Jason's Blog

That's it, I pronounce the car ready and packed, sleep tonight then load up and off to the Isle of Wight for beer and sunshine, OK well beer anyway :-)

Well that was a fun evening's work. I went digging for spares, yup I have alternators. 4 of them to be precise including a new 45amp ACR. That's good I thought, all I need to do now is get the pulley off. Err, that's not so easy, would the damn thing come off? No, it would not, no matter what I did - I didn't want to start pounding on it as it's cast so I went away to have a cup of tea and a think. Now it wasn't exactly how I planned it but I got rid of the problem by fumbling the alternator, dropping it and cracking the pulley - don't need to get it off now! OK, I have a spare one - somewhere! I knew I had one and a fan, it was painted with blue hammerite, I could picture it but could I bloody find it? Could I bollocks. I turned the garage upside down but still no sign of it. The changes of finding another were slim. Another cup of tea and a moan to my wife then a revelation, I hated it being blue and had thrown it in the sandblaster ages ago along with the...

After yesterday's triumphant MOT pass I took the car for an extended test drive, out through the countryside and, purely by accident, through Buckleberry. I saw a few cameras and even passed a small film crew (so if you see a white PI on TV, it's me :-) The car went well, stopped well, in fact I was very happy, so happy that I thought I'd go and pick up my wife from work when she finished. All was fine except the odd hiccup and the engine started to feel a little strange - like I was in too high a gear all the time. Must be the timing I thought, until we almost got home, then the car spluttered and died. It was not in the best of places for roadside fettling and although it turned over and tried to fire the battery went dead pretty quickly - I dispatched the perplexed wife to go fetch the modern car and she towed me home. I had to go back to work so just put the battery on charge and left it. I returned later, turned the key and she sprang into life! A brief check this morn...

Find brake problem - tick Get parts - tick, cross, tick Fix brakes - tick Get MOT - tick (v pleased) Pack for Isle of Wight - later.... Well it started off as a bit of a mission, wrong parts turned up for the master cylinder, panic to get the right ones, supplier didn't post them on time, second MOT cancelled but eventually I got the right ones and rebuilt the master cylinder. Got it all back together and of course was now out of MOT so couldn't really take it for an extended test drive. It "should" be OK and thankfully is was. MOT passed with no adviseries, brakes feel good, car feels much better - I may even get to the Isle of Wight and back without any dramas this year :-) I will of course be taking many, many spares but that's for another day (there aren't many left). However, at the moment I am a happy bunny and have treated the car to a tank for of the good stuff, which after taking the very long way home from the MOT station, it seems to like. Next stop...

I think I've got to the core of these dodgy brakes - in my previous blog entry I described how they would come on and stay on almost at random. Well it wasn't a pipe too close to the exhaust, it wasn't the servo, it wasn't the pedal return spring or the pivot pin seized, it was the master cylinder - or at least I think it is. I went through the "non-invasive" ideas that I gathered from the Club Triumph Forum and from responses to this blog - thanks readers :-) I was away this week so I ordered parts for a master cylinder rebuild, unfortunately the wrong ones turned up and I didn't know enough to see they were wrong until I had stripped it down. Apparently there are 2 single circuit versions, 13/16th bore and 3/4 bore. Anyway, I have ordered the right parts (and cancelled today's MOT) I'll have to sort it out in the week, I think I am on the road for work only once and that's a day trip into the city so it should all be OK to meet the new MOT de...

OK so the rough running is largely sorted, at least I can start tuning from a position of normality! Now the next weird issue - brakes. For a while I have had an intermittent braking problem, the brakes come on and stay on, at first it felt like one front caliper was to blame. I'd had issues with it throwing it's fluid out of the seals a while ago, I;d renewed the seals and then it happened again so I replaced the while unit with a recon one and all was OK for a while. Then it started again, you're driving along and the car feel sluggish, you change gear and realise that the car slows down a lot between the change, the brakes are on! You try and drive through it and it just gets worse, pull over and you have very hot brakes, all brakes not just the fronts. OK so I think this is weird, must be a collapsing flexible hose acting like a one way valve, so I replace all 4 and bleed the brakes. Tonight whilst giving the car a good spanking to see if the rough running is cured, I g...

.... since I updated this blog. That's probably because not a great deal has been happening. You see after the the International Auto Ecosse last year I was somewhat disheartened with the car and my own ability to get it running right. I'd been all through the injection and the ignition systems, twice. I was systematic and careful, or so I thought. It didn't seem to matter what I did or indeed what issues I found and fixed, the engine still would not pull strongly and didn't sound smooth. It wasn't quite a misfire but it wasn't right. Pulling plug leads off didn't isolate a real misfire but a chance piece of night driving revealed that full beam could make it worse. As would sounding the horn (air horns). Now I have an electronic pressure gauge that doesn't really instil confidence - it seems to register 102 PSI no matter which pump or PRV goes on. I'm not sure it's ever been accurate despite being new and specified properly - it should regist...