June 18th. At last- work resumes!

With the Scottish rally now a distant memory and the hangover recovery process complete, I had a few weeks rest away from the cars. This was mainly due to friends and family functions and parties to attend (So the hangover was soon in full swing again!) and also to build some monies back up after spending a small fortune preparing and competing in said rally!
The first port of call was to sort out the ill running estate. Just before I went away I fitted it with Simon BBC electronic ignition. It was running well on tick over, but due to the demands of Gertie, I never actually got to test drive it. Once I returned from Scotlandshire a run out in the estate revealed it to be puffing and chuffing like a sea lion on 60 a day!  Various tests and adjustments were carried out, but no matter what I did, it still refused to run right. In the end I decided rip the bloody electronic ignition out and go back to points and condensor. What a transformation! It's been running perfect ever since. I shall be contacting Simon BBC with regard to either a refund or maybe try another unit. We'll see what happens. Not impressed! Particularly as this was going to be the back up car if Gertie broke!

With the near 1200 miles that Gertie covered on the rally, her new engine is now well and truly run in. So the next job on the agenda was an oil and filter change, re-torque the cylinder head and re-adjust the tappets. Once funds allow she will be booked into Mowatts in Essex for a rolling road session to address the advance curve on the distributor and possibly have different carb needles fitted too, but for now there are other pressing matters.
The first job to address in the vibration that occurs at the front of the car from 65mph onwards and is still evident at 95mph. (If there are any policeman reading this, Peter Fern pointed this out when he was driving.) :-)
Various different items have been changed not just to eradicate the problem, but also as upgrades. Changes so far: Propshaft, outer wheel bearings, having the wheels balanced, gearbox cross member mounts, suspension legs, steering rack, drag struts, ball joints  and even driving up to 110mph to see if it smooths out at all. (This occurred in Belgium in March, so I can admit to this one. -I think!) ;-)
I have some superflex drag strut bushes so I'm going to fit them on and also I'll be changing not only the inner and outer front wheel bearings, but also the bearing cups in the hubs as well. These are the only items that haven't been changed in my ownership, so if it isn't these causing the vibration....I'm buggered if I know what it is!

(New polybushes on the drag strut)

June 1st. We're away! Scotlandshire here we come!

Friday morning finally arrived after what seemed a long week and my Co-Driver for the event, Peter Fern made good time in getting to my house for 10am. (I had been in the garage at 7am changing the angle drive on the gearbox so we could have a working speedometer!)
After a quick cup of tea we set out and headed across to Chelmsford, then Stansted, onto the M11, A14, A1, sat in a traffic jam at Doncaster and then finally off at Scotch Corner and across the A66 towards Cumbria. We arrived at our hotel, the Graham Arms in Longtown just North of Carlisle at around tea time, checked in and made for the bar. By the evening time quite a few other cars and crews had arrived and a good night was had by all.
Saturday morning saw the start of the autotests at the Townfoot garage just over the bridge. Due to the fact that I was still running my engine in, we decided to skip the competitive autotest parts of the rally and just do the road coverage.
On leaving Longtown we avoided all of the main A roads and headed North West through Newcastleton, then Jedburgh, then cut back to Selkirk before stopping for a coffee in the small town of Innerleithen.

Suitably refreshed we then headed up to Edinburgh and across part of the RBRR route, the Forth road bridge. The next stop was for more Autotests at Glenrothes (again we didn't take part) and then we headed west over to Leven and Crail and then Northwards through St Andrews where we stopped for a bag of chips cooked in beef dripping! We then took the back roads towards Wormit, Creich and Newburgh. We encountered some spectacular views on this part and managed to get some cool pics. 

Saturday night at 7pm we were parked up with everyone else at the Travelodge in Perth. Peter decided to stay in the pub opposite, while fellow Essex members Steve & Tina Poulton and I decided to jump in a cab and head into Perth for an Indian. Very nice (and cheap) it was too. We did return to the pub for more drinks, but the days 230 mile route had taken a lot out of everyone by then and most people were turning in.

Sunday morning and Peter and I decided to get an early start and followed the route heading East towards Creif and then Loch Earn. Absolutely stunning views at this location and a photo stop just had to be done.

We then headed south through Brig O'Turk and then encountered the beautiful Loch Venachar. Again, we couldn't resist it and had to get some more pics.

After leaving here we continued South past Dumbarton, over the Erskine Bridge, then through Kilbarchan and Beith. We then took numerous B roads and continued South until we reached the Galloyway forest. Once through the forest and down to Newton Stewart we turned West again past Dumfries and Annan and back towards where we started from, Longtown. Today's total mileage was 250.

With all the crews in attendance dinner took place followed by the presentations followed by more drinking after. We started off in the Graham Arms, then diverted to the only other pub in the town (Unofficially known as 'The Sticky Carpet pub!') for some live music (if you could call it that) before returning to the Graham Arms again.

At breakfast the following morning, we decided we hadn't had enough yet and to do a bit more sight seeing on the way home. We headed through Kirkby Stephen and over the Buttertubs pass in North Yorkshire. There's some stunning views over this way, so thanks to Dave Langrick for tipping us off about them.

Once again, a fantastic weekend was had by all and Gertie behaved impeccably. My fears of poor fuel consumption due to running too rich were completely unfounded as she was better on fuel than the standard 2000 Mk2 I took last year.  We must have covered around 1100 miles in total, possibly more, so I think I can say that my engine is now officially 'run in'. Oil and filter change to follow then! :)

May 30th & 31st. Last minute tune up and repairs!

Wednesday 30th.

I took the car to Dave Picton's today to see if he could do anything with the twin SU carbs that were running far too rich.  Dave's Mk1 saloon is a very similar spec to mine engine wise, so he was able to do a few comparisons against his. Leaning the carbs off just resulted in it refusing to rev at all, so it was decided to tune as best as possible and order new needles to be fitted when I return from the Scottish rally.

Thursday 31st

Before the rally I decided to change Gertie's thermostat to a cooler running one. The weather had been hot this week and the forecast for Scotland was hot as well.
As in keeping with the pattern for this week, nothing went smooth and both bolts in the thermostat housing sheered off!

This now meant changing the water pump housing as well. Luckily I had one in stock, so this was cleaned up and duly fitted. The next issue was trying to undo the water piper that exits the rear of the water housing and runs along side the block. This was also corroded solid and took some freeing off. Eventually, by late afternoon all was done and back together and it was time to pack the tools, spares, maps and clothes to get ready for the off on Friday morning. What a day!

May 29th. New manifold and something I forgot!

The new 6-3-1 manifold finally arrived today and luckily just after 9am too, so I was able to get started on the car straight away. A new urgency had now developed as something was nagging at me last night and my worst fears were confirmed when I checked the MOT and found that it expired last Thursday! I'm normally on the ball with MOT's and as a rule present the cars for test a week early. However, with all the issues that have plagued me recently, it just completely slipped my mind. The car hasn't been used since the previous Wednesday anyway, so the expiry wasn't an issue, but with it booked in with Picton Sportscars tomorrow for a tune up and supposedly heading north of the border Friday, time was running short.

So I cracked on fitting the new exhaust manifold and re-fitting the inlet manifold, carbs, throttle and choke cables, air filters etc and then dived underneath to fit the rest of the exhaust system.

By 1pm, everything was done and the car was up and running again. A quick phone call to my local MOT station revealed that they weren't busy at all and a test was booked for 2pm. I had a quick check round the car and after adjusting the back brakes left to meet the appointment.
The guys at Phoenix MOT in Basildon are as good as gold and I've been taking my cars there for years. The newly fitted exhaust was fine while driving but knocking against the gearbox cross member on tickover, so the guys let me borrow a socket wrench and move the exhaust whilst it was on their ramp. Gertie was given a clean bill of health and passed with no advisories.

Gertie's MOT being due made me realise that I must have had the car for a year now. She'd only been MOT'd two days before I collected her last year. As you can see from the two photos below, she has changed quite a bit in that time. The lower photo was taken the day I drove her home.

I could use these two photos for a 'spot the differences' competition with a bonus point  for identifying the classic car in the background at the MOT station. :)

May 27th. Planned and unplanned jobs!

Since last Thursday night Gertie has been off the road again. A new 6-3-1 manifold was ordered only to find that when it arrived it was the wrong one! So while waiting for the right one to arrive, I decided to get on with a few jobs outstanding on the estate. I had to make up a bracket for the oil cooler and fit electronic ignition.
These were the planned jobs. The unplanned job came from going out into the garage and finding a pool of oil underneath the diff!

With it being very touch and go on Gertie being ready for the Scottish rally this weekend, because she still isn't running right, I'm trying to keep the estate as a viable back up car. Obviously a leaking diff would not be a good thing while covering over a thousand miles!

Luckily I had a spare diff oil seal in stock, so the car was raised in the air and the job was started. This is never a nice job to do anyway and with the weather being so hot and me wearing overalls as well, it was sweltering in the garage. I must have lost about five pints of water in sweat!  Anyway, a few hours later, the diff was back together and the rear of the car all reassembled.

The next job on the list was the electronic ignition. This is a relatively easy job and didn't take long. I've put the old points and condensor set up in the glove box as I've had one of these igntion modules fail before. (halfway across a junction at 11.30 at night!) With the module fitted, the timing was readjusted and the car was runnning as it should.

With it still only being 4pm, I decided to carry on as per previous plan and make up a bracket to mount the oil cooler. This was mounted in front of the radiator, but low enough for the slots in the front valance to get to it. I still need to get some longer pipes made up, but's it's a five minute job to fit them, so I'll do them later in the week. 

May 19th & 20th. More electrical Issues.....and a new toy!

A test drive in Gertie last Sunday was going quite well until the overdrive decided to give out. Luckily, I managed to get home before some  more of the electrics decided to burn out! In quite spectacular fashion too I hasten to add. At least it had been driven for long enough to get warm and re-do the valve clearances. These should have been set at 18 thou inlet and 20 thou exhaust by the engine builders but had been set at 10 thou all round. I also re-torqued the cylinder head while I had the rocker box cover off.

Tuesday night saw me taking a trip up to Colin's  (Scrapman) territory to collect distributor parts and some spare coils.

I was just thinking how well the estate was going and that she could be the back-up car for Scotland when she suddenly died a death! I managed to coast into a lay-by and started investigation. There was no petrol getting to the carbs so I surmised that she was having her usual problem of an air lock in the fuel pump. Normally, all I have to do loosen the fuel line and work the pump manually and this normally clears it. However, no amount of  priming was curing it this time. A phone call was made to Colin and he brought out a box of spare petrol pumps. I fitted a replacement on and she fired up straight away. Hopefully my long term fuel issue should now be resolved. It was on my list of jobs to do this weekend too! It could have waited!



(Cac broken down on the A120) :(

Come Sunday morning, investigations began into why the old petrol pump had given out. I expected to find the diaphram in the pump split, which if it was, I couldn't see. But then it wasn't exactly in prime condition either! There wasn't much I could with this and new ones are cheap anyway, so it was duly binned!

The next job on the agenda was to look at the engine electrics and why the car had decided to melt the low tension wire in the distributor and also an ignition coil. For some reason the last place that worked on it (Mentioning no names) had fitted a ballast resistor but left the 12 volt coil in place. I also think this may be why the overdrive packed up as when the car was running the feed for overdrive relay (another wire from the coil) was dropping down to 6 volts.  The wiring also wasn't as it should have been and it was probably this that created the issues.





(Melted low tension wire)

Anyhoo, with the ballast resistor removed, the distributor rebuilt and the wiring sorted out Gertie burst into life again. I was still suspicious of the live wire feeding the relay to the overdrive as putting a multi-meter on it showed it to be very hit and miss, so I added a new wire onto the ignition side of the fuse box. It seemed to working fine after this so fingers crossed.

On the Saturday morning I had ventured down to Partridge Green in West Sussex to look at another car. No, not another Triumph, this was something to be used as an everyday car. I tried to do this with the Triumphs but found that it's not just not practical, for various reasons. So the new addition to the fleet is a BMW 520i Touring. It had been looked after and the price was right. Compared to a Triumph it's very, very quiet and I can even hear the person next to me when they say something! It's just a pity that I have to pay road tax on it. I'll have to get used to that again! 

May 12th - The bonnet returns!

A phone call early this morning told me that my recently louvered bonnet was painted and ready for collection. Knowing that I had a lot on today, I quickly rushed out in the estate to collect it. Once home it was fitted so that I could get on with my other chore for the day. I'll post up a couple of pictures  of the bonnet as I know there's other people waiting to see it before getting theirs done. I think it looks pretty cool myself. Now that the car is complete again I can start getting some miles on her. Hopefully! I just need to t-cut and polish the rest of the car now to get the colour match back!

With this fitted my next chore (and one that I've been putting off for a few weeks to be honest) was to lay some bitumen down where the concrete panels meet the floor in the garage. The cement round the outside wasn't great at keeping the water out, so more action was needed.
This meant pulling the cars out and then emptying all racking, work benches, cupboards and cabinets of their contents so that I could move them into the middle and be able to get to the inside perimeter.

As you can see there was a fair bit to move about and once the inside was done I found that I had enough bitumen left over to do the outside of the garage as well. Some time later it was all back to normal and looking tidier than it had for some time.



By the time the garage had got back to this condition I had a car full of junk bound for the tip tomorrow and was ready to call it a day. Especially as it now 6.45pm and I was knackered!