Absolutely filthy

The car, that is.

There are very few driving experiences I've had to beat the likes of a RBRR or 10CR experience. Exhausting as they may be, it's a real buzz to travel such long distances, and as for the camaraderie ... superb! However, last weekend Ella and I headed off to see a bit more of Tassie, and that was really, really, really good.

There are regional public holidays in Australia, and last Thursday we had "Show Day" in the south of Tassie. A great excuse to get out of town. We've already seen a fair bit of the south, some of the east, and a bit of the west. So we decided to do a road trip up the guts of the island to the north end of the state, then out to the wild west.

As we left town on Thursday I decided the clutch was definitely getting worse - so after half an hour, we pulled over and bled the clutch. I think when I changed the slave cylinder a month ago the realignment must have let some air in somewhere, because it's been great again since bleeding and hasn't got worse again ... touch wood.

The drive north down the Midland Highway is nothing special, fast but pretty boring. After lunch in Launceston we headed west to Devonport, where the fragments of dual carriageway finally peter out. So after 3.5 hours the intersting driving began, along sweeping coastal roads that took us to Boat Harbour, where the sea is most definitely blue!

A bit further west along the coast is Rocky Cape National Park - complete with Aboriginal caves nicely built into the quartzite.

I also spotted a "stupid sign" ... which way's the beach?

We camped by the sea at Black River, and had the whole place to ourselves ... except for some pademelons and wombats.

Next day we got to the first of the dirt roads! We tried to do the South Arthur Forest Drive - it's supposed to be a loop in amongst some impressive forests, with lots of windy roads and tracks and very little traffic about. Unfortunately though the loop was, erm, broken. Floods in August wiped out the bridge - look at these photos and see if you can spot the huge chunk of dolerite that was ripped up.




Never mind, we made our own way back around the loop, crossing lots of other interesting bridges:



Then we pushed out to the tiny town of Arthur River on the west coast for the night. Now you're talking - these roads were pretty rough, but solid.


Unfortunately it was extremely dusty too, and the boot was filling up with dust!

At Arthur River we had one of those very lucky moments, though. We were just about to eat our dinner (kangaroo stew cooked on the barbeque!) when Ella noticed fluid leaking from the car. We had driven 15km up the coast to get a full tank of petrol, and the full tank was trying to run out all over the campground. Amazingly, it was spotted before more than a litre had run out. It wouldn't have been fun to be stranded this far out with no fuel I can tell you!

The next day I got to drive the best road I've ever driven in my life. For over 100km we didn't see a single other vehicle as we ventured down the Western Explorer road. It was all dirt, loads of mountains, lots of variety from open plains to forests. Totally idyllic and a real treat to get to know how to handle BOB, on dirt, at speed, round corners. Even Ella seemed happy with this as you can see from the photos:




We arrived in Corrina - an amazing old frontier place - with big smiles on our faces, and after a coffee break, headed back inland, along more dirt roads, to Waratah, and then to Cradle Mountain for the night. I got a video of a Wombat from BOB too ...



After a night at Cradle Mountain it was time to head back to Hobart - via lot more great roads, of course. Here we are above Great Lake in the Central Highlands (at about 1,400m - which is high in Australia!).


All up we did about 1,100km, much of it on slow roads and all within the hours of daylight... it's not recommended to hit Wombats (colloquial term "Badger") as they're pretty hefty.
So what about the subject of this entry ... well that's about the state the car is in now - filthy. It's caked on like concrete, actually, could be fun trying to clean it.

MONSTER DOUBLE POST: Heritage / Are you sitting comfortably?

HERITAGE

Whilst I was back in England recently, preparing myself for a Toledo experience (more of that later)I had a look through my Dad’s old photos … and got a glimpse of my Triumph heritage. It was funny to see my folks before I was born. Apparently in the sixties it was de rigueur to smoke a pipe and sit on your Triumph motorbike and pose for photos!



Dad has fond memories of driving to Nice, via the Alps of course, in 1972 in his Vitesse. Mum, probably doesn’t as she had to stand around in the snow in Switzerland for photos! Unfortunately when he sold the car to a friend it was written off shortly after.



Then there was one of his Dolomites … this was the 1850 in Chinon in 1973, it had all the SAH work possible to make it as quick as a Sprint. I think it was this car that ended up mangled but that might have been the Sprint he had later.




ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

I’m finally sitting comfortably. Until mid-August the broken driver’s seat diaphragm had been supported by a piece of wood. The seats had also suffered VERY badly from sun bleaching and the Bri-nylon had completely disintegrated on the outer shoulders of both seats … I should’ve taken photos. I set out to find some replacement modern seats that would offer a bit more support and take up a bit less space, too. One thing – I didn’t want MX5 seats. So, here’s what I ended up with:



Yes… MX5 seats. After three months of searching I couldn’t find anything better I’m afraid, and they’re a lot more expensive than in England. I got them fitted professionally though as I’m no metalworker, so they’re raised 35mm and mounted on the original rails to maintain the same height as the Triumph seats. A bloody good job they did on them, too. I’ve now wired in the headrest speakers as well, which was worth the effort I think.

Another change was made just before I left to come to England, and that was identity. BOB is now officially Tasmanian. A rather simple test was done for roadworthiness, and proof that oil doesn’t drop from the undercarriage more than once every 40 seconds was good enough for Tassie!

I brought back from England some new 160lb Witor front springs for BOB. These are now fitted, and make the whole car feel a lot more stable – a lot less diving under brakes, and the strut tops and insulators were replaced as on one side they had compressed and were causing a fair old lean. The only problem is that I’d got quite used to the camber the soggy ‘S’ springs gave and there doesn’t seem to be as much grip under hard cornering as there was before. I guess realignment might be a good idea.

I also had a surprise when Ella picked me up from the airport when I got back from Europe. The clutch was virtually inoperable, so after a 29 hour flight I found myself feeling the slave cylinder for leaks in the airport car park. Sure enough it was leaking, so on the way home we picked up a recon. 3/4 inch cylinder and I had to fit that. Well at least I could do I suppose and it wasn't too dear. The clutch is better than it ever has been now over the last two weeks, but I noticed last night that the pedal doesn't seem to be returning too well ... time for more investigations by the sound of it :-(

Tassie living

Living in Hobart is a bit isolated. The Greater Hobart area may have a population of around 220,000 but it's at the very southern end of Australia and the island itself, about the size of Ireland, has a little less than half a million people all up. This does make it open to accusations of in-breeding, etc. but in fact it's a fairly cosmopolitan place to live.

There are some advantages to living in a small-ish city like Hobart. I work about 5 minutes from the city centre, and strolling back from a meeting the other day I passed two Triumphs (admittedly one of them was our car - Ella must have parked it there) and the "City CV and Driveshaft" workshop... surely every city should have such a shop in the CBD? It would make a nice change from coffee shops.

I've noticed so many Triumph saloons around it's not funny. One guy has at least 7 in various states parked in his yard, and I've been told there's another bloke with the same "gardening" interest somewhere near Hobart.
Running home from work last night (I have to run off the local brewery's rented calories) I saw two green Triumphs - the first was a convertible Vitesse I've seen around a bit, I've yet to speak to the owner, but I noticed the dented door has been restored (still bare metal at the moment though). Then a little further along I saw a fairly tired looking Mk3 Spitfire. I've seen this car a few times now, too, and I'm intrigued as to the reason for its large bonnet scoop.

Now I've got the car garaged I'll have no excuse to getting things done on BOB. I'm currently trying to negotiate the purchase of some black BMW E46 front seats ... should help keep my arse of the floor and my back off the rail.

BOB has now done about 20,000km since we bought it two years ago - a paltry mileage really, but that's ok I guess, it means there aren't too many things to fix!

End of an era

After eight months in Hobart living on the side of a hill with no garage and precious little flat areas anywhere near our house, we're upping sticks this weekend ... to a place with a garage. It even has an electronically operated door - wow! It's been a real pain not being able to even jack the car up, or do anything on it after dark (4.45pm at the moment) so now I can get on with some tinkering and check out oil levels, etc.

Update time!

It really is three months since I've "blogged". Of course, you noticed that?

"I would have written a shorter blog, but I didn't have the time" Graham Bernard Shaw

Last time I posted I mentioned the humming noise that didn't go away when the diff. was changed ... well the good news is that the change of hub bearing sorted it out, and the car is a much quieter, nicer place to be. Since then there haven't been any major happenings. BOB's been behaving well on its duties, getting us to the shops, etc, but also out and about on a few trips ... although they were a while back now.

We went to Bruny Island (southern Tassie) where almost all of the roads are unsealed! That was fun enough. Then over the Easter weekend we drove out to see some of the hydro-electric schemes and the lakes that supply them, and then on to the Wild West Coast. It was a beautiful weekend, bright blue skies, etc, and driving into the campsite on the first night on a long section of twisting dirt roads in the dark was the first chance I've had to use the spotlights really usefully ... well, they work, and we saw lots of little hopping animals heading away from their beam just in time!

Here's me and the car in front of Lake Pedder (just before the sky got blue!)


The drive out to the West Coast was excellent, there's some impressive roads to say the least, and in parts the speed limit is ... let's say a challenge rather than a limit ;-) There are 99 sharp bends in the road on the final section of road on the way into Queenstown, apparently, no wonder they use this section in Targa Tasmania!

The weather was so good we could even see Frenchman's Cap, where we walked at Christmas, but hardly saw because of the cloud:


And one of the hydro schemes for those who care!


In April I got to see some of the Targa Tasmania. It isn't the most spectator friendly event, by any means, and they've scrapped the old saturday morning stage in Hobart because in 2006 a spectator was killed by a flying BMW Mini. A friend and I headed up an hour north of Hobart and sat in a field watching cars tear past us for a morning, including a Mk2 2.5Pi, a TR3 and a TR8. Good fun it was, too. I'd love to compete in this one day, apparently it's the world's longest tarmac rally - five days of amazing roads ... but I suppose I get to travel these for work and pleasure anyway.

Now I'm finally getting around to sorting some new front seats out for BOB ... currently looking at some black suede RX-7 seats, but who knows what we'll end up with?

Also, I'm getting reports from Ella of misfiring over 3,000 rpm ... great. Currently I suspect either fouling of the plugs, especially as I still have some plugs in that were recommended for Queensland weather, and it's hovering around the 5 degree point here in Tassie at the moment, or it could be time to try and re-route the cooling/heating system through the manifold where it's been bypassed (probably because it rusted out).

The good news is that we're moving to a place with a garage! The cars been getting drenched, scorched and even frozen in the last 3 months, so a garage will be good, and a flat surface even better.

Back again soon-ish?

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm

Another month has flown by, so I suppose I ought to update.

I purchased the diff. mentioned before - reconditioned, no clunking backlash - and I had it fitted by the former Hobart Triumph dealership mechanic ... at a very reasonable price, too.
The good news: we needed the diff. - the old one was rather leaky and the oil was well dirty.
The bad news: some of the humming noise was in fact down to a worn rear hub bearing, diagnosed in seconds by the mechanic.
So, today the car is back in to have this changed ... it's going to be a pain if he can't reuse the UJ as the 'crossover' TriDat UJs aren't cheap - but then a bearing failure could be a bit messy to say the least!

Otherwise autumn is on its way here, and the car is getting a good regular soaking standing out on the driveway - it will be good to move to a place with a garage.
Ho hum.

WARNING - Ramble ahead!

I can’t believe it’s a month since my last update! Well, the last few weeks have seen some car fun of one kind or another so I shall ramble away.

Ella and I were late entrants in the Wrest Point South East Tasmania Rally. That turned out to be a bit less ‘rally’ than we’d hoped and a bit more ‘tootle’. Lots of fine cars, from the pre-1918 category up to the 1980s, but no real navigation to be done, and we spent most of the day attempting to get past old Wolseley’s with picnic hampers, and the like. There were numerous stops scheduled – half an hour for morning tea, an hour and a half for lunch – so we ate lunch early and then went off driving at lunch time. This was good; we did a big loop on a dirt track from the lunch break in Oatlands up to a place called Interlaken. We even saw an Echidna!

Ella is doing a bad job of hiding/sheltering in this photo!

These are the local roads that serve Interlaken - how much fun?:



You want to avoid running over these, however ... getting a flat tyre out here wouldn't be fun:


There were a few other Triumphs around – including a Herald Convertible (butchers job I think) and a “Bob-alike” (albeit an auto TC rather than an ‘S’).


So, as Ella was deeply unimpressed with the ‘rally’, the week after had to be an improvement … and it was! I’ve met up with a couple of younger generation Triumphers in Tassie, and they’d recommended coming along to a run down to Southport, and the southern-most tavern in Australia (arguably). This turned out to be pretty lively with nine or ten assorted Triumphs and a ‘boy racers’ and ‘old duffers’ agreement – the boy racers raced off, and then waited for the others to catch up. A pleasant morning was spent re-enacting sections of the famous Targa Tasmania . I got to drive behind Bruce in his smart (and well-driven) yellow Dolly Sprint as he led the run – he clearly knew the roads and allowed me to open BOB up. Great fun! The whole day felt somewhat Club Triumph - like ... smiles all round.

This is in Cygnet near the beginning of the run (I was allowing my brakes to cool here after some very fast Targa stage with lots of hills):


Here we are lined up at Southport:





Unfortunately, however, Glen (one of the younger guys) suffered a painful differential malfunction on leaving the car park in the morning … this isn’t the first time it’s happened on his Mk2, but then given its spec. it’s not that surprising I suppose. Glen showed me the damage done to the internals of the diff. … ouch! He has replaced the diff. With a 4.11 ratio, however, and is selling me a 3.45 to replace our noisy one. I’m going to try and requisition an empty house’s driveway to do the change over as I’ve got the steepest driveway in the world at the moment – not the safest place to change a diff.

In terms of maintenance, I've managed to sort out a fuel pump oil leakage, re-fit the weatherseal, fill the holes allowing water into my front wings, but still have to do the diff. get some replacement seats (then I can get rid of the wood holding the seat base up!) and get some new front tyres, and a grease gun that will actually reach my steering rack.

Phew I need a cup of tea after that!

A Good Year for Goodyear...

Well, I'm rather relieved that the tyre people were able to repair the tyre I bust ... I had assumed they'd give the old "no chance of repairing that, mate" line.

An omen that there is a good year coming up, perhaps?

This is the scenery we got to see in exchange for the puncture!

Camping, Tramping and changing wheels

In the run up to Christmas I got some new tyres and the front wheels aligned. the budget wouldn't stretch to a full set, so I put some new ones on the back and moved the rear ones up front. They're Goodyear Ventura R14 195x65 which are supposed to be decent in the wet. The rolling diameter is a bit smaller than the 185x75 that were on before, but my calculations say that it means the speedo should now read correctly. There is a bit of a mismatch for now between front and rear tyres, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

On Christmas Eve Ella and I headed off for an unusual Christmas holiday. It's midsummer here and supposed to be fairly warm, but it was rainy and very windy on the three hour drive north to the start of our three day walk to 'Frenchmans Cap' and back. The walk is recognised as one of the more difficult alpine walks in Tasmania, and it certainly proved hard work.

We slept Christmas Eve night in the Triumph with the seats reclined, and despite the constant rain managed a good 8 hours kip!

... The next chance to get out and use BOB was a couple of days ago. We went for a drive on some of the 'fun' roads in the south west of Tassie. Low and behold we found some forestry roads ... about 60kms of very quiet, but rather rough tracks. The car was faultless, but one of the brand new tyres now needs replacing! Once back on tarmac we noticed a one inch wide piece of timber lodged in it, and had to change for the spare. Currently the car looks rather odd, three extremely dusty tyres and rims, and one spotless.

Next job on the list is to replace the front seats - they may well be good for sleeping on, but they're not that great for driving in. I'm going to go over to a breakers yard nearby and pick up some modern seats ... Saab, Volvo, Subaru, BMW, whatever looks best, is solid and fits well. We're due some new oil as well, and now we're in colder climes I'll think about using something a little less thick than the Queensland blend I put in last time (Penrite 40/70).

Triumphs breeding?

A lot seems to happen on my daily walks to and from work.

Last night I got to witness a midly exciting car crash ... if I hadn't been behind an armco I might have been caught up in it. One of the drivers did a runner, so I did the good thing and got the registration number and hung around as a witness. It turned out the number was clearly not for that car, so the Police headed straight for the guys house! CSI Hobart?

This morning was somewhat less exciting - a TR7 nearly ran me over (not true it just passed me as I crossed the road). Immaculate it was. Anyway I've seen so many Triumphs around in the last few weeks I managed to photograph some, so I will show them to you - there's no other reason to take photos of them I guess:

This one looks like BOB but actually had LPG (and a massive dent)


Nice Mk1 ... a bit rough, but reminded me of the worksalike before its white paint


Here's the Mk1 GT6 Ella found in someone's garden ... I might be allowed to make an offer once we've got a house sorted

Further South

Well, the move went very nicely.

I drove the Triumph down to Hobart from Brisbane last week - 2,400km exclusive of the ferry trip across the Bass Strait. I had a great time. The drive from Brisbane to Melbourne was fairly boring - long straight roads with little traffic apart from Road Trains.


I won't say much about it though, as I intend to do a little article for Club Torque.

I had an overnight stop in Parkes ... very appropriate as it is the sister city to Coventry. About as memorable as Coventry, too.


Once in Tassie it was all change, though. Lots of twisting roads, and beautiful scenery. Also the opportunity to 'race' with local drivers along very enjoyable roads, and the car behaved magnificently ... even with its ful load.

I had a quick peek in the Launceston Motor Museum - saw a TR5 . I then took the long route down the east coast and camped for a couple of nights on picturesque beaches. Superb fun. 28mpg was pretty good for a long cruise (with intermittent bursts on the twisty roads), and less than a litre of oil.The only issue with the car is a badly scrubbed front tyre ... some adjustment needed here I think.


Here's the undercover parking available when camping in Tasmania:


I didn't see a single Triumph on the road on my way down, but on a half hour walk around Hobart the day after I arrived I saw three 6-pot Saloons. Since then I've seen two of them driving around a fair bit. I've also seen a white Stag, and tonnes of other old cars. Although the weather's a lot cooler here, the humidity is very low, so it seems that the old cars survive well - I've never seen so many old Fiats and Alfas ... even in Italy!

The most exciting 'spot' so far has been by eagle-eyes Ella. Around the back of a house, under a tree in the garden she saw a red Mk1 GT6 - it looked to have wires on it, and considering it appears to be 'unloved' in surprisingly good condition. I have a feeling I will be knocking on the front door one day and asking whether they want to get rid of the manky old sports car rotting in their back yard...

Top of the Props

Yesterday was taken up almost entirely by a trip to the Prop Shop ... more commonly known as Universal Driveshaft Services Queensland. Trevor showed a fair amount of interest in the Datsun converted driveshafts I have and we spent a bit of time looking at those - he wanted to check them out. Then we took the propshaft off and he confirmed that the spline was buggered.

I asked for a quote for an uprated propshaft and a standard one, and he worked out the spec's for a shaft which would be 1.5 times the strength of the standard fit ... unfortunately with the house move looming I couldn't really justify it, so we went for the normal one. They made up a new shaft completely from new, and I watched from the 'viewing area' above. I can vouch that it is perfectly balanced, as I watched it being stripped of all paint and balanced on a 20 foot long 'Schenck' machine and could make out the dials they use to set these things up. Then it was repainted and put on the car.

I took the opportunity of having the car up on the hoist to get a good look around underneath. There are a few patches where the underseal and paint has chipped off but no rust, and a couple of very small rust patches up the front, but otherwise it looks pretty good.

VERY ILL

I must be very ill or something. At the weekend I did something very out of character...

Not only did I clean (and dry) BOB, but I even did something I've never done to this car before.

I polished my car! I hang my head in shame, soon I'll become all Carruthersish and start testing out different polishes, buffing cloths, etc.

Anyway, this is what BOB looks like clean, and in the 'garage' below our place:



It's not all bad though, I did fit new front brake pads and a rear brake cylinder. It's made a blinding difference to the braking. The pads were changed because I thought they might have been contaminated with grease from the front bearings; the seals had gone (overtightened?). There was a bit of grease knocking around on the inside pads and disc which I cleaned out with "Metho" but it wasn't too bad really.

I've just been out to the Port to pick up a box of my gear that was shipped over from the UK. It's going to be nice to have some decent tools again. Mind-blowing luxuries like ratchets that work every time in both directions (swoon), and ring spanners (applause), and crimpers (not for my hair but so I don't have to continue to strip wires and crimp connections with my teeth).

Next BOB job will be the propshaft, UJ is FUBAR and it'll probably need a balance.

Spotted!

A photo of BOB with its new big lights.


It pretty much ruins the front end aesthetics I suppose, but the Tasmanian Devil population will thank me for it, I reckon - they're suckers for being run over apparently and with these 100w halogens I can see pretty well on dark roads.

BOB's in the garage today having the Datsun halfshafts put in. I struggled long enough trying to do them myself without a workbench ... and gave up. I keep getting phonecalls to tell me there are other broken things on the car so it looks like I'll have some extra work to do at the weekend in order to get BOB ready for the long run down to Hobart.

"Racing" fuel and pastures new!

On the way back from Bundaberg the other week I decided to fill up with some ethanol blended fuel. I've heard various opinions as to whether it kills old cars or not (perishing rubber, fuel tank issues, etc). Quite why I chose to try it on the way to the airport (250km away) to catch a flight for a job interview in Tasmania however, I'll never know. The good news is that it didn't seem to do any damage, ran just as economically, and was plenty sprightly enough.

Only once I was home did I think E95 ... that could have been 95% ethanol, but I guess it was just 5%, or 95 Octane???

I then found out that Australian regulations make it illegal to sell 5 or 10% ethanol blended fuel at higher prices than ordinary fuel with equal octane levels. So when I went to fill up at Shell the other day I noticed that they no longer have 'Optimax' but 'V-Power' and 'V-Power Racing' ! According to the label the racing fuel is 100 Octane but 5% ethanol, but the price is 20 cents more than the normal fuel. I didn't notice any racing cars at the pump, strangely enough.

Anyway, pastures new beckon. I got the job in Tasmania, so it's all speed ahead to a move to Hobart in the next month. As a consequence we're going to have to put the big trip to Perth on hold ... although I do get the chance to drive to Hobart which is 1,900 km with an overnight ferry trip in the middle. It's no RBRR but should be fun enough in the Triumph.

Now I wonder if I should risk using ethanol fuel on the trip or not?

Staggage

As I walked to work this morning (it was 21 Celsius at 7am by the way ;-), I saw a white Triumph Stag. So I've seen two Stags in three days. We saw one up the mountain roads on Sunday. Following up on the a thread on the CT forum I read recently, what was so unusual about the one I saw on Sunday was that its driver waved to me! Gadzooks!

Spent a fair bit of Saturday smashing UJs on Datsun shafts with a hammer, and not quite getting them out. I bought a vice to help, but don't have anything to attach it to, plus I left my cheapo socket set in Bundaberg the other week, so I've failed to fit the Datsun shafts. Plan B - Universal Driveshaft Services ... seeing as no local garages were prepared to help. A weird thing I've noticed is that garages aren't open on Saturdays in Queensland? Hmph.

Shafting and shining my box!

No, Jason, you're not on one of those sites!

I got a fair amount done last weekend.

• Fitted up the alternator, rewired the relays through a separate fuse box in the engine bay
• Added a pair of 100w halogen spotlights kindly donated by Jacques, taken from an old Nissan Prado
• Stripped the remaining useful parts (including the tank) out of the TC and sent the shell back to the breakers

• Took the autobox to the carwash and put it on the engine degreasing setting, good results for $3 and it can go on ebay

• Sourced and looked over Datsun driveshaft ... here's one, modelled by a fascinated Fred the dog, next to a Triumph set-up for comparison.

This week I've ordered and purchased 5 special "Tri-Dat" UJs from Greg Tunstall at $93.50 each (4 for the shafts, and one as a spare/pattern). Basically this is a UJ that fits between a Triumph and a Datsun yoke. As you can see from the photo, the Datsun ends have the c-clips in a groove at the base of the bearing section, whereas the Triumph ends have the clips that fit at the top.

Jacques and I figured out how these are made, if I ever need to get any made up. Now I need to get them fitted. I don't have a vice, bench or space to put a bench in Brisbane, so I need to either take them to a garage and ask them to put the Triumph and Datsun bits together, or drive all the way back up to Bundaberg and do it there! It's a bit annoying really as it's not exactly rocket science. Looking forward to getting them on, though.

Prince of darkness? / Diff. find / Driveshaft nonsense / 10CR idea ...

I think you know what i mean ... Mr Lucas with a bit of a help from Mr Not An Autoelectrician.

I knew that the 400km drive up to Bundaberg this week was going to be eventful ... the car has been just a bit too well behaved.

Just outside Gympie I overtook a 'Ute' put my foot down, hit the high beams and suddenly the lights went completely (note to self: rewire lights through 2 separate fuses, 1 for mains, 1 for high). Clever me had to take the air filter off at the side of the road with big fat lorries going past to change the fuse (note to self no.2 - put a torch in the car). I hadn't secured the relays well enough and one had earthed against the filter housing.

Ten minutes later we're back on the road again with one placated wife and working lights. No problems until Childers when all of a sudden the ingition light comes on and the volts start to drop. Pull over ... fan belt's fine. Alternator must have carked it. 35km to home so no prob's.

So today i've been arsing around getting a replacement alternator. Everyone wanted $250 (100GBP) for one, nobody would recondition, three scrap yards didn't have any that would fit, but I eventually found a brand new one for $125 !!! So that's been fitted and is good.

Meanwhile I found another 2500 TC in a yard with a blown headgasket, but a good diff. $150 has to be worth a gamble. I picked up two Datsun driveshafts for $60 ... it's immediately obvious why they're so much better than the Triumph ones. I've spent much of the afternoon with my father-in-law working out various machining options to get them to fit a Triumph. It's looking like the cheapest option might be to buy the specially adapted UJs from Greg Tunstall.

Unless anyone knows any different that is?

Good luck to all you RBRR nutters ... God I'm jealous, but I've been working on a plan with F-in-law to get us and Ella to the 10CR next year ... Anybody want to buy a rust free Australian Triumph that's just been tested on a weekend's drive around Europe? (that's just one of our ideas!)

Spotted

I've seen rather a lot of Triumphs in Brisbane recently. They haven't been the normal Sedans (Saloons) either.

On the way to the supermarket a couple of weeks ago I spotted an old fella attempting to fit his white Dolly Sprint into a parking space so he could go to the nearby polling station. A week later I came face to face with a white Tr6 in the car park at the super market. Unfortunately it had nasty looking wire wheels on it, was running rough and smelt very rich.

The weekend just passed we saw two Triumphs. The first was a Spitfire (possibly with a six-pot). It was badged a 1500 in a metallic red colour, with gold TR7 wheels, a weird exhaust (twin-branch with four tail-pipes !?!) a Triumph Sports Owners Club "Spitfire 5" registration plate and "tow" stickers suggesting it sees a track from time to time. I put my foot down and did a cheeky little undertake to get a wave. On Sunday we saw a TR3, but the grumpy old sod driving didn't return my wave. Meanwhile we did our bit for showing off the Triumph marque getting admiring looks from Lotus Esprit and Jag XK8 owners as we blasted past them on the 'mountain' roads - I blame Chris Witor's exhaust!

I find it funny how many Triumphs I see, ranging from the immaculate TR's to the shoddy looking student Saloons and Dollys when poor old Dave Pearson seems only to see them when they come and visit him at work. He's on the doorstep of the old heart of Triumph and I'm many thousands of miles away. I guess it says something about the real reach that the British car industry had, and just how much it has declined.

All nice and regular

I've noticed another (minor) change to the car since fitting the headlight relays!
Previously turning the lights on caused the fuel gauge to read slightly lower. A bit annoying. It seems that reducing the load on the headlight switch has eradicated this problem.

... I know it just gets more and more exciting :-)