10CR Prep

Having got PMW into a position where it seems to want to play ball I am now moving on to general preparation for Club Triumph's 10 Countries Run.

This weekend it's based around a good service for the car. Obviously it has already had an oil change and filter, new electronic ignition, new plug leads and I have new plugs for it too so I am well on the way to completeing a service for it.

So this weekend I got the car up on axle stands and checked the front wheel bearings were OK (seems they are) and the front brakes are fine too. Oil levels were low in the gearbox and rear axle though which is not good news so I topped those up. Whilst doing this I ran out of gear oil so I have ordered another 5 litres classic GL4 EP90 along with 2 litres of DOT 4 brake and clutch fluid, 5 litres of antifreeze and classic SF spec 20/50 engine oil so that should sort me out not just for topping up but also for spare fluids to take on the 10CR.

Here's PMW up on axle stands for those checks plus I could see that I think there is no more clutch fluid leaking from the slave cylinder so that's a relief.

This also gave me the chance to spray Dinitrol corrosion protection all under the car floor, wings, front valence etc which might not look the prettiest thing in the world but preservation is the most important thing here.

I was also able to take a look at the rear suspension as can be seen in the photo here and I will be replacing the rear springs, shock absorbers, suspension bushes and all associated nuts & bolts etc.

I have not done this before on a 2000 so it will no doubt be a learning curve but those are the original springs from 1969 whilst the shock absorbers are sone second hand ones someone gave me and recently one of them leaked. Doing about 3000 miles in September 3 up would be quite a test for them, hence the decision to replace.

Once that is done I will move on to the front suspension.

Am I getting there?

The top picture shows a pack of parts I had ordered in an attempt to cure one or two problems and also tidy things up a bit.

The "tee piece" is a valve sold for Caterhams and kit car heater pipes designed to allow air locks to be bled out of the system. It was suggested to me by a good mate, Andy Pearce, that this might be the problem with the non functioning heater and as the tee piece was only about £5 I thought it was worth a go.

In the bottom picture it is fitted on the right at the rear the other side of the rocker cover and it does a good job in that it doesn't let water out (!) unless you undo the valve to clear any air lock. Hasn't helped the heater though!

Then there's a brand new set of expensive Lumenition plug leads. During the process of getting the car to run something like right a fair bit of swapping about of old plug leads was done which left a messy looking non matched lot on the car so I decided to put that right with the new set and keep the old ones on a spare dizzy cap. They certainly look the business as can be seen in the lower picture.

Finally as readers will know, the electric fan has started coming on immediately the ignition is switched on. The only way I have remedied this so far is to disconnect it but that's not really a solution. To be honest, having fit several Kenlowe electric fan kits now I am not entirely satisfied with them. The fans themselves are OK but the wiring and controllers are not that great.

I have used Revotec controllers as well in the past though and although relatively expensive they do work well and are a great bit of kit. Hence the alloy tube with controller which fits in the top hose as can be seen in the top picture and then actually fitted in the bottom one. Now after careful setting up and adjustment I have an electric fan that cuts in when it should and shuts off when it should.

Note to self, in the future if fitting an electric fan use Revotec controllers and buy fans separately.

With all that done a test run worked out fine apart from not being able to get the heater working still but that can wait for now as I am sure I will win in the end.

Menwhile, today I have briefly cleaned the car out and tidied up the boot with spares, tools and packed for the North Yorkshire Triumph Weekend as you can see below.