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 :-)

I take it back

Recently I changed updated my headlights by fitting a couple of relays. Then I said that I wouldn't post before and after photographs because little had changed. Well, I downloaded the photos onto my laptop and there is a clear(ish) difference. So now I am prepared to share with you the exciting "BOB headlight improvement extravaganza" ... in colour!!! (but no sound i'm afraid).

Take a deep breath and look at these.

Before:


And ... (imagine a drum roll)
After:


How about that!
Life doesn't get much more exciting, does it?

Next week ... "The incredible before and after tyre pressure photos" - swoon at the difference between 26psi and 28psi.

Got myself connected ...

I got the relays all set up for the headlights (once I'd been to every auto-electrical retailer in Brisbane to get the right parts!)

Verdict:
An interesting and enjoyable project which taught me a bit about electrics (starting from virtually no knowledge it wasn't too difficult!). I would post some "before and after" photos, except there is no discernible difference between them... I guess the wiring was in good nick anyway.

I'm not too bothered though, as I now have the set-up ready to go if I want to put some extra driving lights or halogen headlamps on one day.

This weekend clutch master cylinder replacement ... I'm really looking forward to bleeding the clutch. Not! I've heard it's a pain, unless an ezibleed style set-up is used. I've only managed to find an air compressor driven version in Oz and it costs a packet, plus I don't have a compressor, so it's out with the tube, jar and magnet! Ho hum.

Leaks!

The differential has finally begun to leak properly ... little patches of oil are appearing underneath the nose of the diff. It's fairly damp on either side too.
The question is do I buy the replacement seals for the pinion and sides for $50, put it back together and put up with the continuing squeal (cost $50) or do I go the full hog and get the diff. re-shimmed, resealed and put back in for $470 ?

Meanwhile I've found a leak on the clutch Master Cylinder! I'm not too impressed. We have receipts from the PO who had it reconditioned not that long ago. It wasn't done by an expert judging by the receipt so I'm going to get one on exchange from Greg Tunstall instead.

It's annoying. All this expenditure detracts from the chance to spend on fun things to the car!

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