Jason's Blog

Wow, that was a roller coaster! It's RBRR entry season and once every 2 years Chinn Towers goes mental with paperwork, except this time it didn't. It went mental with web based shenanigans! We went 'on the line' as they say, gone were the paper forms, envelopes, stamps, cheques - in came the virtual world. Keith Bennett has been working away and has created a new website with an events area for us organisers to create and administer events. It's been a long time coming and we did have to burn the midnight oil to get it all working but it's there and survived. OK so it was not without it's issues but those were mainly due to the fact that the event 'engine' runs on the web site backbone so we couldn't have the event engine without the new site. The new site isn't 100% ready but I wanted to press on with the event engine and well, we did have a few issues. Most of them are due to the new site needing users to sign in and synchronise (sor...

... since I posted anything on my Blog. Apologies, I've been busy! New job, with several new assignments, changed modern cars several times and now working away from home, no time for Triumphs, a great big hole in my leg and some general loss of mojo seem to be the general issues. So, where are things at the moment? Well firstly the modern 'fleet' - we needed a load lugger to get our youngest back and forth to Uni at Nottingham so we sold the Saab convertible (to Shedtune) and bought a Saab 93 Sport Wagon - an estate to us Brits. Great car, very capable, didn't love it so sold it on as soon as I could and bought another Saab Convertible! 'As soon as I could' was when I was able to change Poppy's classic Mini for a more motorway friendly MINI - I was amazed at how much the classic Mini had risen in value, I almost doubled my money on that car but it was a good 'um. So I then needed another car to drive to an from a new assignment I have in the West Co...

It's been a while since I updated this blog so it's with a somewhat heavy heart that I'm using it now to report the loss of my friend Bill Goodwin. Bill passed away in the early hours of yesterday morning whilst on holiday in the UK with his wife and friends.  Bill was a fellow Triumph enthusiast and Club Triumph member, for several years he'd been coming over to the UK to take part in various events, the Round Britain Run and 10 Countries Run with Club Triumph and the Isle of Wight and Stafford with the TSSC.  He'd stayed stayed at my place several times and knew the family well. He had met and befriended many of the Triumph crowd and was staying with Peter Wenzel when he passed away. Bill had been recovering from an operation and had intended to do the 10CR, it's poignant that he died as we were celebrating the finish with lots of beer, I'm sure he would of approved. When I start to feel down about his passing I remember the good times and feel th...

To be fair, "spotted" makes it sound like I have been stalking again. What actually happened was the new owner Rob got in touch and we've traded emails. He said he would be there but I wasn't able to go so he sent me this video that he found on YouTube, check at 32.07. Looking fresh - Rob tells me that although the car has lost it's bucket seats and hardtop, it has gained a re-trim, a fresh coat of paint and a brake servo. It's retained the Lucas injection I added and Rob seems really pleased with it, which is nice.

In amongst the garage gold I've been mining were these beauties a new set of three K&N filters for Lucas PI inlets. I honestly can't remember where or when I got them but they are new, have never been fitted and come complete with stainless hose clips to attach them. There are even K&N filter stickers in the boxes. Although they fit straight onto the inlets, my plan was to make a big air box and use some trunking to feed them with cold air - another good idea never actually executed! I'm undecided whether to keep them or sell them, the retail price of these is about £40 each, that's £120 a set! If I can get around £75 for the set of three then I'll be happy, might put them on eBay but they are far too nice to let slip through with my other tat so they'll need a decent start price/reserve. If any one is interested, get in touch chinn at ntlworld dot com will get to me. Anyway, that's enough garage foraging for the day, I have to get cle...

Every now and again I go into the garage to find something and think, "What the hell is all this stuff?" so I start to think hard about whether I will ever use or need it again. I tend to hoard stuff, buy stuff 'just in case' and when it's a 'bargain', consequently there is a lot of crap in my garage! This week I have been mostly having a clear out and seeing if I can make some space and a little money (I'm currently between jobs although the next job seems to be taking it's time coming!). Some of the treasures I have unearthed have gone back into the garage as too precious to sell. Some of them are not alone, in other words I've found I have more than one and some are not treasures at all and are in fact garbage! Check out eBay  http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/chinn2002 if you're interested.

Found on YouTube - this is what I was doing on the Bank Holiday weekend.