Check my other blog to see the fun we had this week!
>clicky<
It seems that a 10 year old Land Rover can actually require more ongoing maintenance than a 30 year old Triumph after all...
(actually it's been great fun!)
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Up and running and of no fixed abode
Both me and the website that is.
http://ofnofixedabode.wordpress.com
... see you again in 6 months (or more).
http://ofnofixedabode.wordpress.com
... see you again in 6 months (or more).
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Roll over BOB ... make way for The Bench
Oh lordy, it's confession time.
BOB's been a brilliant car, that I can't deny. In four years of ownership and about 30,000 miles (give or take some odometer error) of use he's not once caused a serious problem. Since the engine transplant a little over a year ago, he's taken us on a couple of epic fully-loaded trips - from Tassie up to our new home in Melbourne, west out to South Australia, north up to New South Wales, and on loads of day trips into the Victorian bush. In 15,000 miles he's required just one pint of oil!
But sadly, while BOB makes light work of highways, munches up the mountain roads and is pretty capable on the odd dirt track, satisfying as he is, there are some parts he just can't reach. And this is why he's being laid up to rest ... temporarily of course.
Ella and I have been planning a little outback adventure that requires a tad more ground clearance and a little extra space. So here's BOB's stablemate. A Land Rover Defender 110 TD5 with LPG and more bells buzzers than you could ring and buzz in an entire month of sunny Sundays.
Introducing, The Bench!
Anyway, there's another website in the making where you can find out the details of our adventure (and all the technical details on the heavily modified Bench) ... i'll post a link once it's worth viewing.
BOB drove north in convoy with The Bench last week. We travelled from Melbourne to Canberra to Sydney to Brisbane to Bundaberg visiting family along the way. BOB is now tucked up in the shed to be given the occasional run while we're away. I think it's going to be the longest I haven't driven a Triumph for in about seven years!
BOB's been a brilliant car, that I can't deny. In four years of ownership and about 30,000 miles (give or take some odometer error) of use he's not once caused a serious problem. Since the engine transplant a little over a year ago, he's taken us on a couple of epic fully-loaded trips - from Tassie up to our new home in Melbourne, west out to South Australia, north up to New South Wales, and on loads of day trips into the Victorian bush. In 15,000 miles he's required just one pint of oil!
But sadly, while BOB makes light work of highways, munches up the mountain roads and is pretty capable on the odd dirt track, satisfying as he is, there are some parts he just can't reach. And this is why he's being laid up to rest ... temporarily of course.
Ella and I have been planning a little outback adventure that requires a tad more ground clearance and a little extra space. So here's BOB's stablemate. A Land Rover Defender 110 TD5 with LPG and more bells buzzers than you could ring and buzz in an entire month of sunny Sundays.
Introducing, The Bench!
Anyway, there's another website in the making where you can find out the details of our adventure (and all the technical details on the heavily modified Bench) ... i'll post a link once it's worth viewing.
BOB drove north in convoy with The Bench last week. We travelled from Melbourne to Canberra to Sydney to Brisbane to Bundaberg visiting family along the way. BOB is now tucked up in the shed to be given the occasional run while we're away. I think it's going to be the longest I haven't driven a Triumph for in about seven years!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wee Irish fella blocking my route to work!
Bloody Bernie Ecclestone's mob are ruining my walk to work!
As I may have mentioned before I'm doing rather a lot of walking/running at the moment in preparation for a ***monster endurance event***.
Training includes walking to work through Albert Park, home of the Melbourne Grand Prix. Most of the year of course this is just a great big park with some curvy bits of road. There are cricket pitches, dogs, etc. The pit stop buildings are used as a sports halls (how Australian!).
The last couple of weeks it's been madness though, lorries coming and going. It's making walking to work relatively hazardous, but it is interesting to see just how much preparation goes into setting the venue up.
The Grand Prix is the same weekend i'm doing the 100km walk ... in about six weeks' time.
Anyway here's some (poor quality) phone photos of the preparation.
Not often you see a ticket maching next to the pit lane is it?
Or such slow
corners on a racetrack? (they're thinking about a Le Mans style start this year apparently...)
corners on a racetrack? (they're thinking about a Le Mans style start this year apparently...)
Here's the inside of the pit garages. If you look closely you can see a piece of Schumacher's old chewing gum on the floor.
This guy looked like he was a bit over the whole thing
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Chrome blind in the sunshine
It was a lovely sunny day today, perfect weather for a Triumph concours - if you like that sort of thing. I always get a bit bored looking at shiny cars, most of which never get dirty or red-lined, but I'd originally hoped to meet up with a CT forum member called Glen (or Cowman on the forum). However, he was called to Country Fire Authority duty fighting fires just north of Melbourne. I hope that's all going well for him.
So I went along anyway, even washing BOB first - that's twice this year already!
Unsurprisingly there were lots of shiny TRs and Stags, plus a Vitesse, 12/50 Herald a few Sptifires and GT6. There was a line up of competition cars, too:
I didn't hang around for the concours announcements but the car of the show IMHO was this TR Italia - nice:
There were quite a few saloons around, including an LPG with L plates, and this purple one! (not a big fan of colour-coding myself).
There was only one Mk1 that I noticed. It was white, like so many others, but had a rather unusual take on EFI under the hood...
After half an hour or so I was getting chrome blindness as usual and ready to head home. Then I met a fella called Fraser who was sheltering from the sun next to his standard tune Mk2 TC that he runs at hillclimbs all over the state.
Before I knew it we'd been waffling away for over an hour about all things Triumph and I was getting increasingly keen on the idea of a bit of hillclimbing/sprint action. I know I've been saying this for a while, but I've been put off by the assumption i'd need to cross and dot all kinds of scrutineering Ts and Is ... but Fraser's experience seems to have been quite simple: a licence, a helmet, a fire extinguisher (already in place anyway) and I'm certified to go and risk my own life as much as I like in time trial based tomfoolery... whyever not?
So I went along anyway, even washing BOB first - that's twice this year already!
Unsurprisingly there were lots of shiny TRs and Stags, plus a Vitesse, 12/50 Herald a few Sptifires and GT6. There was a line up of competition cars, too:
I didn't hang around for the concours announcements but the car of the show IMHO was this TR Italia - nice:
There were quite a few saloons around, including an LPG with L plates, and this purple one! (not a big fan of colour-coding myself).
There was only one Mk1 that I noticed. It was white, like so many others, but had a rather unusual take on EFI under the hood...
After half an hour or so I was getting chrome blindness as usual and ready to head home. Then I met a fella called Fraser who was sheltering from the sun next to his standard tune Mk2 TC that he runs at hillclimbs all over the state.
Before I knew it we'd been waffling away for over an hour about all things Triumph and I was getting increasingly keen on the idea of a bit of hillclimbing/sprint action. I know I've been saying this for a while, but I've been put off by the assumption i'd need to cross and dot all kinds of scrutineering Ts and Is ... but Fraser's experience seems to have been quite simple: a licence, a helmet, a fire extinguisher (already in place anyway) and I'm certified to go and risk my own life as much as I like in time trial based tomfoolery... whyever not?
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Strange goings on
You expect summer in Australia to be hot, but it's been ridiculous these past couple of weeks - the complete opposite of what's been going on in the UK.
Three days in a row last week it was over 40 centigrade. It stayed in the thirties for the next week. We didn't have a drop of rain in the whole of January. It's really stressing the flora and fauna. Leaves everywhere have been turning brown and leaping off trees, grass is crunching underfoot like snow, I've seen dead birds all over the place.
Today was mental. The mercury just tipped 50 this afternoon! Then a cool change came through and I even saw a couple of drops of rain outside. It's due to plummet to a chilly 23 tomorrow.
Stranger than the weather was seeing two TR6 on my way to work last Wednesday. I crossed Albert Park Road (of Melbourne Grand Prix fame) and saw the back of a red TR6 heading up the street. Thirty seconds later on a side road I saw another one. I know red TR6 are pretty common but this was spooky. I spoke to the owner of the second - turned out he'd literally just finished its restoration and he was in the process of posting the registration documents.
But there was nothing to prepare me for finding a familiar face hanging around at Flinder's Street Station in the centre of Melbourne. Young Paul Darbyshire (aka Burnerboy) the serial Triumphaholic and all-round nice guy. Even better was that he had a bag of Chris Witor springs to go with his cheeky smile.
Well, that deserved a beer ... or two! So we snuck off to the pub to launch the first ever Club Triumph Melbourne meeting. Paul won the points for travelling the furthest to attend, but I was in my 10CR 03 t-shirt so I think that makes it evens. He says he'll be back again some time for another meeting... I might have to think up some quiz questions.
Three days in a row last week it was over 40 centigrade. It stayed in the thirties for the next week. We didn't have a drop of rain in the whole of January. It's really stressing the flora and fauna. Leaves everywhere have been turning brown and leaping off trees, grass is crunching underfoot like snow, I've seen dead birds all over the place.
Today was mental. The mercury just tipped 50 this afternoon! Then a cool change came through and I even saw a couple of drops of rain outside. It's due to plummet to a chilly 23 tomorrow.
Stranger than the weather was seeing two TR6 on my way to work last Wednesday. I crossed Albert Park Road (of Melbourne Grand Prix fame) and saw the back of a red TR6 heading up the street. Thirty seconds later on a side road I saw another one. I know red TR6 are pretty common but this was spooky. I spoke to the owner of the second - turned out he'd literally just finished its restoration and he was in the process of posting the registration documents.
But there was nothing to prepare me for finding a familiar face hanging around at Flinder's Street Station in the centre of Melbourne. Young Paul Darbyshire (aka Burnerboy) the serial Triumphaholic and all-round nice guy. Even better was that he had a bag of Chris Witor springs to go with his cheeky smile.
Well, that deserved a beer ... or two! So we snuck off to the pub to launch the first ever Club Triumph Melbourne meeting. Paul won the points for travelling the furthest to attend, but I was in my 10CR 03 t-shirt so I think that makes it evens. He says he'll be back again some time for another meeting... I might have to think up some quiz questions.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Endurance Event
Back in 2008 when the RBRR was on and I was all sad about not being able to join in I made a commitment to sort out something similar but altogether more local.
The idea for the Round Victoria Reliability Run was born.
Sadly, bugger all has happened apart from me playing with Google Maps a bit and inviting a few other Triumph-heads to join in. I was thinking that March would be a good idea to do it as it's far enough after the heat of summer and before the moutain sections are likely to be snowy ....
... but then I got sidetracked by a completely different event which I hasten to add is not a relay.
The idea for the Round Victoria Reliability Run was born.
Sadly, bugger all has happened apart from me playing with Google Maps a bit and inviting a few other Triumph-heads to join in. I was thinking that March would be a good idea to do it as it's far enough after the heat of summer and before the moutain sections are likely to be snowy ....
... but then I got sidetracked by a completely different event which I hasten to add is not a relay.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Problems are just opportunities in work clothes
It was two weeks before Christmas and all through the car
A terrible clonking sound that stopped us driving too far...
One of KYB's finest shock absorbers gave up fairly dramatically by shearing at the base. So out with the credit card and on with the Konis just in time (literally) for our epic Christmas trip.
Great fun - up to NSW and all around the forests, some boring straight roads to get there, but we took back roads where practical ... which is very good fun. We got to drive some brilliant roads and camped in some amazing spots. Poor Ella suffered the embarrassment of attempting to overtake a police highway patrol car that was going under the speed limit just where the white line went solid and a fixed camera was installed. Fortunately she ducked back in just in time!
We did a fair amount of walking in the World Heritage Rainforests which were truly spectacular. There were lots of gorges and waterfalls and other nature stuff.
The car was heavily loaded and exhibited some 'interesting' camber on the rear wheels and meant the bum dragged a bit too much for my liking. I'm considering getting some airbag spring assisters when finances allow. They're easily adjustable so I can change the pressure depending on the load in the car.
My father-in-law was impressed by BOB's newfound power as he tried to keep up with us in his turbo diesel 4x4.
The last place we camped - Nymboi/Binderay National Park - to go on a whitewater rafting trip involved some really bumpy roads and a water crossing to get in. We made it in just, but in the morning I noticed a flat.
Given the state of the roads the best idea seemed to be to patch the tyre up - it was leaking from an old patch - to get back out to a tyre fitter and save the spare for an emergency. My father-in-law had all the kit needed and dived in to do it.
Unfortunately the tyre-fitters were utter numpties and managed to strip a couple of nuts on the wheels. That's easily done on S wheels, but I'd warned them of the problem and they hadn't even told me - we were 100km down the road when Ella complained of a wobble!
Worse still, the next morning - having driven 1,000km - I discovered that I had a flat tyre. The idiots had changed the wrong bloody tyre!!! Needless to say I'm getting a couple more free tyres from them now.
The only other problems on the trip were the two broken exhaust mounts - the rear join where the pipe goes through the trailing arm (I was able to bodge that) and the gearbox mount which needs further investigation. We've also developed a bit of a noise when decelerating and a crack in the back box. All this hard driving's taking its toll!
The Konis were magic though, a considerable improvement on the harsher KYBs and I'm sure they will have limited the damage.
All up we totalled 3,800km in two weeks, fuel economy looks to have been 10.6 l/100km or 27mpg, not bad considering the state of tune, the road types and the heavy load.
A terrible clonking sound that stopped us driving too far...
One of KYB's finest shock absorbers gave up fairly dramatically by shearing at the base. So out with the credit card and on with the Konis just in time (literally) for our epic Christmas trip.
Great fun - up to NSW and all around the forests, some boring straight roads to get there, but we took back roads where practical ... which is very good fun. We got to drive some brilliant roads and camped in some amazing spots. Poor Ella suffered the embarrassment of attempting to overtake a police highway patrol car that was going under the speed limit just where the white line went solid and a fixed camera was installed. Fortunately she ducked back in just in time!
We did a fair amount of walking in the World Heritage Rainforests which were truly spectacular. There were lots of gorges and waterfalls and other nature stuff.
The car was heavily loaded and exhibited some 'interesting' camber on the rear wheels and meant the bum dragged a bit too much for my liking. I'm considering getting some airbag spring assisters when finances allow. They're easily adjustable so I can change the pressure depending on the load in the car.
My father-in-law was impressed by BOB's newfound power as he tried to keep up with us in his turbo diesel 4x4.
The last place we camped - Nymboi/Binderay National Park - to go on a whitewater rafting trip involved some really bumpy roads and a water crossing to get in. We made it in just, but in the morning I noticed a flat.
Given the state of the roads the best idea seemed to be to patch the tyre up - it was leaking from an old patch - to get back out to a tyre fitter and save the spare for an emergency. My father-in-law had all the kit needed and dived in to do it.
Unfortunately the tyre-fitters were utter numpties and managed to strip a couple of nuts on the wheels. That's easily done on S wheels, but I'd warned them of the problem and they hadn't even told me - we were 100km down the road when Ella complained of a wobble!
Worse still, the next morning - having driven 1,000km - I discovered that I had a flat tyre. The idiots had changed the wrong bloody tyre!!! Needless to say I'm getting a couple more free tyres from them now.
The only other problems on the trip were the two broken exhaust mounts - the rear join where the pipe goes through the trailing arm (I was able to bodge that) and the gearbox mount which needs further investigation. We've also developed a bit of a noise when decelerating and a crack in the back box. All this hard driving's taking its toll!
The Konis were magic though, a considerable improvement on the harsher KYBs and I'm sure they will have limited the damage.
All up we totalled 3,800km in two weeks, fuel economy looks to have been 10.6 l/100km or 27mpg, not bad considering the state of tune, the road types and the heavy load.
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