Thursday 17th November- A change of rubber for Gertie.

For some time I had been considering fitting smaller tyres onto Gertie. When I fitted the TR6 wheels I had some good 205/65 x 15 tyres laying around and decided to fit them on the TR6 rims. These would have probably been fine if the car hadn't have been on lowered suspension, but then, everyone who knows me knows that I don't do standard road height on saloons.

When cornering hard these tyres would catch the front wing lips and bend the metal ridge down. This wasn't too much of an issue until a particularly deep rut on the South coast rally last week when not only did it bend the metal ridge, but it cracked the paint on the front wing as well!

I wasn't happy. What with the suicidal pheasant denting the front panel and this as well, poor old Gertie suffered some damage on this rally.
    Anyway, with this in mind, some smaller 195/60 x 15 tyres were obtained and duly fitted. The 195 tyres have a smaller radius and are also a tad narrower as well, so hopefully they wont catch the wing lips any more. (You can see the height difference in the pic below.)

 While I had the back wheel off on the driver's side I also took the opportunity to whip the brake drum off and replace a wheel stud that had been bothering me for a while too. It was on a second hand driveshaft that I had picked up somewhere. Three of the studs were fine, but one was shorter than the others. When the wheel nut was on the stud didn't even reach the end of it! So this was changed and all was well. There is a Club Triumph North London meet on Monday night, so I may take Gertie down there for a test run. It will also give me a chance to hand in my entry form for next Octobers  Round Britain Reliability Run.