I concur with Roger. I've replaced about 3 so far. The original
equipment valves seemed to last fine, but the TRF (that's the only
one's I bought) all failed prematurely. At last year's VTR National, a
guy showed up with some NOS parts, and had 8 heater valves in a box. I
couldn't tell if they were really NOS or "defects", but I bought 3 at
under $20 apiece. One is on a car and holding up fine so far. I also
bought his TR4 and TR6 (in plastic wrapper) Haynes for $7 apiece.
Bob Kramer, Austin TX
Hill Country Triumph Club
TR6x3, TR250 x3, TR3A vintage race
rgk@flash.net
----------
> From: Bob Lang <LANG@ISIS.MIT.EDU>
> To: rgb@exact.com
> Cc: triumphs@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: One leak stops, another starts...
> Date: Wednesday, April 15, 1998 2:57 PM
>
>
> Hey,
>
> Maybe the time-to-failure is inversely proportional to the cost of
the
> replacement. Thus, the $4.00 ball valve will last several orders of
> magnitude longer than the $30.00 replacement valve. In this scenario,
if the
> replacement valve cost $100, it would fail instantly upon
installtion!
>
> Just to be clear, all of the failures that I've seen were on valves
that
> were clearly original items and most of them fail at something like
age
> 20 or so.
>
> They do seem to fail more often when they've been stuck in one
position
> for a long time (like "off" all summer) and then turned on full...
>
> My car lost the original valve at around age 21 years. The
replacement, a
> "used" item lasted around six months, much of that time the engine
never
> ran! I put in a new one from one of the "big three" and that one's
lasted
> at least 4 years so far...
>
> Applying the inverse proportion law stated above, it appears that the
theory
> is flawed. The first valve should have failed _at the dealer_ because
the
> car was purchased for something around $6000 dollars. Thus, the valve
> should have failed literally milliseconds after purchasing the car.
> However, that was not to be the case and it lasted just about 21
years.
>
> The second unit was free, I took it from a friend. However, it did
fail
> within a week of my having reimbersed said friend to the tune of $15
or
> so. So there is some semblance of adherance to the theory...
>
> I think the one in there now was a "free premium" from Charles, so it
> should last forever.
>
> Or 20 years.
>
> Whichever comes first.
>
> ;-)
> rml
>
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> Consultant MIT Computer Services |
> Voice: (617)253-7438 FAX: (617)258-9535 |
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