The 5 minute job turns into a nightmare

What a silly thing to get stuck on. I thought I'd fit the stainless steel sill finishers onto the PI, easy enough, although the car came without the trim I had found a good pair on eBay and Chris Witor does the special fixing buttons and pop rivets so I'd bought some of those. All the holes were already drilled and basically the job was - pop rivet the new buttons on and then attach the trim.
I expected to have to bang the trim on with the palm of my hand, OK maybe a soft faced hammer. Well, what a pain it's proved to be! The trim buttons have to be a tight git but the angles involved make it so tricky to get the trim lined up, added to the fact that if you don't do it right you risk bending the back of the trim and then it will never go on properly. I had to space out one button with a small stainless washer behind it, just to allow the trim to get a grip. One side is on, the passenger side is in progress now - I came in to swear at the kids.
I am going to have to space a few of these buttons but you only really find that out after you've fitted them so then you have to drill out the rivets - not easy when they spin as they are all well drenched in waxoil! Grrrr and what I'm really annoyed about was that this isn't actually a priority job at all but now one side is on I must finish the other!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Lucas PI info - some pearls of wisdom here :-)

Over the years I've collected loads of info and books about the PI system, some better than others. I have always meant to scan and post up some of the more interesting stuff. I had my scanner working recently (but not on my spanking new Vista equipped PC - incompatible!) so I thought I'd scan a few things when I came across an old trio of A4 sheets held together with a rusty staple. They appear to be pages from a magazine article but from where I don't know. The last page has a few small adds on it but no clue as to where it first appeared. The opening paragraph suggests and owners club and the adverts are 1990 vintage - if you know where this came from please let me know and I'll give them the credit. Anyway, I scanned it and OCR'd it and here it is. I've been through it to correct the OCR errors but if anything doesn't make sense shout up and I'll check the original. THE LUCAS PETROL INJECTION SYSTEM - MARK II We are very fortunate to be able to publi...
Read more

Worried about your trunnions? Relief is to hand!

Image
This is an bit of an infomercial for my mate Dave and his company Canley Classics. I know Dave well, I get most of my Triumph stuff from him. I sometimes work on the Canley Classics stand at shows, I own a Canley Classics T shirt and I have spent many hours driving Triumphs with him. Other Triumph parts suppliers are available, your mileage may vary and this may contain nuts. If you don't like what I say, ignore it :-) - It's a well know fact that the small chassis Triumphs have some design frailties. One of the more spectacular failures you can suffer stems from the front trunnions. When you get a failure here you can loose a front wheel - this isn't a good thing. Often incorrectly known as "trunnion failure" what actually happens is that the vertical link that sits in the trunnion snaps - it does this for a number of reasons, lack of maintenance, fatigue, corrosion, previous trauma, bad luck. Most often it's the nearside that goes, it's the side that ...
Read more

TR6 Clutch investigation (and interior replacement)

Image
Blimey, it's been a long time since I did anything serious in the garage. Having found myself with some time on my hands - I'm currently looking for paid work again - I decided it was high time I sorted out the TR6 interior. When I got the car it was the interior that let it down, a bit of a mix of old and repro trim, mostly past it's best, carpets stick directly to the floor and sagging seats. I did the seats immediately and then gathered the parts to do the rest - new carpets, underlay, a trim kit, H frame cover, clips and fastenings, glue, etc, etc. So it seemed like a "cheap" job as I had all of the big cost items. It was just time - and now I have that. So I stripped it all out and there it sat earlier this week, looking all empty and then I thought what a pig of a job it would be to have to take it all out again to fix the clutch! You see I've always had a tricky clutch in the car, not awful but occasionally when warm it gets quite "off/on...
Read more