Saturday 25th May Enfield Pageant of Motoring

To make a change from working on cars all the time I took some time out and took my nephew Connor over to the Enfield Pageant of Motoring. Unusually for a teen he's not  into small hatchbacks with dustbin sized exhausts and rear body panels vibrating from boom boxes in the boot and prefers older cars instead. (Haven't got a clue where he gets it from!)  

In fact he's even considering selling his 'modern' and buying a classic Mini. Good lad! It was a good day out and I met Steve Poulton and Darren Sharp over there too as well as some other old friends from my 'previous life' when I lived in Enfield. Apparently it took Steve over two hours to get home due to a bad crash on the M25. Luckily I had gone a different way after calling in to see Davemate, so I missed it.

 

Anyway, here's a few pics from the show.

 

A very rat look Ford Corsair with a 3 litre Essex V6 fitted.



 

A pair of Anglia estates copying Gertie's cream roof look!

 

A rare Volkswagen, but I have no idea what model!

 

Alan Mann coloured Lotus Cortina

 

An ultra rare Vauxhall PB Cresta estate. Even Google images can't find many of these!

 

Meeting up with old friends.

 

 



Friday 24th May. MOT time. Again

With its MOT due, I really needed to look at Gertie's speedometer problem. (Having a working and accurate speedo was never part of the MOT up until March, but this has now been added to the test.)

The speedo needle does work but I think it really wants to be a windscreen wiper as it tends to act in the same manner.

The problem was highlighted when Davemate and I were on our way back from Holland and Dave asked me what speed I was doing. I don’t think my answer of ‘between 30 and 80mph’ was none too impressive!

I’ll have to find somewhere to get this one repaired as it’s a Mk1 2.5 PI one that reads up to a 140mph. Especially seeing as Gertie is the only car I have that may even be capable of reaching that speed. (Although it will probably have shaken itself to death long before then!)



Anyway, I knew that the actual speedo cable was new, so I inspected the angle drive which was working as it should too. The only thing it can be is a worn head, so I invaded the loft in my quest for another one. I did find another one but it was a Mk1 head but with MK2 2500S digits in it. (Or Mk2 facelift PI?) God knows where that came from, I wasn’t even aware I had it!  (See pic below-and ignore the dirty dashboard!)



Anyway, I fitted it and a  test drive revealed it to be working fine. I took the old head with me and asked the tester if he could put that mileage on the MOT certificate rather than from the head I just fitted. That way it keeps the mileage on the MOT’s correct. Luckily he agreed. Gertie once again sailed through her MOT with no advisories at all so all was good. Incidentally, the difference in mileage between this years MOT and last years was just short of 8000 miles. She clocks up quite a bit for an old bus doesn’t she? I don’t even want to think about converting that into petrol usage and pounds, shillings and pence!

 

The Red Shed.

 

I finally got to evict the Red Shed from the garage Thursday night and take it for a test drive. It wasn’t impressive. It runs beautifully while stationary, but it turns out, not under load. The carbs have only been set up as per workshop manual and without the aid of any tuning equipment so this will be the next stage. It’s very sluggish when driven, but responds when you pull the choke out, so I’m guessing it’s running far too lean. It also got very hot again on the test drive, so this needs to be investigated too. I don’t think I’ve changed the thermostat on this car yet, so that will be next.

Before I evicted the car from garage I fitted a rear spot light. (Always handy for reversing up a pitch black driveway after you’ve missed a turning on a night rally-Which seems to be a lot!)

I didn’t want to drill a hole in the bumper, or bootlid so I fitted a longer bolt on the spot light and used one of the bumper iron holes instead. Another job off the list.



May 11th & 12th. The Welsh Rally.

Saturday morning 4am and my bloody alarm goes off! What have I done to deserve this? Agreeing to co-pilot Darren Sharp on the Club Triumph Welsh rally that’s what. It seemed a good idea at the time!

I got my things together and headed down to Hornchurch to meet Darren. His alarm not going off was the reason for him greeting me at the front door in his underpants and t-shirt. Nice! (Not!)

After a quick cup of coffee we set off for the start location at Ross on Wye services to meet other Triumph peoples for the start of the event. Our chariot for this rally was Darren’s beautiful Mk2 saloon. As usual there were quite a number of different models taking part in this which added to the variety.

In no time at all the 10am start was on us and we were away. We started by travelling westwards towards Merthyr Tydfil before heading up to the Brecon Beacons. After that we took the B4520 up to Lower and Upper Chapel and then further north up to Garth. The next road was over a beautiful mountain pass that had some stunning scenery and views





Tregaron was the next main town we ventured through, but after this it was back across the mountains and over to Elan Valley. Again more breath taking views were taken in and this point both of us admitted that we never realised that Wales was so beautiful.

The next part of the drive was taken by Darren and I have to confess to sleeping like the dead between Llangurig and Aberystwyth waking only briefly to the sound of the torrential hail stones that had the entire ‘soft top’ brigade stopping hurriedly to put their roofs up. (Except Martin Randle and Dina who just carried on regardless!)  

After a very good night in Aberystwyth we set out for the first stop of the day at the Devils Bridge waterfalls. We did the short tour to look around and very beautiful it was too.





 It had started to rain now which was great pity as the previous day had been pretty good. After Devils bridge we took the mountain pass over Nant y Moch reservoir and out to Tal y Bont.

Machynileth was the next town and then the coast road to Twywn. After this we took the B4405 straight across the middle of Snowdonia national park before heading back down to Penegoes, over another mountain pass to Llanidloes and then our final destination at Newtown in Powys.  

By now it was 2.15pm and we didn’t hang around too long at the finish as were driving home again that night and still had over 200 miles to do. We left around 2.45pm and got back to Darren’s at about 7pm. (Bloody Sunday night M1 traffic!)

It had been a great weekend and Darren’s car hadn’t missed a beat. We had decided to take his one and a bit of a shakedown before we do the ten countries run in it in September. If this run was anything to go by, we shouldn’t have too much to worry about.

 

Some pics from the weekend.





May 4th & 5th May. Differential issues x2

Saturday morning saw the continuation of getting the Red Shed running better. A new inlet manifold gasket had arrived during the week so it was time to remove the carbs (yet again!) and get it fitted. This all went swimmingly and by lunchtime the new inlet manifold gasket was on and the carbs were refitted.

While reading through the workshop manual again to see if I'd missed anything, (Something I should do more often!) I suddenly remembered when Gertie went sick just after I first got her. She wouldn't run properly no matter what I did and in the end I put her into Carlow Engineering for Gordon to have a look at. He did a good job of getting it running well and his diagnosis was that the jets needed centralising. I have mentioned this in conversation to various people since, but nobody seemed to know what he meant.

I realised that I now knew what he was saying. When refitting the jets into the Stromberg carburettors you have to drop the needles and pistons in place while slowly tightening the jets up. The needles keep the jets centralised while you are tightening them. You also have to ensure that the piston can still rise and fall while tightening the top of the dash pot cover as sometimes they can cause the piston to jam. (This is what mine did)

Anyway, with the carbs now set up I was over the moon to find that she started beautifully and ran well. (The best I've heard it run actually) The only problem was that the rear carb was leaking petrol yet again! This must have been about the fifth instance of either the front or rear carb leaking.

By now Davemate had arrived and he told me that a number of people on the forum had recently bought fuel pumps off of eBay and found that the pressure was too high, thus causing the carbs to leak. Seeing as my new fuel pump was a recent ebay purchase, we decided to remove it and fit a second hand spare. With this done we instantly cured the carburettor leak! I think I'll swap the pump for an electric pump at a later date.

Seeing as Dave had some more spare time, we then decided to remove the differential as this had been leaking too. I had a new seal in stock so we set about removing it. Sadly that was about as far as we got really as once it was out we discovered that the filler plug had gone in cross threaded and buggered the thread up. (I think I did that actually when I topped it up with oil)

So as it stands at present the car has no diff in while I'm waiting for a tap to arrive so I can re-tap the thread. I found that the breather at the top of the diff was totally blocked as well, so maybe that was the reason that the seal had blown.

 

(Davemate playing with my undercarriage!) :)

 

Sunday 5th May.

 

As if I hadn't had enough of lying on my back removing a diff on Saturday evening, I had to do it all again on Sunday when Gavin brought his MK2 saloon round to change the diff on that. There was nothing wrong with his diff other than it being the wrong ratio. Gavin's car is a 2.5 but had a 3.71 diff instead of the 3.45 that it should have. It wasn't too bad a job actually. I think we had it done in a couple of hours. Gavin took it for a test drive afterwards and was pleased with the result. it no longer screams at the legal speed limit and just seems a lot smoother and quieter to drive. Gavin has done a lot to this car since he's owned it and has improved it dramatically. It was a noisy, rattly, uncomfortable beast when he first bought it, but it's now become the smooth, silky cruiser that Triumph intended.



 



Sunday April 28th- The Red Shed tests my patience!

The weekend started with a Chelmsford Motor Club 12 car rally on the Friday night. Setting out from Epping golf club Dave Saunders and I were doing quite well and by the time we reached time control six we had zero fails and were only a couple of minutes down. However, being thrown around in the car in the dark while trying to read a map and navigate for the past forty minutes had taken its toll on Dave who was by now being violently travel sick. The signs were there from TC2; the long puffs of air, the long windy burps. (It was like having Davemate in the car!)

We tried to continue but were losing too much time every time we had to stop for a vomit break. With regret we rang the clerk of the course and announced our retirement. We took a slow drive up to the finish point anyway and waited for the other entrants to arrive. We stayed long enough to hear the results fully expecting to finish last as we had missed the last three time controls, but to our surprise we finished second from last. Another crew had got more fails than us even though they completed the course. We didn’t feel so bad now.

 Saturday morning I made the trip up to a village near Harwich named Ramsey where I collected a nice set of wheels and tyres for the Red Shed. (Although the way she’s been behaving lately, I don’t see why I should treat her to anything!)  I then continued up to Lowestoft to go and see my Dad as it was his birthday and fitted the wheels later that night when I returned home. I think they suit the car better than the TR4 wheels and set it off quite nicely.



Sunday morning I resumed my efforts to get the Red Shed running properly. The previous week it had decided to refuse to even start at all. I had suspected the solenoid and so managed to blag a spare one to try.

However, even with the new solenoid fitted the bloody thing still refused to start and the starter motor just made loud clicking noises instead. I decided to show it that I could better its clicking noises in volume and velocity by taking my large ‘Universal adjuster’ (pictured below) to it to persuade it to return to work.





In danger of being beaten to death, the starter motor then surrendered its protestations and took to spinning the engine over as intended. For some reason, the engine which had been running well(ish) was now putting up a fight with regard to firing. Various plug leads were changed; ignition timing was set and reset again. Spark plugs and gaps were also checked but all no avail. I then decided to pull the garage door down and turn the lights out so I could see how good the spark at the points were. The answer was not very good at all. The brand new points that were fitted a few weeks back were removed and the old ones fitted. Much better! Now we were getting somewhere. The car was now starting better and running better but still not 100%. I changed the condenser as well, (this was new too) and also changed a couple of spark plugs which didn’t seem too efficient. Whatever the fault is, it’s very intermittent as the car runs quite well, but then either starts chuffing and missing for no reason or increases its idle by a thousand revs. Very strange!

It also seems to miss on low revs, but revs fine on high throttle, so a possible inlet manifold gasket fault? Who knows? Time was getting on now so it was time to call it a day. Guess what I’ll be doing next Bank Holiday weekend? L

Saturday April 13th- Club Triumph Historic Counties Rally.

Instead of doing what I should have been doing this particular morning, which was checking Gertie over before the HCR, I was playing with the Red Shed in an attempt to get her running better. A ‘Eureka’ moment on Friday night made me realise that the wrong rotor arm was fitted. I know I fitted the last one, but I'd replaced it ‘like for like’ with one that was already on there! I should have realised at the time. The wrong rotor arm was longer than the one that should have been on there and was therefore cutting into the contacts on the distributor cap. With new parts fitted, the Red Shed was fired up and the running was much improved.

Right! Time to concentrate on Gertie now before I run out of time. Oils, waters and fluids were checked, a few tools and spares were loaded and she was ready for the off. Time to head indoors for an afternoon siesta before the long night. Co-driver Darren Sharp arrived at 3pm and we were soon on our way to the start at Soham in Cambridgeshire. Our third crew member Ashley Mills was already there and pretty soon the three of us were buried in maps and note books.

The historic counties rally is similar to a scatter rally where you have to collect points for counties and points of interest visited. It’s not possible to collect everything on the lists given, but a lot of crews try their best to!

After food, we headed down to the auto test site where we took park in three tests. I won’t say competed, because we were crap awful and made a pig’s ear of all of them! We did provide a bit of entertainment on the third test though by spending more time going backwards and sideways than forwards!

With this done we set out on our planned route which took us from Cambridgeshire over to Suffolk and Grimes Grave in Norfolk before dropping down into Essex to grab points at Castle Hedingham, Finchingfield and Newport. This part of the run took place in torrential rain and with the darkness closing in the pitch black country lanes were quite challenging. After Essex we then headed west over towards Cottered in Hertfordshire before jumping on the A1 and heading north again to grab the counties of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and finally to the halfway point at Ferrybridge services in West Yorkshire.

While Ash and Darren were handing our time card in, I was having a play with Gertie and adjusting the tick over. For some reason the idle had turned itself down and needed a boost.



 

With our mandatory break taken we were given the clues for the second half. With some mad plotting to be done again we set off for the North East. Our first stop was the city of York and then up to somewhere called Sutton Bank. This was a hairpin bend on a 25% gradient that apparently causes major headaches for caravans and blockages for HGV’s! After leaving the very foggy hilltop we then travelled through Thirsk, Teesside, Darlington, County Durham, and then ventured up to Northumberland.

It was while we were going across the A69 near Hexham that we thought our rally was over when a massive vibration started coming through the rear of the car. Ash had said that he’d felt a vibration earlier, but Gertie does have a small vibration at a certain speed so I’d just dismissed it. A quick check of the wheel nuts showed that they were all tight, but the ‘wobble’ was still there. We then found a safer place to stop and had a proper check round. Darren managed to find a lump in the tread on the tyre on the nearside rear. So, the boot was emptied of tools, spares, fruit and energy drinks (More about the energy drinks later!) and a wheel change was made.

 

(Team Gertie pit crew) :) 

 



This must have cost us about half hour all told so we decided to skip a couple of places we had plotted and head north for Hadrian’s Wall.

This was a fantastic driving road and made even more beautiful by it just beginning to get light. Two more points of interest were collected here and we then headed across to Carlisle (Cumbria) and north again to Gretna Green in Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)



 

We opted not to go for The Scottish borders county as we were keeping an eye on the time, although it turns out we would have had plenty of time in the end. Never mind. A run south down the M6 was next on the agenda before turning off at junction 39 to run down the A6 through Kendal. This road was so impressive that I’m going to come back up this way when I do the International Auto Ecosse in June. Another two points were gained and then we made tracks for Barnoldswick in Lancashire for the finish. Not far from the finish the energy drinks got the better of Darren who by now was quoting all the dialogues from the Monty Python films and singing the theme to Coronation Street in a Kenneth Williams style voice! Very Bizarre! (We’ve told him he’s not allowed any Red Bull for the next run)



A well deserved hearty breakfast at The Old Stone Trough was demolished while the results were calculated and we finally learned that we had come in seventh. A good result, but we know that we could done better if not the wheel issue and by calculating the time we had left a bit better.



By now we were all pretty knackered and we still had a 250 mile drive home to contend with. All in all I reckon we must have covered close on, if not over a 1000 miles this weekend. There can’t be many other club events where you can start in Cambridge, finish in Lancashire, and visit Scotland  in between! All inside 14 hours too!

We'd had a fantastic time and all of us really enjoyed ourselves. We worked well as a crew and once again Gertie was ultra reliable. (You can’t really blame her for a tyre going square shaped)  She’s got a couple of weeks rest before the next Friday night rally on the 26^th April. Time to get another tyre sorted out then. J

 

Easter Weekend 29th March- 1st April

Good Friday 29th March: The day started well enough as I began refitting the trim and front bumper to the Red Shed. Once this had been done I started to look at the exhaust system again. I had noticed when driving it home from the paint shop that the slight blow from the exhaust had turned into quite a major one.

A quick look underneath showed that the extra length of pipe I’d had added on (I’d asked for it to be welded, but the bloke who did it brazed it!) had snapped nearly all the way round!

The downpipe was removed and one I already had in stock was tried but found to be pointing at the wrong angle. No matter which way I tried it, it was always hitting the propshaft. So, back to the drawing board on that one! Finally got round to washing the Mk2 estate too as it was still minging from the journey home from the CT dinner at Milton Keynes the Saturday previous!

 

Saturday 30th March. A nice drive out to the other side of Great Dunmow was the order of the day as Gavin (Iggy on the CT forum) was leaving his Mk2 over there to have the differential sorted out. The guy we visited had a vast amount of spares lying around and luckily, he even had a Mk1 saloon downpipe! Result!
The snow started coming down on the drive home but fortunately, it wasn’t settling. Once back at mine, the new downpipe was fitted and this time we had no problems with alignment and it fitted really well.

Another mate (Steve)  called round that had problems with his Mk2 brake master cylinder. After pulling his one to bits and a spare that I had in stock, we were able to compare the two and see what the problem was. Once this was done he helped me refit the rear bumper on the red shed as this would have been a bit awkward doing it on my own and would have led to huge scratches no doubt! The only problem was that the original overriders were completely knackered with dents and rust holes in them, so I left them off until I can find some good ones.

 

Easter Sunday. March 31st: Couldn’t get going today and too much good stuff on TV (Touring car racing) so it was a late start. Didn’t do much, just removed the carbs and cleaned them up a tad and refitted them. I had to fit a new O ring on the mixture jet in the rear carb as the old one had disintegrated. I also added a stick on front number plate as well to try and get the look of the original 60’s Triumph 2000 rally cars.  (See Peter Colliers book-Triumphant rallying)  It’s probably not to everyone’s taste, but I like it so that’s all that matters. J









Easter Monday. 1^st April. Dave (Davemate on the CT forum) came up for the day and fitted the Alfa seats while I refitted the carburettors. The seats looked quite good once fitted although I could do with finding a beige coloured rear seat now to match up a bit better with the beige leather fronts.





 

On starting the car up I found that the needle valve in the front carburettor had stuck again and she was only running on three cylinders. I’m just going to have to order a new needle valve I think because no end of cleaning it and adjusting it is keeping it operating as it should.