Monday, November 26, 2012

Dead Head :-( .... Sorted :-)

One casualty of the Vintage stampde was Humph's PI which started blowing water/steam out the exhaust in his last event whilst chasing a RS2000. He arrived in the pits with a rather warm engine and clouds of steam out the exhaust.

He made it home in a small cloud of steam using 1litre per kilometre - that was a few top ups!!! - good old cast iron engines, Mobil 1 and a big oil cooler probably saved the engine.

Head off this evening - no mucking about - he just sent me this photo.

Number 3 exhaust port has a hole - looks like a corrosion issue. Bugger - we will chuck on my spare head tomorrow but as we know that is at least 20bhp down on my GT head something else will need to happen long term.

 Spent a few hours this morning with Humph fixing up my old head - touched up the valve seats and then bunged it back on. Found a worn follower on number one lobe - hope the cam is OK but we have a plan for that with the next head. Humph chucked a new follower in which he had left over from previous work
 Bit of Mike the Pipes famous work. These are mine but seem to be on permanent loan after I lent them to Humph to prove a point (he gained 20bhp)
Old head consigned to the boot - mostly likely scrap

Weekend of Triumphing

Triumphs from Friday to Sunday - starting with a sundowner beer and snag at the "Cave", courtesy of Jon Williams who was belatedly "wetting the babies head" of his Targa PI.
Almost a facsimile of Kens V8 - freshly purchased from a NSW member of the TSOA
 
Drilled rear discs on the Mk1 PI
That floor is just way too clean

Ron Marians "Standard" TR6
Jon and Justins TR6's in the cave



After a test session at Wanneroo on saturday Jon popped in on the way home to get a new Dowty seal for a leaking metering unit and have his overheating diagnosed as a backward running thermo fan.
Emma and Laura discuss the finer points of Lucas injection whilst Ken and Jon throw a coin on which way to wire up the electric fan
Sunday morning bright and early at the VSCC Vintage stampede - me and Humph inspect this little beauty lurking in the pits

Team Triumph assembling before practice

Kens V8 'support' car
On the way home for a well earned beer -

More action shots to follow.....



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Nice new instruments for the 2000

Sick of wobbly inaccurate speedometers and rev counters that couldn't reach my redline I took the plunge with Speedhut and got these made.

Very easy to set up - very accurate and if I'd remembered to order white needles they would even match !!

Has a 0 - 62.5 mph function - (100kmh) Tried it this morning and got 9.5secs without trying that hard. Being capable of about 65mph in second really helps. Reckon a sub 9 is possible. Very happy

Update - on a private test track I found that I can get to the advertised top speed of a PI of 108mph  accelerating hard in 3rd overdrive.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Brakes, driveshafts everywhere and a few English classics

My mates 73 XJ6 on Sunday after a heavy shower - a snip at $7500 - very nice it is too
Working on the white PI Wednesday night with Ken before driving out to site Thursday at 5.00am - not enough bloody hours in the day. Scrutiny for Vintage stampede is Saturday 17th and I fly home on the evening of the 16th so it was now or never.
Two basic jobs - 1. bleed brakes and rebuild offside front caliper which had sticky pistons.
2. Assemble Nissan half shafts to replace worn current items
3. Used non-greasable (stronger) Nissan Hardy Spicers from Datsport on NSW. Spider are machined Triumph ones to accept the metric uni's
Nissan Skyline alloy 4 spot stripped and resealed. Pistons polished up OK . Note Nissan halfshafts everywhere - I am in the process of stripping them all to bare units
PI up on stilts
Lurking in the corner awaiting final assembly is the PI estate - getting there. Starting to feed the leather now the weather is warming up. Nice and supple and the colour is growing on me. Furflex fitted (total sod) and all the door glass. Just the tricky ones now.


Newly assembled driveshaft and rear caliper adapter ready for reassembly.
Slightly blurry shot (it was getting late) of my new Gareth Thomas progressive rear springs (380/900lb)
10pm and its all bled and ready for VSCC scrutiny - thanks Ken!!

Saturday, November 03, 2012

New Springs and shocks - spannering and beers on a Friday

Spent the morning curing the saloons nose up attitude apparent since fitting the lighter 2000 engine and binning the aircon paraphenalia
Witor 200/400 Progressive springs and KYB inserts. Fitting was a bit of a pain due to Monarch Mazda caliper conversion getting in the way of a simple swapover but all sorted after a couple of hours.
The reason for the odd handling on undulating roads - one 90lb S spring and one 129lb 2000 spring - oops
Off to Markich for a natter and beer - Cowman's old 2.5PI imported to Western Australia and being converted back to injection after a long period on triple SU's


 
UK import flying turd SD1 3500 5 speed


David , Phil and Greg discuss building extractors for Davids new Rover V8 motor

Ex - Nick Jones , Andy T super Herald