Chicane Finished

So thats another one done, and gone. After 5 years off the road the Chicane is finally MOT'd, and back in use.

Initially it came off the road so that I could fit a pair of new wings, but the job grew into a bare metal respray, and an engine rebuild.

Having MOT'd it last Saturday and done a 100 miles or so in it since the only minor adjustment needed was to the choke fast idle cam setting.

Belated Vitesse RBRR Report



Ready And Waiting, The Start Of The 2014 RBRR

OK so I know its a bit late, but here are a few pictures of our Vitesse on its successful 2014 RBRR (its not a race!).

Resting After A Lovely Fry Up


After another fairly traumatic pre RBRR rush to get another one of the fleet ready for the event the drive iteslf around the route this time proved to be fairly relaxing. We (James and myself) seem to have got the sleep/rest pattern spot on this time. Apart from some 'enthusiastic' driving through Wales in the middle of the night trying to keep up with the Andy Martins Vitesse with his brother driving, the rest of the time we cruised around enjoying the atmosphere, views, and food!



Resting After Another Fry Up At the Other End

Thanks to Tim and the rest of the RBRR team for another wonderful event, I might do just one more!

Patsys 2000 MKI Finished At Last

After more years than I care to remember I have finally got Patsys 2000 MKI finished. Patsy came and collected her car last night, and now I have a 2000 sized space in my workshop, oh deep joy!

Starting back when with a car that had been stood outside exposed to the elements for nearly a decade this car was a little bit rusty.

I'm no stranger to the car though having put a pair of front wings, and some sills on it in the 1980's. However another 100,000 miles, and its subsequent period of inactivity had taken its toll again.

Between us we managed to track down all the new Stanpart original panels it needed including front wings, nose cone, front valance, sills, and all four door skins.

After welding everything together the shell was taken over to SPL surface treatments in Birmingham for chemical stripping, and E-coat.

All the suspension was blasted, and powder coated. A set of Red Polybush went in, and I rebuilt the front struts with new inserts.

The car had previously been fitted with a wide track MKII rear end. A reconditioned servo, brake master cylinder, calipers, and cupro nickel brake lines made sure the brakes were spot on.

The interior trim was all replaced with new stuff courtesy of Aldridge Trimming who are more normally associated with Stag trim. The seats were completely rebuilt, and new door trims in the same colour, with carpets in a contrasting shade of brown.

The running gear went back in as it was, as the engine had been rebuilt not long before the car came off the road, and the gearbox, overdrive, and diff were reported to have been OK by Patsy. 

I took the 2000 down for an MOT on Tuesday, and it passed with no problems other than a slightly low aim on a headlamp. Coming back from the MOT made me realise just how nice a good 2000 is to drive, and that its about time I put one of my fleet of saloons back on the road.  

Chicane Gets New Wings Part V, Nearly There

Nice Shiny Rebuilt Engine Fitted

Once painted I started to put the Chicane back together starting with putting the rebuilt engine back in. I haven't bothered with the bulkhead insulation thing because it was falling to bits. Unlike the rubber faced Coventry built 2000 pads the South African built cars had a thick felt type material faced with something akin to Bacofoil.

Looking complete

Over the years the Chicane has been plagued by water leaks so this time around I spent a long time making sure the new screen seals had plenty of sealant in all the nooks and crannys. Inside a new Stanpart main carpet went in along with the best of the s/h carpet sections I have. The horrible old sill threshold finishers went off to be stripped, polished, and re-anodised, and they now look fantastic. New original door rubber seals went on, but I'm still waiting to find some decent quality furflex finishers to complete the inside.

Nice Shiny New Stapart Wing!

I have even re-fitted the Chicanes 'Leyland South Africa' wing badges that have been off the car for many years. 

All that's left to do now is fit a reconditioned starter motor, the new exhaust, and the reconditioned Girling brake calipers.

Gold Seal Spitfire Peeling Back the Years

Thanks to some of the owners of the Gold Seal car who had owned it after its Richard Lloyd Gold Seal Racing, and Mugello Circuit exploits I have filled in some important gaps in its history.

John Petty in particular supplied some excellent pictures of the car whilst in his ownership.

I decided rather than strip its paint all in one go I would carefully peel it back layer, by layer, and tie in its various colour schemes to contemporary drivers.

The above picture shows the initial strip revealing a overall yellow scheme. The pictures John Petty supplied show the car in these colours during his ownership in 1970-72.

Courtesy of John Petty

Further sanding reveals more yellow.

A bit more and I could almost polish it!

John told me he brought the car in 1970 from a gentleman called Peter Long, and he thinks he later sold it on in 1972 to a Mr Russell Bracebridge.

Coutesy of John Petty (the marks on the print is water damage)

In the next instalment I reveal a totally unexpected short lived colour scheme!

Chicane Gets New Wings Part IV



OK so its escalated into a full respray!

So now its gone from fitting a new pair of front wings, and an engine rebuild into a full bare metal respray.

To be honest the paint was looking a little tired even though it has been painted before in our ownership about 10 years, and 100,000 miles ago. It had also been painted before we got it when it still lived in South Africa.  In our ownership its never been garaged, and it's only seen a polish a couple of times in that time. Taking that into account, and those new front wings I thought another comprehensive paint job was due.

Bare metalling threw up no surprises, indeed this car is still on its original sills, there cannot be many 2000/2.5 left with this sort of mileage still on their original sills.

Whilst I was at it I took the opportunity to replace one of the front doors for its original one that we removed during its respray many years ago. I can't for the life of me remember why we swapped it as its rust free, and fits far better than the substituted one?

  

FHP993C MOT'd

Resting on Llandudno Promenade during 2014 MSA Spring Classic Road Rally

I can't believe how time is flying by. This is brought home to me every year when MOT time comes around on FHP993C. It never seems to me than other than a few weeks have elapsed since the last time I did it.

All she needed this year was a couple of gallons on fresh petrol, a charge of the battery (she hadn't been out much since Aprils MSA event), and a couple of flicks of the reluctant light switch to wake it from its slumbers. One of these days I'm going to change that switch, but it seems to respond each year to a bit of exercise.

It must be getting on for 20 odd years that I have had the privalege of looking after FHP, one of my favourite cars of all time.

More Vitesse RBRR progress

Having completed the rebuild on the Vitesse slipper diff I turned my attention to the halfshaft assemblies. A couple of new short shafts, some GKN (Hardy Spicer) u/j's, new wheels bearings, new trunnions, and one new housing were consumed in the rebuild.

Over the years the back end of the car had settled to the point where a new swing spring was required so that went in. Everything then went back in with Polybush Red mountings, and new bolts, nuts, and washers as a matter of course.

Whilst the prop is away being checked for balance James had a poke around the car looking for any corrosion issues that might interest the MOT man.

In a matter of minutes he was attacking the passenger footwell with an angle grinder. I had never really given it a second look as it has been effectively hidden under a large aluminium passenger foot rest that was bolted through a rubber floor mat.

It turned out to be a little 'frilly'!

Chicane Gets New Front Wings Part III

OK so I know I'm only supposed to be replacing the front wings, but it seemed a shame not to re-fresh the engine whilst it was out.

I have barely layed a spanner on the engine in all the time we have had the car. When it came to us it was showing nearly 100,000 miles (kms?) on the clock, and we have added a further 200,000 miles (kms?) to it. At one time it was our chief towing car hauling our twin axle tilt car trailor up and down the motoways with various Triumphs in transit.

When it came off the road a couple of years ago it was still pulling strong, with no undue rattles on start up, and minimal oil consumption. The only signs of age was a slight puff of smoke between gear changes  from the exhaust when it was being thrashed. However I didn't want to push my luck so it was time to investigate.

The crank was still on standard bearings, but it was at its upper wear limit so got ground to 10/10 and a nice set of lead copper bearings. Surprisingly it had been previously bored to  +20, but we bored it again to +60, and fitted a nice set of County pistons.

There was some valve seat recession on the exhaust's, but there again it had been thrashed mercilously on a diet of supermarket unleaded for over 15 years, and at least a couple of hundred thousand miles. New unleaded seats, guides, and valves, and a quick face of the head, and all was good.

The cam had seen better days with a couple of lobes showing quite bad wear. Chicanes came fitted as standard with 18/58 cams, but as I was replacing it anyway I have fitted a 25/65.

After a coat of black paint, and a new set of core plugs it was nailed back together to await it's next 300,000 miles of service!

I get bullied into 'choosing' Vitesse for RBRR

Well I suppose I had put off a decision on what Triumph to do the RBRR in this year long enough.

Last Saturday Tim Bancroft turned up and removed a cheque from me for the entry fee for CT's RBRR.

The ink had barely dried on the cheque when James removed the Vitesse from its slumbers, and promtly ripped its entire back end out.

Its last time out was the CT Autosolo at Bovington a couple of years ago. During the day it was thrashed by eldest daughter, her mate, and myself, I don't recall the engine being switched off all day!

A couple of days later on the way to work I detected the whine of death, meaning terminal crown wheel, and pinion wear. A couple of other things needed addressing including a saggy rear spring, seized adjusters on the radius arms. Also something I had wanted to do for a while go back to short halfshafts, as I had never been happy with the look of it with long shafts fitted (and its abilty to break them).

 

I stripped the diff yesterday, and sure enough the 4.11 gearset had seen better days. The Quaife LSD centre was fine (it has now survived two gearsets!), and we are not short of factory  4.11 gearsets so a new one was fitted. While I'm waiting for some Timkin bearings to come into stock for it I set about pulling those long shafts out of the rear bearing housings.

To be continued.

Chicane Gets New Front Wings Part II

Stanpart wing fitted, paint removed from sill and etched

As seems to be the case with most of these 'little' jobs I start on cars in the fleet the jobs list on the Chicane grew from simply putting on a couple of new front wings, to something more akin to a mini restoration.

Bare metalling engine bay

The engine bay had always looked a tad tatty so I took the opportunity to remove the engine, and bare metal the complete engine bay.

Etch Primer

A coat of etch primer, and a couple of coats of high build 2K primer, followed by some more prep.

Nice shiny Aqua Blue, is the old girl really worth all this?

Oldest Herald Saloon gets some TLC

Although the plan was never to restore our 948 prefering to preserve its originality where ever possible, we really needed to do something about the front end.
The front valance had taken a few knocks in it's 55 years, and with large areas of surface rust, and a previous owner having 'up-dated' by drilling holes to rivet on rubber bumper retainers it was time to save it before it crumbled away.
After removal it was shotblasted, and repaired as neccessary. At the same time the grill surround was also shotblasted as it too was heavily surface rusty. Whilst the grills were out they were polished up, along with the badge.
The front overriders barely had any chrome left on them, and were probably past saving in normal circumstances, but our chromers worked miracles, and now they look as good as they did back in March 1959 when the car was built.
Everything was bolted back together with as many of the original fixings as possible (a surprisingly high percentage), and copius amounts of copper grease.

It seemed a shame not to take the opportunity to drive the car whilst it was out of storage so for the past week I have been going to home, and back in it, very nice!

MSA Spring Classic

ADU 5B resting after a few laps of Angelsey race circuit

                             

Thanks to Valerie and Bill Bradley for the invitation to drive ADU 5B on this years MSA Spring Classic the weekend before last.



Chicane Gets New Front Wings

I can't believe its been 3 years since we last had one of our big saloon's on the road.

The Chicane came off the road first in October 2009 for no other reason than we had several other Triumphs roadworthy and its MOT lapsed, and it got quitely forgotten about. Clares 2600 MKIII prototype went the same way after she got her first Jaguar XF. I did briefly look to putting the factory V8 saloon (another MKIII prototype) on the road but its a 1979 registered car which means paying road rent!

My Triumph fix this last few years has been satisfied by my daily driver Courier van,

RBRR 2012

or the odd Summers day (remember those?) drive in Clares Stag,

or I exercise this once a month (but its not mine),

FHP993C on the Rest And Be Thankful.

Anyway back to the title of this Blog, and the recent work on the Chicane. Allthough the front wings were only just showing some minor rust bubbling around the arch I thought it better to replace, rather than repair. Luckily I had been collecting MKII front wings over the years for our own cars so the decision was easy. Initially I had planned only to change the front wings and blow them in, but like all these jobs it escalated.