Some driving at last!

For the Easter weekend we drove a few hours south of Brisbane to meet up with family and spend a few days in the hills in a nice little rented house. It had the first outdoor bath I've ever seen! BOB was loaded up with 4 people and a boat load of their stuff and seemed to cope fine, other than the 22mpg, and still managed to overtake the long lines of overladen 4wds heading south for Easter too.

On the way there the odometer finally turned over:


Shame you don't automatically get a new engine when that happens.

Visiting Giraween National Park meant the chance to drive around on very bumpy but great fun (for me anyway) dirt roads - this road sign made me worry that we were entering League of Gentleman territory!


Unfortunately, the weekend has revealed some extra jobs that definitely need doing. The exhaust is now blowing where a previous owner patched it up. I'd love to put a Chris Witor exhaust on, but the cost (plus the freight) totally prohibits that at the moment. Instead I'm going to get a quote from a custom exhaust maker, and see if he can replicate it. The other thing urgently needed is a correct speedo. The odo. reads about 3% low by my calculations but the speed is reading a far way under which is a bit more of a worry given the Aussie Police and their wily hedge-hiding speed camera antics. First attempt will be to transplant from the spares car up in Bundaberg, if that's no good we'll go for the rebuild option.

A Sad Loss

I got a phonecall from fellow Triumph nut Andy MacDonald last night. I'm sad to say that Michael Lyneham passed away last weekend. I'm not entirely sure of the details so rather than saying something wrong I won't try and go into them. My thoughts are with Pat at the moment, but I will take the opportunity to type out some thoughts about Michael.

I met Michael and his wife Pat at a TSSC meet in Lincoln, sometime around Easter in 2003. I can't remember talking to them particularly on that occasion, but on the journey back from Lincoln to Louth we had reason to meet again! Heading home with Andy Mac in his GT6 mk3 2.5 in the middle of the bleak dark Lincolnshire Wolds the throttle cable snapped. Whilst Andy was preparing a "very fast idle" to get us home the last 6 miles, Michael and Pat turned up in their Rover P5. Michael kindly towed us back to Louth. I remember the event particularly well as on the very same road I totaled my Saab 900 about 7 hours later on my way to work.

It turned out that Michael and Pat's house is just outside Louth, and Andy and I began to drop round occasionally at weekends. It's something I used to enjoy a lot; Michael and Pat always made me feel welcome and very much at ease, and the coffee was first class!

Michael and Pat aren't modern car people - the drive was full of old Rovers, there was a rather tidy Blue Vitesse in one garage and what in 2003 was a restoration in progress, a red 1968 GT6 mk1. Both these cars Michael bought a long long time ago (I seem to recall he'd had the GT6 from new, but it's possible i'm wrong - at least he did have a picture of him and the car from some decades ago).

Michael told me one of my favourite Triumph stories ... that of the stolen overdrive gearbox!!! He wanted to sell his Vitesse, and I was looking for another Triumph, and I have a definite soft spot for the Vitesse. His looked and sounded great - a red interior and Webasto, an SAH manifold, but, alas, no overdrive! "It used to have overdrive, but it was stolen" he told me! What? I envisaged an oil covered mechani-thief - perhaps in the 1970s people didn't steal stereos but went for 'hardware'? Michael explained that he'd removed the o/d to recondition it many years ago, and some git swiped it from the garden. Ah ha.

In the build-up to the inaugural 10 Countries Run 2003 Michael was a great help to Andy and myself giving us some Carb. pistons for nothing and offering his advice on getting the 'Worksalike' ready. I recall doing an interview for Lincs FM by telephone from his kitchen the day before we headed off.

Popping round to see Michael meant a chance to see the progress on the GT6, as well as his impressive workshop. He spared nothing on the rebuild, alloy radiator, Webers, Jigsaw engine, rotoflex conversion, beautiful interior. It was used on the Round Britain Run in 2004 and he was planning to it again this year. Michael was very generous; when he heard on a weekend that I needed a replacement rotoflex coupling to get my GT6 to a Men & Motors filming, he popped out to the garage and removed one from his half rebuilt car for me! (needless to say I bought a replacement for him).

I'm glad I had the chance to know Michael. I hope he rests in peace.

Progress, power and politics ...

Phase 2 is finally completed.

A trip up to Greg Tunstall's on Monday saw things progress a little further.
Here's Greg's workshop from the outside ... with BOB sticking its backside out of the door:

You can see some nice cars outside, especially the white Frogeye ... it looked immaculate. The Standard 10 is there presumably as a donor for the restoration that is underway inside. There was also a TR5 knocking around for some work there.

Out the front on the road were some other little beasties awaiting attention:

Back to BOB ...
The Carb's were removed, as was the entire anti-emissions kit (which was probably causing more pollution than the standard set-up by the looks of it). Greg's place has done a lot of these "operations" so he knows what holes to plug up, etc. Replacement carb's a la with suitable and somewhat richer needles are in now and the linkage and balancing has been set up beautifully. It's good to watch someone at work with all the appropriately 'adjusted' spanners and original SU tools.

Whilst I was there I had a Healey works gearknob fitted (it needed drilling and tapping to fit) ... no more broken plastic overdrive gearknob caps!!! I must say that I prefer the look of the original, but it should last longer. Why doesn't someone produce a metal version of the original I wonder?

The guy who did much of the work proved interesting. Andrew Avis owns a few saloons including Pi Mk2 that has been supercharged ... and is currently awaiting a replacement gearbox (I wonder why?) It struck me that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, there are Triumph owners who want to make fun modifications to their cars: Andrew is no exception, and he isn't excepted from the trend of having more fun modification ideas than can fit into a lifetime! ... ring any bells?

Here's the before and afters:






First impressions of the changes are WOW! and PHEW!
WOW because I maybe hadn't expected such a change, and PHEW because it's a relief to have the power to complement the great ride quality at last!

My plans for BOB seem meagre in comparison, yet the list seems long enough (read costly):
oil pressure guage to replace clock
15 inch wheels (the road surfaces in the wet are appalling and demand more traction)
Maplight for navigator (Ella!)
Witor "sound system"
Datsun back-end (and diff. rebuild?)

... oh, I could go on forever here, and I still haven't got to the juicy engine stuff!

I'd like to stay out of politics and car clubs and all that ... but the venerable Mr Chinn has been subject to some strange goings-on in the world of Triumph clubs, so I thought I better direct attention to his blog (and a jolly good one it is ... I think he is intentionally trying to show the rest of us up with his 'regularity' - are Internet prunes available?)

The power of online communities ... the TSSC beware!