Friday is Triumph day

A day off work and what can you do but spend it with Triumphs and Club Triumph - can't get much better than that.

First off down to ATS Euromaster in Colne to have a new Michelin fitted to the spare for UNJ. At last I have 5 of the same OE type wheels with 5 Michelins fitted. It gave me a chance to sort through some of the wheels and tyres I have and get three of the old tyres scrapped at the same time. Meanwhile ATS stripped and hopefully fixed 2 slow punctures which are down to 30 year old wheels. If this doesn't do it then refurbished wheels will be needed or I think Rimmers still have "new" ones although I doubt they will be cheap.

Next was over to Bryce's to start work on PMW's original engine, here seen on a pallet along with the original non-overdrive gearbox and cylinder head, rockers etc.

It took a while to lift the engine and get it secure on an engine stand but then we got the sump off for inspection. The crank looks pretty good with probably only shells and thrust washers needed. Having said that there was a fair bit of swarf in the oil pump pick up filter and I have decided to do a "proper job" so Bryce and I are going to strip the engine down completely and get it thoroughly clean first off.

Swarf in oil pick up pipe just visible

Bryce is fine with lightening the flywheel as he has a lathe etc available and then we'll get all the bottom end balanced. Enough for today though as I needed to get home ready for leg 3 of Triumph Friday!

It was 10CR video night at the Pendle and Pennine Area meeting so the projector, audio leads etc had to be found then transported down to the Old Stone Trough in UNJ for setting up before everyone arrived. Thanks to Andy Flexney for helping with this at the OST and Jenny of course for giving us the function room and reserving a table for us all to eat before the evening's entertainment began.

Another good night had by all but I was glad it was all over when my head finally hit the pillow!

I had to spend a fair bit of time on Saturday tidying away from the previous day's activity but did find time for one of those rare events, a small quick job that actually was small, quick and satisfying! There should be a gear lever shroud grommet but this was missing in UNJ which was a bit of a niggle. Rattling around in my loft though I found one, dismantled the shroud and fitted the grommett - cracking job!

Helping the country out of recession

Or - how to keep buying bits for old cars.

Recently I have ordered a spare tyre for UNJ - A Michelin of course due to be fitted on Friday. While I am there I'll get ATS to switch a couple of the existing tyres onto better TR7 alloys I have in an affort to stop two slow punctures.

I have also recently bought a "new old stock" distibutor for PMW and it certainly does look to be in excellent condition so I am really hoping for no more dizzy moments LOL.
Also I have been buying workshop manuals, service sheets and parts manuals like they are going out of fashion so that I must surely have all the information I need to rebuild the original engine. Thanks Mike Charlton for collecting the latest treasures for me.

Not least, I have just bought from ebay 2 seats for UNJ in the right colour which is not easy to get hold of. The driver's seat in the car is broken and ripped/worn so I plan to swap the new one in and keep the others as spares.

There you go you see, there's me doing my bit to keep the UK going!

Decision made - I think

I have thought when I would next use BRP and really it's quite some time. I would have used it for the CT Autotest but work will get in the way of that and there's nothing else on the horizon that "needs" a competition car so I will take it off the road.

I really like all my cars though, I enjoy driving them all although they are very different in the way they feel.

So, having decided to take BRP off the road I aim to get back to PMW, the 2000 saloon. It's currently in storage without a distributor and had various driveline vibration problems when put away too.

The cheapest route is to replace the distributor, fix the propshaft UJs (if they are the problem) and start driving it again. Thing is though, it seems to have a thing for eating distributors.

Meanwhile, I am trying to track down what work was done to the original engine and it seems to include work on the cylinder head including conversion to run on unleaded. For this reason and the fact that it would be good to re-unite the engine with the car I think I am going to rebuild that one, get a sutiable new (?) distributor and refit it.

After which I can move on to solving the driveline problems and fit an electrically heated windscreen I have ordered.

Meanwhile, today having decided to take BRP off the road I have swapped over the strut brace and one or two other bits to UNJ as it might as well have them ready for next month's CT 3 Counties rally.

Where to? UNJ

Whilst pondering my next move I have returned to UNJ.

Although it drives well it's always had a fair bit of "pinking" so this afternoon I got round to checking out the timing.

It's supposed to be 10btdc but when I checked it was off the marker! Must have been about 14+.

Adjusting isn't so easy due to the amazingly difficult to get at bolts that hold the distributor in but with some perseverance all came good and I reset it to 8degrees btdc eventually (not standard due to lower octane fuel nowadays) and it certainly has improved matters greatly.

Then I moved on to trying to fix the non cancelling indicators but wasn't so succesful - ho hum, another day maybe.

Meanwhile, with the other cars I continue to ponder although it could be the 2000 that gets attention first as I am starting to miss it!

Here's video of us on the Little Devils in BRP where it's certainly possible to hear the engine rattling away!

Where next??

BRP has been running really well and has plenty of go about it.

Unfortunatley it's also been burning oil on the inlet manifold and rattling alot.

I checked the cam cover and found a bolt missing which has allowed oil to seep past it onto the inlet manifold so that is probably sorted.

I then noticed though, a missing bolt holding the exhaust manifold on! Not good and after looking for another one and being unsuccessful I decided to make sure the others were not loose. The result was stripping a helicoil out - not good at all. So that means taking the head off again for this reason alone.

Then what about that rattle? Bryce and Harvey, my brother who were over for a family do and had a listen and they don't think it's the cam, could be the jack shaft or could be a little end.

Whatever, I think it's time to stop fannying about. Once and for all I think I need to rebuild an engine right from the start, after all I have enough spares to select the best bits from and then build from there. Whilst the engine is out the engine bay can also be cleaned up and some seam welding done.

The thing is though, should it be an engine for BRP or the original engine for the 2000 that I/we build first?

If the 2000 is worked on first that can be ready for road use winter of 2012 and then work on BRP for it to be used in 2013/2014. After all I am not going rallying in a big way anymore and if I select the right road/social events the convertible and the 2000 will do just fine.

Much to ponder over.

After the Little Devils!

Well, we didn't cover ourselves in glory on this one coming 15th out of 15! It still means I am in a clear 4th place in the Club Triumph Driver Challenge though and as my aim is to be in the top 5 I am pleased enough with that.

The car was fine and very quick really but needs setting up or a service. It also rattles a fair bit and is burning oil off the exhaust manifold/down pipes so really needs some fettling.

This weekend though all I have done with it is get it up on ramps and hose all the muck and bullets off the underside. Next weekend I'll start the service and investigations although it might be wise to go round and touch up the paintwork where necessary first at the earliest opportunity.

Meanwhile, UNJ is at the front of the queue for use and will be the car Mrs R and I use in the next challenge round, the Club Triumph 3 Counties Rally in October.

Speedfair and prep for the Little Devils

Well, the Speedfair rally was really good actually.

10th out of 17 on day 1, ok 15th out of 20 on day 2 wasn't so good but our day one performance put us into the "Shoot out".

This was a bit of a surprise and given that we had a 4 to 5 hour drive home in some ways wasn't all that welcome!

The format though was that the top 12 cars from day 1 (and that included us!) took another run through the test and the top 6 would then run again. OK, let's have some fun we thought and set our fastest time of 92.3 seconds whcih amazingly got us through again.

Now the top 6 were to be narrowed down to the top 4 and of course we wanted to see how well we could do and we really attacked the test but right at the end we drifted off slightly onto some gravel and our time was 94.3 seconds - oh well, time to go home.

Great fun all the same and I'll post up the in car footage soon.

Today though I worked on BRP with a mind for the Little Devils next weekend. This is an all together rougher event which has included farm tracks in the past so with this in mind 2hours workl this afternoon resulted in the sumpguard back on.

More to do but so little time - what will next weekend bring I wonder?