VAT reduction passed on to customers.

First off a picture from our collection that on first sight looks to be nothing out of the ordinary, that is until you do a little research. Could be a typical street scene from the 1970's, but what are those stickers on the 2000 door, could this be an entrant on an early CT RBRR? Well no actually, it's a little bit more interesting than that.
Some research in the Triumph experimental register shows OVC 311M to be one of the many Bullet/Innsbruck prototypes built by Triumph to prove the slant 4 2lt OHC engine ready for the forthcoming TR7. Chassis number X845, and engine number X1334E, it's listed as the Swiss test car, emissions transport (Swiss market), most of the other cars in the program being listed as Federal spec.
Further research with the Coventry Museum of Road Transport who hold the Coventry area registration details (donated by West Midlands Police) show that this particular car was registered on the 24.10.73. So in the knowledge that all Triumph prototypes were put straight to work to lead short but generally hard lives this picture wouldn't have been taken to long after it was registered. This is born out by the door stickers which read '50,000 mile Emission Test'.
Pinpointing exactly where the picture was taken is easy if you happen to live in Nuneaton, as I do. It's in the town centre on Queens Rd (or the Market Place, I'm never sure where one ends, and the other starts). What is really unusual for Nuneaton (because everything else has been knocked down!) is that all those shops in the background are still there although they have changed hands a few times over. Kettering & Leicester is now a branch of Waterstones book shop. The whole area is now pedestrianised, but it is still possible to get a car into a similar postion under certain conditions if you wanted to recreate the scene.
Going back to the car itself had you noticed it has no bumpers, wheel trims, and it's sitting a little high at the back? Or that there are louvers on the top of the bonnet? I happen to know one of the drivers who was tasked with putting some of those test miles and he explained more. Paul (Northall) recalled the 2000's (Innsbruck) had to have weight removed to make them similar to the forthcoming TR7 (Bullet) for the tests to have any relevance. This included the removal of much interior trim, and the substitution of door glass for perspex, etc.
Interesting times for a young Triumph enthusiast like me in the 70's in Nuneaton as several Triumph test drivers lived locally and were in the habit of cruising through the town in their top secret charges. I remember one of the cars above passing me by whilst I was on my way to the chip shop on school dinner break, the noise it made was distinctly none 6 cylinder! Not long after this I saw my first TR7 (remember this was at least a year before it was launched) as it sat waiting patiently at a school crossing as some goggle eyed kids speculated on what this thinly disguised space ship might be (the TR7 looked pretty radical to us in 1974!).

What was the point of this Blog? Oh yes, as of yesterday we have passed on the 2.5% VAT reduction to all our European customers. What a fantastically generous tax giveaway Mr Darling has given you! Now all you have to do is spend, spend, spend to get us out of this recession. We are waiting for the rush.

It's been a while since this last happened

RBRR Drivers Meeting

We had the pleasure of hosting the Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run (Northern) drivers meeting again last night. Tim Bancroft and Jason Chinn (part of the organisational team) pitched up early to help me prep the old museum buildings ready for the evenings entertainment. Cars were moved out to reveal tell tail oil stains on the floor that Tim immediately declared a health and safety risk! Suitably armed with a mop and bucket and some neat traffic film remover (steam cleaner heavy duty detergent) he set about making the floor spick and span. Meanwhile yours truly trawled the place for chairs, and only having found 20 odd decent comfy ones I resorted to steam cleaning off the green stuff growing on the white plastic garden variety I collected from outside. Having done a half passable attempt at cleaning the floor Tim hung the CT and RNLI banners, whilst Jason supervised, and talked about pies (that boy has a one track mind).
The meeting was set to start at 20.30 sharp. Tim was starting to panic half an hour or so before the kick off when only half a dozen crews had turned up. Representatives of 60 odd crews had turned up Monday night for the southern meeting leaving Tim to expect 40 odd tonight. Then they came! Piling into the car park came a steady stream of Triumph's (well done guys) until we were well and truly packed out. We have never had so many people on the premises at one time, it looked like Tim would be talking to a capacity crowd.
What a phenomena the RBRR has become, the buzz surrounding it has to be experienced first hand to appreciate the madness of those who wish to spend 48 hours circumnavigating the UK. Serial RBRR's (and I include myself here as this is my eighth RBRR) would probably find it difficult to explain/justify why we keep coming back time after time to what might seem to others as organised torture. All I can say is to really understand it you have to participate, and until you do you aint never going to understand the highs (and lows) of the best driving event bar none.
Now for the staticions. Over 80 cups of tea and coffee were drunk last night (the water boiler has a meter on it) and it could have been more but it ran out. That's never happened before, but if someone had pointed it out to me I could have soon filled it up again! Over 400 biscuits were scoffed (rich tea, bourbons, and so on, you get the picture) with a handful of damp ones left over for me to have for my breakfast this morning.
Roll on RBRR I'll see all you mentalists, as Mr Bancroft calls us, a week on Friday at the Plough.

Big Brake Kit Correction / Atlas panel work

First off apologies over the picture used for the Atlas big brake kit in my last Blog. The more observant amongst you have noticed that the front suspension looked nothing like that of an Atlas. The hub was more Caterham than Triumph 2000 (modified to fit the Atlas). The disc was of larger diameter, and vented. The caliper looked nothing like an iron Girling type 16, in fact it looked more like an alloy 4 piston type! The picture was in fact taken when we converted Joe's Spitfire 1500 a couple of months ago to test out a new kit on the RBRR. That'll teach me to make ambiguos picture descriptions and not open them up for a look see before up-loading them to blog.

Anyway back to today's picture (carefully checked!), it shows the Atlas resplendent with it's now filled in holes as collected from Wes the master tinny. Actually the picture was taken yesterday outside Dave's paint shop a good 20 miles away from Wes's place. That meant a good blast down the A5 to get over to Dave's place with the wife riding shot gun in the Chicane. As yet I haven't had time to fix the speedo so I was blissfully unaware of our speed. Imagine my surprise when Clare informed me that we had maintained 55 mph for a good 5 miles on the A5, that's 3mph faster than an Atlas's top speed when they were new. Looks like that diff ratio change has paid dividends. Dave reckons he will have the van back to me by the end of the week in its fresh coat of powder blue paint (original colour). I have known people loose cars for months if not years in paint shops and we are now less than 2 weeks before the start of the RBRR, I must be mad!

Big brake kit

Probably wouldn't make a lot of money out of retailing a big brake kit for the Atlas seeing as there are only about half a dozen still on the road!

Converting our Atlas to front discs turned out to be one of those jobs I wish I hadn't started. Initially I decided to do it based on all the horror stories I had heard from Atlas drivers of old about the drum brakes on the front. Then having looked at the state of the original stuff on our van and realising it needed everything replacing I thought about swapping to discs instead. So what bits to use? Atlas have 2000/2.5 wheel stud spacing so using Herald/Spitfire/Vitesse/GT6 hubs was out of the question. Using 2000 hubs meant a lot of lathe work in order to fit Vitesse discs, and Type 16 Girling calipers. Unfortunately having bolted it all together and feeling very pleased with myself I was a little dis-chuffed to find that the road wheels were fowling the calipers. The Atlas wheels look like early MKI 2000 jobbies, so into the stores for a late MKII 2000 rim and bobs yer uncle problem solved.

The back brakes are pure Vitesse/GT6 so no problem's there. After a precautionary master cylinder rebuild and road test it was nearly time for the MOT.

6.66 sign of the devil?

Well I hope not but as it turns out 6.66:1 is the diff ratio of Standard Atlas's from new. As we are hoping to do the 2,000 miles of Club Triumphs RBRR in a few weeks I thought it might be time to investigate a ratio change. When new an Atlas was flat out a 52mph but having spoken to Dave Gleed when he was in our shop he recalled the Triumph Service Division (who Dave worked for) fitting overdrives to their fleet of Atlas's (Atlasy?). Dave said that it added another few mph to the top end on the straight and level, but that any sort of gradient was another matter. As far as I could see the only easy overdrive box to fit would be a Standard 10 type but having sold all our remaining core units to Tony L Dean some years ago that option was going to prove difficult in the short time we have before the RBRR. So out with the diff and a strip down was on the cards. I already knew from the parts books that a lot of the guts were 2000/2.5/TR and so it proved to be. In went a nice 2000 4.11:1 CW&P set I had on the shelf and the diff is back in the Atlas.

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4WD Dolomite anyone?

We are having a bit of a clear out here at Canleys to make space for faster moving product. One product that has not been particularly fast moving has been our pile of new Pony 4WD gearbox's complete with transfer housing's. As you are probably aware it is perfectly feasible to use on of these to make a 4WD Dolomite, indeed we have sold several over the years to customers with that intention. We built a lash-up rolling test bed ourselves some years ago but the donor car was to rusty to put on the road so it got squashed. Having kept a couple for our museum, and offered to donate to other museums there are still a few left over. If you want one for whatever reason then please contact us within the next 24 hours because after that they are being weighed in. All we are asking is approx scrap value, say £40 (they are heavy!). Please copy this over to any other appropriate web groups who may find this of use.

I wrote this yesterday so it's no longer 24 hours I'm affraid before they go to China! Should be all gone later this afternoon. Give us a ring sharpish if you want one, it's probably to late to e-mail.

Roy Fidler / Bill Bradley re-united!

It's been more than 40 years since these two gentlemen last shared a drive in a works Triumph well I did my little bit towards getting them together again at last weekends superb Chatsworth Rally Show. Having collared Roy in the VIP enclosure I managed to introduce him to Bill, and point him in the direction of the Secretariat's tent where he was suitably kitted out in some borrowed racing overalls, and a helmet. Only a matter of minutes later Roy, and Bill were sitting in the queue waiting to go out on to the closed stage. Roy told me later it's the first time he has driven FHP (his 1966 RAC Championship winning car) since his factory days. Sitting in the same queue directly behind Roy, and Bill was yours truelly in Bill's Spitfire ADU 5B. We managed two stages on the Saturday before it was given over to some serious modern machinery.

Roy was only about on the Saturday so Bill drove FHP on Sunday. I managed to embarrass myself by launching 5B on the yump after the water splash, and as a result a little visit to the scenery ensued. As I was only a few feet away from the finish line and away from the main crowd line I thought I had got away with it. It was only after I had driven back to the team parking areas did the wife inform me that it had been broadcast on the massive screen set up in front of the crowd! Apparently Graham Robson also commentated that it should make the final cut for the Sky 1 programme being filmed over the weekend. Is this an end to my fledgling rallying career?

Richard Lloyd 1945-2008

Although yet to be confirmed officially we were saddened to hear of the tragic death in yesterdays private jet crash in Farnborough of Richard Lloyd.

Richard was recently famous as a Touring car team boss, but also had success with team Bentley that did so well at Le Mans, culminating in an outright win in 2003.

For us Triumph people Richard will always be synonymous with Gold Seal Racing and the highly successful plastic Spitfires from the late 60', early 70's.

http://www.canleyclassics.com/triumphmuseum.asp?article=goldseal.xml

Our condolences to his wife and three daughters, the rest of his family, and those of the the other passengers, and crew.

Time to go.

It's been a love hate relationship with my Yokohama A520's over the years. At best they grip like s**t to a blanket, and have lasted really well. At worst they are noisy, and have been the most prone to tracking on white lines etc of any tyre I have ever had. I thought my old 205/60/15 Pirelli P6's I fitted to a succession of TR's, Stags, and 2.5PI's in the 80's were bad, but I have had some equally scary moments with the Yoko's. The Yoko's came about as a result of a special offer by a tyre purveyor in the trade who made me a superb offer I couldn't refuse, so good I bought 3 sets of 195/50/15 A520's from them. They have seen their life out mostly on our old MKI PI (now moved on), the Chicane (the ones in the picture), and the V8 saloon. The ones on the V8 are approaching slick status, and the Chicane ones aren't much better.

To be honest I can't wait to change them as we have found a much better tyre that really suits the big Triumphs, one of Continentals newest offerings. The wife has gone through two sets in her PI, and they are absolutely superb on all counts from start to finish.

If I didn't like my 6J X 15 KN Gemini's (also pictured above), a proper alloy wheel from the 1960's so much, I would also have long since gone up a diameter or two on the wheel size. 15" is the bair minimum diameter I will have on my saloon's/Stag's etc these day's. If I do chance to drive someone elses car on 14" (or god forbid 13"!) wheels, and tyres it scares the hell out of me!

I wonder if it would be possible to get KN to do me a few sets of new build 7J X 17" Gemini's?

The largest gathering of works Triumphs in one place ever?

I'm not sure even the Triumph competition department had this many cars in one place at one time? I have certainly never seen this many at any show (including the Abingdon celebration at Silverstone a few years back), race track, museum, or any other venue come to that. It's certainly making our insurers a bit jumpy. Chances are it's never going to happen again either, I certainly wouldn't like to try and organise it. Some of the cars here may never be seen in public again for all I know. In the next week or so the bulk of the cars will disperse ready for the new season (some of them still get used in anger) and my worries will be over (nice worries all the same). Mean while if the last car in the jigsaw turns up as promised in the next few days there will be ten works built competition Triumphs on the premises, eleven if you count our Vitesse 6003VC (OK I know it's the John Wooley version), or twelve if you count a car built by 'works' mechanics, from 'works' parts (in Coventry, but not at the 'works'). I'm sure some anorak may come along and point out that there were thirteen competition Triumph's at such, and such an event in the 60's, but I doubt it.

Courier stuff

Apologies for the rubbish photo. We are getting close to paint on one of our Couriers, and I thought I would take a snap of it in primer, and guide coat. This car like many Couriers was originally painted in economy spec grey. As much as it bugs me to paint one of our cars a none original colour I just couldn't face seeing yet another Slate Grey example, so this one is turning Wedgewood. This actual car was one of JK's (John Kippings) very first 'company car' Heralds, and as such had already had a very hard life in the hands of the workforce before I came on the scene. Relegated to one of the storage sheds here many years ago it was replaced by a succession of other Couriers that one day might find their way into the restoration queue. Whilst I am on the subject has anyone out there got a spare Courier grille? Four Couriers about the place and every grille has 'walked', If I cant track one down then I'll stick a 12/50 one on temporarily.

Arc eye!

I thought I had become immune to this phenomenon, but a mild dose of it earlier this week brought home how irritating it can be. A spell of concentrated welding on a couple of reconditioned Herald/Vitesse chassis for customers was the cause. We had wheeled out the chassis jig from the back of the workshop last week in preparation and gave the old girl a dusting. That piece of kit has done more jigging than Michael Flattery! Back in the day when the restoration trade was still flourishing it was being used on average 2 to 3 times a month. On a busy month I might do 4 chassis for JK (this was the early 90's) . Now we sell that many in a year! In retrospect it's probably a good thing as we couldn't sustain that throughput by finding suitable core chassis. A couple of containers full of units from New Zealand helped back then, plus JK was still breaking the odd Herald or Vitesse for spares. Having said that I'm still not sure how we managed to find enough as I am sure I have done over 100 chassis in my time. I used to keep records of each one, and numbered every one by welding that number on the front face of the chassis leg that runs under the engine sump. That stopped when I lost the book containing the records.
It's funny how the trade is changing, and what isn't selling now that used to do 15-20 years ago, still I'm not sure I miss all that welding, I know my eyes might last a little longer as a result.

Stoneleigh postscript

What a great show! Weather certainly helped, what a cracking weekend. Nearly talked myself horse to mates from both sides of the trading fence so to speak. Lots of familiar faces, and some new. It's always nice to put a name to a face after only previously talking to people via telephone/e-mail.
It was great to be finally relieved of the need to actually trade at Stoneleigh and spend more time on the other side of the counter. Over 20 years doing the rounds of the shows as a trader was starting to take it's toll, it's time now to ferkle amongst the other traders stuff.
Spent an enjoyable hour or so on the CT stand chatting to fellow enthusiasts, and mates from previous CT endurance driving events.
Got button holed by Bernie from the TSSC, we promised to get together soon and talk 'works' Spitfires and other things Triumph.
Hero of the show as always was Chic Doig (and Ian, and the other helpers) fancy coming all that way year, after year for a one day show what a star!
I went along armed with a bundle of cash hoping to find some tasty bits for several of my own projects, but in the end I only came away with 16 wheel nuts, a roll of cleaning cloth, and a Continental Touring Kit (cheers Doug). In that respect I found the show a little disappointing, it seems to be the same old stuff year after year in the autojumble, and the rest of it in the main hall is shiny stuff you can get easily (and some times far cheaper!) on the tinternet.
In conclusion as a social event I think Stoneleigh is one of the best, and if it needs traders there as a focal point to draw in the punters then fair enough, but I know which side of the table I shall be from now on.

Messing with motors

Had a busy day Saturday playing with some of the fleet. First off was the daughters 13/60. She had complained of a horrible noise when cornering, and a friends boyfriend had suggested to her that a wheel bearing was shot, and a wheel was about to drop off! Needless to say that put the fear of God into her so I brought it into work to check it over. It only made the noise once for me and that was when I reversed off the drive at home. All was revealed once I had opened the bonnet in the workshop. One of the valance brackets had managed to come loose and was fowling the tyre on full lock. While it was in the workshop I filled the trunnions with EP90, and gave the car a quick once over, no other problems to report.
Next on the agenda was the daughters other car, her 'pimped my ride' 948 saloon that you may remember me working on from this time last year. It had gone on the back burner after getting 90% completed when we found her 'Harry' the 13/60 above. Well now the space the 948 occupies is needed by several other exciting projects that have recently come into the workshop. I spent a couple of hours re-fitting some of the internal trim, before deciding to put the wife's PI on the Sun tuner to try and find that rogue miss-fire mentioned in my previous blog.
Half an hour later and I was none the wiser. Indeed the PI performed faultlessly on the 'scope' with everything to book, and near identical patterns on the screen, nice vacuum, and no clues as to it's tantrums. I'm wondering now if this is a recurrence of a previous problem we suffered for many years of some foreign body floating around in the petrol tank. Of course it wasn't so critical when it was a carb car, as it only manifested itself at speeds above 70mph, of on inclines on the motorway, and it never left us stranded. PI's however need a constant flow of high pressure/volume fuel and will not tolerate temporary interruption of fuel. About a year ago I noticed something odd looking in the filter before the pump. I dissected the filter with a stanley blade only to find what looked like the remnants of a plastic bag, or a latex glove. I thought that was the end of it, maybe not!
Anyway I couldn't hang about as we had been invited out for the evening to the Gaydon Heritage Museum for the British Racing Mechanic Club's annual dinner, and presentation do. After a pleasant evening in some superb company we managed to top the night off by coming out of the Heritage Centre and turning the wrong way on the M40! Fortunately as it was gone midnight the road was empty so a quick blast down to Oxford and back at an impressive rate of knots in the Chicane ensured we weren't to late home for bed.

PI is loosening up nicely!

The wife's newly converted PI is loosening up nicely after it's recent monster mechanical rebuild, it's a proper flying machine! I used a TR5 engine I had built many years ago for a stalled TR5 restoration that probably wont happen now until I retire. Save having the thing sitting around any longer and possibly deteriorating I slung it in Clares motor along with a new gearbox, up-rated J type overdrive, radiator, propshaft, and that conversion to PI. The PI conversion parts I just rebuilt from old units we had lying around. I had been selling the odd s/h set of PI over the years to those who asked, but it looks like it's time to put a stop to that. A quick count up of the fleet and I should probably be putting 6 of those sets aside for our own cars for the future. I am constantly surprised how good a well built TR5 engine (on PI) can be, Clares car now makes my Chicane feel positively pedestrian (if I had the time that would get PI'd as well!). One thing on the snag list though is a miss-fire that develops after about 15 miles, my immediate thoughts were coil, condensor, or rotor arm (yes I'm paranoid about rotor arms as well, even though Iv'e never had one let me down!). I'll drag the Sun tuner out when I get 5 mins and nail the sucker.

Old school vs New blood?

I have a thing for old machinery, I guess we all do otherwise we wouldn't be messing with Triumph's. In this particular case it's engineering machine tools I'm waffling about. This time of year I have a little bit of time available to get out and chase stuff, and sort problems with suppliers. Recently I seem to be spending a fair amount of time in machine shops shouting over the incessant background noise that accompanies any busy engineering shop. As you might guess from our particular product specialities we call upon several of Coventy's/Nuneaton's finest engineering establishments. Fortunately the city is still awash with such places despite successive governments/councils attempts to knock them down and turn them into retail parks.
The diversity in what you will find when you open the door to a particular shop beggars belief. From ultra modern clinically clean places with machinery that has cost the proprietor many hundreds of thousands of pounds, to 'old school' places that posses 50 + year old machinery from the great names in Midlands machine tool manufacturers of yesteryear. I was in one such place this week marvelling at the proprietors latest acquisitions, some lovely old stuff he was as proud as punch of.
One thing that is always common amongst this community is how enthusiastic these people always seem to be, and how proud they are of a job well done, long may it continue.

Gone but not forgotten

On my travels into Coventry recently I have been witnessing the demolition of John Kippings, and our previous shop 421 Aldermans Green Road. You might remember it as the one opposite the pub, behind the conifers, next door to the gas bottle rental place. We last closed the door on the place on the August bank holiday 2000 having seen out the remainder of the lease taken out by JK previously. It has remained empty ever since, falling victim to the vandals and time. This was just as the landlord had planned! He had planned to sell it on for housing development when we (and other tenants) vacated but was thwarted by planners, and it's green belt status. After 8 years and with a little help from the vandals it looks like he finally got his way.
It was I who first spotted the 'For Rent' board outside the shop all those years ago that led to JK moving from the old CO-OP further down Aldermans Green Road. John then moved lock stock & spark plug half a mile out of town towards Bulkington about 10 years previously (I might be wrong 1990 ish?). The old CO-OP was bursting at the seams, there was barely enough room to swing a cat in that place by the time the move came.
I don't know if I miss 421, it was damp, cold, leaky, and a drain on resources. I lost count of the number of times I got called out of bed at some god forsaken hour by the boys in blue to switch the Redcare alarm system off after yet another false alarm caused by a rat, or mouse jumping in front of one of the sensors. It got so bad the police threatened to pull the plug, and all the alarm engineer could do was turn the sensitivity of the sensors down until a rugby team could of run amok in there without the bloody thing going off (the rats always managed it though).
There were plenty of good memories though like the time one of the guys had a day off, and another (who shall remain nameless) decided to microwave his cassette tape that he insisted on playing over, and over again when he was in work. Don't try this at home, it cost us a new microwave, thanks Paul (damn I mentioned his name, now Marc will find out!).
The good old, bad old days, gone but not forgotten.

Back up to full strength.

Touch wood! We had a run of bad luck towards the end of last year with the vehicle fleet. Looking back it was inevitable. Prior to this we had enjoyed unparalleled reliability with our day-to-dayers, which led to complacency, and I suppose a little neglect. First to go was the daughters Herald. No-body's fault this other than the hit and run toerag who shunted her into a parked car effectively totalling Harold, (as she's called him). That is if I wasn't a Triumph specialist who can see beyond insurance values. Chalk up one major rebuild, and Harold is better than he ever was. Next to go was the previously ultimately reliable Chicane. A catalogue of maladies was building up leading to a moaning quill shaft extension bearing, and a list as long as my arm of lesser ills. Couldn't put it off any longer, and just about to put it right in the workshop when the wife's 2.5 decides to drop it's crank thrusts. Obviously that takes priority and comes off the road for major work just in time for our Transit to break a leaf spring. At one point just prior to Christmas we were down to one vehicle. To cut a long story short the Chicane jumped the queue and got fixed pronto, a secondhand spring was sourced for the Transit as the local motor factor wanted over £200 for a new one, and £20 seemed better from the local scrap yard. The wife's 2.5 rebuild got complicated as I thought I would attend to several other minor niggles whilst it was off the road. As well as the engine change (a pukka TR5 engine I had rebuilt years ago for a TR5 that is still years away from being restored), I decided to replace the worn A type gearbox with a rebuilt J type box (and add another inhibitor so that it operates on 2nd). A new prop was added to the list, a re-cored radiator replaced the moth eaten example fitted that had worried me for some years. Oh and a conversion to PI from the HS6's looked like a good idea. We haven't had a PI on the road for a couple of years and I had missed it (a lot!), I love fiddling with PI's so now was the time to convert. The wife's car is a strange one, registered as a PI, but never having been fitted with it, it started life as a painted and trimmed shell sitting outside Triumph experimental waiting to go into the Rover (read Triumph) 2.6 ohc engine development programme. It was never used as such, and eventually got purchased by a experimental chap for the princely sum of £250. He built it up around a PI identity, only it never got PI, well now it has. The only thing that I struggled with was a 6 into 3 into 1 manifold that I had kicking around for the past 15 odd years. One of the mild steel originals I just couldn't get it to fit without it blowing from the 4 foot long secondries that run alongside the gearbox until they join into one at the back of the box. In the end I took the whole lot off and went back to a cast iron manifold pending a serious look at re-welding the whole affair.
So there you have it back up to full strength vehicle wise, and the reason I have been a bit quite of late.

Fancy an aluminium Spitfire or GT6?

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CanleyClassics