karting which was great - shame Bryce was on the losing team!

On the way back to the campsite tho there was definitely a dodgy moment or two with wheel vibration and the brake pedal going to the floor :-(

I got UNJ back to the campsite as we were only about 5 miles away and then checked it out next day - loose wheel bearing which I tightened up, job sorted.

Setting off home though it was clear the job was not sorted - the same symptoms re-appeared and by now I felt it was really dangerous. I pulled into a layby near Guisborough, jacked the car up and checked for play in the offside front the wheel which felt like it was about to come off!!

There was nothing for it then but to call for the car to be recovered home which turned into a 6 hour epic but anyway, at least we got home safe.

So to today when I have investigated further.

This is what I found when I took the wheel off - scoring on the inside of the wheel which is probably due to contact with the brake disc as the wheel hub assembly floated about!

Once I had the hub off I could check the bearing and found there wasn't much of the inner part of it left. See below for the gory details with bits of it all over the place.

Meanwhile, on the stub axle there were bits left there too

I'm by no means an expert but I didn't like the look of that stub axle either. I think there's some serious heat been present and part of the bearing welded on to it perhaps?
So I got out of my stock the original stut that came off the car and compared them.

The stub axles look very different so to make sure I stripped off the nearside too and that also looks like the spare off side one so I think there's a bit of work to do here.

I think I'll be refitting the original strut and as I have not been happy with the ride height I'll get new springs front and rear, new inserts for the front and of course new wheel bearings.

So the car is going nowhere for some time whilst I sort it out. It will take priority over PMW as I plan to do the  Alpine Roadtrip in UNJ.

Quick question

Am I losing it?

I don't seem so interested in the competition side of motoring any more.

Now it's the socialising or maybe even other stuff, like going to a sixties weekend maybe.

Hmm - not sure about all this

A good couple of days in Triumph land

 Yesterday with Bryce's help we got the engine and gearbox nearly ready to go back in to PMW. I had fitted new engine mountings and a new gearbox mounting as it makes sense at this point (and one of the engine mountings was shot anyway).

Today, it took some doing until we realised I had put the gearbox mounting back on incorrectly which meant the engine wouldn't sit back far enough.

Once put right all was well and then we were able to fit the front suspension. A few words to describe but took much longer than than that! In fact another 5 hours over yesterday and today.

Great to see it all back in though and PMW back on it's wheels for the first time in months.

So, a good couple of days indeed.

Then - the trip home in UNJ with the top down, what a joy!