On the Toledo front

With only 3 weekends left before the AutoEcosse Bryce has been working on his Toledo to get it better prepared for it's first long distance event.

At the same time, other than buying bits of ebay there's nothing I can do to the 2000 until I get the crankshaft etc back fully balanced from Drakes (must contact them by the end of next week if I haven't heard anything). So, with that in mind I have been over to help out Bryce on the Toledo.

He has successfully (but not irreversibly) fitted the twin headlight Dolomite front and is currently awaiting a full set of halogen conversion lamps complete with relays etc.

He has really gone for it on the suspension by fitting Sprint suspension including anti roll bars etc.Along with this also he has a full set of polybushes and AVO shocks/springs. Most of the work I was involved in today was the two man job of fittng the front suspension which as usual was a bit tricky but we got there.

Below are pictures of all of this.

Those Sprint wheels have to go though, Bryce isn't happy with them so we needed something more "period". As I have a set of miniltes spare at the moment these are now on permanent loan to the Toledo project.

I reckon the car is going to look pretty damned cool, in addition to handling well. There's more on the braking side of things to come as well as other developments.

Twitch ye not!

The week after the last post I did indeed return to the offside rear and, if anything, the bushes that side were even worse. By now of course I knew what was what so it didn't take too long to replace and I can report UNJ now behaves much more like it should.

This is all just as well because I have entered Club Triumph's Historic Counties Run with the car so I am focussing work on UNJ as much as I can. This weekend I fitted halogen headlamps which should have been easy enough apart from the nearside one refused to work on main beam.

I got my digital analyser out and there was power to the connection under the bonnet so I then suspected a dodgy brand new bulb. I reconneceted the old seal beam but that didn't work either. So, after a little thought I checked and there was power at the headlamp if  I used another earthing point. All I needed then was to do some work on the connections under the bonnet and all was well.

In addition I have now ordered some Ring Xenon bulbs so that should certainly make a huge difference over the original sealed beams whiich will be well worthwhile on an overnight event like the HCR as well as on the 2013 10CR I plan to take part in with the car.

I also intended to fit two fused relays but I seem to have lost one of them - grrr!

Leaving my cars aside for a moment though I also found time last week to help Bryce collect a new car he has bought. It seems driving my Toledo round Europe in 2007 left a deep impression so he has now bought an early 2 door white Toledo for himself. I have contributed a Sprint engine and overdrive gearbox, a pair of 2" SUs, 4 tyres and an exhaust manifold. He then went and bought a donor Dolomite Sprint too. The plan is to build a standard looking Toledo with Sprint running gear which he is planning to use on club events including the 2013 10CR - looks like a 2 car team then.

Finally, PMW has not been forgotten with more debate and advice sought on the engine rebuild. This week I also collected a heated front windscreen for the car and this is now safely stored on it's back seat. This will be installed in due course along with the brand new screen rubber I bought a couple of years ago. Ideally I would like PMW available for transporting me to my marshalling posts on the RBRR in October but we'll have to see if that deadline is made.

A pleasant change

When we did the Historic Counties the indicator stalk started mis-behaving. It would have to be held in position for the stalk to locate correctly, but only sometimes.

This was a replacement second hand one so I thought I would probably need a new one but they cost £63 so I hoped I might be able to fix it.

So, this afternoon I removed the cover and found one of the screws holding the stalk on was loose - aha. Tighten it up, re-fit the cover and the job is sorted. That was certainly a pleasant change to normal.

Unfortunately, the exhaust is blowing again!

Then I moved onto the TR7 to start it up, warm it through and move it a little to make sure everything was freed off. Well, it started pretty quickly, got up to just under half on the temp gauge when the elctric fan cut in and brought it back down to just over a quarter. There was still the right level of coolant in the expansion tank too - this is looking promising.

All the lights worked, even the offside indicator which seemed reluctant to start with but then played ball. The only thing not happy are the emergency flashers but that's a minor worry.

So, looking good but I need to wait for the roll cage yet which should be here in a couple of weeks.

Remember the Furka!

I could have gone on about painting an airbox for the Sprint engine but a spot of "carry on" type double entendre is more fun.




This is the Furkapass in Switzerland and is a superb bit of scenery. We were lucky to be there as it was dropping dark at the end of the day and had the chance to look back over the road we had driven. We could also watch cloud come over the valley side and descend into it - very impressive but you had to be there.