Sunday, September 4, 2005

10CR Madness!

Yes I'm here on a Sunday! I have broken my cardinal rule of no Sunday working (I'm not religious or anything it's just that everyone deserves one day off a week!). It's all in a good cause though, I'm here (with a couple of helpers, thanks Dave, Andy) frantically trying to nail together a couple of Vitesse's for Thursdays Club Triumph 10 Countries. Finally got my engine back together yesterday after many upsets, including having to strip 5 engines to find a suitable/undamaged block. Thought I was cooking on gas on Friday, up to the point where I tried to get the last piston into the bore and it wouldn't have it (why is it always the last one?). After much head scratching it turns out that one of the oil scraper rings (the ones that go either side of the expander ring) was stightly over size and the ends were overlapping when compressed into the bore! I had never seen this before, specially on a +60 bore, whats bigger than a +60! Anyway a little work on the grinder and all was well. I'm trying a Tony Lyndsey-Dean R3 cam, in replacment for the cam previously installed by John Wooley which had terminal flat lobes, is's a wonder the car went as well as it did! The engine complete with all ancilleries is sat on the workshop floor waiting for instalation this morning, then I can sling in the gearbox/overdrive that I stripped and checked a week or two ago.



How's the other Vitesse coming on? Well if I say that I have yet to prep and spray the roof, bootlid, and bonnet, then you can see that we have a very busy few days ahead of us!