The last days at Triumph

I got to remembering about Dad's last days at Triumph prompted by a post by Gareth Thomas over on the CT Forum (a great place to be! http://www.club.triumph.org.uk/). I've copied it below;


Quoted from GTEVO
'The Triumph was known for having some of the most transparent factory gates in the UK.Today you can laugh, but if you saw what they scrapped, buried, smashed up with sledgehammers in 1980'

Quoted from me

The old man was involved in the factory clear-up. After working at the Standard for nearly 20 years in broke his heart spending his last two years there destroying the place. A couple of tales I remember are;
They (Leyland) moved TR7 production (again!) to Solihull and in the process it underwent an interior trim change away from the tartan stuff. Dad was tasked with slashing hundreds of complete seats with a Stanley knife so that the scrappies couldn't flog em to Leyland dealers. At the end of that week the manager in charge asked Dad for his Stanley knife back!
When stores was being emptied hundreds, if not thousands of surplus windscreens surfaced, Dad was tasked with driving a fork lift into them, and then using a digger to put the residue into skips.
Again when stores was being emptied boxed metering units were going straight into the skip. At the time I was rebuilding the TR5 so the old man got 'a few' out on a scrap ticket for me. Why anyone ever nicked anything from the Triumph I'll never know as it was perfectly legitimate to pay a nominal sum and get stuff out on these scrap ticket's with authority from above, I recall Dad paying no more than a couple of quid apiece for them.
Warning thread drift!

TR5 owner, 30 years today?

Taken at Rousham Park STIR (Standard Triumph International Rally) in the late 70's.

At least I think it's today? I still have the receipt somewhere at home for the day I picked up my TR5 back in 1977. Bought at the tender age of sixteen for the princely sum of 650 notes with tax & test, read it and weep! Imagine a nine year old 150bhp sportscar which was still one of the fastest things on the road in 1977 and approaching your seventeenth birthday (and your driving test). My first years insurance which was third party only (no fire & theft) cost me the same as the car. How I didn't kill myself in that first years motoring I'll never know!

Silverstone and aluminium tackle

We don't get many, if any, but yesterday we did. I am referring to one of those corporate hospitality day things courtesy of our insurance company a fine bunch of people called Towergate. Practice day for the Silverstone GP was the draw, well OK then count me in! Although I have been a lifelong fan of most things motorsport GP stuff has mostly passed me by. Indeed I seem to have a regular at Silverstone recently for everything other than GP. A particular highlight last year was the UK round of the Le Man 24 hour series. As a guest of a prominent Le Man pilot of yesteryear, and a prominent member of the BRDC to boot we spent most of the event sat in the BRDC pavilion scoffing superb buffet whilst hob knobing with the president of the BRDC himself a very pleasant chap. Unfortunately I just missed sharing a rolled salmon sarnie with Jackie Stewart, maybe next time. Anyways up, back to yesterday, did all the usual, walk up and down the pit lane in the lunch break. Sauntered through the paddock, catching Davina Coulthard moving faster than he ever does in a car to avoid the autograph hunters staking out his camper thing. The rest of the time was spent in the pit lane hospitality suite eating and drinking free stuff whilst flicking coctail sticks at the Ferrari drivers as they came back into the pits underneath us no more than 6 foot away. All in all an excellent day, specially as it only cost us the price of the petrol in the wifes 2.5 to get there and back.
Looks like things might be moving on the aluminium front again with several projects moving closer to the top of the pile of things to do. I hear a rumour that we might be blowing some cores next week for those elusive 6 cylinder heads in preperation for another couple of test castings, oh well we can but hope.

It still keeps coming out of the woodwork

Many thanks to Onne Van Der Spoel for donating some more original Triumph engineering drawings to the Canley Triumph Archive. Covering such diverse parts as the rear hub on a Herald, to the copper spherical shim in the 2000 differential. The total drawing collection is now into the hundreds, all saved by concerned individuals who thought they deserved a better fait than would normally have befallen the like. Onne for instance had offered his drawings to other collecting institutions with mixed results, one even told him that they would accept them only if he delivered them (personally) at his own expense, and that he must hand over some Morris drawings (that he wanted to keep for the time being) because they weren't 'rightfully' his to own!

How long before this steady stream of 'finds' drys up, it never fails to amaze us how much important stuff is still coming out of the woodwork 30, 40, and 50 years after the event.

I gone done it again

Thanks to Jason Chinn (I think!) and his eagle e-bay eye yet another Atlas has found it's way into our possession. It's a camper this time complete with pop up roof, cooker, sink, and rust. What has come over me? I could virtually have the pick of any of Triumph's finest but I've come over all silly for these ugly, useless, remnants of Triumph's (really Standard's) darkest hour?

Bull Week!

Bull week (old Midlands industry term for making your money up prior to holiday)

It's no holds barred in the Canleys workshops presently in an attempt to clear the decks prior to the Easter holiday. Two cars MOT'd last week, and one a Spitfire 1500 collected by its owner this morning. Needing wiper motor, wiper wheel box's, and other bits and bobs prior to MOT it was otherwise a superb car and I enjoyed my trip down to see Sid at our preferred MOT station. The other a TR6 was in for a list of things as long as my arm including a tune up, after timing the metering unit correctly it ran like a dream. Some rear suspension work, a new track rod end, and a top ball joint, and that to sailed through it's MOT last night. I would have enjoyed the drive back from the MOT roof down more if it hadn't have been so cold last night, must be getting old! The TR6 is being collected until Tuesday so we still have a space issue.

I am going to book a further three MOT slots for next week for other cars in the queue, a little optimistic but you never know. One of them is for a GT6 that's been here for a while with a job sheet that reads like War and Peace. Top of the list has been a complete re-wire, what a nightmare! Everything that was connected to the old loom, switch's, light units, you name it seemed to be clinging to life just long enough to give me grief when I started working my way through it. I need to finish it just retain my sanity and have pencilled it's MOT in for Wednesday, fingers crossed! The other two cars slated for MOT's this coming week (a Stag, and a Herald) might just be wishful thinking on my part but you never know.

On top of that I have two complete Vitesse chassis refurbs on the go, they are all cleaned of rusty riggers and the bare bones need to go down to the blasters some time in the week. When they come back I can sling them on the rig and jig up a full set of new riggers etc.

I can't believe how many customers Triumph's are coming out of the woodwork recently, and the calls to the workshop we are recieving booking work in bear testament to an excellent years Triumphing ahead!

Never a lender or borrower be!

Frustrating times in the Canley workshops. It seems like every job I have done in the past week or so has been made all that much more difficult by the lack of specialist tools. It's not like I didn't own each and every one of these special tools in the first place, it's more like some kind soul or other has borrowed them and is taking their (no names no pack drill!) time to return them. In no particular order I have missed my multimeter needed several times during a GT6 re-wire, my fancy stud extractor needed most days, and yesterday a tool I made up years ago to make one handed hood popper fitment easy. There have been several other incidences recently of needing a missing tool borrowed by someone or other, it's driving me mad!
I think I might start to impose the message on the sticker on my Snap On box 'I make my living from my tools, please don't ask to borrow'!