Jason's Blog

Tally ho!

2011-04-28T18:31:00.002Z

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 :-)

...still being tested!

2011-04-27T20:57:00.002Z

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 fan.

Great, I have all the bots, I whacked them all on and guess what? No charge!!! No ignition light either - weird!

A curl up in the corner and rock gently to and fro moment - I was close to giving up, very close. Then I reverted to type and started wiggling wires and swearing, Olympic class swearing. Then it happened, a loose wire - I was tracing the wires from the alternator - the power wire was OK, so the feed to the alternator to "excite" it was OK, the thick permanent live was OK but the other wire went into the loom and round the otherside of the engine bay. It comes out at a dodgy plastic crimped connector, a favourite of the previous owner and I hate them. Yup, sure enough it was loose, so loose that it came apart on my hand.

So out with my electrical tools and a new Luca connection made (I actually like these now I have the right kit to make them). I even remade the other dodgy crimped connector and made a resolution to replace these where ever and when ever I see them!

So that was that, the car started up OK and shows a healthy charge at the battery. I now doubt that the original alternator was suspect but what the hell! All it cost me was a pulley (which I must replace, don't like to be down to the last of anything!).

OK so now I must use the car tomorrow and see what the last tests of the Gods are!

The Gods are testing me

2011-04-27T09:22:00.002Z

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 morning reveals the alternator isn't charging :-(

I don't recall any warning lights coming on and I don't recall looking at the ammeter and seeing anything amiss. Today the dash lights behave normally, the ammeter shows a slight discharge but then it's so slight and I'm so unfamiliar with this gauge (it's usefulness or accuracy) that none of this is especially useful to me. Maybe a bit of under dash investigation is needed to make sure everything is well connected?

Now the alternator is not an old unit, I think it's the one that was on my Vitesse that makes it a recon one that's now done about 6000 miles at the most.

I'm going to dig out my spares and see what I have but I'm more suspicious of the wiring than the alternator. I've had other wiring issues with the front of this car and yesterday's attempts to start the car resulted in that hot wiring smell we all fear.

Investigation into the smell revealed a rather crusty connector to the starter relay (it's a high torque one) so I replaced the whole wire and connectors right back to the loom but I can't think that was anything to do with the car dying on me.

So a little more paying work then it's out with the tester and see what the alternator circuit's like, if that's OK then a quick alternator change and back out for an extended test drive, again!

Just mumbling under my breath now "I'm going to the Isle of Wight in it if it kills me!"

Check lists and ticks

2011-04-26T11:33:00.002Z

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, the Isle of Wight.

Broken brakes diagnosed

2011-04-16T15:01:00.003Z

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 deadline of Thursday.

Annoying as I had plans for the car this weekend but it can't be helped.

The master cylinder was deceptive, it looked fine, fluid was clear and it seemed to function OK. However, when I came to drain it fully all manner of filth and nastiness came out - I really thought it would be ruined inside but the bore is clean as a whistle and the piston fine. It looks like one of the the seals has gone back to nature, the cup seal is really more akin to fruit pastel than a seal. I've cleaned it all out ready for new rubbers.

I've also bought and fitted some stainless anti-vibration straps for the rear subframe mounts. I noticed one was broken and when I changed the other it was very thin and showing signs of fracture too. I didn't especially want stainless but it's not a bad idea as they do sit in the firing line of all the road crap there.

The last few jobs were to clean and lubricate the brake pedal pivot and now I've come in to order the correct colour wire for my newly relayed pump - it's got some cobbled together "see if this works" temporary wiring in there at the moment. As I need a long length I may as well get the right colour and spec. I think I will also treat myself to a new crimper, might get a nice professional one as the one I have is pretty old and crap - the professional one I have for Lucas bullets is really good.

So, to finish off, I am feeling very much happier with the car although I still haven't actually fixed it yet and I still haven't been able to get out and drive it yet -I have patience :-)

The next conundrum!

2011-04-12T21:17:00.003Z

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 get the same issue, brakes on.

So, I think, well it can't be the flexible hoses, it must be the servo multifunctioning. Easy isolated, I disconnected the vaccum hose, plugged it up and went for a drive - bugger me if the same issue doesn't come back, just as bad as before. I had to pull over and wait for the smoke to drift off the brakes!

Now the car has a Mk2 bulkhead servo on it and I've never had this apart but I wonder if it's just in need of a rebuild? I hold fluid, feels OK, stops the car when asked, with or without the vac pipe attached.

So, what the hell is happening here??

It's been a long time.....

2011-04-11T19:33:00.003Z

.... 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 register up to 150 psi. Anyway, full beam did seem the pressure drop to 100psi. The car will run down to about 85psi so I kind of thought it wasn't injection related. I know that's not good and never a long term prospect.

I've changed everything in the injection system from throttle bodies to metering unit to prv and pump.

So I then decided the problem was ignition based, wiring to the low tension side - you know how it is, you turn it over and over in your mind and you know it's the cause and you know how to test it and fix it. So you go out there and wire the coild directly to the battery and turn it over and ......

...she runs.....

...... but it's no bloody different! The rough running is still there.

So, back to square one. What else can it be - fuel pressure? It doesn't make any difference which pump of prv combination, I still see 102psi.

Now those you who know me well also know I am crap at electrickery - it's black magic as far as my small brain is concerned. I know I'm crap at it so I tend to avoid it but there was one modification that I hadn't done and that was to rewire the pump with a relay. You use the existing wiring to switch a relay and power the pump from a new chunky cable direct from the battery.

I'm indebted to Paul "Bodders" Bodiam who, after a chat at a club meeting last week, sent me an email with some test to do before I started re-wiring things. The tests showed me that there was a 2.1 volt loss in the original wiring. That is not good for the pump!

So, a quick re-wire (which revealed my less than adequate supply of wire!) and I still got 102psi on the gauge but it didn't drop. I did see 103 psi briefly but so briefly I'm not sure it was real!

Whilst the car was sticking over I did a stupid thing. I should have taken it for a test drive and tried to figure out if my modification had really made a difference before I did anything else. Of course I didn't!

I continued to fiddle.

In previous fiddlings I had managed to mangle the throttle return spring and found something I thought was suitable, nailed it on and created a totally crap throttle pedal, too hard. So I found some suitable replacement springs on eBay - E type Jag ones (apparently), perfect!

Whilst fiddling with return springs I started looking at the throttle butterflies and how t hey opened. It was then that I realised they were not exactly synchronised - blocking the air bleed didn't kill the engine. So, yet more fiddling and I got them synchronised, I can't quite figure out how they got out of whack as they were the first thing I checked (I've already changed the throttle bodies once).

So, having messed up my logical approach to problem solving, I took the car for a spin. It's better! I can't quite believe it, so I don't. I only got to give it a quick spin down the road and so I'm not going to pronounce it "fixed" just yet.

So, was it the power to the pump or was it the throttle butterflies? More work needed I think.

In the meantime, I have noticed one of the anti-vibration straps on the rear suspension is broken so I need to get a new pair. I've replaced all the flexible hoses and the pedal feels better, after the first pump - which means I need to bleed the brakes properly this time!

Right, there's lots more odds and sods been going on but I'll save them for another time - next mission is renew the MOT and get the car to the Isle of Wight at the end of the month :-)

In a moment of weakness......

2011-01-15T10:57:00.000Z

I was considering an iPad when I stumbled across this that made me laugh out loud - YouTube - Will It Blend? - iPad and felt I had to blog it even though it's a useless 1 min 40 seconds of silliness.

I still can't quite bring myself to jump on-board the Apple cart though.

Service Training Notes Lucas Petrol Injection Manual on eBay (end time 16-Nov-10 17:26:15 GMT)

2010-11-13T22:50:00.000Z

Interesting bundle on eBay

Service Training Notes Lucas Petrol Injection Manual on eBay (end time 16-Nov-10 17:26:15 GMT)

no financial interest on my part. I have most of this already in one form or another.

The Triumph 2000 Story – The Big Triumphs in ‘Works’ Competition: 1964-1976 | The Triumph 2000 2500 2.5 Register

2010-11-06T11:23:00.000Z

I received an email the other day asking if I could supply a few pictures for an article to appear on the Triumph 2000 register web site. I'm always happy to help and share what I've collected over the years. I don't actually covert the physical items like photos, I value the image, what it tells us about the history, so I don't actually that many physical photos. I do have lots of images that I collect from either scanning those photos or from other web sites. I also get sent a lot of images and spend far too long surfing and searching (although that's reduced lately due to work and travel commitments)

Anyway, here's the article which is a good read.

The Triumph 2000 Story – The Big Triumphs in ‘Works’ Competition: 1964-1976 | The Triumph 2000 2500 2.5 Register

I can make a little known addition to the details of the Lloyd-Hirst, Englefield, Baker privately entered 2.5PI - although out of time the car and crew carried on until Brian Englefield was laid low with respiratory issues (dust inhalation) but that still didn't stop the car completely and it actually reached the end in Mexico City. Sadly not a classified finisher but nevertheless an achievement. The car changed registration number, to a Jersey number and continued rallying in Brian's hands. Brian also bought a spare works shell, spares and two of the works cars which he campaigned.

Anyway, I digress and I have to get on with a bit of Round Britain work, off to the "post mortem" meeting with Tim and Nigel to see what we can do better next time, in 2012!

International Auto Ecosse pictures

2010-06-14T08:43:00.004Z

Thanks to Andy Martin's camera in the hands of I think Dave Pearson here are a few action shots of me making a mess of the test circuit. All I can say in my defence is that I was laughing too much to notice where the cones were and was completely unable to control the old girl around them anyway. Turns out I missed only one which I count as a superb victory!

First is the calm before the storm, you get a 5,4,3,2,1 count down and then you're off!

This was me trying to give it some welly to drift round a cone

The result of the welly giving was to produce an impressive cloud of dust and missing the cone by a mile.

OK so I was on the wrong side of the cone!

So I finished with an impressive fishtail - OK perhaps I was the only one impressed

All told it was over in the blink of an eye, but it was fun!

Now I know why it's called an alternator....

2010-06-13T14:22:00.001Z

...because you alternate between thinking you've fixed and not!

This is getting very silly indeed, I though maybe I had a dodgy alternator so I started checking that out today, Oh hang on, let's get back to the beginning

The symptoms are that there is a persistent misfire, it's not on a specific cylinder but it's more like she's not fully firing all the time. It's through out the rev range and doesn't seem to respond to any fuel or ignition settings (choke in/out, advanced/retarded) you can't "drive through" it.

Engine is fresh and has excellent (190psi) and equal compression. Cam timing and valve gaps are all spot on. Metering unit is timed correctly, all injectors are spraying a good cone pattern with no dribbles or bleed back.

I have replace or rebuilt all of the ignition system at least twice. New coil, leads, cap, rotor arm, plugs, points, (tried electronic ignition too).

The fuel system is OK, pressure seems pretty constant over 100 psi on the electronic gauge. The gauge seems to only want to read up to a max of 102 psi despite it being a 160psi one. The injection seems to work OK as she will run right down to 80psi or less before she stops or chugs.

So, back to the alternator - why do I suspect it? Well it's a recent recon ACR type of unknown origin or output (although I think it's an 18ACR). It replaced the one that came with the car (also and ACR) that I suspected was faulty, it wasn't charging properly - but now I'm not so sure!

Anyway, the misfire is still there but if the car is running and I switch the lights on, I get a pronounced misfire. I get the same type of misfire if I wound the horn (air horns) for a 2 or 3 second burst.

So, I test the alternator to see if it's failed or not. Now it gets interesting - vehicle electrics are not one of my best areas of skill - I admit to being a bit of a thicko here. Electrickery is one of the great unknowns for me and operating a multimeter is a challenge. Getting the test results is OK but what do they mean and are they normal?

Well here's what I got.

Ignition off - voltage at the battery 13.06v - seems healthy
@ idle - voltage at the battery is only 12.9 volts but....
@ fast idle - voltage at the battery is 14.17 and it doesn't get any more at higher engine speeds

So that would seem to indicate that the alternator is charging OK.

So then my mind turned to what was the voltage at the coil whilst all this was going on - now I'm not too sure what these readings mean but I took them so I'll thrown them out to the Triumph intelligenci and see what comes back.

Coil resistance is 3.7 Ohms, correct for a non-ballast resistor set-up
Voltage at coil with engine at idle is 5.7 volts and it drops to 3.2 volts at fast idle
Voltage between battery negative and coil positive at idle is 6.29 volts and it drops to 4 volts at fast idle
Voltage between coil positive and battery negative is 12.55 volts at idle and rises to 13.6 volts at fast idle

It's fair to say I haven't a clue as to what all that means but it doesn't look right to me.

The next fun is the wiring - here's where a factory diagram isn't much help. As a Mk1 PI it should have a Lucas alternator with a separate control box. It doesn't have anything of the sort, it's got wires bundled together and a few brown ones not plugged into anything at all, just taped up out of the way.

There are three wires connected to the alternator, the chunkiest brown one goes straight to the battery positive, a thinner yellow and brown wire goes from the centre terminal on the alternator into the loom. There's a thinner still wire which is brown and green and also goes into the loom.

So a few questions for anyone interested in helping me make sense of this.

As I see it, the Brown/Green wire is the warning light wire and should not have any effect on the efficiency of the alternator. If it's only used for energising the alternator then when defective the alternator will not charge. As mine does charge then my logic says leave it alone! Am I right - the wiring diagram shows this should be a Brown/Yellow wire!
The Brown/Yellow wire, being chunky, must carry some of the charging current (rather than being the energising wire) but where does it go? I can trace it into a cheap and nasty after market crimped joiner near the fuse box on the other side of the engine bay but where it goes after that I'm not sure. Does it supply fuse number 2 - headlamp flasher relay, horn and interior light/Cigarette lighter?? Am I right - the wiring diagram shows this should be a Brown/Green wire!
The heavy duty Brown wire goes straight to the battery, that's easy.

I can test some of these theories by disconnecting things but I don't want to do that with the engine running or I'll screw up the alternator properly. Can I do it with the ignition on but the car not running?

Anyway, enough of such things, I'm off to fiddle again but this is baffling me! All suggestions gratefully received!

International Auto Ecosse

2010-06-12T11:56:00.001Z

What a weekend! I was well prepared (as I always feel I am, I'm usually wrong) and drove up to Canley Classics on Thursday afternoon to meet up with Dave. The intention being to have a final fettle and see if we could cure an annoying brake judder on Thursday then have a leisurely start to the journey midday Friday. Joe and Frank Welling were also starting from Canleys and Tims Bancroft and Hunt were going to meet us there to travel up to the Old Stone Trough on Friday. We were due to set off at about 1pm. That all left plenty of time for the inevitable "issues" that crop up.

This event would the car's longest journey in my ownership, in fact it was 1500 miles door to door. I'd had an annoying misfire for weeks before and felt I;d cured it, the car went well on the 100 mile trip up to Dave's place, I didn't push it.

Of course things started to go a little pear shaped when the misfire returned and the brake judder got annoyingly worse! We resolved to sort the misfire first and then move on to the brakes later.

By the time Friday came we'd basically done a full service on the car again and were hooking it up to Dave's Crypton machine, a formidable piece of kit with valves and all sorted of radar like traces on a screen.

It was frustrating, we found stuff that was wrong and with satisfying "Aha" moments we fixed one after another only to be left with the same misfire.

Metering unit timing was changed, ignition timing was fiddled with, plugs were changed, compression test done (bang on - all cylinders the same at 190psi) vacuum tested - everything was spot bollock on. It should be, the engine's pretty much new having been build around a Witor cam and barely run in. I even found a dribbling injector which I replaced with a new one.

On the last test run I took the car out and gave it a spanking down the lane, where it promptly birdsnested it's fan belt! It had looked a bit weird and I'd checked the tension earlier but better it went then than on the run up or worse, in the Highlands!

Because the PI has power steering it was a little bit of fiddle to replace as I needed to take the PAS belt off first and it's quite tight, not to mention red hot down there - I did utter a few expletives as I singed my arms repeatedly.

Joe Welling was having fun too, he's rocked up with his Vitesse dragging it's arse severely - the lowering block was just too much. There was no way he was doing the event with the car sitting like that so he removed it. The new alternator wasn't charging which turned out to be a wiring error, all fixed without drama.

Tim Bancroft pitched up early and Tim Hunt was on time so off we went into the scorching midday sunshine. As ever, the M6 was a bloody nightmare and we started to get some fuelling issues with cavitation. The pump screams as it starts to pump vaporised fuel. This leads to a drop in pressure as shown on my gauge. The PI will run right down at 80 PSI but it's not very pleasant. As soon as you get any lower the injectors start to suffer, they crack open at about 60 PSI and if they don't get enough pressure, they just don't open!

Once or twice we thought we'd be on the hard shoulder but we never actually died. We made it to Barnoldswick in good time and apart from a little underbonnet issue we were OK - I had spare pumps I could change it when we got to Gretna. The underbonnet issue was that the plenum had pulled one of the steel rings out of the alli throttle bodies - I hadn't fitted the support for the plenum and the weight had just been a bit much. So I cleaned it up and applied some Araldite, Tim B gave me some lock wire and I wired it all up so it couldn't go anywhere, job's a good 'un.

At Gretna we took a look at the pump. It was then that another one of those "Aha" moments happened.

Now those of you who know Lucas PI will know that there are a lot of pipes and flows of fuel around the car - high pressure supply to the pressure relief valve which provides two outputs, one is the regulated 106PSI supply to the metering unit the other is a low pressure "spill" which goes back to the tank, sometimes via a cooling coil wrapped around the pump. This cools the pump body. There's also a spill from the metering unit of low pressure fuel that goes back to the tank.

So you can imagine that it's easy to get confused or to see "solutions" that ignore some simple rules of physics. Yup, you've guessed it, I got it wrong again :-) What I'd done was to route the spill from the PRV round a cooling coil and back into the filter head. Neat but with one tiny little flaw - you see what I was doing wasn't cooling the pump it was making sure it got the warmest fuel in the system! Warmed fuel would go back into the filter under mild pressure, that would overcome the gravity pressure of the cold fuel in the tank and yes, recirculate through the pump! What a plonker. So a quick re-plumbing was in order. I needed a T piece to splice the return into the low pressure spill return into the tank -

I'm not sure how it's supposed to go as I think I have a Mk2 saloon tank rather than a PI tank but I'll have a better look and figure it out.

I pulled a T piece off my vac gauge and spliced it all in (I always carry a PI parts kit in a boax that includes Araldite, pies, clips, vac gauge, spare injectors, metering unit, pump, seals, o rings etc).

Although the pump had behaved from Barnoldswick to Gretna I swapped it out for a spare I'd built up. I didn't bother with the cooling coil at this point and we never had another pump issue all weekend. That said, the M6 episode was doubtless because the air temp was so very hot!

Anyway, Gretna is a weird place, unlikely looking wedding parties and coach parties of pyjama clad teenagers. We got our heads down for some sleep and an leisurely start.

Here we are at the start next to Frank and Joe Welling in the Vitesse.

The event was a cracking good laugh, weather was excellent, loads of sunshine not much rain. Memorable parts include my first ever attempt at an autotest (I was crap) plus the Corkscrew which is an insane road click on the link, go to Google Street View mode and you can virtually walk up it. As you can see, it's a bloody tight set of hairpins that are impossibly narrow and steep. It's at times like this you realise just how crazy we are to do these things!

The Autotest at Inverary Castle was interesting, a dusty gravel section proved more visually entertaining than competitive, not that I was trying to put in a good time. I was just trying to do the course properly, failed on that one - "You missed a cone!" said the timekeeper. The truth is, I saw it, I just couldn't get the car round it!

We lost a few people during the weekend, Tim B to a wheel bearing failure, seems they were fitted too tightly and we didn't catch the issue in time before the nearside was wrecked. We tried a rebuild at the roadside just overlooking the submarine base. As if that wasn't enough we also lost Joe and Frank Welling on the route home, just south of Shap when a wheel bearing on his Vitesse exploded in the fast lane, Franks's laundry bill went up but the car made it to safety on the hard shoulder.

Epic performance of the weekend ,ust go to Dave Langrick who finished a chassis change on his 6 pot Spitfire then drove solo from Nottingham to Stirling to meet us. Dave stuck with it for the rest of the event and drove home with Dave and I - top down in the torrential rain and sunshine. What a mentalist!

Issues on my car - fast indicators, crap brake lights, persistent misfire and the ever present brake judder - I loved the weekend.

We did about 22.5 MPG which for the type of driving and the state of the car wasn't so bad - the Vitesse did 19 on the same event 2 years ago and the same on the Ten Countries so 22.5 is an improvement!

I haven't yet had a proper look at the issues, I arrived home at 21:30 on Monday, went to bed and was on a plane to Dublin the next morning for work. Yesterday was my Birthday and today I've been catching up on RBRR stuff. I might get a looksee later.

Check out the last 15 minutes of BBC Scotland's TV programme "Landward" episode 10

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Landward, 2010/2011, Episode 10

There's also a write up from the organising club, the Caledonian Classic & Historic Motorsport Club here

Happy days

2010-06-01T21:46:00.002Z

Went out to the local group meeting - it's a TSSC meet (I was the area Organiser when I was a TSSC member) but we welcome everyone from any club, no questions asked. It's a half an hour drive for me as it's in Hook, the other side of Reading and down towards Basingstoke. Nice blat along some country roads and the PI ran very well indeed, no sign of the misfire and actually feels pleasant again.

Two issues cropped up, the brake judder is not improved, if anything it's worse, despite correct hold down hardware now (thanks Ted) and despite everything working seemingly as it should. I can't figure it out, the brakes judder and it doesn't come through on the steering wheel so I'm guessing rear wheels. Yet when I apply the handbrake (whilst moving) there isn't a trace of judder. More head scratching I think.

The second thing? I flashed my headlights and the fuse blew - it didn't mean the loss of headlights, just the loss of horn, interior light, cigarette lighter and headlight flash. It was a 15 amp fuse. I don't know if that's right or not (Mk1 owners please tell me) I had some spare 35amp ones so I've thrown one of those in but I do need to investigate.

All in all a pleasant trip, I feel a little more confident now - of course two 30 minute drives means she'll make it 1500 miles to and around Scotland and back :-)

Diving under the bonnet for fun with my horn

2010-05-31T22:14:00.000Z

I know, I know, I must stop it with the Carry-on gutter mentality but I watched Carry on at your convenience recently (I'm not really sure why) and it's affected me!

I like air horns, the louder the better. There's something fundamental about a car horn that's been lost over the years. I mean nowadays it's a polite little "peep" in a sort of camp "Yoo hoo!" way. Horns should be loud in a sort of "Oy! Get the *$%# out the way!" style, more of a warning device than anything else.

So I had been looking out for a nice set of Fiamms or maybe some Maserati air horns but these things don't come up too often, when they do they are expensive. I've had a few bids in recently and been frustrated so I just bought some cheapo air horns off eBay and thought I'd fit them up whilst I keep looking for some nice period ones.

So when Tim came over for an afternoon's car fettling he asked what jobs there were to do and, seeing as he could totally see where I was coming from on the whole air horn thing, he decided that would be his task - in no time at they were fitted. Whilst the metal mounting bracket is the best I could find it's not ideal although it does serve a purpose in that it removes the need to drill a hold in the inner wheel arch which I'd rather avoid. We joked about the stingy length of tubing the kit provided but it was enough for a compact installation.

I was always a little paranoid as to whether an air horn would pass an MOT or not so I was going to wire it into a selector switch and retain the standard horns, as it happens we have one standard and the air horns together at the moment. I'll live with it and see how it goes. I'll keep a look out for a better bracket but it's quite solid as it is.

There were a few other jobs to do but one that I'd been meaning to do for a while and kept fannying about over was the fitting of the correct Mk 1 2.5pi under-bonnet sound pad. I'd acquired some stainless steel pipe to make up some better fixing bars and together Tim and I sorted it into two bars, drilled and fitted up with the hard to find but a little tatty fibreglass pad (thanks again Tim).

I had intended to restore the pad in some way but to be honest it's a bit of a nightmare - it's made from what looks like compressed fibreglass loft insulation (aka Rockwool) with some sort of light surface treatment to keep it together. I'd done some experiments with thinned down resin that could be sprayed before curing but how to re-compress the bits that were damaged? In the end we fitted it as it was and it looked OK. However, I then decided that at the least I could give it a light coat of black UHT paint to make sure it was all one colour and I'm glad I did, here's the result which looks really good in the photos.

I'm indebted to Tim for coming round and getting stuck in, I've been spending more time in the garage and enjoying working on the car again after far too long of not getting anything done.

I also managed to change out the fuel pump, sort out some wiring in the boot and build another fuel pump yesterday.

Although only small jobs it was good to have someone to blame for when things didn't go to plan.

What a stud - bigger is better

2010-05-30T08:03:00.003Z

Now then, this posting can be read in a serious voice or you can put a Frankie Howerd voice on and insert as much innuendo as you can handle - oooo missus!

It's always been a concern of mine that with the Stag brakes (and some spacers to clear the brake drums) my rear wheel studs were not showing through the nuts. I was not hugely concerned because they are long tube nuts and as such there was a lot of thread to them but I always feel more comfortable seeing the stud in the nut.

It's always been said that Ford studs would fit and after some consultation with the oracles on the Club Triumph Forum (thanks Andy Thompson et al) it turns out it's Ford RS2000 competition studs that are needed. A trawl around eBay and other sires revealed a huge difference in price for what is a fairly cheap component. In the end I got them from these guysMtec Racing Services for a very modest £1.40 each. What you need are Ford Wheel Stud 7/16" UNF 55mm long (there are other lengths available) this means you keep the imperial thread and so can use the same wheel nuts - my nuts are open tube nuts so I don't have to worry about the stud hitting the dome of a domed nut.

I fitted the rears without too much trouble, they are a straight swap - there's a bit of fiddling around to get them in but I managed in the end with thoughts of those Christmas cracker bent metal puzzles that seem impossible until they come apart in your hands with no effort whatsoever!

The fronts were not so easy. OK so there was no dismantling to do and they studs are just long enough to fiddle in but there is a problem that I'd never thought of - the front and rear studs were not the same! The fronts are a bit shorter but more importantly and fatal to my application, is that the shoulder is lower. That means that although the long studs will go in and although I could get the wheels on nuts on, I could not tighten up the nuts. They were bottoming out on the protruding shoulder before the wheel was tight. If I put spacers on the front or turned down the shoulder on a lathe then I might get them on OK.

The photo above shows, from left to right, Front, Rear, Ford.

The answer? Well one answer anyway,stick the Stag rears in thee front and that's what I did. It's not ideal as they aren't as long as I'd like but they are better than the originals.

I forgot to take a picture of the rears but below is a front wheel as was. No sign of a stud in the nut. The nuts, being tube nuts, go right inside the wheel. This means it 's a real pain to refit the wheels as you have to get the stud central whilst supporting the weight of the wheel then fit the nut which is a tight fit in the wheel!

Now here's the view with one ling stud, as you can see it was long but look at the shoulder.

Below is a picture of the wheel over the new studs - originally there would have been no stud showing at all. This is a rear and has wide track Stag suspension and brakes plus spacers to clear the Stag drums. I had to grind off the cast in lettering on the drums to get the KN Gemini wheels to sit right.

and finally below is the finished article, new studs and original tube nuts (with washer) that I have never seen anywhere else and am a bit frightened of losing/wrecking because finding new ones could be a pain!

I also managed to reseal the exhaust silencer and the bendy bit that goes over the driveshaft, this was just a jointing issue and wasn't really a problem just a minor annoyance.

I've got a few other bits and bobs to do in preparation for the International Autoecosse next weekend and Tim Bancroft is coming over for mechanical and moral support. Nothing major just some electrics, cosmetics and audio (no, I'm not fitting a stereo).

Big knob bad, small knob good

2010-05-09T19:22:00.003Z

It's been a while since I did anything frivolous on the PI, mainly because it's been rather annoying in resisting all my attempts to get it running right. You see I made a little mental pact with myself - get it running right, move it towards it's potential. Then, and only then, can you start doing all the other jobs that you have stacked up for it!

So it is with some relief that I think I have cracked it this weekend. I have spent two days on the car and been through it step by step.

First a bit of history - it was running OK, then it developed a persistent misfire that you would not drive through. At this point everyone will be blaming the PI. I have installed an electronic fuel pressure gauge in the car so I can see when fuel pressure drops. Yes sometime it has occasionally dropped (I have had several pumps on it testing and developing) but the low fuel pressure misfire is very different to an ignition misfire.

So I had swapped out plugs, leads, cap, rotor arm and coil for a known good one. I'd gone from points to electronic ignition and back again. All to no avail, so pissed off was I that although I drove down to the Isle of Wight, I refused to use the car on the Saturday drive out.

As can be imagined, it was grim determination that I set about the car on Saturday. I'm pleased I did and I'm also pleased I don't make my living doing this sort of stuff because by Sunday morning I'd made no progress whatsoever! I'd put it back on points and then when trying to time it up found my strobe light had died - annoying or what. I got it running and it was, as my erstwhile friend Dave often says, running like a bag-o-shite!

One of the annoyances about the car is that the dizzy is misaligned and the vac unit points into the head making it impossible to pull all the plugs. I decided, pull it all off, dizzy, metering unit , dizzy drive and rotate the oil pump so that I can reassemble the correct way. This means starting a fresh with all timing (ignition and injection)

This morning I swallowed hard and off I went. It took me ages, assembling and reassembling, making and wrecking then remaking the pedestal gasket because I had none. Realising that now was the ideal time to change the choke cable for a NOS one I had acquired - it's a nightmare to attach it to the metering unit in situ but a breeze if it's in your hand. In doing so I realised that the original choke cable was a little kinked and wasn't allowing the over fuel lever to return to closed - it now does.

So I got the Metering Unit timed in OK, got the dizzy mounted then spent the next few hours trying to get the theory of what goes where into practical application - I don't know what happened in my head but I just kept screwing it up. Over and over until I was just about ready to hit it with a hammer and walk away. Then one last time and with a fading battery from all the turning over to no avail, I was ready for the triumphant return of the PI - yes! It only bloody fired and sounded good.

I had bought a brand new coil (Lucas sports) and it had seemed a good time to throw that on. Whilst I was at it I thought I would check and adjust the valve clearances, the car had sounded a little tappety. It needed some adjustment, not much but most were sloppy.

So the only component that I changed today was the coil - could the old coil and the known good one I was using both be crap? They were both the correct 12v coils (no satanic ballast resistors here). I tried the old coils - all fine!

I even managed to appease the Gods somehow and they fixed my timing light which worked at the first attempt. Timed up and running nicely I then went for a blast down the road, it felt good. I drove home and popped the bonnet to admire my work, the engine sounded a bit chattery, something wasn't right. I got my American "Mechanics Stethoscope" out (Thanks Bill) and narrowed it down to the dizzy, it sounded like a bad bearing. Not much I could do about it now I thought. Let's check the vac readings, make sure the engine is as healthy as I think - pulled off the vac tube on the dizzy and stuck it in my gauge.

Hang on!

The noise has stopped! Re-attach the vac advance and the noise is back. It's definitely something to do with the vac advance unit, what I don't know. I pulled the cap off and checked for any fouling of wires or anything obviously loose. The only I can think of now is that whilst I was assembling the points I thought the cheese head machine screw that hold the points on was a bit long (but it's the one that came with the car). I think I'll try the electronic ignition back on again next time I fiddle.

Anyway, vac off let's got for a blast - ooh now that is nice. Pulls well and feels strong. I'm a happy bunny.

As for the title of this post, I bet you're wondering what all this has to do with knob size. Well let me tell you, as a Mk1 owner I have been trying to get all my dash knobs to match but the choke cable knob has never been right, always twice the size of the other knobs - Mk1 PI choke cables are not common on the open market. Now, with the new choke cable I got a choice of two small knobs in the Stanpart bag. So I used the correct one and all is well with the world, I am small knobbed again and proud of it.

So other jobs to do are now looking possible, that is now that the car is running well. On the list are:-

Replace the leaky seal in the fuel pump - I must have put an old pump on in my haste
Fit these longer Ford RS studs I've just bought so there's some thread showing through
Repair the passenger seat, the seam stitching has let go completely now
Fit the air horns I've had on the shelf for 3 years+
Fit the HID headlight upgrade I've had on the shelf for 2 years+
Fit the underbonnet sound pad with these nice stainless retainers I've had for a year
Stop making lists

Epilogue to the event WCR40

2010-05-05T08:49:00.002Z

Ted Taylor's written a very nice epilogue to the WCR40 show where he name checks those who did so much to help out and make the event a success, read it here
Epilogue to the event WCR40

There were so many that make the whole event work and I'm sure we've missed a few out but you know who you are and your time and effort was vital.

I would like to say thanks to Ted himself who, through enthusiasm, hard work and perseverance got the job done - we did have a few doom and gloom merchants who told us we would fail and that we should have started 12 months ago etc, etc. It was Ted who didn't listen and just ploughed on. I have to admit, I for one was very worried about letting anyone down, with work and homelife to balance as well as a personal obsession it was always going to be tricky. In the end the cracks didn't show, no one saw the things that went wrong and we all had a good day.

So thanks Ted and Team!

Now, photos. Please, please, please do make them available to me, I'm going to create a new Picassa album for the day and share it for all to see via my own blog and the WCR40 site Gallery. I'll credit any photographer in the album but please be aware these are for public viewing - I'm interested in making the event come alove for the overseas fans who could not make it - and I know there are lots of you because you write to me (which by the way is really good, more please!)

I'm also going to put together a list of the films we showed and try and see if I can find out how you can get legitimate copies. I know that the Cal Withers film is now on DVD (we showed a little at the very start but because of audio visual issues we couldn't interrupt the schedulled show). This hasn't seen the light of day for 30+ years and I haven't seen it all. My own copy is on it's way to me now so I'll report on the full item soon. Ian Harwood is collating orders so drop him a line if you're interested, they are £22 each inc UK postage.

WORLD CUP RALLY 40th anniversay souvenir programmes

2010-05-04T07:11:00.000Z

WORLD CUP RALLY 40th anniversay souvenir programme on eBay (end time 30-May-10 11:54:37 BST)

For those who couldn't make it to Gaydon last month, the souvenir programme is available for purchase from eBay (and also the 2000 Register club shop).

Price is £5.00 including UK postage

For overseas buyers please ask for a shipping quote, it will be at cost price.

Paypal can be used to complete the purchase.

The progamme is a decent read and keep item with a lot of colour and detail. Huge credit to Kevin who put it all together and produced it on time and within budget.

This is our main money maker and whilst we don't seek to make big profits we do need to cover our costs. It would be great to get a few quid in the kitty to enable us to consider putting on another Classic Rally cars event sometime in the future.

Once again, thanks to all who attended or helped in some way.

WCR40 - what a day!

2010-04-19T14:01:00.004Z

Just a short post to say a big "Thank you" to everyone who attended and supported yesterdays event. I was mainly chained to the auditorium running the slightly dodgy audio visuals (no one saw the join but basically I could not stop the films only pause them as we have no scene search, fast forward or rewind facility). Big thanks to Paul the Gaydon technician guy for getting us that far, in fact big thanks to all the Gaydon staff including John Bishop, fantastic venue and they could not have been more helpful to us.

I didn't leave the site until 6pm on Saturday and was back again for 7am Sunday - I think I was one of the first cars to arrive so the car park was empty. When I was able to venture outside later I was overwhelmed by the numbers, so much so I admit to having a little emotional moment. You've no idea how much sleep I'd lost over this - would the cars come, would the people come, were there enough anoraks to go round?

The inside event went so well we had standing room only for some of the events. I'm so grateful to people like Alan Chatterton and Joe Welling for doing the running around. Alan was especially good at making sure all the speakers were lined up and ready to go. "I don't know what they look like!" he said - "Well I can only tell what they looked like 40 years ago!" I think you did fantastic mate!
Tim Bancroft and Bob King were great, there when they said they'd be, did what they said they'd do and no fuss - thank boys, you did Club Triumph proud.

Thanks for the beer, curry and moral support, not to mention a sofa to sleep on from Dave Pearson - as ever mate, very much appreciated.
Thanks also to Graham Robson for doing such a professional job of keeping the program moving, to time and at the right pace.
I will have forgotten people I should be thanking so a general "Thank you" to everyone again!

Now a plea - I was more or less chained to the inside event and whilst that was great I did not get outside much at all. I did take a camera but I didn't get chance to take many photos - I asked a few of you to take lots of pictures so can you share them with me please? I have an ulterior motive for this. You see there are many World Cup Rally fans around the world who read this blog, some who bought tickets with no intention of attending just to show support (thanks guys) and I said I would try and share as much as possible on-line.

You can get photos to me by emailing me of using my Picas "Drop Box" to upload http://picasaweb.google.com/JRChinn/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrh8OOfhaCsnAE&feat=directlink

For those who've asked where they can get the films from, the answer isn't simple. Five for Fiesta is commercially available from Duke for a tenner. The rest are personally owned home movies or were promotional films for which there appears to be no active owner (i.e. the Castrol film was made freely available for distribution by Castrol) so I think we should be OK. The Rob McCauley film is currently not commercially available, he gave permission for it to be shown but as for distribution, I don't know.

When I'm clear that I can make them available I will, somehow. I don't want to tread on any toes and I don't want to get into trouble - I don't want to make any money out if this but similarly I don't want to deny the rightful owner of the opportunity to do so! Remember a lot of these guys aren't wealthy and personally I encourage giving them the opportunity to supplement their income .

OK on that last point, a couple of "plugs" for people trying to make a few quid out of their exploits and who I think we should support. The more worthwhile people like us make these books, the more encouragement we give and the more likely it is that these sources of information are maximised. Show support please to -

Graham Robson's new book is out, get it through Veloce Publishing
Brian Moylan is trying to get a second edition of his "Works Rally Mechanic" book off the ground, again through Veloce so drop them an email to show support.
Brian Culcheth, Triumph driver has a DVD out, "An evening with Brian Culcheth" well worth getting and available direct from Brian by sending a cheque for £16.50 (to include p&p) made out to ‘Brian Culcheth’ at his home address :- Porch House, High Street, Porlock, Somerset TA24 8PU.

I think that just about covers it, I'm now going to start working through the list of jobs I have around the house and at work that I ignored to do WCR40 - it was worth it though :-)

MOT sorted and modern fun

2010-04-14T07:12:00.003Z

Well the PI passed the MOT and promptly let me down. Not strictly true, it didn't leave me stranded but it has decided that indicators are for other cars but not the PI. I have side repeaters and no indicators - all 4 have stopped.
Investigations all seem to point to the flasher unit. Here's my set-up and history. About 1 year or more ago the original flasher unit was playing up, erratic operation. It would operate OK for 2 or 3 flashes and then become fast/slow erratic. I bought a modern flasher relay and I put that in, problem solved.
I decided to have a play with LEDs and got an LED flasher unit and some festoons for the repeaters as they were quite dull with conventional lamps. I never did get round to putting LEDs in the indicators.
So the car sits with LED repeaters, incandescent indicators and a modern flasher unit good for LEDs and incandescent lamps.

So, back to the problem -
The repeaters work, the dash warning light works and the flasher relay makes the required clicking noises.
All earths seem OK, fuses are OK, same issues with engine running or just ignition on.
If I swap the modern flasher relay for the old (erratic) conventional flasher relay, I get the erratic operation again, this time much more random with the side repeaters not often working and the indicators flashing madly.
If I wire in only two of the flasher relay pins I can get sensible indicators but no repeaters and dash warning (the repeaters and dash are on the same circuit)

So, that's how I left it - bodged up old flasher, 4 indicators working and no dash warning or side repeaters. I've ordered a new modern flasher and will have a rummage for another conventional flasher unit and try a bit of swapping around.

Unless anyone has any bright ideas?

The modern fun was with the wife's Saab convertible and a disappearing clutch. It was so bad that selecting gears was touch and go. I couldn't figure it out and frankly under the bonnet of this 10 year old car scares the crap out of me! It's got a single fluid reservoir for brakes and clutch, annual slave and is generally a very tight for space. I couldn't see anything amiss, no fluid loss and plenty of fluid in the reservoir. I didn't have the time, patience, talent to do much else than go see my local independent Saab specialist - Simon at DCA in Upper Bucklebury.

After discussing possibilities ranging from about 900 quid for fitting a new clutch down to about 400 quid for fitting a new master cylinder I left the car with him and drove off in the loaner (always a free loaner from these guys, no question).

Then came the call -
"You know those phone calls you get when your heart sinks and your feel sick?" says Simon
"Err yes" says I in faltering, wallet tightening voice
"Well this isn't one! It's done, come and get it" he quips, smuggly!
It turns out that after a thorough inspection he could find nothing mechanically wrong with the clutch, the master wasn't leaking, in fact it was all in very good order. So he bled the clutch, tested it and pronounced it fixed. Apparently he'd seen it before and although he couldn't explain it fully I was happy with a fifty quid bill and a caution to "Watch it and let me know if it get's bad again".

I'm not expecting that to be the end of the matter but if it is then great! I was most impressed with DCA again, it's not much of a place to look at but there we have a classic example of a job where they could have riped me off and I'd have been none the wiser. That's why I go back there, even though I should have been able to do the job myself I wouldn't have been confident that it was fixed.

Cars. don't you just love 'em!?

Spring and the end of hibernation

2010-04-11T11:44:00.002Z

Following my broken brakes episode I went up to Gaydon in the modern but was amazed at how many Triumphs I saw. 2 Heralds, a Spitfire, a 2000, a Stag and TR7 - all at different points in the journey and all doing mundane things, like daily driving duties. It kind of inspired me. Not that I need much inspiration, I booked an MOT for Monday, just before the calliper let go!
Anyway, that's all fixed, new calliper from Canleys fitted, I still can't understand why the last one failed twice but it's not worth the time and hassle to try and figure it out. It's now in the core bin for a recon.
I was reminded of all the times I'd tried to use an Easibleed in my youth, connecting it up to the spare tyre and spraying brake fluid all over the place. Now older and wiser and having read the instructions I am always impressed with this gadget (and slightly ashamed that I was so bloody awful at using it in the early days!)
I've now been called in for lunch and then I'm off out for a drive, let's see if I can work my way through the poor running (no power and pulls like an IT technician at a convent). I suspect that a winter's tinkering, swapping pumps, PRVs and generally using the car as a test rig has taken it's toll. I have an electronic ignition set just sat there waiting to go on so I might do that but I don't want to screw it up before tomorrow. I can limp the thing to the MOT station as it is now :-)
Ahh, old cars, don't you just love them!

Mystery part identification

2010-04-10T18:09:00.003Z

Calling all anoraks and officianados of Works Triumphs. Can you identify a part for me?

In the boot of a world Cup car there are a number of modifications to the diff mounts, mainly to strengthen the area and enable quicker diff changes.

Here's a view of WRX's boot, ignore the floor, it isn't the correct floor, the right one is awaiting installation . What you're looking at is the two holes above the diff mounts. Ordinary production cars have this all boxed in.
Here's a close up below - what I'm trying to identify are the domes that are welded over the diff pins - they are substantial. But what are they from? Where did the parts come from?

Any ideas?? Get in touch by email, chinn at ntlworld.com

Thanks

Oh you little b.........!

2010-04-09T17:21:00.002Z

Booked the PI in for an MOT for Monday, built a nice pump from all my new bits, put that one and fired her up. Lashed up an electronic fuel pressure gauge so I can see what's going on - only shows 102 psi but it's constant. OK, let's have a little road test.

Drives like a milk float, brakes are crap too. Get home, front calliper seals have gone again! That's the second time in 18 months.

So, I won't be going to the WCR40 meeting tomorrow in the PI but at least Canley's have a Stag calliper I can buy. I have a seal kit but frankly if it's gone again in 18 months then the calliper itself is suspect - looks lovely and clean but won't hold fluid. I'd rebuild it tonight but I have a wedding reception to go to and Mrs C would kill me if we were late.

So, off to Gaydon for the final meeting tomorrow and perhaps fix the breaks on the PI on Sunday, MOT on Monday then at least have a chance of getting it running right for the WCR40 event next weekend!

It's all fun fun fun here at Chinn towers :-)

Get your tickets here!

2010-04-08T13:42:00.002Z

NOW

Click above to buy your tickets, just over a week to go.

WCR40, momentum gathers

2010-03-22T10:04:00.004Z

Yes, it's Rolls Royce - and it wasn't the only one on the Rally!

http://events.heritage-motor-centre.co.uk/events_2010_wcr40.html

I was at Gaydon for the second organisers meeting yesterday, things are gathering momentum and it's looking like a pretty special day.

The role call of cars is growing and it's really impressive that so many have been identified and tracked down but to see so many owners committing to bring them is great. Some will not be roadworthy, some won't be pretty, some will not even be on 4 wheels BUT they'll be there and in one place. Frankly I'm amazed and feeling privileged to be part of it all. Even the long lost and reclusive XJB302H is promised, yes Paddy Hopkirk's 2.5 PI that finished fourth will be there. Apparently the owner made contact at Race Retro and confirmed - so a big well done and thank you to him.

We've got over 20 original competitors confirmed, with another 20+ mechanics and support crews also coming. Top that up with other marathon rally competitors and many of the World Cup organising team also coming and you've got a lot of very knowledgeable people there. We'll be giving them all name badges and the idea is that you make them welcome, talk to them and generally confirm or debunk some of those WCR myths you're heard.

I've put together an inside program of films and chats with several of these personalities - 5 chats in all. I've also got 6 films to show, some of which haven't been seen in the UK before including competitors home movies.

All in all I have a program inside covering some 6 hours with breaks so you can come and go as you like.

Now I also have a plea for you Blog readers - this event is being done on a shoestring by clubs coming together to put on something memorable. We don't have a great deal of money and necks are on the block to make this a great day - favours are being called in and the generosity of some enthusiasts is commendable (you know who you are - thank you). So, what can you do? Well you can do a lot really, you can buy a ticket up front from the 2000 Register shop and ensure we get a few quid commission from Gaydon - the event itself is free, the ticket gets you into the museum but if you buy it at Gaydon on the day, we get nothing. It's a good deal too because the door price of a Gaydon ticket is £9 and an advance purchase from us is £7.50.

Also, the other money generator is a souvenir program that has now grown to 42 pages of colour pictures, interviews, comment and information from competitors, organisers and such. It's not your usual advert packed throw away although there are adverts in there from sponsors who have helped get the event funded. This is something for you to keep, use to get autographs, give you some information and help us pay for the day.

Slipped inside a few of these will be a Willy Wonka style golden ticket or two - prizes include a couple of "Rally Rides" in World Cup cars, replica rally decals and whatever else we can beg borrow or steal. There's talk of a free sticker too. Cost will be a fiver and with shows like Race Retro costing £20 these days, I think it hits the mark of providing value for modest money.

More information as and when I get it, I have to fit in scanning a monster box of Ford pace notes and a 4 day trip to Poland. Life sure ain't dull here at Chinn Towers.

WCR40 updates

2010-03-16T17:21:00.002Z

Latest update on the fast approaching Gaydon event

http://wcr40.org.uk/2010/03/15/latest-additions-to-wcr40-event/

Need a GT6?

2010-03-08T11:15:00.005Z

One of the things I like about this old car malarkey is that on your travels you meet lots of interesting people along the way.

One such chap is Gary Whitcombe who was a competitor on both the 1974 UDT Marathon and the 1977 London to Sydney Marathon. I met him at one of the WCR40 event meetings and it turns out he lives a stones throw from my parents house in Pershore, Worcestershire.

Whilst chatting to him about films, Triumphs, deserts and life changing experiences he asked if I knew anyone who wanted a nice GT6. He then proceeded to describe an honest car that has been waxoiled and garaged but hardly driven recently.

Thsee pics were taken in a hurry after a rainy day. Gary says the waxoil is every where and it's staying on if its what kept it pretty much rust free for 37 years! The sill trims are still on (these often get lost when sills are replaced) but 2 of the little clips need fitting back on the sill edge. Gary says that when he cleaned the drain holes in the sills liquid wax came out in last years hot weather. Under all the wax it really does look like an original car, as it came out of the factory,. There's a bit on the top of the windscreen that has had a liitle repair work.

Gary says he's willing to haggle but he knows what iut's worth and is looking for £4750.00. I don't think that's too much as the car does come with all bills and history from the first invoice when new.

Now I've not seen the car in the flesh and I don't know much about it other than above and what I can see in the photos but as Gary wants it to go to a decent home I thought I'd let you the readers know about it - I've no financial interest in this and you will need to deal direct with Gary in Pershore.

Gary can be contacted on 01386 861507 or email using Gary Whitcombe at aol dot com with a ".", a "@" and no spaces ;-)

Ex-works cars for sale......

2010-02-21T20:02:00.012Z

.... well Escorts anyway

Whilst I was trawling around the interweb I stumbled across this little nugget one of the few (2) surviving ex-Works Escorts/ There was also a privately entered Escort 1300 that survives - I was actually looking for that to see what that sold for! Anyway, back to FTW 48H, car 14 - it's special for a few reasons, firstly it actually finished the event, out of 96 starters only 23 actually made it to Mexico to be classified as finishers.

What surprises me is the price, £71,900 now I'm not saying I've got that sort of money spare but it does seem to represent good value for what seems to be a decent rally car. Of course I don't know my Escorts at all.

The photo I liked the best is the one of FTW 48H leading one of the weirder World Cup entries, an Escort based Elba Motor Caravan - entry 16, a non-finisher.

Update - I found it, Doug Harris privately entered World Cup Escort CMF730H is for sale. It's apparently going to be under the hammer at Race Retro this year

1969 Ford Escort MKI

Supplied new to privateer driver Douglas Harris and later owned by the Ford Motor Co, contested both the 1970 and 1974 World Cup Rallies. Finishing 1st-in-class on the former, it retired from the latter somewhere in the Libyan Desert! Since entering the current ownership circa ten years ago, the Escort has been revitalised by Yorkshire Classic Cars and used for historic stage rallying.
Estimate: £25,000 - £30,000.

Shame it's gained bubble arches but then it's a competition car and to be fair, it's been through a hell of a lot! I think it looked better on the World Cup but then I'm biased!

The car had the distinction of being the smallest engined car to finish the rally and it was the last placed finisher. It's also partly responsible for my renewed interest in the whole World Cup Rally - when the rally plate came up for sale many years ago, I bought it for Dave Pearson. At the time he was chasing the sale of the Buchanan-Michaleson car.

Here's the Doug Harris Escort at Wembley

My first glimpse of the promised land

2010-02-13T19:23:00.003Z

Well today's WCR40 meeting at Gaydon was a good insight onto how the day will go.

There was a great deal of enthusiasm as well as realism around the table and it was good to see that so much work has already been done to make the day go well.

I've never been that close to how these sort of shows work and have always wondered how on earth all the disparate threads get pulled together.

Tracing all the survivors is work enough and I was really pleased to hear how many of the known surviving cars will be there - pretty much all of them! Cars that haven't turned a wheel for years, are bent, awaiting restoration or just plain dormant are all coming and we're still looking!

Mechanics, driver, co-drivers, marshalls, team managers are all represented too. Some well known names have confirmed. I'm actually quite excited to meet these guys.

The details will unfold as the weeks progress but I thought it important to let people know that this is turning into one of those "not to be missed" events.

There are lots of details to work through and arrangements to be made but we are well on the way to a great show.

Want to get involved? Well we do need some man power on the day so if you're a member of one of the organising clubs then get in touch with your club. If you're not a member and still want to get involved you can email Ted or one of the organising contacts on the WCR40 Website www.wcr40.org.uk. You can email me through this blog but please do send your contact details so I can respond.

What do we need? Anything and everything World Cup Rally and Marathon rally related - if you have a car, parts, memorabilia etc then get in touch.

We've got some but we want more, we want World Cup cars, London to Sydney cars, East African Safari, UDT 1974 event cars, classic rally cars etc. So if you have one, know of one or know someone who owns one then please, tell then to get in touch.

I've been asked to look after a display of memorabilia and so if you have anything unique and interesting that you'd like to show, I'm your man. I have a large, secure, indoor facility to use. I plan to show some films and so again, if you have anything you have anything you'd like to share please speak up. We have some stuff but you know the drill, don't assume it will be there and that what you have in your collection is in everyone else's! Get in touch and we'll chat.

We are also encouraging a few of the guys who were there on these amazing events to share some reminiscences with us. The current idea is for 30 minute interviews/presentations - more on this as and when it's confirmed.

OK so you are interested but all you want to do is come and have a looksee, well great! That's what we need, so buy a ticket! The 2000 Register are handling the sales through their shop at £7.50 each.

Right, enough rambling on, I need to consider display boards, content, films, how to put enough content on display to keep the audience interested and how to organise these talks :-)

WCR40, Celebrating 40 Years of the Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally

2010-02-12T08:13:00.001Z

WCR40, Celebrating 40 Years of the Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally

The WCR40 web site is launched - click the link above to find updates and news on the event.

I have my first WCR40 meeting tomorrow at Gaydon and will continue to blog my news here.

WCR40 more details

2010-02-01T11:00:00.000Z

London to Mexico • World Cup Rally

WCR40

40th Anniversary

Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon

18th April 2010

Organised by

The Triumph 2000/2500/2.5 Register

Landcrab Owners’ Club International

Austin Maxi Owners’ Club

The London-Mexico World Cup Rally

WCR40 commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally. The longest and most ambitious event of its kind to date, the World Cup Rally left Wembley Stadium for the 16,000 mile, 6-week trip to Mexico City on 19th April 1970.

Almost 100 cars, spanning a variety of works teams and private entries, would follow a challenging route of road sections and special stages from London to Lisbon then, after a sea passage to South America, rejoin battle in Rio de Janeiro for the journey to Mexico City.

Reflecting the relentless pace of the Rally and the punishing terrain over which it was run, just 23 of the original starters would make it to the finishing line at Mexico City’s Aztec Stadium.

The World Cup Rally remains one of the most significant events in the history of international motorsport. On the fortieth anniversary of the Wembley start, WCR40 celebrates this monumental rally and the achievements of its participants, both cars and competitors.

About WCR40

WCR40 plans to stage a reunion of all the surviving cars, and as many of the drivers, mechanics and rally officials as possible.

In addition, surviving cars from the other marathon events staged in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the East African Safari, London-Sydney Marathon and 1974 World Cup Rally are being invited to attend in order to make a unique event for anyone interested in long-distance rallying. We would also like to hear from owners of other historic rally cars and classic cars used in rallying, though the primary display will be the Marathon cars.

While the cars are displayed on the outside arena, inside there will be film shows, club displays of World Cup Memorabilia and a chance to see Rally personalities in conversation with noted historian Graham Robson, who served as a travelling controller on the event itself. Graham has just authored a new book on the World Cup Rally, and copies of this will be on sale at at WCR40.

Any classic motorsport-themed clubs interested in securing display facilities at WCR40 are requested to contact the organisers as early as possible.

Cars

An event of the calibre of the World Cup Rally was bound to attract a top-class entry, and WCR40 aims to reflect this in its display of surviving cars:

Triumph 2.5PI - British Leyland’s team effort was spearheaded by four of these fast and rugged saloons. Two further 2.5PIs appeared as private entries.

Ford Escort - Following on from its record of international rallying successes with the Cortina, Ford turned to its new Escort for the World Cup Rally, with a seven-car entry.

Austin/Morris 1800 - already an established contender on events like the London-Sydney Marathon, the durable ‘Landcrab’ proved a popular choice for private entrants, many with works support.

Austin Maxi - relatively new to the international rallying scene, the Austin Maxi was represented by two works cars and two factory-supported private entries.

Other entries featured cars from BMW, Citröen, Datsun, Ford, Hillman, Mercedes-Benz, Moskvitch, Peugeot and more.

Personalities

As with the cars, the World Cup Rally attracted some of the best-known international rallyists.

Names such as Rauno Aaltonen, Roger Clark, Andrew Cowan, Brian Culcheth, Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Makinen, Hannu Mikkola, Bob Neyrat, Rosemary Smith, Claudine and Rene Trautmann, and Patrick Vanson were joined by a wealth of enthusiastic private entries and celebrities such as footballer Jimmy Greaves.

WCR40 aims to reunite as many of the original rally crews as possible, along with Team Managers, mechanics and rally officials.

The Venue

WCR40 will be held at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon. Entry to the outside arena will be free on the day, with dedicated parking for classic cars. Tickets for entry to the museum at a special discount price of £7.50 are available in advance from Triumph 2000 Register website shop.

For further information, please contact

General Enquiries:

• Alan Crussell - 4 The Briars, Holmer Green, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP15 6XE. Telephone 01494 711159 01494 711159 , e-mail alancrussell@hotmail.com

• Ted Taylor - Telephone 01594 832992 01594 832992 , e-mail ted.taylor@bigfoot.com

Cars and Competitors:

• Ken Green - 23 Beacon Road, Kingstanding, Birmingham, B44 9RL. Telephone 0121 352 0281 0121 352 0281

Team Personnel:

• Bill Price - e-mail billjen35@tiscali.co.uk

Clubs and Trade:

• Mark Pacey - e-mail m.n.pacey@lineone.net

The WCR40 organisers gratefully acknowledge the kind co-operation of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust in permitting the use of images first published in the

British Leyland High Road Souvenir Supplement of July 1970

1970 World Cup Rally - 40th anniversary events

2010-02-01T10:20:00.003Z

YouTube - Graham Robson interview - The Daily Mirror 1970 World Cup Rally 40 (Veloce)

I'm grateful to the Club Triumph forum for pointing out this little snippet on the above.

There are a couple of events I know of to mark the 40th anniversary of this geat event. The above is a commercial book launch of Graham Robsons WCR40 Retrospective work. Graham was a travelling controller on the event and has a wealth of knowledge about how it really was back then. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished book. I made all my photos available to Graham to help illustarte the book so I'm hoping they were good enough. All I know at the moment about the book launch is that it's taking place at Alperton car showroom, near Wembley on Tuesday 20th April. I don't know whether it's an "open" event where anyone can turn up or whether it's ticketed - probably best you ask Veloce Publishing.

The second event I know of is being organised by a goup of interested clubs to be held at Gaydon on Sunday 18th April. This is an event where I have been asked to help organise some exhibits and where I need some help myself.

I've had a chat with one of the organising committee and agreed to get involved, I know very little more about this event other than a date and a venue so I'll pitch up at teh next meeting with a few questions and take it from there. The meeting's on the 13th Feb so I will have more info after that. In the meantime I need help from you the Triumph public - what I'm looking for are thinsg to create a display to tell the story of the World Cup - pictures, articles, banners, memorabilia, artefacts, long forgotten rallly cars, that sort of thing.

Apparently there's covered space inside the main building to put on a display. I intend to have a couple of helpers manning the stand and keeping an eye on things to ensure everything's safe and looked after.

I have a small personal collection but most of my stuff is electronic images and they aren't the best thing to display in a venue like this. I may put together some sort of slide show to run in a loop on a screen.

Anyway, please do get in touch if you would like to be involved, have somthing you would like to display or just want to pass on the contact detauls of where that long forgotten rally car is laid up in a barn :-)

2009 - the year of not doing much!

2009-12-07T09:58:00.005Z

This year has been pretty much as expected - with a large financial commitment towards the kids education and work being pretty comitted too. I haven't been able to do much to indulge my Triumph hobby. That said I was able to get over the Isle of Wight for the IoW Triumph Club event, not a driving event in the CT style, just an excuse to camp, drink and BBQ.
The next event was the "cancelled" La Carerra Caledonia proving that you can cancel a Triumph event but none of us will take any notice and just turn up and do it anyway. Dave pulled the rally Vitesse 6003VC out of the museum and we were off. Now those who know me will say they aren't surprised at the next revelation, but I was. You see I have found I have a big arse, it's quite wide, hip to hip - that means that it doesn't really fit in a narrow rally seat. 6003VC's seats really did hurt, squeezing my bony arse into them gave me a couple of nice bruises on either hip, bruises where seat and pelvis felt like they were meeting and trying to squeeze out any flesh between! After the first few hundred miles I realsied that I must be doing something wrong as I could no longer feel my legs! A bit of shifting about and trying different positions over the weekend eventually allowed me to enjoy the car. It's a full on rally machine and great in the twisty bits but crap on the motorway!
The only other event I was able do was the 10CR and I was keen to maintain my commitment to this event. I had intended to take the PI but with crew changes I found myself partnered with another team. It's always difficult to know how well you'll get one with others in an endurance event, I'm a pretty relaxed, happy go lucky kind of guy but not everyone likes that! This time I was driving Nigel Gair's car with Dave Tongue, I'd not crewed with either of these guys before and it's fair to say I didn't know them well. However, this has to go down as one of the best laughs I've had for ages. The boys really were out to play and with constant banter, jokes, bad language, non-PC inuendo and mickey taking plus a set of strictly imposed rules we got on well. Oh, the rules were all related to engine speed, tunnels and narrow streets - 6500 rpm was compulsory. I can't remember ever been told off for driving a car "too carefully" by it's owner - Mr G, I salute you ;-)
With such a frugal year you'd have thought I would have had plenty of time on my hands, sadly not - my work has sent me to many different places this year and usually at a moment's notice! I seem to be one of the few people who is prepared to do the "dirty" jobs and as such I've been all over Europe as well as India this year. It looks set to continue with the European role likely to be extended and the India trips stopped.
What that has meant is that I do get home on weekends more and am in control of things a little more. All that left me with time to fulfill a committment to administer the RBRR entries and help Tim out with the organisation. I really enjoy this but I am always worried that I won't be able to fulfil the commitment - I hate to let people down so I try to take on things I know I can do - I've seen hassles caused by well meaning people who walk away from things half way through. I've got a lot more confidence in this now and I know I can continue for as long as there is a need. It's something I can do between work, travel, family, etc. It's also my way of putting something back into this fine club.
Next year holds pretty much the same for me as the financial committments don't end in 2010 but I should have more time to myself and that means working through the list of jobs on the car and getting her out and about a bit more.
As for events well I will go back to the IoW and I've got a drive lined up with messers Pearson and Kipping on the RBRR - the rest is fluid! I would like to have a go helping organise a navigation rally just to learn a little more about these. I've no idea how feasible this is but it is something that's always interested me. I just hope I get the time!

Triumphant in Paris

2009-11-23T13:50:00.004Z

I took the family to Paris for the weekend on the Eurostar, part of Zoe's 18th birthday present. She wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower, as you do. Anyway, on Sunday as we were walking away from the tower across the Seine and towards the Champs Elysees we were greeted by several French Triumphs.

Unfortunately I was quite a distance away when I saw them but I had the camera in my hand so snapped a few pictures. We saw more Triumphs as we were breakfasting on the Champs Elysees, they were driving towards the Arch de Triumph - of course! It was nice to seewhat looked like a nice range of TR2/3, TR4 or possibly a 5, a couple of TR6s, a Stag, an MGA and I think an MGB GT

I must say they weren't hanging about and did look nice in the crisp morning - all roof down.

....and then....

2009-11-13T10:56:00.003Z

... another bundle of post this morning and we're up to entry number 69, Here's the list so far

Entry Name
1 Mike Bishop
2 Bill Davies
3 Nick Jackson
4 Claire Hill
5 Jim McGuiness
6 Colin Radford
7 Jonathan Clegg
8 Steven Burrows
9 Floyd Pattie
10 Andrew Johnson
11 Jayne Spicer-Adams
12 Malcolm Swingewood
13 Jason Chinn
14 Craig Bennett
15 Alex Chandler
16 Brian Cox
17 Andrew Dann
18 Clive Senior
19 Tim Hunt
20 Malcolm Philpott
21 Jessica Brake
22 Roger Hogarth
23 Dave Kirk
24 Yossarian Gay
25 Keith Dandridge
26 Allen Foster
27 Graham Whiting
28 Wayne Scott
29 Michael Helm
30 Mark Bland
31 Howard Brissenden
32 Dale Barker
33 Tom Key
34 Mark Mclean
35 Doug Foreman
36 Tim Bancroft
37 Allen Walker
38 Pauk Bodiam
39 Richard Brake
40 John Hayes
41 Ashley Mills
42 Andrew Shirley
43 Keith Bennett
44 Jayson Murray
45 Robert King
46 Alan Pettit
47 Andrew Pearce
48 Russell Banyard
49 Dave Langrick
50 Steven Needham
51 Mike Barrett
52 William Columbine
53 Dave Marshall
54 Andrew Plews
55 Reg Barton
56 Caroline McGrath
57 Lloyd McNeill
58 Steven Radley
59 Rob Southern
60 Tim Walker
61 Mike Weaver
62 Joe Welling
63 Nigel Gair
64 Ellis Stokes
65 Francis Moll
66 Andrew Moll
67 Carl Shakespeare
68 Sean Bradley
69 Martin Burrows

Tim's set up a RBRR Blog for publishing this sort of news so I'll go and find that and follow up on there from now on.

Check out http://ctrbrr2010.blogspot.com/ for all RBRR news, updates and notices from the organising team.

The first 36 entries are in

2009-11-12T22:21:00.003Z

For those of you pestering me for entry numbers, here are today's entries, all 36 of them. Not bad for the first day. This is the order in which I opened the bundle of envelopes, the only ringer is me, I gave myself number 13 again

1 Mike Bishop
2 Bill Davies
3 Nick Jackson
4 Claire Hill
5 Jim McGuiness
6 Colin Radford
7 Jonathan Clegg
8 Steven Burrows
9 Floyd Pattie
10 Andrew Johnson
11 Jayne Spicer-Adams
12 Malcolm Swingewood
13 Jason Chinn
14 Craig Bennett
15 Alex Chandler
16 Brian Cox
17 Andrew Dann
18 Clive Senior
19 Tim Hunt
20 Malcolm Philpott
21 Jessica Brake
22 Roger Hogarth
23 Dave Kirk
24 Yossarian Gay
25 Keith Dandridge
26 Allen Foster
27 Graham Whiting
28 Wayne Scott
29 Michael Helm
30 Mark Bland
31 Howard Brissenden
32 Dale Barker
33 Tom Key
34 Mark Mclean
35 Doug Foreman
36 Tim Bancroft

Now a word of caution - I have yet to fully record all the details and check membership details so if you see your name there and you haven't renewed your membership, pull your finger out! Put simply, if you or one of your crew are not a Club Triumph member then you will not be accepted onto the run. This year I am going to have to be strict on this.

As soon as I can, I will create the web pages to upload onto the proper RBRR website and provide the usual fuller details of crews and cars.

The Postman has been.......

2009-11-12T10:25:00.002Z

....... and left me with a massive bundle of entries! I will be opening them later today and will start to create the entry list.

RBRR - the madness starts

2009-11-11T19:37:00.003Z

For those of you sending me PMs on the Forum I am unable to respond as I am returning from a business trip to Istanbul. I will reply to you all when I get home tomorrow.

UPDATE - I am now home. My magazine is here and my entry is in :-) Of course I won't take entry number 1, where's the fun in that?!

It's been a long time

2009-09-29T07:06:00.002Z

Much water under the bridge and miles covered so I thought a quick update was in order.
PI Pumps - the eBay listing generated more interest than I could have imagined and I have been making ans selling pumps to the Formula 5000 and classic racing fraternity! One to South Africa to go on a Chevron (whatever that is) and a whole package of stuff to a nice guy in California to go on two cars, a Brabham BT - 21 with Lotus Twin Cam and a 1970 Leda F 5000 - I've sourced and supplied seals, O rings, pumps and motors. My little test rig has been running for days! The original idea of selling enough to pay for the development costs is long gone and I broken even with the South African sale alone. All has cushioned the eBay disappointment. Trouble is, the pump I built for my car went to California!
Never mind, Mike, 4x4 2000, Weaver came up with a box of pumps for me and I have the raw materials to make a few more.
I've sourced the O rings for the fuel injectors too although I had to buy a minimum quantity so I'm going to do a batch of those soon. Although I don't have a lot of core so if you want to unload any rebuildable injectors get in touch. I've even figure out the original finish and I think I can replicate it.

10CR
Well the plan to use my PI and do the event with Dave Pearson evaporated, to be fair I bullied him into it or rather I tried and by the time I accepted that he didn't want to do it, all the trusted crew were teamed up with others. I did the last 10CR with an unproven co-driver and whilst we had no real issues and got along well it wasn't really the same as doing it with a fellow Triumph enthusiast. Tim Bancroft called me the evening that I accepted Dave wasn't going to change his mind and asked if I knew of anyone looking for a seat as Nigel Gair was considering a third man in his car. It took about a nano-second for the penny to drop and within 30 minutes I had spoken to Nigel and was "in" with him and Dave Tongue.
What a great move to make - thanks Tim and big thanks to Nigel and Dave - we had a great time, a real laugh a minute. There were times when we couldn't stop laughing and on at least one occasion, the bizarre tale of 3000 perverts in Wembley Stadium all waiting for a Russian Lesbian pop group had us laughing so much that we had to stop the car and park until the laughter subsided. Such infantile games as the naming of ever bowel movement kept us amused - The Tracey Island, The Everglades, The Apollo 13, The Connector - there were more, so many more.
The car was superb, I have to say that I did not drive it well at first because I was far too careful with it. Until that is that Nigel gave me those memorable instructions "You're just not revving it enough, stick it in first and don't touch the gear lever until you see six and half thousand". There were compulsory down shifts for all tunnels and narrow streets.
We had a blast, a real blast - we never once argued, even though we did get a little "off route" at times. The car was great, the only issues were the chin spoiler grounding out on tight hairpins, the synchro on third got a little lazy and the HID headlamps refused to keep their aim settings - apologies to anyone we followed! I'd gladly go anywhere with Nigel and Dave.

World Cup Rally and Rally cars
A couple of things have happened on the research front - I was contacted by Graham Robson the author recently, He wanted to use some of my photos for a forthcoming book to be launched on the 40th anniversary of the World Cup Rally. He's done quite a lot but it's not yet complete. I shared with him my photo collection and some of my research to date.
I also went to see Keith Baker, navigator in the privately entered 2.5 PI of Brian Englefield and Adrian Lloyd-Hirst. Keith lives near Norwich so when my meetings were done I drove out to see him. He produced a collection of photos of works and private cars he'd navigated in including the Kim Mandeville Mk1 2000 that recently sold on eBay. If anyone knows who bought it then perhaps they could put me in touch as Keith has some info and photos - that car having been extensively reworked by Brian and Keith. We went through the photos and chatted away for ages, Keith will scan some photos for me and I'll share them in due course.

Work
Here it's all change, I was due to be in India last week and I'm not! I picked up my tickets on the Wednesday only to go to a meeting to be asked if I could do another job - starting the following Monday (ie the day I was supposed to be flying out to India), instead I would be flying in the opposite direction to Dublin.
So, to cut a long story short I now find myself as the Global Claims Leakage Manager covering mainly Europe but a little of Canada thrown in for good measure. The job will take me to France, Italy, Ireland, Poland and Turkey - it's a departure from what I have been doing but along the same lines. Meet the people, create some relationships of trust and use those to get the Global Agenda to the right people who will make it happen.
Leakage is not something to do with bladder control, it's all about spend control - leakage is when we pay out on claims where we shouldn't or where we fail to recover money when we should. The bottom line is it's waste. It erodes profit and therefore pushes up prices - it's no body's friend.
Anyway, this is a Triumph blog so enough Insurance - suffice to say I will probably be travelling more often but shorter haul and shorter duration.

I think that's about it for now.

Hmmm

2009-09-04T08:31:00.002Z

Well that wasn't what I expected - the first of my pumps raised a lot of interest, some 22 "watchers" a few email but only 4 bids and a sale at £31. I've made a loss :-( However, I said I'd let it run it's course and see what the market valued it at and I guess I've got an answer, although eBay can be unpredictable.
The funniest thing is that the buyer is known to me - I was negotiating a purchase from him! Small world.
This Blog has generated some enquiries and I'm currently putting together a package for the States which will help me break even.
The process has also encouraged a few people to turn up some spares and parts for which I'm very greatful (thanks Mike, that box of stuff will be very useful!) so I'm not put off just yet.

Lucas fuel pump resurrection

2009-08-25T10:28:00.002Z

After much work, head scratching and testing I have built some pumps I'm proud of. I enjoyed doing them and have a couple for spares for myself and a lot of potential to make more. I’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t, what can be reused and what needs to be binned and more importantly how to test the results.

Sourcing and buying parts outside of the normal retail outlets has lead to buying in quantity but means that I have the stock to do more.

It also means that I need to recoup some of my outlay so the first "surplus" pump is on ebay now to see if there's a market for these.

I'm never going to make any money at these because there’s too much manual labour involved and the parts aren’t cheap but I hope I can make pumps that work. I’ve selected the best bits, reconditioned and replaced where necessary and tested a lot. I’m going to run each pump for a min of 2 hours on the rig to ensure it doesn’t lose pressure when hot. Whether I put each one on the car and run it remains to be seen, changing a pump is a messy business at the best of times!

So here’s the first one for sale starting at a basic cost price, we’ll see what the market pays.

Lucas Mechanical Injection fuel pump - rebuilt on eBay (end time 04-Sep-09 08:32:32 BST)

I may have been overly cautious with my listing but I don’t want anyone to go thinking they are getting the same product backup as they would get from a fully professional outfit, with guarantees and after sales back up a professional would provide. I have therefore tried to be offer a careful description that doesn’t allow for ambiguity. The pump is the best I can make and it hits the mark in terms of flow and pressure, current draw and performance.

In the meantime, I’m looking for injectors to rebuild, having bought 50 seals and ordered the necessary chemicals to create the right finish on the injector bodies I think I could do them pretty cheaply. Whether it’s pumps or injectors I just need cheap core units to have a go at.

Special Spanners

2009-07-27T16:09:00.003Z

It's always bothered me that I've never seen the "right" tools to adjust a metering unit on a PI. The "Christmas tree" of nuts that adjusts fuelling at various throttle/vac positions is housed under the black or green (or Red) cone on the top of the MU - if you have a red one email me ;-) The nuts are weird different sizes, not conventional at all. I always thought it odd that no original tools ever surface for these nuts.
It's not the end of the world, you can get by easily without them but I always wanted the right tools or at least to know they existed!
Enter a nice chap who goes by the name of Hans-Peter Langenbach from Germany. He had the same idle thought as me but he decided to do something about it. He set about designing and manufacturing a set of suitable spanners.
He popped up on the Club Triumph Forum and asked if anyone was interested, I was and I now have a set. They do just what it says on the tin and fit just fine, might be a little tight but a light easing with a file is all that's needed. I admit I have not yet actually adjusted anything, one thing at a time, I'm still blueprinting, building and testing Lucas pumps! Hans-Peter has had a batch of these spanners made and is now selling on eBay, he needs to recoup his investment as he had to have quite a few made to make it cost effective. Click here for details http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/hplangenbach or email Hans-Peter direct hplangenbach at yahoo dot de. He's a genuine guy and happy to help.

Feeling righteous

2009-07-26T14:59:00.000Z

Sunday was the day for Lucas PI remanufacturing. Over the last few months I've been doing some leg work to acquire the right bits and pieces to recondition a pump or two. I've been finding spares all over the place, at last count I was up to something like 7 pumps in my possession plus the one running on the car!

I've tested a few and many were crap - looking decent and serviceable on the outside doesn't mean they're any good at all on the inside. They all run and pump but a leak shaft seal (drips out of the tell tale) means they are useless unless worked on.

My new best mate, the friendly chappy at the local hydraulics place has been a real help - he sourced the big "O" rings that sit between the pump and the motor. It's the same ones in between the layers of the pump body. He also sourced the "O" rings for reconditioning Lucas injectors as I have run out of original Lucas ones. Trouble is, I had to have 50 - well guess who'll be buying up spare injectors and reconditioning them to make some money back?

The pump seals came from Canleys as did a set of brushes - these are the same as wiper motor brushes, same backplate but the wiper uses 3 brushes and the pump motor uses 2 - you can leave one in situ unused or take it off.

Most of the brushes in the pumps I've dismantled are OK, lots of life left in them but I thought I'd have a spare set in case I needed them.

The ultra sonic cleaner has been good, really gets the fine crap off - it's not as good as I'd like but I think I need to get better at rough cleaning first then use the ultrasonic to ensure it's clean for reasembly.

Getting the shaft seals out has so far been the worst job, I've ruined a cheap set of picks I bought - lasted about 5 minutes! So, back to the drawing board - if you can't buy a decent tool, make one. So I heated, bent and filed a screwdriver into a flat ended pick - it was great, did the job in a moment. I'm well pleased - funny how silly little things make you feel achievement!

Some silicon spray helped reassembly, careful not to just push it all together as the sharp end of the armature shaft can cut the new shaft seal rendering it useless.

I spent some time polishing the armature and making sure the segments were clean, that broken pick was useful for that!

Put it all back together and it works. OK it runs, sounds OK and doesn't burst into flames or even smell like burning.

Attention turned to the pump body, it's held together by roll pins and I was a bit worried about how to get it apart. Nick Jones sugested I just hold it in a vice and tap it apart with a soft hammer, I have to admit I was dubious it would as it seemed so solidly held together but it worked without drama. In fact I was able to wiggle it apart with my hands and after a little gentle levering it was apart.

The pump is a gear displacement pump, basically two simple gears running in a 3 layer sandwich. The top layer is the critical one and really the only part you can play with. If there are any scratches or wear in the plate then pump efficiency will be lost. Polishing the plate on a sheet of glass can take out some wear and reduce the gear end float thus regaining efficiency. So I've polished a couple and we'll see if they pump better when they go in the test rig (that I haven't really built yet!)

PRVs seemt to be in short supply, well they don't come up for sale very often, the last couple I've acquired have been attached to pumps or in with other PI kit. No matter, they are simple in operation although do seem to give a little trouble every now and again. I have a few and will select the best in the test rig.

There's lots more to do but now I have dismantled 3 pumps and rebuilt 2 I will turn to the test rig and see if I can set them up to run up to pressure. The next stage is to run them for a prolonged period, say 12 hours and check results.

It's weird what pops into your mind.....

2009-07-15T07:32:00.004Z

I woke up this morning with an idea, well more the idea of a place to look for the solution - complicated I know. Here's the twisted tale. I have an agglometer in the PI, a fancy name for a glass bowl and drain tap in the fuel filter. The idea for this is that you can see if there's any water contamination and drain the fuel. It also has the added benefit of being an easy way to drain off a small amount of fuel for starting a BBQ in true boys own dangerous cookery style - but that's another story :-)

Anyway, as well as the agglometer thingy I have a clear injector line so I can see what's happening there too. The result of all this transparency is that you see things you never knew were happening - phenomena that you'd be blissfully unaware of if you had a standard system.

What could I see?

Bubbles!

No not the one time monkey partner of the deceased King of Pop but bubbles of air/vapour in the glass bowl and the injector pipe. These baffled me - the system was not leaking, it was not cavitating, these were appearing from start up and through out running up to temp (pump temp as well as engine temp). So where were these bubbles coming from? They were worrying as the PI system has no way of bleeding air out once fuel has flowed passed the PRV and then at pressures over about 30 PSI the PRV won't bleed air.

OK so to the point - I woke up this morning and thought "I know where the answer to that is" and I went straight to the article Dave Pearson gave me which emanated from I think a 1990 Club magazine (2000 register maybe?). I had blogged about this in the past. There it was, failing motor shaft seals on the pump unit will allow air in as well as leak fuel out.

Now I have tested loads of pumps and found failed shaft seals on about 60% of them - I haven't looked for air ingress just fuel egress (which is more obvious when bench testing). So it seems highly likely that I can sort this out with new seals.

The article also provides some good advice on blue printing a pump, what and how to modify as well as what to leave well alone!

As I write this, I think I'm going to have to work through this article and do the operations it suggests with camera in one hand and blog in the other.

Whilst the Lucas pump will always be the weakest link I am determined to build a good 'un and run the little bugger to success - I am actually enjoying this.

As soon as work, family and life generally allow me the time in the garage to get some momentum on this I'll be OK.

So far my local hydraulics place have let me down on the parts I ordered but my new best friend Darren at Pirtek Reading is on the case. Today's idle though - I wonder if they can supply injector O rings?

Here's the article, scanned and blogged, I commend it to all PI owners, I just wish I could credit the source properly:-

Jason's Blog: More Lucas PI info - some pearls of wisdom here :-)

Tyred and emotional

2009-07-14T11:54:00.002Z

I'm a hoarder, I can't throw stuff away, it's a serious problem for me and although eBay has relieved me of a few things it's a double edged sword because for every thing I sell I seem to buy more replacements!
Anyway, Sunday was a good day, fellow Triumphist Nick Jones was in need of a hood frame for his Vitesse and yes, I had one, well two actually. They'd been up in the garage loft for a few years - one even had a 1970's white roof still attached. Anyway, an arrangement was made and Nick pitched up Sunday morning for excavations in the garage loft. I uncovered a spare wheel well for a Herald/Vitesse up there too (will be on eBay when I can find the camera). We managed to get the frames down and examined, they weren't as good as I remembered them but together they were good enough for Nick and beer tokens changed hands. Not one to hang around, Nick's already been at them with grinder and hacksaw to make a bespoke but more importantly fitting hood frame for his Vitesse!
Great stuff, my junk is useful after all! The best bit came when I was assessing the storage up in the loft and realised I had a set of decent 13" tyres up there - I think they came off my old Vitesse but I can't really be sure - there was one brand new tyre, one that looked like it could only have done 50 miles and two part worn ones.
Why is this relevant I hear you mumble? Well because outside sat on a flat tyre is my daughter's hateful little Corsa. I had noticed a deflated tyre a few days previously and upon closer examination I wasn't happy with the state of the sidewalls on another of her tyres - it's a 10 year old car and although low mileage it looks to have lived outside all it's life - the tyres were all showing signs of cracking. One was particularly bad.
Anyway, quick check of the sizes and yes, spot on the same as Vitesse tyres - 165/70 x 13 - ideal! So off to my favourite little garage for a quick swap around. It wasn't quite as cheap as I remembered and in the last 12 months their costs for mounting a tyre, new valve and balance has near doubled. Still fifty quid for what is effectively 2 new and 2 nearly new tyres is a bargain - for my daughter - she paid :-)
The big bonus is that I have used some spares, made some space and saved some money. I can also constantly remind her that her beloved Corsa is on "Triumph" tyres.

Turned out nice again :-)

Under pressure

2009-07-01T18:34:00.000Z

The PI piffling continues in the heat - great for vapourising all the spilt fuel just hope no one lights up nearby or it's instant BBQ!

I never knew there were two types of pressure relief valve - the long ones are easily dismantled and examined but the short one is a bit of mystery to me. The brass piece is just a 3 way, the next segment is just a housing for a mesh filter, the actual PRV is in the end. On the short one looks to be very similar to the normal long type but I can't see how to take it apart. Never mind, I'll see if it works and adjusts OK. I'll have to use the car as the test rig as I haven't built a bench test rig yet.

I have now been through my stock of pumps and tested every one on the car. Which one is the best? Well would you believe it, the KMI one that wouldn't run and I took apart and cleaned! All bar one actually pump, 3 have failed shaft seals so they piss fuel out of the tell tale and one just won't hold a constant pressure as it over heats within 5 minutes and screams like 12 year old at a Jonas Brothers gig.

That leaves me with the pump that won't make 106 psi for long enough and the KMI one I "refurbished" as the only serviceable ones out of the whole lot! Proof, if proof were needed, that you can't buy anything decent for less than a tenner - well I guess you could say that the KMI pump cost me fifty quid and came with a load of spares :-)

So, the quest is on for seals and I'll refurb them all (maybe the one with the broken magnet might be last, not sure about that one.)

I started to look into whether I could get some shaft seals, I found them quite easy, it's part number 517419.

Prestige - £8.95

Rimmer's - £10.29

Witor's - £9.95

Canley Classics - £7.35

As far as I can tell all the seals, brushes, "o" rings etc are available, Rimmer's do a kit which appears to contain all you need for just shy of £40.

I think I'll get on the blower tomorrow and see what I can rustle up, I've got 5 pumps to build :-)

Pump it up

2009-07-01T11:11:00.001Z

I'm Jason and I have a problem.

I buy "bargains", you know the sort of stuff, £0.99 on Fleabay and I'm there, "click" and it's mine!
So, armed with that "skill" I find myself sat in a hotel room in India, with nothing but a mini bar and a laptop. You know the routine, drink, eBay, random clicking, box of busted PI pumps is mine for a fiver, delivered.
So I get home to be greeted by piles (and I mean piles) of various eBay purchases and they get stacked in the garage.
The intention is to learn about the things, figure out what wears, what can be refurbished, what new parts are needed and how to test the finished item.
This week I am on a "use it of lose it" holiday at the end of our holiday year - no one else is off and I can piffle in the garage,
I am now surveying my vast stock of pumps - I've paid no more than a tenner for most of them and the vast majority were less than that. Some came with mounting cradles, pipes, pressure relief valves, filters, etc, etc. I've got a KMI re manufactured unit (interestingly it's got a big sticker on it that says it must be fitted with a cooling coil, it was), one that has been DIY refurbed to an amazing standard (and came with loads of parts thrown in by the seller) but most are just standard second hand pumps.
So I took a couple that didn't seem to work when voltage was applied and started stripping. First off is the pump body to see if that's seized. The KMI one was solid but a little percussive maintenance fixed that and it turned. The KMI motor was filthy inside and so I got my newly acquired ultrasonic cleaner on it - pretty good result. I cleaned it all out and reassembled just to see if it would run again - yup!
Next off was one of the grottier looking pumps, I remembered to take a photo of this one, you can see the kind of thing that greets you inside.

However, it too cleaned up OK and ran when reassembled. This pump will, I fear end up as parts. The shaft seal has gone hard and failed, that means fluid gets passed it and into the motor - it leaks from the tell tale (the brass drain just visible under the base plate in the picture above. It's also noisy and when I looked carefully I could see that one of the curved magnets in the case was broken. A shame really as the rest of it looked OK.

I have some reconditioning instructions somewhere that cover what can be done to the motors to help increase efficiency but as I don't have any sophisticated test kit like a growler I don't think there's much else that can be done.

I need to find a decent supply of seals so I can rework these pumps, I should be able to build quite a few then throw them onto a test rig and run them for 24 hours or so - I have acquired a variable voltage power source to do this. I need to figure out how to put a hydraulic load in the test circuit and sort out the plumbing but it's coming together.

Also in the pile of mail order parcels were things like an electronic pressure gauge, a Moto-lita steering wheel, a rivnut gun, some stainless tubing, some headlight accessories, some pressure gauges, a set of curved sewing needles and piece of ex-Military hardware.

More blogging when I stick another screwdriver in my leg and need to come in for a plaster.

Tacho wiring diagrams

2009-06-12T09:26:00.000Z

Having been considering a tacho/rev counter for a while now (Mk1 PIs do not have one as standard) I started thinking about what, where and more importantly how I would fit it. I don't want to bodge a hole in the dash, I don't want to cut out existing instruments and I don't want a modern looking tacho. As ever, my eyes turned to eBay and there's a bewildering array of instruments, often without instructions or wiring diagrams. In my quest for information, I stumbled across this and thought it was worth sharing

I still haven't got a tacho but I do have a reasonable idea of how to mount it and what sort of tacho would be OK. Ideally I'd like a works type pod like on FHP993C so I can put a fuel pressure gauge up in view but that might be a little tricky to find - my car isn't a replica so I don't have to be a slave to originality but I would like to keep it period looking as far as possible

From FHP993C - At Canley Classics July 2007

Indian SD1

2009-05-30T11:48:00.002Z

Have been out and about in the city of Pune and spotted an SD1 in a carpark, didn't have the camera but will try and remember it later today so I can get a picture, if it's still there. SD1's were made in the old Standard India factory in Chennai (aka Madras) where the Standard Herald and Gazel were made. The whole Standard / Leyland India compant went bust in the 80's and lay dormant for years until Rimmers bought up the stock of half assembled SD1 shells.

Anyway, I've got a weekend in Pune and then off to Noida (Delhi) before the long haul home. I hit the ground in the UK on Thursday night then Friday morning it's up to Scotlandshire for the event formerly known as La Carerra Caledonia.

See you there :-)

Back home in one piece

2009-05-04T17:01:00.002Z

Well we made it home and didn't need the services of a recovery truck so I count that as a successful outing! A straight drive from the docks home, not the easiest but I took it steady and it was fine as long as I didn't expect any acceleration!

Well it wasn't all plain cruising - it's misfiring or to be more accurate, not firing fully, well that's what it feels like. I didn't have any pump cavitation issues and that's the spare pump running without a cooling coil. I'm starting to think "ignition" so I am going to go through it all and assume nothing is right, testing it all one component at a time.

Must find out how to test a coil!

For now it's unpack, wash-up and sensible meal time.

BIG thanks to Graham and Angela and the Isle of Wight Triumph club for another cracking weekend!

What a day

2009-05-03T19:15:00.002Z

Well that was a day and a half! The car ran better for a while then started playing up again, not in a good way! The PRV seemed OK but then the pump started to cavitate and scream just after the car stops! It had been running OK, cool and when I checked it was drawing only 4 amps. Today it was up at 5.6 amps and it was cavitating - I could see the bubbles circulating into the glass bowl of the filter - fuel pressure in the engine bay was fluctuating all over the place. The current diagnosis is therefore crap pump!
So being a good boy scout, I had a spare and changed it, that seemed to then show up a bit of dodgy ignition! The rotor arm was changed out for one I actually fixed with araldite once - better but not great
At this point someone handed me a beer and I gave up! The thing (the car gets called a thing when it's not running right) is running, it hasn't actually stranded me. Yet and to be brutally honest I am knackered and looking forward to a few more beers!
So balls to the PI and cheers to the beers!!

Sent from Blackberry.

It's a hat trick!

2009-05-03T07:50:00.002Z

Despite stiff opposition and the creation of a splinter group "Rejected by the Shirts" when partners decided to make their own team, the Hants & Berks irregulars won the pub quiz for a third year running. Wearing the same awful shirts as last year and christened the Matalan Marvels because of them, we managed to retain our winning streak. Quite how still amazes me as we were only 7 and were fairly drunk but just as stupid as we always are.
Last year's prize money was recycled into a Sat Nav which we have donated at this year's raffle prize to keep the weekend interesting :-)
At the moment I am contemplating getting the BBQ lit to start breakfast for 11 - I do hope the rain we had in the night doesn't come back!

Sent from Blackberry.

What a relief!

2009-05-02T19:26:00.002Z

Well that was fun, the PI continued to fart and pop it's way round the island today but we did make it to Blackgang Chine and back. During the day a diagnosis of sticky PRV seemed favourite amongst the gathered Triumph intelligenci. Although I had a spare in my kit I was not sure of it's suitability. I mean it could be worse than the one on there! Fortunately for me organiser of the weekend Graham Stretch came to the rescue again as he so often does! He had a known good PRV on the shelf. After showing me how it worked (because I wasn't sure and it was in pieces) I fitted it and immediately got a steadier pressure reading and a smoother running/sounding car. A quick blast down the road and all seemed much better.
I will do a post mortem on the old PRV and we'll see what the issue was. The car is running quite rich but once I've got it stable I'll get onto that.
For now it's on with the tasteless and tight shirt for an evening Pub quiz and some beer.
Oh and Richard, I did manage to help Alison, it was the overdrive switch and although I didn't have a spare I did have some araldite to lend for her and Mark Bland to fix the old one :-)

Sent from Blackberry.

Installed

2009-05-01T19:59:00.003Z

Well we made it without issue, a couple of chugs and nothing more dramatic but it's still not right :-( Anyway, I am installed in the bar, there is Spitfire Ale on tap so all is well with the world. I will have a look at things in the morning and assess whether it's worth messing about or just a prayer to the gods of self healing!

Sent from Blackberry.

Isle of Wight here we come

2009-05-01T15:36:00.003Z

Not sure if this will work as I am using a bit of company bandwidth. Have arrived at the ferry ahead of schedule only to konk out at the check in! A quick look at my pressure gauge showed a distinct lack of PSI - like nowt!
Pump buried under camping gear but I left some room around it (the boot is currently bare of any trim). It was not hot nor even warm to the touch so I wonder if the PRV is playing up? They apparently don't go wrong often. I have a spare with me, as you do. If it is heat in the pump then it will have cooled by the time we get off this ferry. I wonder if I may have squashed a fuel line with all the stuff packed in the boot?
Plenty of time to investigate if/when we get to the camp site.
I have heard from the advance party (Carl) that my tent is up :-) He has also called for fresh supplies of beer so we will stop off on the way and pick some up.
Right, enough of this mobile blogging, back to enjoying the Isle of Wight ferry!

Sent from Blackberry.

La Carerra Caledonia

2009-04-29T21:22:00.002Z

Well what an interesting couple of days. I had to go to Manchester on business for a meeting today so I drove up last night and stopped off to see Dave at Canley Classics. I often drop in for a pint and a chat (OK usually a pint of coke).

I had considered entering and mentioned it to Dave but it was somewhat half hearted as I knew I would have no time to prapare or help prepare a car and mine hasn't really proved itself yet.

Anyway Dave said he'd been visited by Dave Langrick who had convinced him that doing La Carerra was a good idea - we'd done the event together 2 years ago in my fire breathing Vitesse (the flames out the back had scorched Langricks bumper) and it had been fun despite the issues.

Anyway, Dave asked if I wanted "in", well I had already decided that I could not do it in my own car, due to the lack of any preparation time. I'm due out to India again in a few weeks and won't be back until Thursday evening on the 4th but hey! If there's a drive in it and Dave's prepared to do the hard work then yes I'm in!

So Dave's doing the entry, I'm sorting the accomodation and the deal is done!

What car? Well maybe the new Atlas V8 Sport Touring? Or maybe not. He won't tell me but who cares, a weekend away with Triumphs and the Scotlandshire countryside will be just fine.

First issue though is finding somewher to stay on the Friday night as the Old Stome Trough is apparently full! Major issue as we do like to have a drink or two. Sleeping bag in the car or maybe a tent in the field? I'll have to ask around but if anyone doesn't mind a couple of house trained semi-drunk blokes snoring for a night then let me know, if you're going to the OST and can give us a lift that would be a bonus (well if you don't ask...) We've got B&B money to spend.

Unstuck stickiness

2009-04-25T18:49:00.002Z

Well that's me done for the day, my back's gone stiff and it's time for a shower and a beer. It's been a decent day really, the sticky brake is unstuck. I couldn't really see much in the way of a cause but there was quite a lot of dust and crud in there. I've cleaned it all up and made sure there's no rust on the drum or lumps on the shoes. To be honest it just looks like they were sticking to the drums, everything now looks fine. It's all pretty new looking in there, all NOS stuff.
I also managed to get blanking plugs into all the holes in the nearside inner wheel well. Throughout it's life the car looks like it's had several incarnations of PI plumbing. That's not uncommon seeing as there were half a dozen factory modifications done to Mk1 PIs! I've gone and done my own version relocating the pump to the offside, away from the exhaust. I've plumbed in a fuel tap and glass bowled agglomerater with a drain. That drain goes down through the boot floor so changing the filter should now be easy and involve turning the tap off, draining the filter through to the outside. The filter housing is now plumbed in with flexible hoses so it can be unbolted and manoeuvred easily. I still need to do something with the boot boards to tidy it all up, especially as I have pulled out all the grotty boot carpet (have kept it for patterns). I am still looking for some shadow blue carpet so I can make it all pretty and neat.

Stabilisers back on

2009-04-25T13:54:00.003Z

Well stabiliser (single).

Ever since getting the car the dashboard has been a weird ornament. None of the instruments worked. I had a low fuel warning light but that was about it.
First came the choke light, that was just a clear up of the mechanism and I did that when I found the right choke cable to fit.
Next came the clock, thanks to Scrapman Colin Wake I got a working clock - it even kept excellent time.
Next came the speedo, that was my fault I think, when I fitted the cable I seem to have managed to miss align it at the gearbox, quite how I did it I don't know but a happy few days tracing it sorted out and that was great.
But the fuel and temp gauge eluded me - I got a new voltage stabiliser but that didn't work, it was more serious than that. I managed to buy one of those new solid state stabiliser chips (no connectors just the chip) and was prepared to "go modern" to fix it. First though lets get the multimeter out and see what the hell's going on. Yup, it's all over everywhere. Neither stabiliser (original or new) was producing the required stable output, even running a direct feed for the earth off the battery didn't do it.
So, nothing for it but to get the soldering iron out and have a play. 30 mins later I had soldered up some wires onto the tiny chip and it was all connected - it works! Frankly I am amazed, I'm crap at electrics, my eyesight is going so fine work is a challenge and my soldering has always been more expressionist art than electronics.
So, what's left on the job list - bloody loads!
I have now renewed 3 of the injector seals as another injector failed today. The ones that have failed were yellow plated, the ones that have not are plain - no idea if that's the cause but it does seem likely. I have one plated injector left but it was the first one to fail and I have replaced the seal in it - I have no more decent spares to use. I'll get another set of seals and the clean up my spares, I might just swap out that plated one anyway.
Next on the list is to investigate a sticky rear brake. I don't tend to leave the handbrake applied on the car when it's in the garage so I can roll the car about but just lately it's been very hard to push. I found the same just before and at the MOT test but the brake efficiency was fine. I suspect a strip and clean will sort it but we'll see, nothing is ever that easy!

I've seen the light

2009-04-24T20:00:00.003Z

I've always been keen to use modern technology to improve the lighting on my cars, I don't think I've ever had standard lighting for long on a car. Usually that's been fitting relays and higher wattage lamps.
There's never been much choice for upgrading the sidelights so I was quite interested when I started seeing LED lamps coming down in price.
I also liked the look of those modern LED indicators that are crisp and instant as they come on.
For nearly a year now I have had an HID kit sat on the shelf waiting for me to get round to fitting it, I don't have all the lenses I want to do that yet.
So last week, in a moment of weakness and I dare say idleness, I took a surf and ended up with a set of LED lights. Somehow I managed to mess up the order and ended up with a bit of an odd assortment - I didn't want to do the indicators until I had figured out how to ensure they actually work! LED indicators and old school flasher units don't play well together, apparently the LEDs are such low resistance that they don't work properly with those old flasher units. The fix seemed to be wiring in resistors but that just feels like a fudge. I have now found a purpose designed LED flasher so I will try that at a later date.
Anyway, back to the LEDs. I had sidelights, stop/tail, some reversing lights (or indicators) and some festoons - that's where I messed up! The festoons were for the indicators on the B posts and one for the interior light, well the festoons are the wrong size for the interior light and of course the indicators don't work (Duh, I knew that so why did I order then this time!?!)
Brain fade!!

Right, so I tried the sidelights in the front to see what they were like. You know, I'm not entirely sure! I mean I like the "look" bit I'm unconvinced they are actually brighter (as these are supposed to be) but I do like the crisp light. It's quite hard to take photos of lights but here you go.

From Jason's Blog

Here's a closer look at the LED side

From Jason's Blog

and the other side with a filament lamp in it

From Jason's Blog

Here's the end result

From Jason's Blog

Here are the rears, first the reversing lights as standard

From Jason's Blog

and now with an LED

From Jason's Blog

This is the one that's quite hard to photograph, here are the rear sidelights as standard with a filament lamp in it,

From Jason's Blog

and now with an LED in it, I'm not convinced this is an improvement but from some angles it is

From Jason's Blog

Sometimes the Gods smile on you.....

2009-04-14T19:28:00.004Z

....and sometimes they turn round and take a dump on you.

So, it goes like this - MOT passed, feeling good. I'm sorting out the rough running (I'm running out of ideas but I'm still keen). I refit the air filter, it's all a little tight with the "spaced" throttle but it just about fits.

Now let's see if the timing is still OK. I find that the timing is a little off, weird because I've done that a few days ago. Never mind, get the timing gun out and get it sorted, dizzy feels a little loose so I tighten it all up.

The car's ticking over nicely and then just stops, dead. No stutter just stops. I jump in the driver's seat and whiz it over, it doesn't catch. Strange.

Then I get that flash of inspiration or was it the sound of the pump changing ever so slightly or the stench of petrol? So with ignition still on (silly boy) I take a look in the open boot - it's not a good sight. The high pressure hose on the output side has split where it goes into the fitting - it's just old and had it's time.

You see the thing with a PI is that any "leak" on the high pressure side is not really a "leak", it's a Tsunami. So the boot is awash with petrol.

Damn!

Unfortunately petrol attacks the stone chip paint under the colour and therefore in no time we're down to bare metal!

But every Tsunami has a cleaning effect, stripping away the old so the new can be built. I've ripped it all out and replaced the broken pipe, got it running and driven it into the garage. Tomorrow I will plan the relocation of the pump, PRV and filter. I may even sort out those boot boards I've got and tidy the whole lot up.

Before all this happened I also did something I have been threatening to do for a while. I stripped and "reconditioned" and injector. Dave P gave me a new seal about a year ago, it's a tiny "O" ring, it was an original Lucas one. The procedure is really simple, so simple I am bound to have screwed it up! There's an external circlip at the squirty end that you can remove with a small flat blade screwdriver. Then you can push the guts of the injector back through the input end, I used a brass drift to push it all the way.

From there you can see the guts of the injector and the O ring, fiddle that off and refit a new one, trying not to upset any of the rotating stuff - looks to me like you can twist things and set the trigger pressure - I left well alone. Reassembly was the reverse but I used a little light oil to ease the new seal back through the injector body. After refitting the C clip all was ready to whack it back in the car.

Guess what?

It only bloody worked - really good fine cone spray, no drips, no bubbles, fires at the right time - I am amazed.

And before everyone says "Oh but you need to set the trigger pressure correctly" - I know, I haven't and I don't know how to measure it so I'm not saying reconditioning your injectors is as easy as I have described because there is more to it. I feel that test rig is getting closer to being built.

From the guts of the injector I can't see a huge amount to go wrong, Dave P's been telling me for years they are simple and just to prove I do listen to you Dave - you're right, again :-)

Whooo Hoooo!

2009-04-14T15:45:00.003Z

It's that feeling you get when you win the lottery, when you find one more chip in the bottom of the bag, when you come home and the kids haven't broken anything, when, when , when - you get the drift.

Well that feeling was mine today when the PI sailed through the MOT without a problem. The guys in my preferred MOT station are old car friendly, Bob the one I see more often than not, appreciates the finer things in life, like Triumphs :-) OK so whe I said "it's running a bit rought I've got a dodgy injector" he did say that they were standard on PIs - thats' why he always ripped it all off and put Webers on!

Nevertheless, a fresh ticket is mine. The car made it there and back - I have even managed to get the speedo to work, bonus!

So, to celebrate, I gave her a present

The issues now are all around getting her running right, anything else is pretty much cosmetic tarting - I have promised myself that I will attend to the important stuff first. Otherwise I'm going to have a pretty car that won't go :-(

Thanks Bert

2009-04-14T11:31:00.003Z

I've been struggling with the PI, I think I've turned the corner thanks to Albert Einstein. You see I have a "Home Page" on my PC that includes a daily random Einstein Quote, I'm trying to increase my bullshitting repertoire. Anyway, today's quote was

'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'

and as I sat there looking for inspiration this morning I figured that was good advice. Let's go do something different!

You see I couldn't understand the results I was getting with the fuel injection - bubbles in the now clear line (sometime you can have too much information) and poorly injecting on No1. All unions tight, no sign of leaks, everything all as it should be visually. I had changed out several components and generally messed about with the usual suspects. All my test readings on my pressure gauge were OK but it would still not run well, popping and farting like me after a curry and bucket of lager.

I decided to see what would happen if I exceeded 106 PSI at the metering unit and went up to an indicated 120, the racers do it, so why not?

Bingo! Bubbles cleared in the line. The injector was still not right but better, I swapped it for No2 which was fine, that told me the injector was faulty. I rummaged in my spares and found a better one, not great but better. She runs without the popping and stuttering, seem far happier at idle and is worthy of a road test, or two :-)

I will take stock of what I have and see if I can sort out a recon injector, I don't want to run with this one for long. I have some seals somewhere to put in an injector but I haven't yet figured out how to test the trigger pressure. There's not much too them but I am guessing that they all need to trigger within a reasonable pressure range of each other. The book says 60 PSI I think.

That leads me to another idea to make up a test rig and pressure test some of this kit I have lying around. I've got loads and some of the pumps look great but there's no point in keeping useless spares and there's no way of knowing if they are crap until you pressure test them!

This episode today has encouraged me to sort out the plumbing in the boot of the PI, I fancy putting the pump over on the driver's side, away from the heat of the exhaust. I'll also put a fuel tap in there so changing the fuel filter isn't such a messy job! I'm also told that Mk2 plumbing style is better with the pump on it's side, I have the necessary cradle and cooling coil combo on there at the moment as a temp set-up. The pump is NOS. I now have a glass bowl filter so I think I'll put that in the OS wing and modify the trim around it all.

Anyway, that's the midday update, MOT this afternoon so now my dear daughter has shown her worth and provided me with a bacon sandwich, I can get back to the car :-)

A few more silly little jobs done

2009-04-06T11:52:00.002Z

When I bought the car it came with a nicely rechromed bonnet badge, these things are getting to be silly money, £100 for a decent one, £200 for NOS.

Anyhoo - mine was nicely rechromed with a new foil for the Injection lettering, however it wasn't quite right as the indents weren't black. So I decided to try something and took a roll of go faster striping I had and a craft knife - here are the before and after pictures

Hopefully it'll stay on, I've had that reel of stripes for about 30 years! I remember nicking it from my Dad's garage and using it to put some on my mates Raleigh Chopper when we were about 10 years old!

The other major achievement today is that the proper steering wheel is back on and.....

...... I'm not so sure I like it!

Too thin, too flimsy and too big! With PAS I don't need a bus wheel and I may well find a smaller Motolita one - if I can find one for a reasonable price.

More later, I'm enjoying this :-)

Today's learning......

2009-04-04T21:17:00.002Z

There two ways to remove a steering wheel, one way is to leave the nut on but loosly so the wheel just comes un-stuck and doesn't actually come off the column - ie you can undo the nut completely after you've loosened the wheel on the colum and are left with the steering wheel in your hands and a smile on your face.
The other way involves you removing the central nut and sitting in the driving seat. You pull on the wheel whilst bending your head over the steering wheel. Now give it a few repeated tugs culminating in one big snatch. The wheel will now fly off the steering column and you will whack yourself on your head with the wheel. Bearing in mind you have just put a lot of energy and ooomph into this it will hurt, you will see stars and if you're really luck you will have a nice red mark on your forehead, a small lump and a big headache.

Guess which method I used?

Remember kids, I do these stupid things so you don't have to.

Tomorrow I am going to play with electrics, watch out for burnt fingers, blown fuses and appliances doing weird things that you don't expect!

I have redeemed myself

2009-04-04T15:31:00.002Z

Got the PI back together and took her for a blast down the road, well more of a pootle than a blast!
Never mind, it runs and I can now get stuck into MOT preparation, well checking really because she's been nowhere in the last 12 months.
A couple of corroded connections got in the way of the passenger side repeater working, but that's sorted in a second, just need to do a little repair on the lens to ensure it lasts another 40 years.
I returned wo the orginal pump and have noticed that the fuel pressure is falling under 100 psi so I will change that all out this week - must try and see if I can relocate it to the other side of the boot, away from the exhaust.
I picked up a pair of black Stag seats for pennies last week, they need work - diaphrams etc but they may do for a trial fit - I like them, just need blue covers!

Forgive me for I have sinned

2009-03-28T11:38:00.002Z

Forgive me for I have sinned

It's been 5 months since I last drove my PI

I know, I know - I've been busy in the country and others!

Grab a coffee, this is a going to be a long one.

When I last drove the PI, it was missing and would not pick up very well when you floored it - to be honest it's a new engine, the car had been off the road for 30 years and in the workshop for 5 (ish) so I was taking it steady but now it was time to fix it.

I found the throttle spindles were worn and decided to change them for a mint Mk2 set I had.

I then checked for injector dribble (it's an age thing) and sure enough I had a dribbley injector (No1) I took it off and found a couple of little black rubber bits in it - ah-ha says I in my best mechanic voice, Thar's yer problem.

Fortunately no one was looking and I carried on as if I were sane - the black bits looked like the rubber seals in the metering unit breaking down - I remember Dave telling me that the PI kit was "picked over" and fitted to get the car running, it could need attention he said (this car was finished on a budget for the previous owner and whilst some stuff was top of the line, I think he'd run out of money/interest/parts by this time).

Anyway I digress. I cleaned out the lines and decided to fit a good and known metering unit from my stash. With all that done I then ran out of time and went to India.

The winter came and I am a light weight, the car sat until a few weeks ago when it started to get warmer and I went back to finish the job, I never managed it but at least I got to a point where it was just a case of bleeding through the system and firing it up! Yeah right.

So the first thing I do today, within 10 mins of getting in the garage, is to slip with a spanner and break No 1 injector pipe. I admit, I swore.

A lot.

Birds left the trees and small animals retreated to their burrows.

My neighbour, a nice doctor came round to see if I needed an ambulance.

OK time to make a new pipe, I have some clear pipe that's suitable (it's commercial vehicle airline hose). To fit the ends you need to make a tool, the manual tells you to use unobtainium, a sort of nylon like material, to make a clamp. Well what fun I have had! Three attempts and the Mk 3 clamp worked OK
Mk1 was a bit of an HT lead clamp, never made it past the prototype phase
Mk2 was the nylon arm that connects your toilet flush handle to the plunger inside - tried a few times with this but it didn't clamp enough.
Mk3 was a bit of wood, made in 3 mins and worked perfect first time out!

I now have one clear line and 5 black ones but I'm not going to mess with the rest until I figure out why I only have 85/90 psi at the metering unit and insufficient pressure at the injectors to trigger them! The should blow at 60 psi so this is looking bad.

I changed the pump (because it was easy and I have a couple of NOS ones) and I am now attacking the PRV but I don't think I have a known good one to play with - the one on the car should be good but who really knows.

I honestly don't know how the PRV works, I mean I know what it does and I have a reasonable idea of how it does it but I like to understand. Why would a PRV fail and why would it go from 106 psi to 90psi. Adjusting these things is a pain in the posterior because you have to partially dismantle it to do it then of course you have to put it back together to test!

Anyone got any experience with Prestige's modern PRV?

Wow – not only pictures but moving pictures of BYE377H, aka Car No 1 at the start of the World Cup Rally

2009-03-27T17:46:00.003Z

On the advice of one the discussion boards I visit, I took a long overdue look at British Pathe Limited and found some interesting stuff.

The search engine takes a little getting used to, the previews are low quality and the full versions are expensive but you can get a preview for free.

All sorts of stuff there including this one

https://www.britishpathe.com/thumbnails.php?id=85444&searchword=world%20cup%20rally&searchword=world%20cup%20rally

You can download stills from the movies and I was going to put a few up here as I figured no one would mind. Wrong - I enquired and got a nice email saying that they'd charge me so you'll just have to go there and download them yourselves.

There's stills of BYE377H the 2.5PI of Buchanan-Michaelson sporting Rally Number 1. I never realised it had a red stripe over the bonnet - until Dave rubbed the paintwork off and showed me, then I found these pictures, that I can't show you!

There is a very brief clip of the car driving past and here it is with that red stripe over the boot and rear wings as well!

No sound and the whole thing is silent and only 6 mins long, so far I can't find any more footage - £500 to show you the full thing and £25 a still

A very productive couple of days

2009-02-14T09:09:00.004Z

I'll write this up properly as soon as I have the time but here's a quick taster of what I've been up to.

Brian Englefield, one of the privateers on the World Cup appeared on the Atlas forum I occasionally use, then popped up on the CT forum to set a few things right. I started corresponding with him and he invited me to go see him and his "box of World Cup stuff" - was I excited? Damn right I was!

The unique things about Brian Englefield is that not only did he complete in a Triumph but he also bought 2 of the World Cup cars from the works, including the wreck of XJB304H which is now in the hands of Pat Walker. Now there has been some chat about the provenance of this car although having seen BYE377H the Buchanan-Michaelson car and WRX902H the test car, I now know exactly what would be needed to replicate a works shell and how difficult it would be to do now. So it was a great opportunity to speak to the guy who reshelled 404 and see just what was done.
So I gathered up Dave Pearson who owns DYE and has WRX in the workshop and is a fellow anorak. He's a damn sight more knowledgeable on the technical details than I am too!

Now Brian lives in Normandy, an 800 mile round trip for me, add a couple of hundred on that for Dave but what the hell! It's an opportunity to speak with someone who was there, hand his hands in a works engine and drove, broke, fixed the cars!

Because I am off to India for 3 weeks and weekends are precious for Dave we figured out that there was really only a couple of days that were viable to go, Brian would put us up and so at stupid o'clock on the 12th we were off for Dover.

We weren't disappointed, Brian and Jeanette were excellent hosts, Brian's memory, despite his apologies, is excellent and his "box of memories" is more World Cup stuff than I've ever seen before. Add to that the post World Cup stuff and you've got a gold mine. We enjoyed a great evening and morning which passed far too quickly before we had to get back for the ferry.

Here's a couple of pictures of XJB304H, as reshelled by Brian and competing the same year as the World Cup - as he said, it was an easy job to build up the shell evidenced by the following a matter of months after he bought the cars

From World Cup Rally 1970

and in colour, after christening the new car with a minor contact with the scenery

From World Cup Rally 1970

We came away with a hundred scanned documents a couple of photos and a book of notes. I have to decide what to do with them all now!

The first thing I want to do is to make a hit list of people to talk to and near the top of the list today is the Abingdon test driver, Fast Eddie Burnell - where are you Eddie? Also, Brian is going to contact his navigator and see if we can make contact.

World Cup Rally route on Google maps

2009-02-08T20:56:00.004Z

I've been playing with Google Maps to see if I could plot the rally route, I didn't quite manage what I wanted to do but I have managed to plot all the major aiming points, well those I could find! I wanted to try and link them up with the likely roads but I couldn't seem to make it work without a lot of work.

Ultimately, if I can, I'd like to tag the photos I have with the places they were taken, once I've verified them!

The maps are reproduced below, I think this should link you to them too

European leg

View Larger Map

South American leg

View Larger Map

If you're viewing this from within the Club Triumph site then you may not be able to see the embedded Google map, click here to go to my Blog http://chinn.blogspot.com/

ADU 5B @ Chatsworth Rally Show 2008

2009-02-02T11:32:00.005Z

Trawling for photos, I stumbled across what I think is Dave Pearson pootling about on a sedate drive around Chatsworth in 2008, I say "I think" because I'm not sure if anyone else drove 5B that day - Dave, help me out with a comment mate.

Click on each of the images to be taken to the owners pages and the image source with some bigger versions.

Here he is again

New photo I've never seen before

2009-02-01T22:05:00.005Z

1970 World Cup Rally 00
Originally uploaded by Paul Lowry

Just mooching around the net for some info and found this phot I've not seen before. All three surviving works Triumphs are in there. Click on the image for a slightly bigger version hosted on Paul Lowry's pages. I've written to him, I wonder if he has anymore?

The caption says

SANTIAGO, Chile, May 13 (UPI) The 43 surviving crews in the London-to-Mexico City World Cup auto rally rested today after their grueling 3,800-mile nonstop drive from Rio de Janeiro

Additional - I have now got the original image and it's a scanned negative at excellent resolution so I've uploaded it to my Picasa album here.

From World Cup Rally 1970

Triumph Rally cars - long after the World Cup Rally

2009-01-31T21:15:00.007Z

Via the Atlas Bulletin Board I was pointed at another Picasa album that shows a few interesting pictures including an ex-works World Cup car, an ex-works Mk1 and of all things a rally Stag!!
The pictures were taken in 1985 at RAF Lindholme
I've added the albums owner as a"favourite" in my public Picasa profile.

World Cup Video

2009-01-31T19:50:00.000Z

Found this whilst trawling the net, again.

Triumph 2.5Pi World Cup Rally 1970

New Album - what does the web think?

2009-01-31T09:53:00.004Z

I've been playing about with the new improved Picasa, a really good free photo program. I've uploaded a few Mk1 pictures here
I'm a little dispaoointed that no one has yet made any comments on the photos - I welcome people's sensible input here, if you know when or where the photo was taken or can answer any of the questions I've asked (or set me right where I've got it wrong) then please have a go!

From 2000 Mk1 Rally Cars

More World Cup photos

2009-01-25T13:43:00.005Z

Considering I only had one picture of this car I am really pleased to have made contact with one of the guys who drove it on the World Cup rally, Brian Englefield. He's very kindly sent me a few photos of the car on the event and in subsequent campagns.
Here's UKV701H the LHD entry of Brian Englefield, Keith Baker and Andrew Lloyd-Hirst, somewhere in Serbia I think

From World Cup Rally 1970

I've uploaded a few more and will blog them as I get round to it or take a look at my newly created (so it will probably fall over) World Cup Rally gallery on Picassa - click on the photo above and go there. I've included a randon World Cup photo in my Blog homepage for those who get here via the web at large rather than via Club Triumph.
Where possible I will always credit the source of the photos - this one was from a professional Rally photographer, sadly the firm seems to be defunct now as I can't find them. If anyone knows better please let me know.

Quick Restoration Project?

2009-01-18T15:31:00.003Z

I was transferring some photos from my father's old laptop to a CD for him when I happened across this fine example of a New Zealand Triumph. Photo taken in 2004, not sure of location but near some hot springs if that makes any sense to anyone.

Despite the loss of what looks like a PI, I kinda like the way it's going back to nature.

Having a bit of a World Cup day

2009-01-17T16:24:00.003Z

A spark from the Club Triumph forum, a chat with an present owner of one of the cars and an email from an entrant to the event have all rekindled my interest. I've been looking for pictures and details of a couple of cars from the event, the sort of works car BYE377H or "Car No 1" (as it lost it's registration over the last 39 years) and the private "works assisted" entry UKV701H that I always thought was left in South America.

Well the web works in mysterious ways and what does it throw up today but pictures of both cars as well as other info.

Here's a picture I've seen before but only in poor quality, this one isn't great but it's better. It's Bobby Buchanan-Michelson getting a speeding ticket whilst driving out of London from the start in BYE377H - there are more pictures of this event as it was reported in the newspapers pretty extensively at the time (apparenly, I mean I was 4 at the time!).

Then there was this picture, which again I've seen before. It's of entry number 39, UKV701H, Andrew Lloyd-Hirst, Brian Englefield and I think K Baker. Now this was a car I though was left in S. America after an accident somewhere near Montevideo but it turns out the car was repatriated via a roundabout route. It seems likely it's lost now but anyway, here it is, on full chat

Another India trip draws to a close.

2008-11-10T19:48:00.002Z

I am sat in Delhi airport using fruit based technology to scribble a few words, not because I have much to say, mainly because I can!
It's times like these I wonder why I do this job, it's gone midnight, the plane is delayed and I have just watched some Russian bloke cut his toe nails, in the departure "lounge". I am also knackered.
It's been a hectic trip with much eating and drinking in the evenings to keep the relationships fresh, it's fun the first time, then it gets samey, then it gets a little tiring but overall I do still enjoy the place and the people.
No Triumphs spotted this trip, the nearest I got was what I thought were. once a couple of Leyland 20's parked up and rotting in Pune. I say "I think" because I never actually got close enough to tell for sure!
I did see Indian ingenuity at it's peak though, imagine the scene - scorching hot day at the petrol station. Big queue of bikes (there are more bikes in Pune than cars) and there is a power cut so no fuel can be pumped. No problem for the "whatever it takes" Indians, what you do is you get a bucket and you drain petrol from the waiting tanker, into you bucket and slosh it into the waiting bikes. You can see the evaporating fuel haze and smell the petrol from the other side of the street - truly they are mentalists.
The rest of the trip has been uneventful the usual internal flights through gut wrenching turbulence, lairy taxi rides in free for all traffic, cheap booze by the gallon and a credit card hammered to within an inch of its life.
I did have a good night out with the lads in the office in Pune, at their "liquor den". A rough and ready place where, when you order a rum and coke you get a bottle of "Old Monk" and a bottle of "thumbs up", the local cola. It's all very Indian but despite the relaxed closing - "it closes when we stop drinking" I had a decent evening / early morning with no too much hangover. As a bonus I actually got home OK despite the fact that everyone on the road at that time was drunk, including the cops!
Well the Russian guy has gone to board the Moscow or Kiev flight and has been replaced by a rather nice looking Spanish girl in the daftest MC Hammer baggy trousers. Still, at least she has kept her toe nails to herself and not clipped them onto the floor like comrade Slobo.
Time for a coffee and some more people watching or I will fall asleep right here - not a good idea!
Home in half a day, can't wait.

J

Follow the intrepid Team Atlast around Britain

2008-09-28T19:30:00.001Z

Just click to go to the RBRR message diary where all the teams' progress will be reported in text messages, emails and possibly pictures too.

The Vantastic team number 13, aka Team Atlast will be updating regularly, well at least until we fall over :-)

All the team's who gave me their mobile phone numbers have been registered and their messages will show up with their team names and numbers. Each team was emailed this morning with instructions on how it works. Please don't ask Keith and I to troubleshoot any problems over the weekend, neither of us will have the time nor the equipment to do much sorry.

Also, if you want to follow us around on the map then click to http://www.gingell.com/triumph/rbrr/ and courtesy of Craig Gingell and Google maps you can see where we are going to be at what approximate time. All stops will be pretty easy to find and there will be Club Triumph banners, signs and marshalls around. If you're looking for a particular car then ask the marshalls and they will be able to give you an idea of whether the car has been through, is running late or has retired.

The 5 minute job turns into a nightmare

2008-09-21T11:48:00.002Z

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!

This week I have been mining my garage for treasures!

2008-08-30T19:42:00.006Z

A lifetime of Triumph ownership has left me with a load of odds and ends in the garage, some of which I really can't see me needing anytime soon. None of it is especially desirable or rare, in fact there's a strong desire to bin some of it but I just can't bring myself to without trying to move it on to some other needy owner. There's new repro stuff never got round to fitting and lots of secondhand bits that need to sell on. I'll eBay is over the next few weeks but if anyone wants some of this then shout now. From today's ferkulling I've found the following

One old repro outer door weather strip for a Herald, the type that were pre-cut. There's also one of the new ones that isn't pre-cut around the quarter light. These come complete with the clips AND the tool to install them!
A pair of NOS in Lucas boxes front sidelight/indicator glass lenses complete with new rubber gaskets
A handbrake cable fitting kit and cable, all new
Vitesse glove box lid, lock and fittings
A Vitesse water pump housing (and pump) tastefully painted white! All looks OK considering I took them apart, painted them and boxed them up 20 years ago (the newspaper date is 1998!) In the same box were
A Vitesse ashtray
Master cylinder mounts cleaned and painted black
Clutch and brake pedal assemblies complete, all cleaned and painted black
Then there's the bigger stuff like
Vitesse front vertical links and trunnions (sold)
A servo - I think it came off a Vitesse
A couple of re-skinned Herald/Vitesse doors
Vitesse boot lid
If I can dig them out there's a couple of hood frames for Heralds in the roof

There's more and I'll take some photos but if anyone reading this is looking for something for a Herald/Vitesse maybe some Spitfire stuff - let me know :-) I need the space and the cash!

Standard Atlas moves under it's own power

2008-08-24T15:28:00.004Z

Yes it moves, with both forward and backward motion, maybe even a little braking in between. This is the better of the two Atli vans Dave has, the camper is, shall we say, more challenged than this one. I think this may well be the RBRR steed - we must be mentalists.

Here's a pic I like too, one man at peace in his van

Idle moments

2008-08-17T08:01:00.004Z

I'm just off to Penzance for a few days to see some friends then I'm back for a week and a bit of DIY jobs around the house plus, I hop, some work on the PI.
You see whilst sat in hotel rooms with nothing but eBay for company has seen me hoovering up some Mk1 stuff. The car really wants very little but there are a few things that bug me and, as is the case when you have time on your hands, those little things have become big in my mind. Enter eBay - to replace a slightly cracked indicator lense I've managed to find a whole sidelight and indicator unit, NOS. In doing so I also found a NOS rear that was too cheap to pass. Although my choke cable buying has reached OCD levels I've never quite managed to get exactly the right knob - well I have now :-) a NOS cable with correct detachable knob is mine - but they are a bitch to fit onto the metering unit - I think I'm just gonna bite the bullet and pull the metering unit this time, far easier!
I need to refit the PI steering wheel and boss and then attend to all the other jobs that remain on the list. That's a list that hasn't changed much since I made it when I got back from the Isle of Wight in May!!
There is a box in the garage of all the parts to go on the car and it's growing and growing - time to get my finger out.
Also, some RBRR admin needs doing, I've been organised this year and booked my cheapo train ticket to Coventry so I can get up to Dave's and start the run in the traditional manner, later night beer and curry on Thursday ready to rebuild and MOT whatever vehicle we're using. I think the Atlas camper isn't going to see the RBRR this year, the Atlas van on the other hand is pretty close to an MOT! It runs under it's own power, just. When I can figure out how to do it I will post up a video of Dave doing what he does best, poncing about wasting time with me encouraging him :-)
As for RBRR rides, it's not decided yet - might be the Courier, might be something else - at the moment my entry list says Atlas, Tim's says Courier and Dave says "Something else".......

Triumph sighted in India

2008-07-24T13:42:00.000Z

OK not entirely true but I have seen my first Triumph out here - on the TV.
There's an Indian advert for Garnier shampoo, nice Indian lad with flowing hair doing the whole 'be fun young and attractive if you use our product' type thing and in the background is a red Herald convertible. I've only seen the advert twice and the car features for a nano second but nevertheless it is a Triumph.
I am finishing up in the office now and off to Delhi for a dinner then on to the airport to catch the red eye flight back home, eta 9 am tomorrow morning.
Lots of RBRR stuff to catch up with, quite a few changes to the running list and a few more reservists moving up to take up places. All good stuff, I will try and get it update as soon as I know where I am and what time it is!

Jason

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RBRR admin from afar

2008-07-10T06:13:00.002Z

Just before I left for India I managed to update the RBRR entry list following a couple of changes. It's all up to date on the Comps web site.
When I get back I need to tidy up entry details for all those with missing cars, crews or anything else. Although crews can make changes at any time I do need to have a fully populated list in the first place! So my plea is that if you click on the above link and see your details are incomplete please let have those details by email and I will update it.
Also, a number of crews have been contacted regarding Club Triumph membership, at least one crew member must be a member of the club to run on the RBRR so that means if your membership expires before the start you will need to renew.
We appreciate that in these times of rising fuel costs there may be some crews amongst us who might feel that they cannot afford the event - that is an unfortunate truth and there's little we can do to get around this. So, if you are considering pulling out for this or indeed any other reason please do let me know as soon as possible, I still have crews on the Reserve List all eager and willing to participate.
We will draw a line under the entry list at the end of August and close the entry, any withdrawals will be replaced from the Reserve List.

I'm in India until the end of July, you can reach me by email but please also copy in Tim Bancroft just in case I can't pick it up for a few days.

Jason
From cold, wet and humid Bangalore!

Fancy a Porsche?

2008-06-20T20:03:00.001Z

Porsche : 944 Turbo Race / Track car

Here's the link to my Brother-in-Law's racer that's been languishing for years in his lock-up. He's finally decided to retire from racing and sell it on.

Anyone have any other ideas where to advertise it? I've suggested PPC and Retro mags.

More bits and pieces

2008-06-17T12:00:00.005Z

Just a few photos of the fruits of my collecting labours. First the air filter canister, sand blasted and painted in satin black - it came out pretty good I think. I just need to sort out the horn positioning and then I can fit the pipes and the clip thingy that the air pipes attach too. Sorry about the weird angle of the photo, not sure why but I kinda like it! Note also fancy "Snap-on" wing protectors - very gaudy!
Here's my "new" clock and "new" cubby door, much better than the piece of black painted hardboard that I bodged in to make it look a bit better than the scabby hole that was left once I'd removed the Dictaphone thing that was in there. It all works but I can't see how to identify the required key, not that it's a "must have" but it might be useful.
I have apair of NOS external door handles to go on too, I have a mismathced pair on at the moment, one with a Wilmott Breedon key and one with an FS type key - and that one is very stiff despite liberal and regular lubrication.

Finally, the PI steering wheel that I've repaired and restitched mounted on a boss that's been assembled from bits - horn push from here, boss from there, screws and electrical connector from somewhere else - you get the picture!

To be honest I'd rather a chunky Moto-Lita one but despite heavy hints not one steering wheel sized package made it to me for my birthday and I'm far too tight to pay the £250+ for what I want new from Moto-Lita.

I like this blog, lets me feel connected to the Triumph community as I get many emails and personal contact from it - some people offer parts, advice or just friendship and that's great. I couldn't have put all these little odds and ends together without people's help, indeed I didn't know where and how some of them fitted - I'm no Mk1 expert by a long shot. So I was surprised by an email that popped up whilst I was writing this, that email seems to be in response to my post saying "thank you" to a few people.

You see, I've been writing this blog for 4 years now and occasionally I get an idiot, haven't had one for a while but today I got my allocation of idiot. He reads my blog but doesn't like it, so rather than not read it he decided to send me some abuse via the comments section on the blog. I would send him some instructions on how to not read it but I don't think he'd understand and he prefer to stay annonymous.

So to that feckless miscreant - have some balls you silly little man and put your name to your emails, I know you're ashamed of yourself but I'm sure everyone would be interested in who you are.

Collecting bits and pieces

2008-06-16T07:16:00.002Z

Thanks to the power of the Blog, word of mouth, good fortune and a wanted ad on the Club Triumph web pages I have now collected, bought or borrowed most of the bits I needed. So a few "thank you"s are in order to Dave Pearson, Tim Bancroft, Colin Wake, Doug Thomson, Richard Underwood and Tim Walker who have collectively given, sold or loaned me various parts including a working clock (that keeps excellent time), the centre cubby box fittings including lid, hinges, lining, lock, lock keep etc, a PI steering wheel boss, PI air filter canister (now sand blasted, painted and fitted with new filter element) plus other odds and ends!
I had a tinker on the weekend but didn't get enough time on the car as we had house guests and various functions to attend but at least the cubby box and clock are in place.
I had meant to take the passenger seat out, pull the cover off and re-stitch it where the original seam has parted but that's going to be a long job and I hate leaving the car in pieces so I didn't start it.
I've negotiated a wet flat and machine polish with my brother-in-law (the Porsche mechanic, sorry Technician) in exchange for some sales work - I have to sell his 944 race car which is immaculate and indecently quick. Not road registered, it's a stripped out racer but his level of preparation is so high it looks like it should be in a showroom. I'll sort out some pictures and sit down and write up the spec with him, I think I'll put it on Pistonheads first and then go look for the other free places before we get serious. He doesn't have to sell it so he can take his time. It's worth about £8k so I need to do a good job :-)
Jobs on the PI now are

Check valve clearances, timing and a general tune up
Change oil and filter
Change fuel filter and cure possible leak on filter bowl (might just change the lot)
Sort out PI plumbing in boot
Restitch passenger seat seam
Feed seats (again and again)
Clean carpets - will get the steam carpet cleaner on them I think
Sort out drivers carpet fitting, seems a bit loose
Finish rust proofing
Protect inner arches better - where I tickled them with a grinder to fit wheels
Wet flat and machine polish
Sort out the C pillar vinyl trim - material used is too thick and glue too crap to work
Drill holes in new sills for new finisher fixings and fit sill finishers
Sort out under bonnet horn positions so I can
Fit air box trunking and connect
Fit air horns (non-musical!)
Fix voltage stabiliser issues so fuel and temp gauge work
Adjust choke cable so it works properly
Restore and fit underbonnet sound deadening pad
Replace rusted out overrider with better second hand one
Consider taking off the bumpers and running bumperless (see poll)
Find some shadow blue Stag seats - can I find any with headrests?
Find shadow blue boot carpets
I wonder if I can just find a roll of shadow blue carpet!?

Phew, seems like a lot now I've written it down and I've only got 3 weekends before I'm off to India again. At least I've been able to book some serious time off after that, no holiday this year, I am going tot try and do stuff that doesn't cost and uses up the parts I have!

La Carerra Caledonia

2008-06-09T20:34:00.001Z

It was outstanding!

An Evening with Brian Culcheth - New CD/DVD

2008-06-05T16:30:00.000Z

An Evening with Brian Culcheth - New CD/DVD

I was trawling the Internet the other day and stumbled across this from the 2000 register. I recall the talk being on somewhere local but I was working and unable to go - I regretted it as Brian's a good speaker and the subject is close to my heart. Anyway, I sent off my cheque and got the DVD back by return - it's excellent :-) The talk is an hour and you can't pause it or rewind it which is annoying when your wife wants to talk to you but I can live with that. The DVD part of is pretty light on Triumph saloon action but there's Dolly and TR7 fun to be seen - Culch is quite scathing of the TR7 describing it as "a pig of a car to drive" whilst waxing lyrically about the 2.5PI he won the Scottish with.

Well worth it.

Lock-up garage for rent in RG1 area of Reading

2008-06-04T14:19:00.006Z

Now rented for at least 6 months, from 10/10/08

I have a property in Reading that I look after for my parents who live abroad, at the last change of tenants the garage became surplus to the new people's needs. It's a standard single garage in a block in front of the flats, long enough to get a Triumph and loads of spares in. No power or light but it's quiet and reasonably secure (it's never been broken into in the last 10 years+ we've had it) Conventional up and over door and easy access that's always clear.
It's just off the Tilehurst Road near the junction of Prospect Street - walking distance to the station and town centre. I guess you could park your car and walk down to catch the train if you want - come to think of it that might be a good plan!

I'm looking for £35 a month and as far as I can see it'll be available for however long the bill gets paid. I'm happy to keep the garage and flat separate so I don't intend chucking you out - say 3 months notice either way?
We can draw up a formal agreement and there'll be a deposit/up front payment of a couple of months rent so you could be tucking up your next project or your mistresses car for £70 down.
You can't really work on the car there, store nuclear weapons or illegal immigrants in , it's just a lock-up.
Get in touch via this page if you're interested, just make sure you give me your name and a some contact details so I can follow it up.

Now rented out at least until 10/10/09

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

2008-05-26T17:47:00.003Z

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 publish these notes on the development of the Lucas PI system. These notes by M. H. Evans were sent to Dr. Michael Bingley. M. H. Evans who is chairman of Rolls Royce has kindly given his permission for the notes to be published. They are sure to be of interest to all PI owners.

1. INTRODUCTION

Origin

The Lucas fuel injection system was originally designed for Rolls Royce. Around the end of the war Lucas designed a fuel injection system for the Merlin aero engine (Probably its tank version, the Meteor and later tanks e.g. the Centurion, had Lucas fuel injection instead of a large Zenith carburettor.) It was not a direct fuel injection such as was fitted to German Daimler Benz aero engines of World War 2 as this would have had lost the effect of charge cooling. Lucas continued to design and build fuel systems for Rolls Royce gas turbo aero engines and they still do.

The Lucas petrol injection system however was designed for a particular application of one of the "B" range military and commercial petrol engines produced by Crewe.

These engines, of 4, 6 and 8 cylinders were designed in the late 1930s for motor cars which might have replaced the Phantom Ill, Wraith and Bentley Mk V if war had not intervened. The post-war cars were powered by versions of the B60 and B80, but a major application of these engines was, and is, powering military combat vehicles.

One particular application of a B range engine was a post-war German light tank. A tight spec. was put on this engine. This led to developing a special cylinder head with individual instead of twinned exhaust ports, and also to Lucas developing the fuel injection system in place of the normal carburettors. In finality the tank was not proceeded with, but the fuel system was employed in racing and found its way into certain production Triumph models.

The System

This system, which is fitted to the Triumph 2.5 PI Mks 1 & 2 and Triumph TR5 & 6, is described in the relevant workshop manuals.

The manuals give adequate information for stripping and rebuilding the system, trouble shooting and setting up both throttle butterflies and the pressure relief valve. They do not, however, give sufficient quantitative information on the "correct" settings for the metering unit camtrack and setting rings.

A great deal of useful quantitative information is, however, given in the Lucas Service Training Centre manual entitled "Petrol Injection Mk ll." But even this does not give a lot of background information that would be useful in keeping the system operative in future years when factory replacement became short.

Further information has thus been sought from key personnel within the Lucas organization. The system was designed by Harry Bottoms, who normally designs aero engine fuel systems. It was developed by Jim Littlehales of the Engine Fuelling and Controls Systems Development, commonly referred to in the past as the Injection Lab. Both have contributed information, but the vast majority has come from Jim Littlehales, whose patience with enthusiasts for the system is saintly' it would have been impossible for him to have helped more.

2. THE INLET MANIFOLDS

Original Design

When I first spoke to Harry Bottoms in 1973 he was horrified to hear that 6 separate inlet pipes and butterflies had been fitted. His original design called for only one or at most two. Fitting six brings obvious synchronization problems.

Early Pattern

Inlets fitted to the Mk 1, and possibly early Mk 2's had individual tickover stop adjusters. Throttles were operated by separate rods which operated the crank of each inlet pair. These rods were actuated by a master shaft below the inlets. These rods were adjustable for length with the result that tickover and pickup were both easy to set up.

Later Pattern

Later systems, for some reason, work on the basis of the first inlet pair butterfly spindle picking up the second, and the second picking up the third through crank levers similar to the systems with multiple SUs. Tickover stops are not fitted and it is much more difficult to achieve a smooth pickup from tickover than with the earlier system. This is because the first pair open before the second and the second before the third once there is any wear on the spindles. For reasons I have been unable to find, this later system, is fitted with a double interlinking balance pipe between the three pairs of inlet castings. Earlier systems only had one balance pipe and seemed to work perfectly well.

3. INJECTORS

These are simple in design compared with diesel injectors. They do not have to contend with the pressures and temperatures of the combustion chamber as they are mounted in the inlet manifold.

First Type

The earliest pattern of at least three designs fitted was designed by Jim Littlehales. It is illustrated in the injection manual. This pattern has a nylon collar which is screw threaded onto the injector barrel. The inner bore is tapered and honed. Thus, when the injector itself is fitted, its "O" ring seal is progressively compressed to form a seal. As far as Jim can remember, no spring circlip was fitted on the nose to retain the injector insert. It was unnecessary as the "O" ring effectively held the insert in place. CAV made these early injectors.

This pattern was dropped once the value engineers got their hands on the system because the screw thread taper bores were costly to make.

Second Type

A further pattern was introduced of which Jim has little clear memory. In this, the injector insert appears to have been inserted from the front end of the injection barrel, the barrel then being swaged over to retain it. They appear to have had no "O" ring seal and to have relied on metal to metal contact of ground faces for sealing. The actual injector was identical to that in the earlier unit except that there was no pip on the valve. The pip was the original grinding centre.

Last and Most Common Type

The third kind, and by far the most common, looks on first sight to be identical to the second, except in that the valve has the pip once more, like the original. These are built, like the original, with an "C" ring seal, but in place of the taper bore there is a stepped bore of two parallel diameters. When replacing the internal "O" ring seal therefore it is necessary to use a thick oil to prevent damage to the "O" ring when it meets the sharp edge at the change in internal diameter. The injector insert is retained in this design by a circular spring ring on the nose of the insert. As with the second pattern, the nylon block is a press fit on the injector barrel.

Dribbling

Whilst Jim Littlehales never experienced leakage problems with the inner 'C' ring seals, this has not been the experience of others who have run cars with this system for many miles. The injector inserts tend to shuffle a little in the injector barrels. Carbon gets between the barrel and the 'C' ring and wears the ring until it is a 'D' section instead of an 'O'. It then starts dribbling, but can be cured with a new 'O' ring once the bore has been carefully cleaned.

Some of the third pattern were manufactured with too short a thread engagement in the inner nylon adjuster nut. They unthreaded themselves and the injector valve then damaged below the valve seat. The nylon adjuster is an interference fit on the thread and is adjusted with concentric Allen Keys on all three types.

Injector Performance

Injectors should blow at between 47.5 and 50 psi. They are all right at anything above 45 up to 55. They should give an even cone spray. There should be no leakage at all at a pressure of 5 psi below their blow off setting. This is what Jim said when I last saw him but I believe there was a production standard of several drops per minute allowable leakage.

Rough running can be experienced if injectors dribble although this has little effect on fuel consumption, if any.

4. INJECTOR LEAD NON-RETURN VALVES

These are located at the junction of each pipe with the metering unit. The valve looks to be of neoprene although Jim describes it as hard rubber. They are designed with plenty of clearance between the valve and the bore in which they are located. In theory this allows the valve to process around on its seating. In practice, however, they tend to stay on the same spot and continuous operation tends to produce a circular groove on the valve face. They then leak, allowing the residual pressure caused by the elasticity of the fuel line to leak back into the metering unit. The next injection stroke of the metering unit therefore spends much of its energy re-expanding the pipe instead of forcing the correct quantity of fuel out of the injector. Also, after running, heat from the engine can vaporize the fuel in the pipe and it then takes a long time to reprime. That cylinder runs "dead" until the line refills. The neoprene valve face needs carefully rubbing flat again if leakage occurs.

5. METERING UNITS

Return Pipe

Early metering units had a "push on" rubber connector to the fuel return pipe. Later ones had a screw on connection. If the return pipe gets blocked, and this is not an uncommon fault, pressure rises in the unit and forces the diaphragm between the metering barrel and cambox towards the latter. This tends to prevent the roller climbing to the maximum depression the fuel is in weak condition up the camtrack. in consequence fuel consumption is increased. The pipe can usually be unblocked either by using a foot pump or airline on the return pipe, or by carefully pushing soft iron wire down it.

Golden Units

One cause of blockage can be copper particles in the return pipe. This happens if the lead rich copper end thrust washer on the metering barrel wears, as the swarf returns by the pipe to the fuel tank. Bill Phelps came across this problem, which in its extreme reduces the alignment of the barrel ports with the injector lines. This reduces fuel delivery to the injectors. When I reported this to Jim Littlehales he said that this problem did occur and that units so affected were referred to as "golden units". Petrol has a low lubricity and, he said, if the end washer did not sit exactly at right angles to the bore (i.e. parallel to the face on which it sits) the petrol escapes unevenly and wear sets in on the "high spot". Once this happens, the process of wear is very rapid. It also has the effect of increasing the clearance between the rollers, camtrack and piston stop, thus making the unit go "fuel rich". A few thou can absolutely ruin fuel consumption. Clearance between the metering barrel and its sleeve, incidentally is a fraction of a thou, although subject to variation in manufacturing tolerance . Tolerances are unusually fine for car components.

Lubrication

The shaft on which the rollers run should be lubricated with a little moly green or moly additive. The piston stop should not need lubricating. Jim Littlehales says they should run in an oilite bush. However, I have seen signs of "pick up" on the piston stop. Jim says that if lubricated at all, it should be with a thin oil like 3 in 1.

Springs

The springs in the diaphragm capsule are critical and must not be changed unless the capsule nuts and camtrack are recalibrated.

A critical fault occurred in some units. The high rate "second" springs were feather ended. In other words the end coil, ground flat and therefore thin to give the spring a flat end, did not touch the first full section coil. As a result the high rate spring did not have sufficient rate until the feather end had deflected enough to touch the next coil. The first part of the spring's compression happened too easily. This has the result of putting a fuel rich kink in the depression/fuel delivery working line right where you don't want it - in the very middle of the normal driving range. A possible cure would be a blob of Araldite to support the feather end on the next coil. This fault is always worth looking for. Feather ends were sporadic throughout production - not just an occasional batch problem.

Wear And Roller Pin & Cam Setting

Frettage corrosion can occur on the pin if run dry. When this happens it increases the clearance between the rollers and the piston stop. The cure is to readjust the camtrack to .002" and .058" clearance at either end of its working range, using feeler gauges. This is easily done with the capsule springs removed using the mouth to suck on a pipe to raise the rollers to their to position. Measurements should be made with the unit in its normal operating attitude and the feeler gauges should be stroked downwards, not upwards, to retain the correct positions given by gravity when there is any "play" either in the nylon ball-joint or roller pin.

Camplates

These are hardened steel and do not wear. However, the constant hammering of the metering shuttle can move the camplate away from the rollers by rotating it about its fulcrum. This sends the system fuel rich. Two setscrews hold the camplate in position on the fulcrum arm. In some cases these are cross slotted screws. Others are Phillips or Posidrive. The former can be adequately tightened whereas the latter have proved unsatisfactory in my experience. The centre tends to trepan out before the screw is tight enough. When tightening these screws I apply Loctite then leave the unit for 24 hours before using it again. On my Mk1 PI my fuel consumption was around 19.7 on overall running - much of which was my 17 mile drives to and from work - until I reset the camtrack. After resetting this went up to 27.4.

Faults of the System

The final demise of the system was the difficulty of meeting the emission control regulations especially at the very low fuel delivery quantities at tickover and low throttle openings. The system had by then already got itself a bad reputation. In part this was because garages did not understand the system and could not set it up correctly. It was also partly due to manufacturing problems with the system. As developed the system was excellent but the value engineers cheapened important bits of it. Furthermore, when manufacture transferred from Lucas Aerospace to Lucas Automotive, the criticality of manufacture was lost. It has been said that the people building the all important fuel pump motors "thought they were building windscreen wiper motors". Oil got under the commutator segments during motor manufacture, with the result that the segments lifted and then the motors failed. Pump shaft seals wore and allowed fuel to leak into the motor. All these problems were overcome in due course, but rather late in the day.

Emission Control

There is obviously a small (but variable in manufacturing terms) clearance between the metering barrel and its sleeve. As a result "inter port" leakage takes place, thus increasing fuel consumption. The greater the clearance, the greater the leakage. It can be as much as 20% more than the quantity metered at small shuttle movements. In 1973 Lucas therefore introduced three production standards - A, B and C. These are marked on the metering unit if built after about July of that year. The unit was run at 2.50 rpm rotor speed and a 0.010 shuttle stroke. Using petrol, average measured quantities per 1000 injections (1000 revolutions) had to be as follows:
A - 8.4 cc to 8.9 cc

B - 7.8 cc to 8.3 cc

C - 7.2 cc to 7.8 cc

All plus or minus 10% with petrol.

Green Top Units

At the end of the production period a three spring capsule was introduced to attempt to get a little nearer to the theoretical depression/delivery curve requirement. These units had a green plastic cap on the adjuster nuts and were called "green top" units. They were only a marginal improvement in attempting to meet emission regulations and few were fitted to cars.

Springs

I have a metering unit with square section springs. Jim Littlehales cannot recall any of these and is suspicious that the springs are not original. He believes all springs were manufactured from round section wire. He told me to check the cam clearances at various depressions against the data in the manual to see if the unit was properly set up.

Pressure Relief Valve Design

The pressure relief valve is a very neat piece of design and was the work of Harry Bottoms. It is very well finished, as are many parts of the injection system. The quality being above normal motor practice and reminiscent of aero engine components prior to World War 2. It does not, however, approach modern practice.

Function

The function of the valve is to maintain fuel pressure at between 100 and 110 psi when the car is running. However it is also designed to achieve one other thing. A concern from the outset of the system design was the case of a "dry tank". In this situation the system had to be capable of repriming itself and the relief valve is designed to facilitate this. Early systems (about 70) had a "well" or small tank alongside the pump. This filled by gravity from the main fuel tank. If the main tank ran dry the first fuel put in it would run down the well. The well was fitted with an air vent pipe which connected to the top of the tank. It could have vented the atmosphere above the fuel tank "full" level except that it is both safer to close circuit back to the tank and also ensures that any air passing down the pipe is filtered (see "filters"). This return pipe allowed the air in the well to be displaced when the fuel flowed in, the well thereby filling completely.

Its Operation

Supposing the system to be dry, the pump will deliver air at a pressure of about 20 psi. At 20 psi the relief valve begins to open. In doing so small bleed holes are uncovered. These allow the air to escape through the valve and back to the fuel tank. Once the air is displaced and fuel flows, fuel begins to flow through the bleed holes. However, as it is denser than air, it cannot escape as fast as the pump delivers it. The pressure then builds up further and at 60 psi the valve moves further, cutting off the bleed holes. No more bleed occurs until the full operating pressure of 100 - 110 psi is reached when the main valve opens. PRESSURE SHOULD NEVER BE BELOW 100 psi at "full chat" on the road according to Jim Littlehales or misfiring will occur.

FILTRATION

Cleanliness of fuel is essential with the system. There is a full flow main filter between the fuel tank and the fuel pump. There are two small coarse filters in the pump inlet and outlet elbows. There is a small nylon filter in each injector barrel and I think, one in the metering unit. Air entering the fuel tank to replace burned petrol is also filtered. There is only one place that a filter is needed but not fitted and that is on the fuel pump breather pipe (see FUEL PUMP).

Early systems had the well referred to in the previous section. Petrol entering it was filtered through a very tiny unit which according to the handbook, was to be changed at something like 12,000 mile intervals. It was totally inadequate. A small quantity of water in the fuel was all it needed to block the filter partially. If the fuel level was low or even with plenty of fuel if you turned left suddenly, the fuel pump found it easier to suck air down the well's breather pipe than from the tank. The filter assumed gravity would always force fuel through the filter down into the well. My engine used to cut out on my 2.5 Mk1 on left hand corners for 2 - 3 seconds while the pump screamed. Colleagues at Hucknell nearly rammed me behind on several occasions when we were hurrying over from Derby to get to work on time. I asked Jim Littlehales what to do. He told me to throw away the well and fit a CAV diesel oil filter (which was similar to or the same as fitted to 2.5 Mk 2 cars). He said it would pass nothing above 2 microns. I did this, but retained the well although clipping the vent pipe so that its maximum rate of passing air was greatly reduced. I never had any more problems. Recently Jim has warned me that these CAV elements are not flushed on production and that fibres can get into the pump and cause damage. He suggests giving a new filter element a really good wash out before fitting it I do, not believe any of the other filters are important, except perhaps the air filter on the fuel tank, and that is doubtful as the breather pipe is very long, goes downhill all the way, and fuel does not burn quickly enough for air movement up the pipe to be speedy enough to carry dust with it.

The Pump

Reliability

The pump is the only part of the system that can let you down completely and leave you stranded. They can do so with absolutely no warning at all. I have had many fail on me.

As originally designed, it was a good piece of equipment but the value engineers got their hands on it and the troubles started. Slowly, their integrity was restored and late pumps were generally very good.

Regardless of date of manufacture, pumps vary greatly. Some have lasted me just over a year. One especially selected for its low current consumption for me by Jim Littlehales ran from the summer of 1975 to the autumn of 1978 when it aired. Cleaned, it resumed work in the summer of 1979 and, at the time of writing, is going as beautifully as ever. The one originally fitted to my 2.5 PI MK 2 ran from 1 January 1975 till the summer of 1979, and the pump on Jim Littlehales own car ran from something like 1972 or 3 until just after my original MK 2 failed in the summer of 1979. Even then it didn't really fail it occasionally skipped a beat. On examination it was found that the carbon brushes had worn out completely and the copper rat tail brush heads were lying on the commutator and supplying the current.

Early Failures

My first failure was of a shaft seal on my MK 1. The pump was then 3½ years old. It did not leak fuel down the vent but entrained air through the seal in some quantities. It thus pumped an aerated mixture, especially when hot. This caused restarting problems and the best solution was not to switch the engine off if avoidable in hot weather.

My second failure followed about a year later. The bearing pins of the pump gearwheels wore until the gears started to cut into the pump casing centre (figure 8 aperture) plate. Since then I have never had any real problem with the actual pump part of the unit.

Later Failures

Recent failures have been of the motor. In almost every case, stripping and carefully cleaning the commutator restores the unit to continued good service. I have done this many times and the pump can run, trouble free, for as long again.

The Motor Bearings

The rotating assembly is supported by two spherically mounted oilite bushes, and positioned at one end by a thin steel thrust washer bearing on one face against a bush and on the other against a circlip on the motor shaft. The other end is positioned by a nylon buffer on the end of the adjustable setscrew projecting from the motor casing's end. I have never experienced pump bearing problems either with bushes or the shaft.

Motor Rotating Assembly

These vary in current consumption. Good ones absorb less than 5.8 A and poorer ones well over 6 A. Jim always prefers 6 A max. (5.8 for hot countries as heat causes cavitation). Lucas manuals are a little ambitious in their claims. Windings can burn out. It has happened to me once.

Commutators at one stage gave mechanical trouble. Oil got below the segments during manufacture with the result that sooner or later they came apart. This problem did not last long. With time however, on all pumps the commutator gets dirty and a certain amount of burning of the copper takes place, causing the pump to stop working. I clean them by mounting the rotating assembly in an electric drill to spin it then gently rubbing fine sandpaper on the commutators. Once this shows as smooth and bright copper all the way round again, I use fine, blunted sandpaper to polish the commutator and finally Duraglit wrapped in a piece of old handkerchief. I then clean out the gaps with a needle and finally clean with a hanky moistened with "tric" or "carbontet". Wrap sellotape on the shaft before "chucking" in the drill.

Brushes

Brushes give no trouble other than in that they wear very slowly away. When reassembling a motor be careful not to let the rat tail brush heads get caught behind the brush holders as, with wear, the brushes will be restrained from moving for- ward and maintaining contact with the commutator.

Leads

Heat and/or petrol vapour can harden the plastic covering. New leads can be made and soldered on to the brush holders although the originals are welded on. Jim Littlehales told me this.

Replacing Brushes

Someone once told me that the paxolin brush, deck and brushes from a Lucas windscreen wiper motor will fit, although only two of the three brushes are needed. I have never tried it has not been necessary.

Heating

According to their current consumption and state of wear, motors can get very hot. They normally run too hot to touch comfortably. After a long run on a summer's day the heat will sink from the motor into the pump on a car that has stopped. Fuel then evaporates and the pump screams. The car often will not start until the whole thing has cooled down. During running the fuel cools the pump so no problem arises. The problem is accentuated in a hot climate.

Best cure courtesy Jim Littlehales is to install a pump cooler. Wrap ¼" bundy pipe in a spiral round a mandrel of slightly smaller diameter than the motor. Then spring the coil open a bit and work it over the pump housing. Connect the bleed valve return fuel flow to the copper pipe. It then provides fuel cooling, the warmed fuel returning to the tank. This works well. A cruder cure is to slap a rag soaked in water onto the motor in hot weather. It does work. Bill Phelps suggested that mounting the pump vertically should help, motor up and pump down, as heat rises.

Magnets

Their power varies but Jim Littlehales does not see this affecting current consumption. They can however crack, so if removing them to clean the motor housing, slide them out with care. Replace them the right way round afterwards!

Noise

Some are quiet, some are noisy, some start noisy and run quieter as they warm up. The noise dips and rises with the flashes of the indicator, or application of brakes. This is only the effect of variation in the current supply available. It is not a cause for concern. Minimum noise requires ½ turn of end float on the endfloat adjusting setscrew.

Vent Pipe

Between the motor housing and the shaft seal which isolates the motor from the pump there is a vent pipe which exhausts through the car floor onto the ground. It is intended to dump any petrol that leaks past the shaft seal and prevent its entering the motor. With a horizontally mounted motor as in the 2.5 PI saloon one wonders if it picks up all the leaking fuel or whether some reaches the motor. In the estate the pump is mounted vertically and this should ensure that any leaking fuel is dumped, quite apart from being a better way of keeping the motor's heat away from the pump.

The vent pipe is the one point in the system where a filter should be fitted, but there is none. This is because the pipe exhausts at one of the dirtiest and dustiest points possible - right behind the rear wheel of the car. This would be fine if no air ever moved up the pipe, but does. When the car is run, the motor heats. The air inside expands and some is expelled. When the car stops, the motor cools and air is sucked up inside the pipe. Quite apart from this the shaft seal usually leaks a little - fuel out when stationary and sometimes when running - air in when the engine is running in many cases. Minute differences in the pump determine whether the seal is subjected to pressure or a depression. Many pumps actually suck air in past the seal and feed it into the system under pressure with the fuel. This causes erosion when the air is humid.

My solution is to push a bit of cellular plastic foam up the vent pipe and, from time to time, moisten it with a squirt of WD40. It is easy to do and at least gives a measure of filtration to the air.

Shaft Seal

The shaft seal as originally designed was in Viton but value engineers changed this for a cheaper and less satisfactory material. Pumps today again have the seal made in Viton and it is very satisfactory. It is a standard proprietary seal made by George Angur.

The seal runs with less interference on the shaft than such a seal normally would. The pressures are not very great and too much friction would cause undue heating. As it is, the Viton seal is rather hard when cold and tends to leak a little until it warms up. It warms quickly once the motor starts however, through friction.

As stated elsewhere in this document, the seal can allow air to pass into the pump or fuel to leak out. If damp air is sucked in, corrosion takes place on the motor shaft and the rust particles stick to the seal lip. They act as an abrasive and a groove is worn in the shaft by the seal. The seal then becomes less effective in its functioning. 1 have seen a number of pumps so affected.

The seal is to some degree lubricated - by petrol splashed at it by the helices on the plastic drive coupling between the motor shaft and pump drive gear. Provided the seal lip is at least wet, it is lubricated.

The Pump

The pump itself consists of three brass plates. The rear one incorporates the inlet and outlet unions and carries the bearing pins for the two pump gear-wheels. The centre plate incorporates a figure of eight aperture to accommodate the two pump gears. The front plate - thin on very early pumps but beefed up on later ones as they distorted under the working pressure inside the pump - abuts to the motor and has one aperture through Which the drive gear passes to its coupling to the meter.

The pump is made to exceedingly tight tolerances and these are critical.

Clearance Gear Faces

The centre plate is slightly thicker than the gear wheels so that there is a running clearance between the gearwheels and the top and bottom plates. The production tolerance on total clearance for the gears was 0.0002" - 0.0008" (2/10 to 8/10 thou). In practice Lucas aimed with great care to achieve 0.0004" (4110 thou) on production build. Above 8/10 thou clearance the pump rapidly loses flow and becomes useless. That is why the tolerance is so critical. (1/10 thou extra clearance loses you 1 gallon/hour at 100 psi approx.)

Clearance Gear Teeth

The clearance peripherally between the gear teeth and the figure of eight aperture is nominally 0.004" (4 thou). Again this is critical. Above that figure you lose one gallon per hour pumping capacity at 100 psi for every extra thou of clearance. Several thou, therefore, and you have zero flow.

There is considerable clearance between the tips of the teeth on the gearwheels and the roots of the teeth on the mating wheel. This is to prevent hydraulic locking occurring by fuel being trapped between the teeth when they mesh.

Bearings

The gearwheels are bushed and run on hardened and ground steel pins mounted in the bottom plate. The driven gear pin is not provided with special means of lubrication but the drive gear pin is. It is hollow and has a hole bored at right angles into it. Fuel flows down the inside of the pin and lubricates the bush through the side drilling.

The bushes in the gearwheels are of a special carbon which has a copper content. The copper is to conduct the heat away which carbon on its own would not. As far as Jim Littlehales can remember, this is Morganite MY3D. The bush is fitted into the gearwheel with virtually zero clearance. The clearance in fact is 0.00005 (½ a tenth of a thou). Inserting the bush normally gives the slightest shaving to the bush.

Bearing clearance between the bush and bearing pin is nominally 0.001 " (one thou) but this is not as critical as the surface finish in the bush bore. There is only one way to get this finish, and it can be done by hand. Use a soft mild steel bar and have syntox (aluminium oxide) sprayed onto it. Then grind the syntox parallel on a diamond wheel. Place the rod in the carbon bush and polish it. It will give a mirror finish.

Bearing Wear

Bushes can pick up metal particles and then they will cut up the bearing pins rapidly. I have only seen this in one (my second ever) pump. Strangely, Jim Littlehales once saw a pump in which the bush to bearing clearances had become massive. The gears had cut their way into the centre plate creating a "pregnant" figure of 8 aperture. It still worked and still pumped fuel.

Gear Corrosion

They don't.

Gear Manufacture

Gears are ground and through hardened. Early gears were hobbed but this left striations on the teeth. Grinding was found more satisfactory.

Wear Between Gear Facings and Plates

In theory there is high pressure on one side of the gears (c 100 psi) and low on the other so a slight leakage occurs across the gear faces and lubricates them. In practice the flow tends to set up on one face rather than both faces of the gear. The other face can therefore run dry and cause friction, heat and wear. In the early days of developing the Mk 1 system Jim Littlehales tried just about everything to achieve lubrication of the gear faces. Finally, in desperation, he inscribed a helical groove on a gear face with a scriber. To his surprise the current consumption of the motor went down, showing that lubrication had been effected. It became known as "Jim's Groove" although its precise functioning was not fully understood. Any loose fibres from the filter used to work their way down the groove and form a blockage. In effect the blockage became a disc brake pad. Mk 2 systems do not use Jim's Groove.

Gears can cause grooving of the top or bottom plate. 1 have seen both although Jim says they are common on the pin plates below the drive gear. As Jim says, they are not very important as they tend to look a lot worse than they really are.

Restoring Side Plate Clearance

If it is desired to remove the grooves, the top and bottom plates can be restored but the centre figure of 8 plate must not be touched as its thickness is so critical. use brand new wet and dry paper on a completely flat surface - a measuring table or piece of optically ground glass of size than the brass plate. The wet and dry must have no kinks or creases.

After sanding you must rub the surface with your fingers with paraffin and keep doing this until your fingers remain clean. This will remove the embedded particles. Lastly, place clean paper on your flat surface and pour Brasso on it rub the plate on the paper

Lucas PI Fault Cards - a public information service

2008-05-23T14:29:00.000Z

I've been meaning to do this for ages and have now found an easy way to publish these most usedful documents. If you want to download and save them you should be able to get a larger version by clicking on each image.

The cards are really good and, as they were printed in response to all the "problems" of PI over the preceeding years they do seem to be pretty comprehensive.

May the vacuum be with you.

Lucas PI Fault Card Check List

2008-05-23T14:26:00.001Z

Lucas PI Fault Card 6 Supplement

2008-05-23T14:26:00.000Z

Lucas PI Fault Card 6

2008-05-23T14:25:00.000Z

Lucas PI Fault Card 5

2008-05-23T14:24:00.000Z

Lucas PI Fault Card 4

2008-05-23T14:23:00.000Z

Lucas PI Fault Card 3

2008-05-23T14:22:00.001Z