Saturday 25th May. New electric fan for the Triumph

 The new electric fan arrived this week, so I was able to complete the job I wanted to finish last week. The car already has a fixed manual fan, but with the impending 10 countries rally due in September which will involve driving a lot of alpine passes, an electric fan is a very good addition. 

I used my original frame work that I had used on the original fan, so it was straight forward enough. (Although getting to the nuts and bolts is a nightmare) With the fan tested and working fine, I pulled the car out of the garage and took it for a drive round the block. The throttle was stuck open a little bit, but a small adjustment with a spanner soon cured that. I now need to get some miles on it and get it run in now. 

Saturday 18th May. The Triumph's first big fire up!

 My friend Dave Harvey came down this weekend to assist in the first firing up of the Triumph's new engine. Gavin was free as well, so he came round to help and also witness the big occasion. 

After a few small jobs of adjusting the tappets and fitting an oil pressure gauge, and the distributor, we were ready for firing. I had also borrowed some long hoses from another mate on Friday night with the hope of creating some kind of exhaust fume extractor so that we didn't all get gassed to death in the garage. Because the engine has a new camshaft it would have to be run at 2000 revs for ten minutes to harden the metal, so we needed to create a fume free environment. Unfortunately, the hose wasn't up to the job and after five minutes had melted and had fallen off the exhaust! Luckily my carbon monoxide alarm alerted us to this before things got too smokey.

So, we had to abort the mission and remove both Cortina's out of the driveway so we could get the Triumph out of the garage and into the open air. 

With this done, we started again and after adjusting the timing, the engine started and was running well. The oil pressure was excellent and apart from the radiator belching loads of water out due to an air lock, all was fine. 

During the testing we discovered that the electric fan had packed up, so reluctantly, the radiator had to be removed again in readiness to order and fit a new one. Whilst I had some help, we then refitted the bonnet and called it a day. 

The new engine seems good and strong so I'm looking forward to getting some mileage on it. Let's hope the weather allows me to do so. 

Sunday 12th May - Battlesbridge Autojumble

 We had some beautiful sunshine today, so it was looking good for our little trip out. Gavin came round to me in his Triumph and due to ongoing repairs, my only choice of car was my 1964 Goodwood Green Cortina. A nice leisurely run down to Battlesbridge in the sun was the order of the day and we arrived there fairly early. 

A cup of coffee and a bacon bap was first on the agenda and we just sat in the sun before having a look round. I wasn't shopping for anything in particular and neither was Gavin, but we met a few friends over there and it was good to have a chat and a catch up. 

I spotted a couple of other Mk1 Cortina's there which I hadn't seen before, but unfortunately neither owner of them was there to be able to have a chat with. 

It was a smaller show than normal and by 11.30 we had walked round it three times and had two cups of coffee each, so we decided to call it a day. It had been a pleasant morning though and it was good to get the Green Cortina out on the road again. We just need some more sunshine now, so that we can get out to some more shows. 

Saturday 11th May - A few jobs on the Zetec Cortina

The drive to the MOT station on Wednesday had revealed an issue in the form of gear change movement. Also while having the MOT done, the tester noticed a bent brake pipe bracket which was causing a brake pipe to sit a bit too close to the suspension leg.  

A bit of persuasion with a large screw driver and a 'universal adjuster', (A hammer to you and me) saw the brake pipe bracket bent back to its rightful position. I had to remove the front wheel to get to the suspension leg, but other than that it was no trouble. 

The next job was to remove the gear lever and see what had been causing excess travel whenever I changed gear. Removal of the gear lever showed that the nylon bush that sits on the end of the ball on the gearstick and also sits inside the gear selector part of the gearbox was missing. Apparently, this is a common problem and the bush just disintegrates over the years and literally disappears. So, I have now ordered a new one and will be fitting it once it arrives. So that's this car out of action until then! 

Wednesday 8th May - MOT time for the Zetec.

 Due to other things going in my life over the past few months, I had completely overlooked the Mot date on my Zetec Cortina. Although the car doesn't actually need an Mot, it's a condition of my insurance that it has one because it's highly modified. (It produces more than double the brake horse power than it originally left the factory with!)

I had a meeting in the morning, so I booked the Mot for 3.40pm at Wickford Motor Services. It was a nice sunny day and I enjoyed the drive down there. The only slight issue was that this car has always had a 'quick shift' gear lever, but some reason something happened (or broke) and all of a sudden it went back to being a normal gear change. Weird! 

The Mot was a success (Just an advisory for a brake pipe bracket to straighten up) and I rushed home to try and keep one step ahead of the rush hour traffic. The car drove well though, I just need to sort out that quick shift issue. 

Friday 3rd May - Engine install

 Gavin was free this morning, so he came round to assist in installing my newly built engine into my Triumph. I'd already fitted the crankshaft pulley and flywheel, but this morning had to fit the new clutch plate and pressure plate as well as the oil filter housing. 

Once these were done, we set the engine crane up and set about installing the engine. Luckily this went in fairly easily and once we had bolted up all the bellhousing bolts, clutch slave cylinder and starter motor, we called it a day and went out for something to eat. Another successful morning.