On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Doug Mathews wrote:
> Bob,
>
> How in the heck did you find the hub tool?
Of course this is a secret of the highest magnitude... keep it under your
hat, if you please.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
On the anniversary date of the arrival of CF14111U to my family, April
1st, 1998, I followed a little known ritual for Triumph Owners...
At first light (Coventry time, of course) I created a five-pointed-star
on my garage floor using the finest Castrol LM grease. At each point of
the star, a sacrificial broken part (in this case TR6 rear hubs) were
placed.
Then, after placing a black candle in the middle of the pentagram, I
kneeled facing the home land and repeated 666 times "Oh lady Godiva,
goddess of all things Triumph and protector of Coventry, please bring
forth "the tool".
I then took a telephone and dialed (without lifting the 'phone from the
hook), in sequence, all the numbers for the "Big Three".
END OF FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Miraculously, at precisely 14:11:10 the same day, the 'phone rang and
when I picked it up, a voice said: "Go to Tally-Ho, the Tool is attached
to a TR3 hub." And just like that, the voice was gone.
So I looked in the phone book under "British Car Repairs", and there was
the number (a closely guarded secret, I might add). I called it and the
guy at the other end said: "Yeah, we got that!".
So I went over and picked up the tool.
The strange thing is, if you draw a line from my garage to Coventry
England, it goes right through Wakefield, MA and the shop where I
borrowed the tool...
OKAY, all kidding aside, there are folks that have been working on these
cars for years, and over time they have accumulated various things. The
owner of this particular tool has at least three of them. They are not
for sale at any price (well, if you provided enough money for him to
retire, he _might_ consider it), and he only loans them out to certain
people who he knows will not destroy them... the only reason that the
tool was leant to me was that my friend that is helping me do the job is
one of the "few" who are allowed to touch these tools.
I'll write more about this later, but suffice to say that if you do the
job wrong, you can wreck the tool. And the hub. Leave this job to the pros!
And it takes a _lot_ of time to do this job - even with the right tools.
Like 4 hours per hub, not including removing the hub from the car and
replacing it...
So far, so good - I have one hub apart and there is only minor damage...
More laterer,
rml
;-)
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