Repairs to overdrive gearbox!

I've had an overdrive issue lately with the Brown estate. The overdrive works fine when cold, but wont kick in when the car's warmed up.

A few people suggested it could be the valves and filter in the overdrive sump clogged up, so I removed them and cleaned them all out. I also managed to destroy the gasket while I was taking off the sump so I need to order one of these on Monday. I also robbed a solenoid switch off of another gearbox I had laying around as I strongly suspect this could be the issue as well.

I'm now considering using this car for the Round Britain run in October instead of the rally car, (More room to sleep in the back of it!) so I need to get all of the outstanding issues sorted.

Other jobs consist of: Changing the pedal box, (It was converted from an auto set up to manual, but they didn't use spacer bushes, so the pedals are wobbly!) fixing the handbrake which is non-existent on the off side, finding out where the 'knock' is coming from on the offside front whenever we hit a pot hole or bump up a kerb, and maybe fit power steering. 2000 miles in a weekend with no power steering is just not funny!

Club Triumph Autosolo

Sunday 18th July 2010 started with a 5am alarm call ready to leave Essex for 6am. We arrived at Bovingdon Airfield at around 7.15am and started preparing the car for scruntineering.
With that out of the way we did our final checks and preparations and the autotest started at 9am.

My Rally co-driver & navigator Dave Saunders was using my car for this event too, so the car wasn't going to get a chance to cool down much!   

Bearing in mind that this car is still fitted with a bog standard 2 litre engine and has only had a strut brace, anti-roll bar and lowered springs fitted, it was coping quite well. At the half way stage I was in joint first place with a Triumph 2000 Mk1 with a fast engine and a well 'set up' suspension. Dave was struggling a bit at first it has to be said, but then Dave doesn't know the car as well as me, plus I think he was being a bit conservative with it not being his car.

As the day progressed we both got a bit sleeker and faster and Dave got his times down from 1 minute 25 seconds on the first run down to 1.04 on his last, while I managed to get from 1.08 down to 60 seconds point 58 on my last run.  

We both enjoyed the day a great deal and will be definitely be entering again next year. Our overall results were 4th in class for Dave and 2nd in class for me.

More progress made!

Saturday 11th July 2010. One of the hottest days of the year so far and this was my view of it for most of the day.

I was underneath my Green Mk2 estate refitting the exhaust, propshaft, clutch slave cylinder, and also discovering the differential had decided to relieve itself of its oil all over the back part of the garage floor! I have no idea why as it was fine when it was reversed into the garage the week after Easter and hasn't turned a wheel in anger since!

I also discovered that the ignition wiring has failed somewhere along the loom and the indicators have appeared to go on strike action! Whats wrong with this bloody car??? Does it not want to go back on the road??  Anyway, I had now run out of time with this car as I had to get on with a few other small jobs to get the rally car finished and ready for the club Triumph Autosolo at Bovingdon next Sunday.

The car will be driven round a layout of traffic cones in the fastest possible time, so another set of wheels & tyres have been prepared. Because of the amount of wheel spinning that'll be going on, the tyres will be shredded by the end of the day, so it's best to take another set just to use for the autosolo, then change back onto good tyres for the drive home! Of course this also means taking a trolley jack, wheel brace and in my case, another set of wheels nuts as the two sets of wheels I'm using are totally different.

Anything loose inside the car also needs to be secured or removed due to the speed the car will be flying round the course. After all, we don't want to be hit in the head by a flying fire extinguisher do we? Looking at the entry list on the website there seems to be 55 entrants!

Some work done at last!

After weeks of doing absolutely nothing due to losing motivation, I finally booted myself up the arse and made myself get out in the garden and work on the rally car.

My co-driver and I are entered in the Club Triumph Autosolo event at Bovindon airfield on July 18th. The event will consist of thrashing the car round a load of traffic cones in the quickest time, so a small suspension upgrade was called for.

Early Mk2 saloons such as mine weren't fitted with an anti-roll bar. So, with the parts raided from 'Ugly Pig' (Now scrapped) I set about fitting them. To fit the anti-roll bar, the front cross member has to be changed too and the link arms that bolt through the chassis. It was a pretty straight forward job with nothing going wrong, (Unusual) nothing breaking, (even more unusual) and completed in record time. (Bloody unheard of!)

I already have two other cars in the garage, so I had to do the rally car outside. The timing was pretty good really, because just after I had finished the job and put the front wheels back on...it started persistently raining!

All I need to do now is find some motivation to fix the two in the garage!!!!!!

Goodbye Ugly Pig! :-(

Saturday morning saw me saying goodbye to my Triumph Mk1 estate affectionately known as 'Ugly Pig'. (The front part of the number plate was UGP)
Due to severe corrosion, it was stripped for spares and the remainder sent for scrap.
It was a real shame because these cars are becoming quite rare now, but this was sadly beyond economical repair.
It did yield plenty of useful parts though including: Engine, gearbox, differential, power steering, anti-roll bar, PI Clocks, PI 2-speed wiper system, 2 rear doors, interior, petrol tank, two good bumpers, tow bar and five good wheels and tyres.

I was still sorry to see it go though. I was planning to do the Club Triumph round Britain run in this car until I started finding out just how rotten it was underneath! Still, there's now a space in the garage for another Mk1 to go in . Shall I start looking??????? :-)

16/5/10. Green Mk2 estate almost done!

The engine and manual gearbox are now in place in the Green estate. In fact, if I'm honest, they have been for a few weeks now, but due to a combination of extra work shifts, other cars, illness and just general idleness, I haven't got any further.

I have a quiet week planned this week, so a couple of hours work a night should see it running by the end of week.

Its only been in the garage since the weekend after Easter, but it's amazing how much dust has settled on it in that time!

I very nearly pushed it out of the garage and washed it yesterday, but never quite got there! Must get motivated!!!!!

The Rally Car's alive!!!!

After the fire behind the dashboard, the wiring loom has now been changed. My co-driver and I also spent another week or so of trying to figure out why the overdrive wouldn't work! Everything else works properly (well almost! The temperature gauge reads permanently in the red and according to the speedo, we are doing warp factor 9 down side streets!)

The overdrive problem turned out to be where it had been connected the wrong way round at the gearbox end by the previous owner! Once this has been resolved, we were back to our 'six gears' instead of four!

Three good doors have also been fitted to replace the ones that were seriously rotten, so I'm just on the look out now for a nearside front one to complete the set. The cars still needs some other TLC to tidy it up bit, but then seeing as there's also a high chance that this car will end up disappearing through a hedge backwards at high speed at some point on the rallies anyway, so why have it in concourse condition ??? :-)