Saturday 11th & 12th April - Club Triumph Historic Counties Rally.

 Despite not owning any Triumphs anymore, I am still good friends with quite a few Triumph owners that I have met over my years in the club. 
One of them, Colin Wake needed some co-drivers to be able to take part in this years HCR, so he enlisted myself and Dave Maton as his assistants. I met Dave at the junction of the A130 & A12 around 11.30am and we drove up to Colins place arriving at 12pm. 
We then went and found a cafe and had a good breakfast before heading for the start at Petersfield in Hampshire. 
We had a reasonably trouble free run down to Hampshire in Colin's Mk1 2.5 Pi, although we did have a quick stop at Clacket Lane services where we found that the electric fuel pump was leaking slightly. None of us fancied driving around with a headache all weekend caused by the smell of petrol, so we set about changing it. 

With repairs carried out we carried onto the start where we enjoyed a coffee, before setting off into the night. 

The HCR is pretty much a scatter rally and the main objective is to travel through certain counties and points of interest. Photographic evidence has to be provided of where you have been and finding county signs can be quite challenging as well.
 After plotting our route, we left Hampshire and headed through the counties of West Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire before arriving at the halfway point in Monmouthshire around midnight. 
It hadn't rained all night, but on arrival at the services it started hammering down and refused to stop. We all had to start plotting the second half of the rally in our cars as the seating area that we had been promised would be open, wasn't! Not helpful at all! 

Soon after leaving the services, we discovered that the full beam on the car wasn't working and also that the nearside windscreen wiper was catching on the windscreen trim, so it was removed! Pitch black country roads in lashing rain with no full beam and only one wiper! Interesting! 

Our second half route took us through Brecknockshire, Radnorshire, (Both in Wales) Shropshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland and finally finishing in Northamptonshire around 8.15am. We had also captured a lot of village names as extra points and so as a result of this we thought we had done really well. 

A nice breakfast was on offer at the finish and after this had been consumed, the results were read out. However, they only announced the top three places and we wasn't in any of them, so we hadn't done well after all.  

Despite not doing well, it had been a good weekend. Dave and Colin are excellent company and we all had a good time. It was good fun driving a Mk1 Triumph saloon again, although I have to say, I definitely prefer the Cortina's now. 

Monday 6th April. Fuel tanks!

 Dave Maton came up again today to help with a few things. The plan today was to remove the Mk1 fuel tank from my Green Cortina and replace it with a Mk2 version.
The original Mk1 fuel tank on the Lotus Cortina was completely rusted through and so the guy I bought the car from gave me a Mk2 tank for it instead. However, there was also a very, very rare 'tank guard' fitted to the Lotus which I assumed (wrongly) would only fit underneath the Mk1 fuel tank. (See below.) 

So, my train of thought was that because the Green Cortina has a five speed gearbox it is more suitable to be used on long journeys or events. Therefore, it would also make more sense for it to have a Mk2 fuel tank. (Because it holds ten gallons of fuel compared to the Mk1's eight gallons.)
We got the Mk2 tank into the Green Cortina, but were unable to get the job finished as a new seal that I'd ordered for the sender unit hadn't arrived. 

So, we got on with the job of fitting the Mk1 fuel tank into the Lotus and also fitted the very rare tank guard. With this done, we then refitted the secondary fuel tank which was an optional extra for Cortina's back in the day. It's actually a Mk1 Cortina estate tank, but fitted into a tubular metal frame. You can also see where the original filler neck would have been, but this has been welded shut and another filler neck has been crafted into the middle of the tank. (See below.)

The Mk1 estate tank is the same capacity as the Mk1 saloon tank, so the twin tanks on this Lotus Cortina now gives me a capacity of sixteen gallons. That will make a difference. 😊

Our next job was to start running some more new brake pipes. I haven't yet received the new pistons for the front callipers that I ordered, so unfortunately we wasn't going to be able to get the brakes finished today. 
However, we did fit the newly refurbished brake servo and ran some new brake lines from the master cylinder and four-way valve across to it. 

The brake pipes do need lining up a bit better, but time was now up and Dave had to make tracks and get home. We were very pleased with what we'd achieved though. Every bit of work carried out is a step closer to bringing this car back to life. 

Thursday 2nd April - A busy day!

I had the day off today, so I thought I'd crack on with a few outstanding jobs on the Lotus Cortina. The main job on my list was to strip both brake callipers down in readiness for the new pistons to arrive. 
Three of the existing pistons were reasonably easy to get out, but the last one was a real challenge. Eventually, I managed to get the piston out far enough to clamp it in the vice and then tap the calliper away from it with a copper hammer. As you can see below it was in a bad way! The others were all knackered as well! 

I had to separate the callipers to be able to get the pistons out and the bolts proved to be quite tight as well. In fact I managed to break my 5/8th's socket before adding some heat to finally extract them.

With this done, I then jacked the car up and altered the steering track rod arms so that the wheels looked straighter. I had fitted new track rod ends a few weeks back, but couldn't adjust them properly until they were on the car. Once the wheels were straight the car looked much better. 

Another job to do was to fit the newly refurbished brake and clutch master cylinders. The brake cylinder was already in place, but had to be connected to the brake pedal. This is always fiddly, but I eventually managed it. The clutch master soon followed and is another job I can cross off of my list. 

The next thing to do was to remove the old rough black paint off of the cam cover. I used a brass brush attachment on an electric drill and luckily it came off quite easily. 
I then sprayed it with several coats of etch primer, before adding several coats of top coat. I have to say, I was quite pleased with the end result. It should look quite smart on the engine when it returns. 😊

Saturday 28th March - A very busy day!

 My good friend Dave Maton came up today to help with the Lotus Cortina. I had a huge list of jobs to get done, as the plan was to finally get the Lotus off of the rotisserie and back on its wheels.  
I made a start before Dave arrived and rebuilt the front hubs and fitted new bearing races and new bearings. I also cleaned up the discs with a wire brush attachment on an electric drill. 

When Dave arrived our first job was to bleed the brakes on the Green Cortina so that I at least have one car to do the shows with. Fitting the new remote brake servo the other night had allowed air into the system which need to be expelled. With this done successfully, we moved onto the Lotus. 

I started by fitting the front hubs back onto the car, while Dave was fitting new bearings and retainers to the half shafts, and oil seals to the axle. The old bearings and retainers have to be cut off of the half shafts very carefully with a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder so that you don't gouge into the half shaft.
The new bearings and retainers then have to be pressed onto the half shafts with great pressure, but luckily I have a 20 ton press in my garage, so this was no problem. The original oil seals put up some fight before they would come out, but they had been in there for sixty years! 

Once this had been done, we then spun the car onto its side and Dave fitted a new metal brake pipe that runs from the front to the back of the car. whilst he was doing this, I fitted the newly refurbished brake master cylinder.

While the car was on its side, we then fitted the newly rebuilt half shafts so that we could move onto the next stage of fitting the back plates and brakes. We then fitted the rear back plates, new wheel cylinders and adjusters along with brand new metal brake pipes. 
By now, time had caught up with us and Dave had to leave at 4.30pm. However, we had had a very good day and achieved everything that we wanted to, so it was now time to finally remove the car from the rotisserie. I went and got a set of wheels and some car ramps from the shed and we got the car back on its wheels for the first time since last September. 
It's been a great feeling bolting bits back on, instead of the relentless removal and cleaning and replacing and refurbing over the past six months or so. It's also nice knowing that the car has new wheel bearings, new brakes and new brake pipes all round and all new suspension bushes too. 
There's still plenty left to do, but every job I do brings it closer to completion. I couldn't have got everything done today without the help of Dave and I am very grateful for his assistance. 😊

Thursday 26th March. - Back to the Green Cortina.

 The new remote servo for the Green Cortina arrive today, so I decided to get it fitted. It's not a massive job and it's the same design as the previous one, so I can use the same bolt holes and I wont have to alter any of the metal brake pipes. 
The worst bit was trying to find the two bolts inside the passenger compartment that are situated under the dashboard. As you can see from below, the remote servo bolts through the fire wall. 

The whole job only took about an hour though, so once I'd finished I went into the garage and stripped down the hubs from the Lotus Cortina. I thought this would save a bit of time when it comes to Saturday and the heavy work load I have lined up. 

Wednesday 25th March. - Suspension legs!

 I managed to get a couple of hours in the garage tonight and decided to refit the suspension legs onto the Lotus Cortina.
Before I fitted them though I removed the front hubs and discs in readiness to fit new bearings and bearing races. To be honest the original bearings do seem ok, but I need to keep in mind that these could well be sixty years old and even if they aren't, they would have been coated in the same grease since before 1977. (That's when the car was last on the road)
With the hubs and discs removed, it did make the suspension legs a little bit lighter to lift (not a lot though!) and I had them fitted within a couple of hours. 
The bottom ball joints put up a bit of fight and I usually get a trolley jack under the bottom of the legs and jack them up to give me more room, but because the car is on a rotisserie, it's not possible to do it that way. 
it was a good nights work though and it knocks another few things off of my massive list of impending jobs. 

Sunday 22nd March. Steering linkage!

 I had another few hours spare this morning, so I thought I'd try and get ahead on the Lotus. Dave Maton is coming up next Saturday to try and help me get the Lotus back on its wheels, but there's a lot of work to do before that can happen, so I wanted to get a head start. 

The steering linkage was the next on my list and I decided to fit all new track rod ends. (There are four of them!) With fitting all new track rod ends, the tracking will have to set up at some point, but that's not important right now. Annoyingly, I also forgot to take pics of the refurbished steering linkage and track rod ends, so I'll use a picture of how it all looked just after I got the car. It will give you an idea of what it all looks like. I'm pleased with the progression so far though. 😊