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.