Workshop comings and goings.

The workshop continues to be busy as ever as work ramps up from customers old and new. One leaving us this week was a Vitesse MKII convertible bought sight unseen by it's new owner locally from the wife of the cars original owner. The new owner lives in Aberdeen so it was somewhat of a leap of faith to buy this one. Trailored straight to our door a couple of weeks ago Jason has been through the car with a fine tooth comb after it's 7 year lay-up. Needing a fair bit doing in the braking department, and a partially siezed engine, this one was fundamentaly sound however and finally went through it's MOT last week. Anyway it's gone now, and all the way back to Scotland on it's first real journey in 7 years! Still have the same guys 13/60 convertible here, nice low mileage, original car, in for service and MOT. Look out for this one as it might be up for sale after we have finished with it.
The workshop is crying out for a makeover but it's been just to busy with customers cars to think about it recently. A lick of paint, a re-wire, and maybe another ramp, is needed sometime over the winter, we will see.

MK1 PI's and that sort of thing!

Busy CC car park with two MK1 PI's in attendance! Tony Luxton's battle scarred example (the ex Chatters RON), and Colin Caines super white example nearing the end of a comprehensive resto.

Rally cars.

Got to swap motors with Andy Martin last night on the way down to the Manor pub in Fillongley. Not really a fair swap, I drove his Monte Vitesse 6002 VC, and he drove my 'living on the edge' 13/60 estate. He said he liked it! Over a glass of 'pop' we discussed one of Andy's other passion's his World Cup Rally test car, and Scottish Rally winning 2.5 PI WRX 902H. Andy had just aquired the last of the considerable history file for WRX from previous owner Tom Seal. As we sat digesting this treasure trove one picture stuck out as being a little differant. It showed the 2.5PI's lined up under assembly in the Abingdon workshops. One car in particular stuck out as having a completely differant fuel tank spec to the others, then the penny dropped, it's our car, car No1 the privately entered but factory built car. At last a picture confirming that it the majority of the build was done by Abingdon themselves, and a very important picture that will help considerably towards the car's restoration.

Projects

As trade settles down to manageble level after a cracking start to the season (runs through February to November), it's time to look forward to getting back to some long term projects in the workshop. If Jason grants me enough space amongst the customers cars in there, then it's only down to deciding which to pick from amongst the queue of likely candidates. First off we have to pull the engine out of our RBBR entry Stag last used and driven over 10 years ago, dosn't time fly! Needing only a bore and a set of pistons when it came off the road it's sure to need a bit more doing now. It will be interesting to see how our cars are standing up to long term storage in the museum, the Stag was a beauty when it went in there?
Next my Chicane needs less than a couple of days spent on it replacing some of the trim left off after it's last respray, and other odd's an sod's. I'm missing the Chicane, it's been over a year since I last drove it, and after nearly 300,000 miles it was/is the most reliable Triumph Iv'e ever owned, touch's a very large piece of wood!
I keep looking at the Macau and thinking it's about time that got sorted. After spending the last 4 or 5 years scouring the World successfully for all it's original 70X engine components from 1965, it's about time I put it all together again.
I would love to do the Gold Seal plastic Spitfire, I have tracked down enough spare 70X engine bits to build a motor for that as well. Only trouble is this Spitfire's restoration is a bit more complicated than an engine rebuild. Famous for running at the Maggelo (spelling?) circuit in the late 60's this is an exciting car as the other Gold Seal car was smashed to pieces during the same race.
One other Spitfire that's restoration has been on-going over the early part of this year (all be it slowly) is the Le Mans car we have aquired as a pile of bits from one of the ex-factory race guys. Difficult to hang an identity on it now due to the way the last few cars were used/crashed/disposed of, research is on-going. This car need's many years of careful work having been crashed very heavily in it's early career, and having spent the remaining 40 odd years in a disassembled state in various less than sympathetic storage.
The other monster restoration on the horizon is our World Cup rally 2.5PI, I'd love to do that, but there isn't enough hours in the day, week, month, year!

Le Mans Spifire owners club meeting tonight!

Not quite but it is the monthly Club Triumph meeting (any Triumph owner welcome) at the Weavers Inn at Fillongley from 7.30 onwards. We are hoping to be joined by the the other Le Mans Spitfire owner Herve Lequipe tonight who's over buying some alloy panels for ADU 3B from us. Along with John Baptiste Herve has been restoring 3B for some years, come along and ask to see progress on his lap-top. Also trying to persaude Canley's newest employee to come along. You may remember Jason if you are a Kipping customer of old, he was John's 'star' mechanic, the only Kipping employee to untake a full apprentership if I remember correctly? Jason has returned to the fold after a long break from classic cars in the dealership network (Audi). His credentials are most impressive, MOT testers licence, a spell with Jeremy Clarkson on location servicing his E type whisl't he did that pan european series on TV. He also sports the largest tool box ever to grace Canleys, it's larger than some of our competitors workshops! Also trying to get TR6 owner Adam along, ask him about his recent exploits with car trailer and new Jaguar saloon in tow!
If the weather stays like this you'll probably find us in the garden out back, bring some sun tan lotion!

Wot no trunnions?

I have been following an interesting thread on the CT Forum regarding the age old problems of the dreaded Triumph vertical link and trunnion assembly. Nearly everyone has seen, or heard of a Spitfire, Herald, etc breaking a vertical link, we get to see the results of such more than most here at the Canley workshops. Fortunately in most instances the fatigue breaks happen in low speed manoeuvers such as parking. I have never heard of one letting go whilst driving in a straight line on a motorway for instance?
Well it's not a very closely guarded secret that we had been working on a complete replacement. Several customers/freinds had pondered over the box of CNC machined rose joint carriers sat prominantly on one of my workshop benches for the last several months. The bulk of the work on the kit was done last year in conjuction with the OE (original equipment) suspension supplier to Caterham, who also happens to be a good friend of mine. So why have we not begun to market it I hear you ask? Easy, cost! The major part of the conversion, the Caterham vertical link, is still relatively expensive at nearly £70 a pop, the same price as the 'normal' Triumph link because they come from the same source, our friend who also happens to be OE supplier to Unipart for the Triumph links. Together we had been working towards a better price on the link (all links, Triumph included), so did not want to jump in with the conversion kit until this was settled. Everything else is done and on the shelf, the carriers were machined back in February for instance.
The kit dosn't end there however, we have worked on multiple up-grades, and add ons to the kit to include beefier stub axles, larger sealed bearings, new alloy hubs for those bearings/stub axles, and an economical bolt on brake up-grade, all specified and ready to go.
As I say all of this was done last year, this year we have gone back to the rear end to try and nail that CV conversion, and the bolt on disc brake conversion, and, and..........

Le Mans Spitfire laid bare

Ever wondered what the inner workings of genuine Le Mans Spitfire looks like? Well here's a one off opportunity to see one in a dismantled state. I have started to empty my garage at home of the complete project (all be it in a very dismantled state!) we had aquired over the past few years from a local source with impeccable provenance. Having been in the same ownership since it's factory racing days, it hasn't moved out of it's Midlands home for over 35 years. Complete less some of the more fragile components, the remaining bodywork is however in a parlous state. Disassembled after a major off, every panel now displays some form of damage. Worse still at some point many years ago the fragile aluminium panelwork was either shot blasted, or paint stripped, and has spent many years corroding as a result. The chassis is badly bent, and everything forward of the engine turrets has been hacked off and discarded.

For the uninitiated the factory circuit cars were unique both by the method of their construction, and the materials used in that construction. It would be next to impossible to replicate today given that virtually every part was handcrafted, or used factory tooling now long gone. Being all aluminium (apart from the fibre roof and front wings), means that to construct an all aluminium tub today would probably cost the same as a new Ferrari! Mark Field had a good go, but took the sensible/economic route and used a steel GT6 tub as the basis of his replica.

We aren't sure exactly how far we can progress the restoration of our car, it's simply a huge task being that it's been stripped down to every last nut & bolt, and every rivot has been drilled out of that precious aluminium panelwork? In the short term be aim to stabalize any corrosion and repair any damage that occurred in in it's 1960's accident so that we can carefully reassemble as much of the bodywork as possible. To that end once we have itemised, catalogued, and photograped every last component, the bulkhead/tub panels are going into our ace aluminium guys workshop for conservation, and reassembly. So take a good look this is the last time you might see this car for some time! If in the meantime you want to get up close and personnel with a part of this car then the TSSC have it's petrol tank in their museum, I'm sure they wouldn't mind you popping over for a look.