Saturday, October 25, 2014

Follow up bits and pieces

After last week's efforts I ordered up some bits and pieces from Chris Witor.

Carb float chamber gasket, manifold bridging piece and second hand clock
So, just tidying up really. I replaced the big washer we put on last week as a temporary fixing for the manifolds with the correct bridging piece.

Then the front carb float chamber gasket had split so the 45p replacement fixed that!

Meanwhile, whilst on Chris's site I spotted a second hand working clock so bought that too. I have now fitted that and the car has a complete working PI dashboard as a result :-)

Replacement plugs will be with me from Chris in a few days.

I took the car another 8 mile test run on my favourite circuit of local roads and all seems well.

Next week I'll replace the overdrive wiring harness in the gearlever as it's well past it's best and then hopefully I'll ahve a working overdrive again.

If nothing goes wrong (!!!) I will suddenly have a fully functional 2000 2 years or more since I took it off the road.


Saturday, October 18, 2014

Many little things

PMW hasn't been running anything like right as people reading this blog will know.

Well today two very nice chaps came over to help out and here they are

Andy Flexney and Paul Darbyshire working on PMW

So the guys came over and first started with cleaning up the plugs, regapping them and dismantling the carbs.  The carbs needed balancing and a general clean but otherwise were in good shape. The connection on the coil lead was a bit loose so that was tightened up and then out for a test run.

Better but still hesitating.

On investigation the plug lead to number 1 was actually broken so we replaced that with a second hand one and then fitted a shorter king lead which made sure there could be no arcing to the battery retaining clamp as we had found before.

Another test run found a slight improvement but still not right. On checking the plugs again and swapping them one by one for others we found number 6 to be very black and sooty - now why should only one be like that?

Maybe there was a problem with a valve so we decided to check all the tappet clearnaces and reset them. There were one or two rather loose but none on cylinder number 6 so that couldn't have been it.

Then the guys spotted there wasn't a nut holding the inlet manifold on towards the rear of the engine.This was because a "bridging piece" had always been missing. I had ordered another second hand one (they are made of unobtanium) so we decided to fit it but then I couldn't find it.

OK so I found a large thick washer which could do the job so we used this whilst making sure all the other fixings were in place and bolted up correctly. This in itself meant taking the carbs off and took about an hour. During all this it was noted that the carb linkage and cable wasn't allowing full throttle so some "fettling" was done on this too.

Final test drive of the day was much better with only a slight possible bit of hesitation. Now it's a case of putting some more miles on the rebuilt engine as it has still only done about 150 miles and see how we go before further fine tuning.

I have to say it sounds relaly smooth now and picks up well with a gorgeous sound to it as it revs.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

2000 miles

Last weekend I acted as a marshall for Club Triumph's Round Britain Run at Tebay Services - it's always a pleasure to do this as there is such a buzz as 100 plus cars and there crews come in, have their roadbooks signed, take part in lots of banter and then before I know it they are all on their way again.

The welcoming sign for the crews
Meanwhile, my 2000 has returned from Vicarage Motor Company with it's new propshaft and the differential bushes fitted. Less than 10 miles later I can say that the vibration has all gone but the car isn't running right although it is running! Next weekend myself and 2 friends are planning a fettling session on it so hopefully there'll be some progress to report next time.