Decisions, decisions ...

It's raining outside ... pretty unusual in this neck of the woods, where State elections are won and lost on the basis of drought solutions (actually it's a fairly typical situation of there being no real opposition to the staus quo).

Still, rainy weather always promotes a planning frame of mind, so I'm thinking about what to do to BOB. This weekend I'm going to have a crack at the headlights and fit some relays. I'm going to avoid the DIY/Car stores and go straight to an auto-electrical specialists and get the very best parts for the job. In fact I'm even going to finally buy a soldering iron!!! Aren't I becoming a good boy! I'll leave the halogen conversion for the meanwhile, though and see what difference all the new connections make.

I want to do one 'luxury' fitment to the car in the next month or so, too, but can't decide:
15 inch wheels?
Modern car seats?
or
Datsun conversion to rear axle shafts ... well something should be happening on that front anyway.

"Springtime for BOB"

Springtime indeed!

I went to see Greg Tunstall at the weekend after speaking to him about getting hold of some uprated springs for the big trip to Perth. I really wanted some Chris Witor springs, but the postage cost is prohibitive (more than the cost of the springs!) Greg very kindly gave me a selection of springs to try out.

I'm not particularly interested in changing the ride height, I just want to increase the load capacity so we can carry all we need to go EWE (East coast to West coast and back to East coast again) ... 9,000km. We're self-catering campers so there's a fair amount of equipment to carry, which increases the need for good springs, and we'll probably put a 50 litre fuel can and a large water carrier in too. Of course if these springs improve the handling when unladen I won't complain, although BOB had fairly new looking KYB gas shockers on front and back when I bought it and the ride quality has been very good.

After a late Saturday night out I spent Sunday morning messing around taking measurements and fitting a set of the different springs... it was all a bit like a school experiment but with a hangover (i'm glad the car is parked underground out of the sun).
Here's the line-up of my 5 sets of springs to try out, with one of the originals that was on the car already shown on the left (sorry about the shadows)

I selected the big fat short ones with the least coils but the thickest coil diameter to try first. Here's what one looks like compared to the original spring (black):

Once I'd fitted them I did some measurements to compare them. Then took the car for a bit of a drive. They're definitely an improvement - far firmer but not exactly uncomfortable. Speed bumps were good at speed. This table shows the effect these springs have had:

SPRING	FREE LENGTH	# COILS	RIDE HEIGHT (REAR) UNLADEN	RIDE HEIGHT LADEN (95KG)	SPRING MOVEMENT (AS % OF UNLADEN HEIGHT)	RIDE HEIGHT FRONT
original	328mm	12	595mm	565mm	5%	640mm
#1	300mm	9	608mm	584mm	3.9%	636mm
#2	301mm	13	-	-	-	-
#3	304mm	9	-	-	-	-
#4	312mm	12	-	-	-	-
#5	315mm	10	-	-	-	-

Unladen B4 change

Unladen with Spring #1


B4 change + me (95kg)

Spring #1 + me

So that's the first set of springs tried out. The question now, though is whether I should try any of the other springs out. I'm not entirely sure how to make a judgment on what the qualities of the others are likely to be based on their characteristics... anyone else know?

Beach Trips, Balancing and mixing with the Mitsi.

I've had a blast with the car over the last week or so. Ella and I went down to the famous Burleigh Heads for a swim at the weekend ... which prompted the following photo:

"Surfers discover Triumphs are cool, dude!"



I took the car to get another section of the exhaust replaced after the last place reckoned it was too tricky to make up a new section of downpipe and remove the broken stud from the exhaust manifold ... these guys managed to do it in less than an hour and charged $120 (50 quid). I had it made in mild steel for the meanwhile as decent extractors will make it surplus when I get them.

I also had the front wheels balanced, as it was getting a bit silly.

Here's a shot of the interior - it shows where I put the oil pressure gauge - very easy to see through the steering wheel:


Those changes have made a great difference, and the car feels great. I went out yesterday with a friend as it was a public holiday. We took a trip to Nimbin in New South Wales ... it's a very weird place full of wannabe hippies and felt quite sinister to be honest. Still the last 50km drive there from Murwillumbah was extremely good fun. For the last 15km we had a bit of a chase with a V6 Mitsubishi saloon. No doubt it was an auto, but we managed to keep right on its tail and it couldn't get away, especially in the bends (although it was clearly trying). Here's the road on multimap (the route went NNW through Blue Knob, and then NE to Byrrill), what a road!
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=-28.5981&lon=153.2238&scale=200000&icon=x
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=-28.4859&lon=153.2077&scale=200000&icon=x

Miracle worker

Almost exactly a week ago my ankle was bent at 90 degrees and a team-mate had to drive me home for x-rays ... and today I managed to drive the Triumph for the first time since.
My physio is clearly a miracle worker and got me off crutches in a two hour session of ice-baths and pressure pumps (oooh-err) which cost about 10 quid!

Now I have to wrestle the keys back from Ella!

The Good News ... The Bad News

The Good:

When asked "what shall we do for the big Christmas holiday this year, then?" Ella responded
"Let's drive to Perth and back"

Well, it's not like I hadn't mentioned it before, but this is the first time Ella has actually suggested it herself. So we'll set aside 3 or 4 weeks and head off, doing lots of little visits to places on the way.

The distance looks to be 4,341 km going the 'quick' way according to my 'handy atlas'. So, that's about 9,000 km all up. We did 6,500km last Christmas, but that was in the Saab and this time we're taking the Triumph. It will be hot, but it will be an adventure no doubt and it will be fun.

Of course we're going to have to spend up on getting the car prepared now aren't we ... don't want it to have any 'issues' do we?

The Bad:

I play football for the gloriously-named Kangaroo Point Rovers in Brisbane. Well there should be a couple more seasons left in me yet. We're nearing the end of the season and I'm having a good run in the first team, then on Saturday I took a heavy challenge on my standing left foot, and the ankle ended up at 90 degrees to the normal. Amazingly it didn't break but I was carried off for the first time in 20 years of competitive sport. Now I'm on crutches and playing the invalid. There'll be no driving for me for a while, so I'm coaching Ella on the mountain roads.

Meanwhile, I'm investigating the possibility that good beer aids ankle injury recovery ...

All Going Well in 'Bleak Mid-winter'

I’ve done a couple of things to the car in the last week or two … small improvements, but enough to make me smile.

The first thing I did was fit a Smiths oil pressure gauge … well according to the ebayer I bought it from it’s a "guage". (Warning: Misspelt ebay listings can save you lots of money). The day it arrived I bought a t-piece, to enable me to retain the warning light, and connections from Lionel Otto in Brisbane and fitted it the same day. They even gave me a free mounting bracket!


I suppose I wanted the gauge just for peace of mind, and you never know when you buy a 28 year-old car with no history what mileage the engine has done! The good news is that it’s reading well within "Kipping tolerances" (between 45-65 PSI @ 2,000rpm when nice and warm – this is assuming the gauge reads correct of course.

It’s ‘winter’ here in Brisbane, so the temperature gets down to 10 Centigrade in the morning. Weirdly enough BOB has been a bit sluggish at starting in the cooler weather. I had a think about this and decided it was unlikely to be carburettor related. I’ve got the richer BCM Dolly Sprint needles in the carbs and they’ve very recently been fitted and balanced, and I know the timing is good, plugs are new, etc. I thought back to when I fitted the electronic ignition and it dawned on me that the fitting required a ballast resistor and appropriate coil. Well, I had found the present coil (Bosch GT40) was working fine and had just left it. A trip to the car shop and purchase of a GT40R has made a huge difference, now however. We’re back to starting on the first turn of the engine, it pulls more rapidly and smoothly through the revs and now warms up in seconds … no more embarrassing stalling at the lights on a steep hill when cold.

A couple of weekends back we took a trip 100km north to look at the new patch of land my in-laws are buying so they’re nearer to Brisbane. It’s a great spot near the top of the hill with views of the nearby mountains and 20km out to the coast, and it’s very near some seriously good quiet and twisting roads! We took the dirt roads out and the mountain roads back for a round trip of about 200km (saw a Ferrarri 355 on the way back), so it was particularly good. To prove me right, it rained too (see earlier entry).

We went up the local 'mountain' roads last weekend - the car feeling fairly good - and managed to hold off two Porsche Carrerras that had been lane weaving and sparring all the way through town. We almost lost them completely when we got to the bends and hills which was a bit dissapointing. Coming back down the mountain there was some squealing on the brakes, though. Some biker has done a web-page showing the route.

We’ve had BOB a year this week. It's only done about 6,000 miles – paltry compared to the regular 20,000 plus I did in Triumphs in the UK, but it has been lots of fun. I still can’t believe we got such a good car for such a small sum. So far the only real problem I’ve had has been a split cooling hose (I’m touching wood as I type). I haven’t made that many changes to the car, but I’m pleased with what I have done … for the record:

Reconditioned distributor
Electronic ignition
Removed knackered old emissions equipment
Reconditioned carbs with BCM needles
Fitted ‘works’ gearknob (surprisingly, a vast improvement over the original fitment)
Witor exhaust (minus manifold) – thanks to Andy Thompson
Oil pressure gauge
… plus lots of little adjustments and fixes.

Things to come in the next year or two:

Improved brakes - pads, hoses and reconditioned Girling calipers
15-inch superlites (just to get Bancroft’s goat!)
Tubular stainless exhaust manifold
Diff. whine fix
Spin-on oil filter conversion
Holden Jackaroo (Isuzu Trooper) starter motor conversion
…

Triumphs in Tassie!

I spent last week in the state of Tasmania (it's an island about the size of England off the south coast of Australia for those who don't know). I was already aware that there is a bit of a Triumph following - not that surprising I suppose given the large amount of 'Poms' (whinging or otherwise) that reside their - as I've visited the impressive Triumph Owners site frequently.

We weren't able to drive our Triumph to Tassie as it would be 2,500km drive before getting to the ferry (!) which is a bit excessive for a week-long trip. However, I was pleased to see plenty of Triumphs in our stay.
I saw two tatty white 2500 'Sedans' (ozzie term for Saloon), and then a smart looking "1970s yellow/brown" 2500, which sounded good, had gold coloured alloys and a Mk1 bonnet (unusual?!). I also saw a red saloon sitting rather forlornly under a tree somewhere in the sticks which clearly hadn't been driven for some time, and probably won't be again! The funniest sighting was of a very tidy white TR7 halfway up Mt Wellington in Hobart. I stopped on the way back down the mountain intending to take a photo but was a bit too embarassed when I saw the owners were there ... i'd have looked like a bit of a spod getting out of a crap-box ford hire car and taking picutres!

Here is a view of Hobart from the top of Mt Wellington, though:




The roads were great in Tassie though, you can see why the annual Targa Tasmania is so famous.

This week I've seen two more Triumph saloons in Brisbane - one that I overtook on the way to football training, and then another on my way to work ... I'm starting to think about buying a Trabant, they're far less common ;-)

Leaky boot!

... but I don't think I need a cobbler.

It hardly ever rains in southern Queensland.
I don't really get to drive the Triumph that much.

So how come we have two solid downpours in the space of two months and I happen to be driving at the time?

1st time was on the way up to Bundaberg the other weekend. 2nd time was on the Mount Nebo Road (twisty roads!) yesterday.

The upside of the rain yesterday was that all the bikers (and most of the sunday drivers) stayed at home, and we had lots of road to ourselves - I love driving twisty roads in the rain, it's a buzz trying to maintain a good speed and traction. Gave the car a good lively thrashing.

The downside is that the boot filled up with water again. All the boards and spare wheel (which was nearly floating) came out when I got home, and took the bungs out to drain her and set about trying to trace a leak. It certainly wasn't the lights, nor the drain pipes ... in fact I couldn't find any sign of water coming downwards into the boot, and it seems like to much to be coming up through holes in the floor (not that I could find any). I tried pouring water all over the rear of the car, and just couldn't find any leaks at all - it all ran off just as it should!

Does this happen to anybody else's Saloon?
Anybody else out there got any ideas??????

Stripping

... spares from the spares car that is!

The time has come to free up some space in the in-laws shed, so we took advantage of the long weekend (to celebrate the Queen's birthday - yes bizarrely enough we do that every year in Australia!) and went up to Bundaberg to set about dismantling. We were both happy to get out of the city, and to give BOB a decent drive, as it's been a while.

I checked the car out the night before we set off ... basic stuff just in case, and annoyingly found there was a leak on the exhaust where the fitters had used an old rusty clamp to connect the back box to the rest of the system - now that is cheap!!!! I also couldn't check the gearbox oil because my cheapo ratchet packed up (there's a 5/8 nut welded onto the level plug, and it's a pain to try and get a spanner on). This reminded me I ought to get my decent tools shipped over from England.

It rained all the way up to Bundy, which is actually a good thing, as it had been at least 6 weeks since there had been a drop of rain round here! The rain on the dirt roads made for fun ... going some way to colour code our wheels and bumpers with the rest of the car:



Problem is the rear light cluster let a fair amount of water into the boot ... grrrrr!(now all sealed up)
Drivers side rear carpet got a soaking, too ... haven't looked for the leak yet.

It took a fair bit of time pulling the dash, gauges, and various "might be useful/eBay-able" bits off the car, I was annoyed to find out the brake discs have little life left on them, but there are good driveshafts, calipers, etc, etc.

My father-in-law was a great help, using the forklift to pull the engine and autobox (late BW35) out:



He's suggested that we might make some panel moulds before we get rid of the bodyshell - he used to own a composite plastics business so knows how to do these things. Wise Triumph people have intimated to me that it's only worth doing bonnet and boot ... we'll see if there's time.

The drive home on Monday was superb fun. Ella drove BOB (she rarely gets the chance, although she loves doing so) whilst I drove the in-laws Subaru Forester XT as it's been sold to someone in Melbourne and needed delivering to Brisbane for shipping. We took the looooooong route down all the windy "country" roads. Driving the Subaru was great fun (even though it's an auto), it goes like rocketship. Our route included going through the beautiful Mary Valley (see photo), this areas in the news a lot at the moment because the State Government wish to dam the river to provide more water ... I can't see how it will make it rain any more though:



The latest plan is to get a new set of wheels ... probably something minilite style. The 28 year old alloys are a tad 'wobbly', and I'm sure that's what makes the steering wheel shake at any decent speed. They are notorious for this, and difficult to balance. 15 inch wheels will enable bigger contact with the road, too, which it's worth having as I've had some occasional 'traction issues'.

Don't break your brakes!

Since getting the exhaust sorted it's been a lot more fun driving Tango-BOB. Fortunately Ella is pleased with the noise. I walk to work every day so there's not that much of a need to drive - it's mainly trips to the shops, football training, etc. So recently I've made excuses to take little trips up the nearby "mountains" whenever possible.

I haven't really gone anywhere with any 'serious' issues. I had a bit of concern about a noise coming from the rear end of the car ... have you ever lost a socket after re-greasing splines? Well it seems leaving it inside the brake drum doesn't cause damage as such! Possibly as a result the ratchet on the brake's self-adjusting mechanism was all over the shop, so I've done a little straightening out and now have the best operating rear brakes and handbrake since purchasing the car. Brisbane's hilly and it's nice to stay still when sitting at traffic lights!

Next up is a trip up to Bundaberg to strip down the spares car and box up the parts I want to keep - it's time to take it off the in-laws hands. Then I'll need to arrange getting rid of all the bits that I don't want. It sounds awful, but the bodywork is next to useless and too big to store so it will probably go back to the scrapyard ... unless someone shows some interest. A lot of other things will need to go on ebay I suppose...

Brmm brmmm!

BOB is getting better and better as time goes on. Now it even sounds good!

Saturday morning saw me out to the exhaust place with the intention of getting the Chris Witor system fitted and a downpipe made up and fitted too. Having booked in with the workshop with this intention I assumed it wouldn't be a problem ...

It turned out there was a broken stud on the manifold to downpipe join. I'd noticed this previously but naively assumed it would be easy for a professional custom exhaust specialists to drill out ... If only. It seems that they use a special person to do this and he doesn't work on Saturdays, so instead they just bolted the Witor sections that Andy provided on to the dodgy downpipe that i'd wanted changing in the first place. The downpipe can wait. To give them their dues, the system has been fitted nice and high so plenty of ground clearance.

Verdict:
Not as loud as I remember the Big Red Bus sounding, although I haven't got the manifold and engine mod's of course. Still, when wound up it sounds very good ... so it's tricky to not drive around in high gears all the time like a boy-racer (or Bevan as they call them here). Mr Bancroft knows what I mean ;-)
Although the manifold hasn't been changed, it certainly seems more responsive - removing two out of three constrictions makes a definite difference.

Next up:
Investigate the ticking noise - occurs on right-hand bends ... UJ on the Left-hand driveshaft?
Brakes - fit some stainless braided hoses and reconditioned calipers with Green Stuff pads (from the spares car).
Get the speedo sorted.

The Triumph Fraternity

There have been some little trips round and about since Easter, but nothing too significant.

The West of Brisbane is one HUGE forest reserve which Ella and I do a fair amount of walking in. The bonus is that the access road is Mount Nebo road - one of the best roads in the area. The approach is marked with a "bendy roads for the next 33km" sign! On any given weekend there are lots of cars and bikes there, but sometimes you get a stretch to yourself and can 'enjoy' it ;-)
The other week we were coming back to Brisbane and as we came squealing around a corner we saw a couple of blokes scratching their heads and looking down into the forest ... presumably trying to figure out how they were going to get their motorbike back up to the road!

No actual action on the car as such, but some progress nonetheless. I finally cleaned all the accumulated dust and dirt from the Easter trip - it actually caked the floor where I washed the car and there are tyre tracks in the silt now! I've done some spline greasing on the drive shafts and other bitty things. Now there's a bit more point to driving, seeing as the carb's are good, it's hard to keep the revs down and the needle keeps bouncing up around the 5k mark.

I investigated the blowing exhaust and found that it was blowing at a seam where it had been hastily patched up. I took it to get fixed and the guy who welded the hole up reckoned it was paper thin. I decided to look at getting a custom one built up (rather than get a mortgage out for a Chris Witor system and postage)and asked some advice on my second home ... the Club Triumph forum . It's a superb resource, with loads of friendly, rather Triumph-mad people from all over the world ready to lend a word of advice ... or 'support'. Anyway, Andy Thompson, a self-confessed Triumphaholic from Western Australia, stepped up and offered me his old racing Mk2's exhaust system! Superb - thanks Andy.

I've yet to see it, but it's apparently a bit rough around the edges (who cares it's costing peanuts compared to a new one!). Can't wait to get it on the car. Then the plan is to drive over to Western Australia (a few thousand miles) at some point to celebrate!

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!

Cotton Pic'ing

BOB is still patiently waiting for its new carb's. It should be happening next Monday. I intend to take before and after pictures of the engine bay ... may be of interest to those who've never seen the anti-emissions set-up for 'special' overseas markets.

Ella is keen to try rally navigating, so we've been making contact with car clubs around Brisbane, trying to find a suitable entry-level introduction. It turns out that over here "road rallys" are called "touring assemblies" or something similar ... sounds tame, but that could be clever PR of course! In Brisbane there's an umbrella club Marque Sports Club that organise practices and competitive events. Nice, all sounds good ... except that we have to join a different CAMS (like the UK's MSA) affiliated club in order to join them. So, the decision that needs to be made is which of the CAMS affiliated clubs to join.

It turns out there's a fair amount of activity in the area, and the MG Sports Car Club of Queensland have a good competition schedule. We went along to the first of their hillclimb events on Sunday ... at their own purpose built circuit!!!! How about that for organisation.

It's a great little circuit 30 minutes drive away, and entry is free for spectators. As a circuit, what goes up must come down, so the 1 in 4 hills mean some hard braking is needed, and some good judgement.

There was a great field of entrants - not many MGs, a fair few modern Subarus, Skylines, etc, the Aussie muscle cars, and some Westfields. Plus lots of Mk1 and 2 Escorts, Datsuns, and a Ford Anglia (running with a 2000cc Nissan unit).
The two Triumphs on show were a 2 litre PI Dolomite (driven by the MG Club's president) and a 1300 Spitfire, with fibreglass GT6 bonnet and English plates. A nice way to spend a bit of Sunday morning, and it all helps fuel the enthusiasm to get out and use BOB ... but really sitting watching cars go round in circles gets a bit boring (although watching a modern Mini lose control on the hairpin was a bonus!). The camera ran out of batteries after 3 photos so this is the lot I'm afraid.





All good fun. Hopefully we'll progress and get involved in some rallying soon.

Holes in thumbs and hoses

The Bus is halfway through its status change … from Aussie ‘S’ to Pommy ‘S’. A re-built distributor, with advance instead of retard vacuum and some Bosch internals (harder wearing than Lucas), plus a Crane optical ignition system was stage 1. In a week or so I hope to be fitting some rebuilt carb’s (courtesy of Greg Tunstall )to replace the sad current ones. At this point the emissions kit will be stripped off, blocked up, re-routed. I don’t envisage it transforming Bob into a real snarler, of course, but it’s a logical start at least.

I finally removed the tacky sheepskin covers from the front-seats … to see what they were hiding. The seats beneath are in really good condition, barring the door-side top corners of both seats, which have faded and worn right through. It’s a real shame. For now they can be patched up I think. At some point I will fit some modern car seats instead, as my back gets pretty sore driving at the best of times. I’ve had two Saabs and the seats in those were both excellent, so maybe they will do the trick.

I haven’t really had much of a chance to do anything else around the car, though, on account of my own stupidity. I had an altercation with a fast moving 10mm drill bit … and it won! It basically snapped my thumbnail in two and tore the base out of the finger, which has made ‘handywork’ somewhat less practical for the meanwhile. I have a nice photo, but it’s a bit gory, so unless I get requests I will keep it to myself!

Yesterday I had my first breakdown adventure with Bob! A nice easy fix though. Ella and I went for a drive out of town, and after about ten minutes on the road I noticed the temp. gauge was a bit high … Uh oh! The bonnet goes up at the side of the road, and there’s lots of coolant sprayed around everywhere making it tricky to spot the leak (fingers were crossed hoping it wasn’t the radiator!). Eventually we traced the split hose next to the fan thermostat, sneakily hidden on the underside of the hose-clip. Luckily there was enough hose to chop it down and stick it back on. It was a bit of a pain trying to fiddle around with hot hoses, coolant, metal, etc. with my right thumb out of action. We filled the rad. back up and carried on without any further hitches.
Isn’t it nice when you break down and the fix is really easy?

Slow progress

Things have been happening ... albeit slowly.

Before Christmas I invested in some weatherseal to replace the driver's door effort. It was some completely ill-fitting stuff that had been glued on to the paintwork!!!
I'd been told that it was a bitch of a job, but rather than use the special tool you can buy a bent knife and some blu-tac ought to do the trick:



It seemed to work ok, despite many temporarily lost clips!!!
The problem I have now is getting the paint tidied up where the old 'seal' was removed.

I've been half-heartedly trying to trace an ignition blip that doesn't seem to be a massive problem. I decided to have a bash with a pertronix ignitor as I had a good experience with one on the GT6 back in England ... and they're pretty cheap too! Having purchased one via England I tried to fit it and just couldn't get the sod to work, despite checking of all the "what to do if it doesn't work" boxes. On the website there is a warning about the two types of 45D 4 cylinder distributors and how there are two different points cam types and one doesn't work ... Well, I ignored this as there is not mention of the 45D 6. It turns out that the late Australian 45D 6 distributor has a different height points cam a la the 45D 4 and it doesn't work either. As you can imagine these things are only revealed after lots of cursing and e-mails to the nice people who sell them.

I started a new job at the beginning of January, and there's flextime! Consequently I've been clocking the hours up and have already earnt a day off. So this morning I've been out to Cleveland to visit Greg Tunstall. I mentioned him a while back I think. The plan is to re-plumb the anti-emissions kit to begin to reveal the true potential of the 'S'. Greg very quickly deduced that there were a few things needed. In order to get some more horses he reckoned we should start with electronic ignition (as I had planned anyway), and he pointed out the wear on the dissy shaft. He organises a reasonably priced Piranha kit with remapped ignition curve on a reconditioned distributor that will benefit from some stronger components. This I can fit it myself. He also diagnosed some nasty wear on the carb's which he will rebuild and 'improve' to work with the K&N filter and the distributor. When refitting the carb's the pollution kit will be 'liberated'. I'm keen to get this done - Greg didn't really try the hard sell, he didn't need to, it's clear that the work needs doing and his reputation out here suggests he's worth relying on.

Look what I spotted the other week! Ella and I went for a trip west of Brisbane up some great mountain roads. On the way back we saw this rather sad looking Pi Estate. It was manual o/d and in need of a bit of TLC. It actually had a MPH clock in it too ... dunno if this means it's an import?



Hopefully I'll be back soon with some 'before' and 'after' shots of the engine bay with and without the emissions kit.

Goodbye.

Hillclimbing and Scrap Dragging!

My first Australian motorsport spectating happened last weekend when we went to the Noosa Historic Hillclimb. It was run on a 1.5km twisting forest (public) road with about 15 corners on it, and the walking track alongside was elevated from the tarmac affording excellent views.

The line up of cars was spectacular - 175 in total, with a real variety, from Lotus 7s, Mini Coopers, Alfas, TR7 V8s, even a GT40:


Other than the half dozen TR7 V8s (most 3.5l, but a few 4-5l V8s) there was also a TR4, a 3a, a 2.5Pi MK2, and a GT6 Mk2.
The most notable results were the TR7 V8 3.5l cars - dominating their class of 5 cars they took all but the last position ... which went to a lowly Porsche 911!


But in a class with some competition the TR3a came second out of 5 in its class, and incidentally is a daily-driven 11,000 mile per year car!


A Dolly Sprint came fourth out of 16 and only did half its allocated runs, then, the GT6 came second in its class, with one great time and a load of diabolical ones ... I wonder if there was some mid event tinkering!!!



Some of the other great cars were the Minis (one in particular was being chucked around brilliantly, and another had a suzuki 1200 bike engine), the Datsun 240zs


We spent the week after this at the in-laws, which gave me and Jacques the chance to move the spares car. It's been in the garden sitting up at the back end from the diff. removal a month or so back, and somebody was keen on us putting it somewhere out of site. Hilarity ensued.

The car wasn't delivered with any wheels, so we had to consider the best way of moving it 20 metres into the shed ... bearing in mind that my BOB (the 2500 S) was in Brisbane so we couldn't borrow its wheels. Fortunately we had a Bobcat on hire for some other jobs ... could it lift the whole car?



The Bobcat strained and thought about tipping over, so we lifted each end in turn and propped it ... then worked out that the trailer's wheels looked to be about the right size! So with no diff. we dragged it inside:


I doubt you can see the wheels well enough ... but if you ever saw Doug Foreman's GT6 with the wrong rear spring, plus him and Colin in the car ... you get the idea.

Finally we got it in the shed, and up on some home made stands!

A Tale of 2 Diff's

I spent a week at the in-laws place in Bundaberg recently, where the spare 2500 TC we recently purchased was waiting to be investigated. It turns out to be a fairly 'interesting' car.
Unfortunately it's an auto, and a bit far gone to be worth restoring, but there are some good bits.
A look rummage around in the boot revealed a spare diff., a knackered diff. pinion, plus the starter motor, distributor, a spare pair of driveshafts and the radiator grille from a Mk2 2000 ... The diff. was stamped ME**** so obviously belonged to a 2000. Opening it up revealed that the pinion and crownwheel were quite a mess. A shame as one of the reasons we wanted the car was for a spare diff. (just in case!).

Removing the diff. that was fitted proved it was probably in an even worse state than the first one, however! Two useless diff's ... hurrumph!

The next find was that the engine was also an ME prefix engine, which seemed rather strange given that there's a towbar on the back, twin electric fans, and an oil cooler for the auto-box. Why would someone with a towing car reduce their engine size from 2.5 to 2.0? I attempted to measure the stroke to see what was what, and it appears to actually be a 2.5 unit after all. Attempting to turn it over by hand proved pretty easy too, with nothing apparently seized. It will be interesting to see what's going on inside.

The radiator was still full of bright green coolant, when I removed it, and looks to have been re-cored.

There are lots of useful little odds and sods that have been put on to BOB, too, like a better wiper arm so passengers can see out when it rains, wiper bottle bracket, wiper park switch, glovebox lock, etc.
I've got the electric fan going now as well after diagnosing a bad contact.

BOB's been getting some great runs recently - a lot of dirt roads (we've been out looking for them!), and some good windy 'mountain' roads. Here's a shot on a dirt road on the way back to Brisbane from Bundaberg:



On the next visit I'll hopefully get a chance to drop the engine and gearbox out. The box can hopefully be sold.

Meanwhile back in Blighty, Mum's been selling some of my old Triumph spares on e-bay for me. The only things that haven't shifted yet are a set of very clean GT6 Mk1 carb's and a Mk1 Vitesse rear trunnion set ... contact me if you're interested.