Ressurection by proxy

This last year has been an interesting one, those who've followed my blogs from the start will note that work has had a big influence on what I've been able to do with my Triumphs. This last year was no exception. I'll cur a long story short but in essence, I've become a contractor, to the firm I used to work for as a salaried employee. OK so it's not a huge deal but it does mean that the day rate is king and if I don't work I don't get paid - but when I do work, it's at a decent rate.

All this waffle translates to the fact that I can earn more working than I need to spend to have the Vitesse resurrected - Mrs C did the maths and pointed out that I should just get on with it or pay someone else to do so.

Finding someone wasn't that difficult, I've always been interested in workshops, how they run, how you turn a profit, who's trustworthy and does quality work and who isn't. I've got a lot of friends who work on cars in their spare time and are rather good at it. So I looked at who was good, well priced, I could trust and was available. Of course available is tricky because most good mechanics are in demand and booked up or semi-retired or just busy with their own cars.

Giving the car to someone else didn't come easy, it's been weird not having it here and even weirder discussing progress, diagnosing issues and working through problems remotely as the car went down to the south coast to a fellow Triumph fettler. He's not a full time car mechanic but he has several cars, has rebuilt a few and above all, is someone I trust.

The list was long and he's made some serious progress, it was never going to be a fast job, he has a day job, but we are nearing the end.

Remember, this car is very modified, lots of those mods were complete but some were not far past prototyping, so some didn't work and needed re-thinking, some did work and needed fully fitting and some were only ideas. The car had been off the road for circa 25 years which is always a challenge BUT the previous owner, Adam, is still interested and has been a great help - still is. I'm very grateful for his help.

Amongst the jobs were:

  • Get some new tyres on it!
  • Reconnect and complete the fuel system with an outboard pump mounted under the rear boot floor, panelled in with a dirt shield and plumber/wired in for easy servicing.
  • Remount the battery box and fuel tank with support underneath so that I could get a full size spare in the already enlarged spare wheel well.
  • Remount the wheel alloy arch extensions so that I didn't keep hurting myself when working on the engine - I wanted to make then removeable rather than rivetted in place.
  • Coolant change and bleed the brakes properly, 
  • Reposition the oil filter so it could be serviced - it's a remote mount and wasn't finished. Put some protection around the oil cooler as it's quite vulnerable to stone strikes.
  • Several "make it serviceable" jobs - stuff wasn't necessarily made to be be easily removed and serviced. Not a huge issue but now we can remove the radiator fan as it's attached with rivnuts and an electrical plug. We can get at the oil filter and when we make a mess, that will be easy to clean.
  • Get it running - assemble the PI system, go through the ignition and fuel system.
I've realised I've waffled on so here are a few pictures to break up the waffle

Oil Cooler a little vulnerable

Wheel arch extensions are great but get in my way when working on the engine. I wanted to make them easily removeable.

Externally mounted 044 type fuel pump. I've always been against this sort of pump but, I respect the process that brough the previous owner to the 044 and I'm going to give it a try. It needed a little protection from the elements and a permanent mounting. The previous owner was experimenting and had not finalised things here.

20+ years will do that to the guts of an injector. I will recondition these myself but in the meantime, a set of Neil Fergusons injectors are installed.

The coolant was clear and clean BUT this is what we found in the thermostat - the aluminium top hose seems to encourage formation of this goop.

OK enough for one blog, much of the work has been done and I intend to report on it here - if and when I have the time :-)



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