Happy Christmas!

Firstly a happy Christmas and a great New Year to you all,I hope Santa brings you what you wished for!

My Christmas present came early this year in the shape of another Spitfire! You may remember a Blog or two ago me mentioning the possibility of an 'interesting' Spitfire coming to light locally after many years in hiding. Well a week or two ago it arrived on a trailer and is now ensconced in the museum. It's none other than 'the' Richard Lloyd (team Gold Seal Racing) plastic Spitfire! Richard brought his car along personally aided by former 'works', and Gold Seal, and latterly 412 VC's mechanic Peter Clarke. What a fantastic surprise. The car itself is in need of much restoration, but with the history inbedded in this car it wil be worth the effort. For those of you who don't know Gold Seal Racing consisted of three Spitfires and drivers, Richard Lloyd, Chris Marshal, and Pete Cox. The car's were extreemly modified decendants of 412 VC (prototype Spitfire), ADU 467B (works rally car), and another. Richard still campaigns a restored 412 VC at Goodwood and other such events. The car we have aquired is pictured on the front cover of the 1970's book 'Tuning Standard Triumph's up to 1300cc' written by Richard Hudson-Evans, I got Richard (Lloyd) to autograph the front cover of my copy!

Interesting afternoon!

I spent yesterday afternoon in the company of Peter Clarke, he needs no introduction if you know anything at all about the Le Mans/Rally Spitfires and their subsequent history. If you don't then here's a very brief summary. Peter was a very active member of the experimental/racing department at Triumph throughout the Spitfire period. He helped build and maintain all of the 'works' cars but in particular his involvement was with the circuit cars. Peter went to both the '64 and '65 Le Mans, and Sebring, in fact he was working in the paddock virtually every time the circuit cars appeared, he is pictured more times in the many books on the subject than any of the drivers! After the works effort closed Peter went on to build and maintain Spitfires with firstly his old Triumph team mate Peter Cox, and then for the Richard Lloyd Gold Seal Racing effort. It didn't stop there as Peter has continued to work on Spitfires right up to the present day. This is the reason for this short piece from me, because yesterday I was helping Peter empty his lock-up of the years of racing Spitfire parts and memorabilia, as he has finally hung up his spanners and retired. Some real jems were unearthed, including the remnants of a 70X engine, a strut type rear suspension Spit chassis (as in the 1966 ADU 1B/ERW 412C Bradley racer), this was rescued by Karl who came along with me to help, and will probably end up under his race car. Another mystery was solved for me with the strange PI inlet manifold I found (pictured below). I have most of a 4 cyl PI set from the Spitfire racing days, but not the inlet manifolds, well I do now! We filled Peter's van to the roof, one of the last things to go in was a 70X tubular exhaust manufacturing jig, and we then baide our fairwell's and headed back to Canleys in Karl's Volvo and trailor combination loaded with our bit of treasure! Good luck in your retirement Pete, I'm sure the people of Wales may still hear the occasional clatter of forged pistons in a 70X on full chat yet!

Dream ticket!

As someone who has nurtured a lifelong passion for all things Triumph and more than a passing interest in Triumph's Le Mans and rallying Spitfire history I find myself more than ideally placed to talk to those that were there when it happened on a regular basis. Coventry might not be the most attractive of Cities but it's where our cars were built and developed, and still home to many of the guys who worked there. You can't pull into a petrol station in Cov without some old guy running over and wanting to share his story of working at the Standard. My wife drives a 2500 on a daily basis, this makes her a target for the stories too, I've lost count of the number of times she's used it as an excuse for being late into work!

I make no apologies for name dropping, but in the past couple of weeks we have had visits or I have spoken to Fred Nicklin (Triumph test driver, did most of the development driving on works Spitfires), Pete Clarke (put them together, and fixed them when they got broke), David Lloyd (experimental design and building), Bill Bradley (works driver, Le Mans and rally). Over the past couple of years I have been fortunate to make the aquaitance of Ray Henderson before his untimely death, he both visited us and I used to bother him on a regular basis about his recollections of things Triumph. Once the word got out locally that we had a Museum dedicated to Triumph, a steady stream of ex Triumph guys visit us and share their memories, fantastic! It's time to preserve this for the future before people forget, or worse history is re-written by those with a self interest.

Car Park Finished!

At last our car park is finished, and very nice it looks to. What was supposed to have taken 2 to 3 weeks ended up being more like 2 to 3 months. To be honest no one could have forecast what a miserable September/October, and begining of November we were end up having with virtually constant rain throughout. What a disruption to normal business its all been, its really nice to be getting tidy again. Iv'e spent all of this afternoon pressure washing the buildings down that surround the car park, of concrete splashs and general dust, mud and dirt. I don't know how they managed it but the car park guys even managed to get concrete splashs on our Vitesse 6003VC, and that's in the museum, not a happy bunny!

Another Spitfire?

After the excitement of ADU 4B it has been very difficult to motivate myself to get enthusiastic about anything else, hence no Blog for a week. That was until a chance conversation with a freind about an important Spitfire that might be available locally, here we go again! It's all a bit vague this time but from the little information I have its definitely worth pursuing. What else is happening here? Well the car park works are dragging on, not helped by the miserable October weather. We are about three quarters done now, but that last bit seems to be taking the longest. Even when complete, we will be unable to drive on it for over a week. We really would have liked to have had another one of our open days, but with the way things are and the uncertainty about the car park its just to difficult to contemplate at the moment. Something to look forward to for the near future though!

OK, so I've calmed down a little now!

As you may have guessed from my previous post we have acquired one of the most famous Spitfires ever built, 1965 Le Mans class winner ADU 4B! It's now been back home in Coventry for a couple of day's (but not at Canley's site yet) but I'm still as excited as a dog with two do-da's! Thanks to the excellent custodionship of it's previous keeper Vernon Brannon, and those that preceded him, 4B is in remarkably original condition, much, much, better than I could have ever hoped for. Bearing in mind it had a bit of a bump in its early life in Switzerland, witnessed by some repairs under the bonnet, it has survived with so much intact as it left Triumph's gates all those years ago. Large areas of the car are still in there original paint, touched up here and there admittedly, but it is 40 years old after all, no more debate now about what shade of green the Le Man car's were! It's even fitted with an original lightweight (20 guage) chassis, allthough it has lost it's quick lift brackets at some time. Vernon had raced 4B a selected historic race meets in the States, so he had replaced the long range tank with a small sealed racing variety. He had also replaced the seat and steering wheel for more modern items, but packed in the shipping container were the original seat and tank etc, wonderful. As the most original unrestored 'works' Spitfire left, it now falls to us to continue the good work of 4B's previous keepers, what a responsibility!

Guess what we did today?

Two pictures for you to ponder. The first taken at Felixstowe docks this lunchtime (courtesy of James Carruthers). The second taken at the TSSC HQ on the way back to Coventry this afternoon. Full report later.

Dodge the issue!

This was supposed to be a daily diary of the comings and goings of the Canley workshop's, I sort of wondered off track recently and waffled about any old tosh! So if it is a workshop diary back to the issue it is. With no access to the workshop for over a month now (remember the car park re-surfacing going on) the only cars we can work on are the ones that have been marooned since the doors were last opened. Which is sort of great, I think, as we are now finishing some of the longest term residents with us. This includes a GT6+ that has been here for some considerable time, neither us or its owner (a good friend in the trade) were in any rush to get it finished, well its nearly ready for MOT now! Retrieved from a Californian scrapyard 5 odd years ago, our brief was to remove it from its chassis, shot blast paint/powdercoat/replace worn bits, and generally make pretty the underneath bits before bolting the body bits back on and making legal. The car is going to live in France when we have done our bit, so all we have to do is MOT and get a UK identity, so that it can be driven over and finished in the owners own workshops. Everything else in the way of customers cars presently in the workshop is now finished awaiting collection come the glorious day when the car park is done. Well almost, there is a Lines V8 saloon that needs bolting back together, and then there's the MK1 PI saloon that also needs finishing off, and I nearly forgot the GT4 that needs a couple of days work, and, and! Oh bugger, it seems this enforced closure of the workshop came just in the nick of time!

Anti climax!

Well that's it, another RBRR come and gone and only a few shows left this year. Not that the shows really do it for me anymore, I would much rather be out driving my Triumphs than stuck in a shed looking at a load of inanimate shiny garage queens! As one who visited more than his fair share of Triumph/Classic car shows in the past 30 odd years, I must say the novelty has worn rather thin. No, for me its all about the driving and using, after all that's the reason these car's were built. I can still just about remember the thrill I got the first time I drove my TR5, I was 15 at the time and my father had stopped in a layby on the way back from buying it and said fancy a quick go, what? Let me think, shall I? To bloody right! Don't worry it was more than safe in those days to let 15 year olds drive on the public highway, after all the roads were uncrowded in comparison to today, with only the odd horse and cart, or charabanc to worry about! Anyway is it just me that still gets that thrill when I jump into my Triumph, even when only going backwards and forwards to work? This is the main reason you won't catch me in a modern car if I can help it. I can't deny that car's nowadays aren't fast, reliable, economical, but by the same token they are mostly dull, boring, and souless, even some modern 'sports cars' I have driven.

So events like the Club Triumph RBRR, and the Ten Countries Run are right up my street, use your Triumphs, don't be frightened about getting them dirty once in a while, and get back to the fundamentals of motoring for pleasure, while you still can!

RBRR, Sorted!

Well we did it, after all the usual pre event panic, we sailed around the Club Triumph Round Britain reliability Run without a hitch (ignoring a small ignition warning light bulb failure at the start, which led to a flat battery!). What a wonderful event, it just gets better, thanks to the organizers, specially Tim Bancroft, and the many volunteers who came out in all weathers and times of the day and night to help with road book signing, food, etc. The V8 is now relegated to just another of the every day Canley fleet, although it still wears its event stickers with pride, The TR5 still wears its 6 years after it completed the RBRR, and the Chicanes were only removed during the course of its last respray, otherwise they would still be on there! Well done to my crew mates, Jason Chinn, and Jerry Mallon (all the way from the USA specially for the event), we worked well as a team, with very few fraught moments! Well done to all the other successful teams, and commisartions to those who didn't get round, there's always next time!

Wasn't the bit through the Scotish single track road bit bloody great, wonderful driving, chasing a 2.5PI done up like a Police car!

MOT!

The Canley entry for the Club Triumph RBBR is a runner! A fully legit, kosher, all above board, genuine, paid for, MOT was gained at the local MOT station yesterday. The only comment raised by our examiner was a slight imbalance in the handbrake, and a exhaust leak where the tubular manifolds bolt to the head. The V8 was also in need of a bit of remedial tuning as it struggled to get back up Fillongley hill on its way back from the test. Exhaust leak was cured within 20 minutes (after letting the headers cool!) with a new set of flange gaskets. The brake imbalance had sorted itself out on the way back from the MOT, the automatic adjusters having adjusted on the new shoes/cylinders etc on the 2 mile trip. The 'to do' list has now shrunk to 23 items, and we still have a whole morning to work on it! To be fair, the 'to do' list is more of a wish list, none of it being super important. It would be nice to swap the rear springs as the back end is sitting a little high, but that's only a 15 minute job on a 2000/2.5/3.5! This is the most prepared I've ever been for a Round Britain, I even had an early night last night after the obligatory curry shared with team member Jason Chinn who stayed over last night.

See all you fellow RBRR's later today at the Plough.

Buried treasure?

Revealed during the recent car park excavations at Canley Classics. Has anyone visited us in the past and forgotten their yellow Del Lines saloon? If so would the owner please contact us as it now needs to be moved!

Calm B 4 the storm!

Well I know the idea was to have the engine in the V8 by now but I just couldn't resist prepping and painting the tatty looking engine bay whilst it was out. I know, I know, a couple of days to go and I'm messing about with paint. There was no way I was ever going to take the engine out again to do it, so it was now or never. Anyway its done now, and very nice it looks to. So engine in today, or that's the plan anyway. We did have one problem with the engine yesterday, a broken bolt in the cylinder head where the inlet manifold attaches. We decided to change the manifold complete for the earlier simpler carb set up that was already on the car, unfortunately a bolt broke in the process. Digging that out took up some of our valuable RBRR preperation time.

Pictures; painted engine bay and 'new' V8 ready to go in

V8 blues!

A week before the Club Triumph RBRR and I finally got around to finding out why the engine in the car we have entered was a little bit tight (OK very very tight!). stripped it yesterday and found it seized on three pots. Seized to the point where I had to hammer the pistons out of the bores with a drift and steel hammer! Lesson learnt, you can't store a car or engine for 6 years without use, or at the very least regular inhibiting and turning over and expect all to be well. Options were investigated, including boreing and a set of pistons (3.9 liners and pistons were nearly as cheap as a straightforward overbore and pistons). But next Fridays RBRR start date was to close to get it all organised along with the mountain of other jobs that still needed doing to the car. So a quick call to my mate Lee the guy who collects our scrap (and banger races 2000/2.5's for his sins) and a deal was done over the phone for a replacement V8. It arrived this morning, and very nice it looks to,£175 and guaranteed a nice runner, I'm just off to steam clean it now, should be back in and up and running on Monday, keep you posted.

Photo; Stripped V8 sits in shame!

ADUlation to Tim in 4Big days!

Hats off to Tim Bancroft and the mountain of work he and his helpers have put into this years RBRR (Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run) . The Midlands drivers meeting is due to take place in 4 days (Tuesday 21st September) at The Weavers Arms just up the road in Fillongley. Spoke to Tim today about the Run, apparently the numbers of entries has settled at 81 cars, with a few teams dropping out for one reason or another, but these have mostly been replaced with reserve teams. The American team entered in the GT6 have contacted Tim to tell him that their car is on its way and the container should be here in a couple of weeks. Our American team mate Jerry is flying in a day or two before the event, hope he doesn't suffer from jet lag! We (Jason Chinn and myself) spent a whole day on our car yesterday, and it is looking more like it might be ready for the event, mind you we still haven't started it yet! It would be nice to go to the drivers meeting in the V8 on Tuesday, but that might just be a little optimistic. Either way the sooner its finished the better so that we can put a few miles on it before the big day.



Got the word this week from the contractors who are going to do our car park, that D day is this coming Thursday. So if you are planning to visit us soon it might pay you to put it off for a couple of weeks until we are sorted. We shall still be open and mail order will be unaffected, but a little disruption is inevitable.



Clearing the car park of dead cars ready for the big day is going to plan, the scrap man is due to make his last visit on Tuesday. Karl and Russell finished off stripping a 2.5Pi estate yesterday, already partially stripped before we got it and a little rusty, its still a shame to see another one go. Unfortunately they have to do the same thing on Monday to another PI estate, again very rusty from having been stored outside for many years before it came here. Darren stripped the sad remains of a MK1 Vitesse saloon and a GT6 MK111 earlier in the week, again both cars had been partially stripped before we got them, and they were rusty, so we are not feeling to guilty. That leaves a 2500 mk11 saloon, that has been acting as a Christmas tree for other cars we are putting back together. A real shame to take this one apart as it isn't a bad car, we have tried shifting it on for not a lot of money, but no one was interested so it has to go. A 13/60 convertible that had been stored on the car park for a customer for a month or so went today to a new owner, hope he didn't stall it, the battery was as dead as a Dodo! The workshop to is emptying out nicely, obviously with no car park for a few weeks we can't afford to have to many cars in there so that we don't have enough room to work on them.

It might be that when things have settled down again in a month or so, it might be time to have another of our autojumbles/open days/special offer day's. We really need to be creating space and clearing some more of our storage of major s/h bodypanels etc. This might be your last chance of some really cheap s/h doors, bootlids, bulkheads, etc. We haven't had one of our famous open days for some time, mostly because of the car park issue, some of you must remember the swamp like state it got into on the last special offer weekend!



Pictures of a couple of the last long term car park residents prior to and after scrapping.

What a shocker !

I was only on site for around 15 minutes today in between my rounds delivering and collecting stuff, and still managed to field a technical enquiry whilst scoffing my salad batch. It was from an old friend in the trade Pete Cox, formerly Cox & Buckles, latterly Moss. I was buying stuff of Pete in the late 70's when I was struggling to keep my TR5 on the road on a meager students pittance. No mail order in those days, I used to jump in the TR and head over to Fairfax St clutching some folding, mind you I never seemed to end up buying what I actually went over for! Pete always managed to sell me that months 'special deal', wire wheels always seemed to be cheap. Anyway today's technical revolved around rotoflex shock absorbers and the correct spec for a Vitesse (or in this case an Equipe) with telescopic conversion brackets fitted. The sum total of my advice was more to do with wishing him good luck than actually pointing him in the right direction. These brackets never seemed to be specified with the correct length shocks, most of them being to short, and it gives a very nasty ride, I have lost count of the number of MK11's I've driven in this condition. Every producer of these kits seemed to do it slightly differently so who knows what shock to use today, some traders have been known to sell standard Herald/Spit rears, or GT6 roto rears, all wrong. One day in an idle moment John Kipping and myself spent an hour or two with a Vitesse in the workshop looking for the ideal place to mount a rear shock, and the bracketry needed, i.e a proper kit. We came to the conclusion that to mount one in the ideal attitude would involve cutting a reshaping bodywork, and offering a turret type affair to mount it. We decided 99% of customers wouldn't be interested in major bodywork when fitting a pair of shocks, and quietly forgot about the whole idea!

Much ADU about nothing!

Only a week to go to the Midlands/North, Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run Drivers meeting at the Weavers Inn in Fillongley. You South East people have still got your drivers meeting at the usual venue (The Plough). I'm sure the Club Triumph officialdom won't mind if you want to come along to either meeting to soak up the atmosphere even if you are not participating this year. I guarantee you will be hooked when you see all those Triumphs in the car park's of the respective venues and all those mad keen teams collecting their roadbooks (this is the official route book, with spaces for signatures required at each control on the route).

How is the Canley entered car coming on? Well I'm sure that the other members of our team will be happy to know that I've actually started work on it at last. This week I have mainly been finding the bits I took off the car 5 years ago and put somewhere safe. It took me 2 hours today to find the gearstick for instance! I'm not working on it tomorrow as I'm out and about doing the rounds of suppliers/manufacturers, but from Thursday it should be full steam ahead.

The workshops are emptying out nicely after our self imposed ban on any further new bookings. The intention was to catch up with existing customers cars already here, and prepare some of our own cars for sale. We should be back on stream towards the middle of October with a nice spacious/tidy workshop. We have looked again at some of the workshop equipment and decided to chuck out some of the leaky old trolley jacks, engine hoists etc that clutter up the place. Decent equipment is so cheap nowadays it just aint worth trying to fix stuff anymore. There is some talk about fitting another ramp, a two poster, to sit along side the existing four poster, personnally I fancy a rolling road! Just to think I turned one down a few years back, that was available for peanuts. Mind you it was a 4 wheel, 500bhp one, the bloody thing was massive! Why 4 wheel, 500hp, well it was coming out of the old Ferguson Formula (those of the 4 wheel drive Jenson's and others) factory the other side of Coventry, when it closed down a few years back. The finally knocked the factory down last year and there's a housing estate going up on the site.

Anyway I'm rambling, nothing new there then, time to go!

44 days to go!

A little bird has just reminded me that there is only 44 days to go before the kick off to that highlight of the Triumph calender the 2004 RBRR. Other entrants seem to be in the throws of putting the finishing touches to their steeds. As usual (traditional) the Canley entry sits forlornly awaiting any attention at all! We (Team Canley; Jason Chinn, Jerry and yours truly) have entered in a real rarity, one of the 4 2600 MK111 saloon prototypes we own, Triumph's last ditch attempt to squeeze another few years out of the 2000 range pending the introduction of the SD1 6 cyl range, using the same engine, i.e the 2300/2600 Triumph developed OHC 6 cyl. Only the MK111 we are using never actually got 6 cyl running gear, as neither did the majority of the 30 + prototype shells produced, as far as we can ascertain only 4 or 5 of the cars got 2600 engines. Our cars have fitted TR7 16 valve engine and 5 speed box, 'normal' Triumph OHV 2500 running gear (the wifes everyday car), a 2600 OHC and 5 speed box, and our RBRR entry fitted with TR8 V8 and 5 speed box. Ray Henderson (Triumphs chief engineer) once explained to me on one of his visits here that very early on the whole MK111 project was soon sidelined and the spare shells were used in a variety of other projects mainly to do with the introduction of the TR7, hence the 16 valve car, and the V8. I remember as a lad (this would have been 1972-4) seeing the experimental guys tooling around locally in thinly disguised TR7's and these special saloons, distinguished by the raised centre section of the bonnet (originally there to accommodate the taller OHC 2600 engine). Even then the saloons looked, and sounded radically different to the normal 2000 family, I must admit to being quite confused as to the 4 cyl exhaust noise coming from some of them! As strange coincidences go it gets no stranger than having these cars not 50 yards away from our neihbouring business the owner of which's husband was actually one of those experimental drivers!

44 days to go, hmm, when was the last time I drove the V8? Come to think of it' it was 1998, I wonder where the keys are, and the exhaust system, and the radiator, and the ?!!!

Special visitors

Every now and again we are privileged to receive a 'special guest' from Triumphs illustrious past. Of course it helps being on the outskirts of Coventry where a good proportion of Triumph ex workers still live. Yesterday was no exception, on his second visit to us was former Triumph experimental worker David Lloyd. David was involved in some of Triumphs most exciting projects including being the actual guy who made the bucks (tooling) and the actual glassfibre deck and hump for the Macau Spitfire residing in our museum. You may know that we have decided to return the Macau to its 1965 spec which includes reshaping the hump that was put on the car in the 1980's (Kas Kastner removed the original hump in 1967). David has kindly agreed to don his overalls and help with this work, how about that! Forty years will separate David's efforts by the time this work is completed, but worth the wait!

David has also loaned the museum some of his extensive photo archive of his days at Triumph, a keen photographer and friends with Triumphs own chief photographer, his collection is interesting to say the least!

New car for the Triumph museum!

Sorry about the picture quality, but I thought I would capture the scene last night at 9.30 when the oldest Herald saloon returned to Coventry. We have been away for a couple of days driving the Chicane with car trailor down to the South coast and then back up to Frome in Somerset to collect our recent purchase courtesy of e bay. As far as we know this is the oldest Herald saloon in existance being chassis number G11, engine number G8E, and well worthy of saving for the museum. The Chicane again performed as expected with no drama's, this car never ceases to impress, it clocks up big, big miles, uses no petrol, never goes rusty, and all on a diet of neglect, cheap unleaded, and never being garaged since we have had it! Currently the mileage is at about 225,000 miles (it has kph clock so I did a quick conversion), the engine has never been apart, and it has had only 2 oil changes in the last 125,000 miles (Halfords fully synthetic). There are no signs of valve seat recession, and it starts without a rattle, but if you really cane it hard you can just get a whif of smoke out the exhaust, indicating a little wear in the valve guides. I just had a thought, that 948 Herald probably went faster on the trailor last night a couple of times than it ever managed to do under its own power, oops!

Last Stafford?

No blogs over the weekend and yesterday, sorry, been a bit busy.

Had a good time at Stafford (TSSC International) as usual, both on a trading level, but also on a social level. Same old faces in the camping area, up for the 'crack', and wanting to party!

Fewer people about this year, and the number of traders was down again, one of the larger traders was noticeably absent. At one point on the Saturday morning it threw it down with rain, so one would suppose most of the people on the site would have been in the main hall, if so numbers attending was depressingly low. Gone are the days when the top car park was full to brimming with the parking by model, a feature of Stafford that I used to enjoy a good luck around in my breaks from the stall.

Still can't complain about what we as a company achieved, managed to get two of our cars there for the displays, the Macau Spit (parked next to Bernie's lovely recreation) and the GT6 race car (thanks to John Muggleton for towing it up). We also did well on the stall, helped by the lack of competition undoubtedly, but I like to think also by our wide spread of new products and keen prices!

No something needs to be done sharpish about the dwindling numbers, and a move to a new venue seemed to be top of the agenda for most of those who expressed an opinion to me over the weekend. It's a pity because Stafford is really handy for us being just up the road, and the facilites are good, excusing the toilets on the Sunday morning!

The Saturday night 'do' didn't have the same sparkle as other years, fewer people in fancy dress, and the band? We cleared of comparatively early back to the tents for some cheese toasties done on the barbie, and some more beer.

Thanks to Jason and Zoe for their stirling work over the w/end, and to Craig and Sarah for bedecking our stand in advertising stuff.

Tech tips for today

Thought I might impart a few tech tips that spring to mind as a result of goings on in the w/shp this week. Firstly be careful when fitting or refitting your 6 cyl oil filter adapter to your block. We have a couple of instances recently of terminal and near terminal cranks and or crank shells as a result of damaged or incorrect spec inner 'O' rings that go between the adapter and block. The first was a week or two ago and the seal that had been fitted was far to small in profile and was allowing unfiltered oil to go straight to the shells/crank. Fortunately the crank survived unscathed but we had to change the shells and this on an engine that had run less than an hour, not fitted by us of course, but by a 'professional' garage never the less! The second was on a car in for an engine change this week because of a noisy crank. On taking the adapter off Karl noticed that the inner 'O' ring had been damaged when it had been fitted, again allowing unfiltered oil straight to the crank.

Second tech tip. We have a lovely PI saloon in the w/shp that was losing power and dying. All the usual culprits were blamed pre seeing the car diagnosis, fuel pump, prv, etc, etc. Poor old Lucas PI it always gets the blame and 90% of the time its something else. As it was this time, any thoughts as to what it might be? No. Try this, the car had recently been fitted with a refurbished tank with some of that miracle gunk injected that is supposed to line the tank with a bullet proof layer. Well within a couple of weeks this layer was starting to be washed off by the petrol! Sheets of the stuff were being sucked into the outlet and giving the in line filters a coronary.

We had a similar thing a year or so back with a TR6, a great big glob of silicon sealer was rolling around in the tank, the car would go great for a while and then the sealer would roll over the outlet, and then? Well you know the rest.

Talking of TR6's and silicon sealer, we have had a nice red 125bhp car in the w'shp this week. The owner was being passed between pillar and post with various traders 'having a go' at fixing the leaks from around his metering unit. Having reached the end of his tether and having shelled out for recon metering unit and loads of labour to no avail he was pointed in our direction. What did we find? Metering unit pedestal seals shagged, allowing fuel to drain from the m/unit past the first seal and exit via the tell tale hole in the pedestal. It was worse than that though, whoever had fitted the metering unit last had fitted far to small a profile 'O' ring between the m/unit and pedestal, and decided to back that up with a good application of silicon sealer! It gets better, the m/unit had been timed 180 degrees out and the distributor clamp wasn't (clamping!), allowing the dizzy to float around to its hearts content, no wonder it ran like a bag of poo! A couple of hours labour and a couple of quid for some new seals/O rings, and the thing is really sweet, lovely and smooth, and no leaks!

That's it for today, I'm orf.

STOP PRESS Weather News : Spring is Sprung

The forecast is actually quite good for this weekend weather wise, it looks like things might have changed for the better. About time! We are hopefully off to Rockingham on Sunday (23rd May 2004) to watch the TR Register/TSSC racing and cheer on our own Karl Dandridge in his GT6 so fingers crossed for a sunny day, see you there?

Triumph Chicane - New addition to the fleet !

This is the latest addition to the Canley fleet. We have managed to buy another Chicane to add to the blue one we already own! Not badged as a Chicane, but never the less South African built with all the differences from the Canley built examples, for example South African made glass throughout, unique trim, special suspension, Girling brakes instead of Lockheed, Motorola charging equipment, etc.



The other strange thing is that it appears to be a very early example of a MkII (2500 Chicanes didn't start production until very late 1972), this 2000 from our initial inspection has all the hallmarks of being within the first few months of production in 1969? Telltale bits include, early clock on dash, escutcheon on boot lock, trimmed lower steering column cowl, enamelled badges, I could go on, but then you might realise just how sad it is that I know all this stuff!!! The South African commission (chassis) plate lists the colour as T/TAN, and the trim colour as M/ROOM, nice!



Great not only do we have a bathroom blue coloured Chicane, we now have a Tangerine one too, you know when you have been Tango'd! How many other Chicanes are there in the UK, I know of at least two others, one locally, and more to the point what are they doing here?



Reality break - July 2004 update !



After a long and hard look at the ever expanding Museum collection we came to the conclusion that duplication of models was putting a severe strain on the already cramped museum building. So Chicane number two has gone to a new appreciative owner.









New addition to the fleet











South African built 2000

Canley Classics on TV !

Fame at last, Canley Classics, Team Stretch, on the telly, oh yes, in the full limelight of the media glare, well local news programme BBC Midlands Today anyway! We have recently been having to beat the media off with a big stick, with a sudden and un-expected huge, belated (the Stretch has been in semi-retirement since the 10CR last September) level of interest in the World's longest Herald. In the space of two weeks we have been in two national dailies, local radio, local television, local newspaper, and the BBC website, phew, where did that make-up woman go!

Watch with RealPlayer !

You can view the programme using RealPlayer. You will need to jump through to about the 20th minute to catch it. Video footage courtesy of the BBC.









Alternatively, read the report in full on the BBC News website.









Being interviewed on the telly









Taking the engine bay close-up shots

Macau Spitfire Update !

Exciting news regarding the Macau Spitfire, we have located several of the car's original 1965 engine components in California! Thanks to Mr Kas Kastner (he removed the bits whilst the car was his in 1966-7) who first tipped us off that the parts had turned up for sale still residing in California all these years later. These parts, including the original 70X alloy 8 port cylinder head, are now safely back home in Coventry. This stuff is well travelled if you think about it, Coventry, Hong Kong, Coventry, USA, Coventry! Since acquiring these and other original parts we have taken the decision to return the Macau to 1965 specification, but don't worry all you USA enthusiasts, we are well aware of the Macau's Kastner/American racing heritage. To that end we are formulating a plan to use the Kastner parts removed to maybe build a tribute to that part of the Macau's early history, after all it has remained as such for the past 37 years!



To this end if you haven't seen the Macau in the flesh, so to speak, on one of it's outings to shows/events over the last 2½ years, then it may be some time before you see it again away from the Canley premises. We hope to keep you updated on a regular basis on progress.









more about the Macau Head...



more about the Macau Spitfire...