Jason's Blog

Well I'm off on my holidays with the wife and kids. We're going to the US to spend 3 weeks in an "RV" - a fifth wheel trailer and a Ford pick-up combo. I've never driven one before so it could be fun. I'll definitely see at least one Triumph as I'm visiting my friend Jerry who has a GT6+. If I can find the WiFi enabled camp grounds I'll post some pictures and progress reports.

Well I got a nice quick response from Draper and they say they'll collectthe multimeter and check it out for me, can't say fairer than that really. I'm impressed already, we'll see if it's the meter that's faulty or me!

Just came to use my nice "new" multimeter and it's gone mad, won't give a proper reading :-( I've had it for a while, bought in a moment of surprising extravagance (it was my birthday I think) a couple of years ago and used probably about twice since then - I never did think it was right but I always thought it was my own stupidity rather than the tool.

So, item 6 on the list of things to do was find some hose to make the plenum chamber connectors. The eBay hose I found was exactly what I needed, a length of 48mm radiator hose - nothing fancy and only a few quid.It arrived so well packaged I didn't recognise it. mind you, I had loads of stuff turn up, it was like Christmas! So today, despite the heat and humidity I decided to have a go at what should be a simple job. First job was to ensure the mocked up cardboard tubes were right. Then replace those with pieces of the radiator hose, cut to the same length. Next, add some Jubille slips to clamp the tubes to the plenum. And here's the "final" product, I've connected the air bleed and rocker breather to the plenum, not sure if I'll keep it like that. For a start I need some proper vacuum hose for the air bleed. On tickover that draws all the air needed for the engine to run, I don't think it would collapse the hose but you never know. There's no suppor...

In my previous entry Jason's Blog I made a list well you do have to don't you. So Now I'm going to tick them off and at the end of the week make a new list just to keep me going. No 1 - I've bought an extinguisher (eBay) No 6 - I found some water pipe the right size and that should be on the way too (eBay again) I suppose I should replace this entry now with "Cut and fit the connector pipes". The hose and connectors arrived from Tink today, also the new "T" piece. I have some DIY to do on the weekend and some friends coming to stay so it's unlikely I'll get much time at the car but I'll try.

Well after yesterday's investigations, cut short by the arrival of friends, Pimms and a rather nice meal on the patio, I sorted out a plan of attack. Despite my advanced state of merriment I had chatted to James Carruthers and sorted out an order for Think Automotive . The idea was that although I have several lengths of seriously over spec Aeroquip TFE braided racing hose, I don't have enough in a single run to do the whole job. So I've gone for a lesser spec Aeroquip "push-on" hose - this stuff has a 1000psi burst pressure, should do the trick :-) With fixtures and fittings added the order is complete and went down the wire last night. I also found a suitable large bore "T" piece for the fuel return, it was on eBay and will be coming to me from Wales. So all I have to do now is make a hole in the front chassis rigger where the DPO (Dumb Previous Owner) plated the stock hole - no I don't mean Dave Walker, the previous previous owner! Once through th...

The fuel comes out of the PRV at the black straight pipe, which is the same union as teh injector hoses use - 3/8 NPTF maybe?

Here's the union I need to go to on the metering unit - 3/8 BSP

Now the connundrum - I have a long length of this stuff - PTE pipe, covered in stainless braiding - very tough. Looks like it'll take the abuse of being under the car and is long enough for me to plumb everything in I think. I just need to figure out what ends to use. It's not compressable so any kind of external worm drive clip won't work.

So, what really lay beneath all that paint and crap? What you're seeing here is a classic DPO modification. It was done to the car before Brummy Dave got it so we don't know why but here it is. The brake line is sleeved in rubber and passed through the rigger, the fuel line is passed through a plate welded over the rigger - it's the same at each side of each rigger. It's also covered in epoxy and then filler, oh and then some paint!

OK, not the money grabbing net barons insisting on me putting ads on my blog but me doing it voluntarily. It was just an experiment really but I thought I'd see if it generated any money. I'll put all the earnings into my Round Britain Reliability Run sponsorship for me and Andy Cook who are taking my Vitesse around the UK with 99 other idiots in Triumph. It's all for the charity Bliss, the premature baby charity. It's all the more poignant as Craig's son Callum was born premature but is doing very well now. Anyway - I'll also sort out a Paypal donation button so if anyone wants to drop some cash into the virtual tin they can. Now with DIY in the bathroom done to Mrs Chinn's quality standard I can now attack the Vitesse and have a proper look at the fuel system.

Thanks to Craig Gingell I've now got an RSS feed thingy that puts the stuff I'm selling on eBay onto my Blog. He's a whizz at all this interweb stuff and very reasonably priced too :-)

Purley Tyre Care Specialists The wife has been complaining about tyre squeal in her Sixfire so I took the opportunity to run over the road to a new tyre place that's opened up. They have spent some serious money on the kit in there, a super 4 wheel laser alignment thingy with pit and ramp all spanking new and shiny. They couldn't find Triumph in their books had no data for the GT6 but they did manage to find a Spitfire under Rover > Triumph > Spitfire. the car would barely fit on the new super whizzo ramp and the guy seemed a little reluctant to do the job. However! A little banter later and they seemed to perk up a bit, I made a call to get the settings of +/- 1/2 deg toe in front and rear, "a hint of negative camber" and forget castor coz you can't adjust it. Off we went on the super whizzo machinery - what an amazing piece of kit, I mean it showed that the alignment was all over the place and where to correct it etc but it was the way it did it that was i...

  Well he's what an original Lucas factory cooling coil looks like, I stopped off at Canley's for a beer on Friday and came away with a complete pump and a coil to practice with - I need to sort out how to mount the pump better - the cage is a tidy way of doing it but it's too tight - maybe make a new one out of alloy? Something to ponder. I've also been looking at what's in the parts bin for fuel lines - I have some very tough nylon lined, stainless braided hose but I;m a bit stumped by what fittings to use. I really need to find somewhere that stocks these things and go down there with the hose, discuss and sort it on the spot. As for rooting, I've decided that I need to uncover what's been done to the chassis riggers - have they really been plated over or is it epoxy, Fiberglas or what? It looks like steel but there's so much paint in it who really knows. A bit of investigation with the sand blaster and/or wire brush - hard line or armoured flexi I th...

I managed to find some centre caps - stupidly simple really. Although the wheels aren't branded Minilites they came for the TSSC and were made by KN Wheels Ltd who trade as Minilite. The wheels are all made on the same production line. I'd called them a month ago and they'd promised to send me some caps, they never arrived nor did I get a bill. Anyway on Friday I called them again, spoke to a different guy and got a set of 4 identical caps with badges all delivered today for £17.63. Why I didn't think to ask for wheel nuts too I don't know as I now have no spares at the moment and seem to regularly knacker them on both cars! And yes I do actually use a torque wrench to do them up not just tighten them to the absolute max :-)

Well that was an eventful day! I decided to take my wife and youngest daughter the the Club Triumph National at Hollycombe, about 45 miles away. The car's not 100% but it needed using to shake down a few things and create a list of must do jobs - yeah right. First issue, a little stuttering almost like fuel starvation. No matter I can live with that and investigate further, then the heat of the day builds up with the traffic, the car is mis-firing badly, doens't seem to want to rev, almost dies then does actually die. It then refuses to restart. It was hot today, very hot and although the car never boiled it did creep up the temp guage to the wrong side of normal. The car's never boiled and Dave Walker who had it before me said he'd never had any issues with cooling but it was damn hot today! So there we were, 5 miles from the CT national when the car died on me, we coasted into the side of the road but it was a bad place to stop. Alfter messing about checking injectors...