Absolutely Nothing Went Wrong on the Trip
but
Sometimes I Thought We'd Never Leave
We're just back from a 2100 mile road trip in two Triumphs. "We" is me,
driving Sarah, my 1967 TR-4A, and John Lye and Valerie Lopez, driving my
1970 GT6+ (as yet unnamed). We drove from Palo Alto, CA to Everett, WA to
attend the 1993 National Convention of the Vintage Triumph Register. Other
than a few minor things like broken exhaust hangers, nothing went wrong.
Both cars performed flawlessly, buzzing down the highway, sitting in
traffic in 102 degree heat, climbing mountains, you name it. The GT6 won a
bunch of autocross trophies (five trophies for four drivers - the extra was
Fastest Time of Day) as well as a people's choice show award. The cars even
returned great gas mileage and didn't consume all that much oil! As
pleasant a trip in two British cars as one could possibly want.
The month leading up to our trip, on the other hand, was absolute hell.
Normally before taking such a long trip, I like to let the cars settle -
not making any changes for at least two weeks before departure, or better,
a month. But life got in the way - I was able to do pretty much that for
Sarah, but not the GT. It had presented me with bearing bits in its
transmission oil during the winter, and I knew that the tranny needed to
come out and be rebuilt. The suspension had been complaining of at least a
bad U joint for some time, and one of the Rotoflex couplings was showing
cracks. So I planned to strip the suspension and do a full rebuild to
autocross specs with hardened bushings - and I was going to install a swing
spring in the rear from a late Spitfire, which Kas Kastner claims is the
hot setup for autocross.
I had also, at one time, hoped to get a modified cylinder head, triple
Webers and a new exhaust system on the car before the trip. But I gave up
on that some time ago - there was already too much work and too little
time.
Approximately a month before departure, the GT finally went up on jacks.
Here's a partial log of what happened then:
6/14: Begin disassembly of the new swing spring, which is supposed to be
the hot setup according the Kastner's Competition Preparation Manual. The
used unit I bought is FILTHY!
6/26: Scott Fisher comes over to paint the bonnet stripe (and composes "How
Not to Ruin Paint").
6/27: Car goes up on jacks. Front suspension comes off, most of rear comes
off, except for inner A arm bushings, where the sleeve is rusted to the
bolt. Heat melts the rubber, but doesn't budge the bolt.
6/29: Disassemble front suspension. Use a die grinder to cut the rear bolts
into 3 pieces without damaging the brackets. Now all suspension pieces are
on the floor in the garage. Diff comes out (it's a late Spitfire case, if
not internals). Driveshaft flange bolts are wrong - fully threaded, coarse
thread, grade 2, you name it, it's bogus.
7/11: All suspension parts cleaned and painted. Tranny comes out, what a
mess. Fluid that came out looks more like yellow paint than oil.
7/16: Suspension is back together, ready to bolt on. To get the old rear
diff mounts out, I had to use a propane torch to melt the rubber and press
out the center sleeve, then cut two slots with a hacksaw and use a chisel
to collapse it. I don't care to do this again.
7/18: Gearbox disassembled. Input shaft has two chipped teeth. Mainshaft
spigot is chewed and 0.004" undersize. Spigot bearing has completely
disintegrated - found broken needles in the bottom of the case but no sign
of the needle cage. Fourth gear baulk ring is missing all friction surface.
The OD is worse - the "engage" clutch lining is completely torn apart, most
of it in the filter cage. No wonder it didn't work!
7/19: Scott comes over to work on the paint - sanding with 2000 grit
wet/dry brings back the paint's shine. Amazing. Bolted on the right front
suspension. Called England at 2:30am to see if my gearbox parts were on the
way. They weren't - the secretary that handles incoming faxes had just left
on vacation and had apparently filed my fax for handling upon her return.
Just as well - with micrometer in hand and phone glued to my ear, I took
some measurements and reported them to John Kipping. Turns out my gearbox
isn't a GT6+ box, but has TR7 internals with a late Spitfire mainshaft and
GT6 Mk.3 input shaft, all inside a late GT6+ case. No wonder none of the
parts TRF sent seem to fit. Kipping will ship the right bits, 3 day
express. Just to be sure, I second source everything through JAE in Goleta
- a great outfit that regularly does air freight from Britain. He sources
the parts, does international UPS to Goleta, handles customs, and ships UPS
to my door. The only "shipping" fee I see is the local UPS, but parts
prices carry approximately a 20% premium. Not bad at all. He can't get a
mainshaft, but thinks he can get everything else.
7/23: Front suspension bolted on.
7/26: Rear axle and hubs back together. Left side took 90 minutes, right
25. Pat has finished installing the new diaphragm on the driver's seat.
7/27: Parts arrive from England and seem to fit together as expected. Take
the evening off, drive to Hayward to pick up balanced flywheel, continue to
Berkeley for a dinner sail. Sarah eats her generator and we limp home with
the belt loose and slipping (since the bearing is threatening to seize)
hoping to get home before the battery runs down.
7/29: Get new generator, install. Fab up heat shield to try to avoid a
repeat. Also cut a hole in the radiator shroud to allow some fresh air
to get to the generator and carbs. Back to the GT; diff and rear
suspension bolted to frame. Remounted fuel pump so that it (and its
stoneguard) don't extend beyond the bottom of the frame rail.
7/30: Remounted fuel pump again, when I discovered that bolting the
halfshafts to the diff caused the left u joint to foul on the pump.
Installed bigger studs into the front hubs, since I can't find lug nuts to
fit the original studs and the new wheels.
7/31: Predicted high of 102 today; we put up a tarp to get out of the sun
as much as possible. Install flywheel - then realize that I have to put the
spigot bushing on before the flywheel goes on. Take the flywheel off.
Install spigot bushing. Put the flywheel back on. It doesn't seem to be
fully on the crankshaft, so I use the air wrench to snug things down - big
mistake. One bolt shears before I realize that I've been stretching the
bolts instead of moving the flywheel. All of them were stretched. Luckily,
the break was proud of the crankshaft surface and it came out with vise
grips. Pulled the bolts from the spare engine and installed, by hand.
Assemble tranny. This goes well, except that I misread the directions and
don't put the 3/4th synchro unit on the mainshaft before installing it and
its bearing, so it has to come out again. Don't have a wide enough
selection of spacers, so I can't get the mainshaft bearing circlip
clearance down to .002"; get it as close as I can and hope it doesn't
matter much.
Clean OD parts. In the middle of this, company shows up - we'd discussed
the possiblity of him stopping by after his plane arrived at SFO, figuring
that at 9:45 or so we'd have started cleaning up or would at least be ready
for a break. We sit on the patio, have a beer, look at the stars, and I
clean OD parts.
8/1: Predicted high of 105 today. Assemble OD and assemble OD to tranny.
Install.
Begin to install swing spring. While tightening down the nuts on the studs
(torque wrench set to 20 ft lb), the top of the diff cracked and pulled
off. Stock studs aren't long enough for the larger swing spring box - the
studs had only engaged two threads and the diff casting gave way when
applying torque. Longer bolts should fix this.
8/2: Run off and get a variety of grade 8 bolts for the rear spring,
install and torque with no problem. Interior going in. John & Val arrive
just as we discover that the outer shackle of the swing spring fouls the
rotoflex. I start to think about renting a car for the drive to Seattle.
J&V persuade us to try putting in the old spring ("how long can it take?").
It takes 3 hours to get the vertical links hooked up to the spring - the
re-arched (for negative camber) spring requires that the rotoflexes be
compressed inward quite a bit. Finally in a position to test gearbox, all
seems to work.
Run over to work, cut down the new rear studs on the lathe, install.
Interior finished. Speedometer in. New stereo in. Brakes bled.
8/3, 9am: Final torquing of suspension. One of the new tires leaks at the bead,
one balance weight fouls the rear suspension. Drive to the alignment shop.
3pm: pick up car. Pack.
4pm: leave. Fill up with gas, notice that the top seam of the radiator is
leaking. Buy a bottle of Stop-Leak and offer it to the radiator.
5pm: really leave - leak has sealed, we have water bottles.
2:30am We stop in Ashland, OR. It's been hot - the OD quit in traffic
during the 100 degree heat, but otherwise the car has been acting great.
There's a slight rub on the left rear tire on hard right turns and bumps.
8/4: OD works all day, despite 100+ temps. Notice a small oil leak at the
external rocker feed, no big deal - we leave it rather than chance breaking
it. One of the exhaust hangers has broken and the other has come loose - I
vaguely remember planning to tighten that one but not actually getting to
it. We transfer some hardware and get it properly hung.
Sarah is behaving perfectly, cruising along at 3000 rpm.
8/5: Autocross day. Four drivers, four trophy runs, plus fastest time of
day. We swap on the A008RSIIs from mjb's Spit and Bob takes a second off
his best run, says "I was taking it easy". Yeesh. I didn't need to know
that I need new tires already.
That evening, run down to the airport to pick up Pat, end up stuck in
traffic in downtown Seattle, where we move about 100 yds in 20 minutes.
Sarah's temperature climbs, but she behaves. The hole I cut in the
radiator shroud must be helping, I tell myself.
8/6: Do some gratuitous wrenching on the cars - tighten an oil cooler
fitting on Sarah, notice that her plugs read a little lean. Set the rocker
clearances, swap in new plugs and put on new plug wires on the GT. We
couldn't go the whole trip without doing *something*.
8/7: Leave for the group picture and show, a bit late, planning on making
up time in traffic. No such luck; they've decided that this would be a good
morning to repave a bridge and funnel three lanes of weekend traffic into
one. Sigh. Arrive just after the first picture is taken. Position the car
for the show, apply magnetics and number circles. Raise the bonnet, showing
all the dirt and oil and plumbing (we did wash the car, though), next to
the cars that people have been shining and polishing for a day or more. A
working race car. Wander around looking at all the pristine cars, wondering
why a bunch of them are in the participant's choice instead of concours,
and marvelling at how much work it must be to keep the cars clean.
Later, we drive over to Whitbey Island for a very nice tour and dinner - we
took a pass on the awards banquet this year. Come back to learn that the
GT6 has won some sort of award in the PC show!
8/8: Sarah has kept the GT company by breaking an exhaust hanger, too. Wire
it up, head for home. Cool weather this time, we buzz through the Cascades
to Weed. She still seems to be running a little lean, enrichen again.
8/9: An early start, we hit the Bay Area around noon. Since there's time,
we sightsee in San Francisco and drive down the coast. Finally get home
around 5:30pm, intact, dusty, tired and with everything working. What a
concept! Now we just have to figure out if the successful trip is linked to
me bringing my cars or mjb towing one of his...
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