Hi,
I have no supporting factual data, but I do have some random observations
about GT6 motors... one is that there seem to be a lot more GT6 engines
out there than existing GT6's. There's probably more than one reason for
this, but I would attribute it to the fact the GT6's tended to get taken
off the road because of tranny probs... the GT6 trannies were not very
robust AND many Spitfire racers would buy GT6's for the parts (the front
uprights on GT6 are stronger then normal Herald/Spitfire and so forth
(with many interchangable parts between the Herald chassis cars. I'll bet
that the diff. is a weak spot because it's basically the same as Spitfire
so because of the 6-cyl torque numbers it's probably easy to bust the
diff.
About 10 years ago, for some unknown reason, I started getting offers from
MANY GT6 owners with lots of spares. Many was more than five and they
were all within a few weeks of one another (like some cosmic practical
joke - the timing was amazing). For the most part, every "deal" had
at least two complete GT6 motors (in all sorts of states). I thought it
would be funny to build a GT6 motor and stick it in the TR6, but various
things conspired such that I never was able to follow through on some of
these "deals". I'm talking at least 3 projects consisting of one or two
tubs, always three frames (?) a couple of engines and then one ea. of the
diff and gearbox. I really, really, really wanted a GT6 back then, I
still would like to have one. But then again I'd also like to have one of
every Triumph in my garage! My x-wife wasn't to keen on the one TR6 that I
had at the time, so....
At any rate, in the general scheme of things, the GT6 engine is pretty
robust, more so than TR6 because the motor is "square" (e.g. bore and
stroke are basically the same) AND there's more crankshaft overlap. GT6's
don't have anywhere near the same level of crank failures that TR6 has...
some of the stuff on the motor wasn't as robust though, I think the timing
chain is single-row, so that's a weak spot, but this is a non-interference
engine, so a broken timing chain probably isn't fatal.
But the GT6 purchase points would be the same as Spitfire or
Herald/Vitessse for the body, tranny, diff. and suspension, but more
TR6-like for the motor.
That's my 2-cents worth.
rml
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Lang Room N42-140Q | This space for rent
Consultant MIT unix-linux-help |
Voice:617-253-7438 FAX: 617-258-9535 | Cell: xxx-xxx-xxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|