Hello List,
At last, my 'new' TR has been on the road. I had a lot of long overdue
maintenance to do - I encountered such 'interesting' things as a front
suspension grease nipple that had been painted over and could never have
let any grease through, hardly any oil in carbs, steering box or diff and
loose or missing nuts and bolts. I think the previous owner went to great
pains to make the car look like new by putting lots of new parts on it, in
the mistaken and somewhat naive belief that that would get him a TR that
could be maintained as if it were a modern car. :-(
One problem I had yesterday was a reluctancy to start. After a lot of
churning over, only nr 3 and 4 plugs were wet. It did start eventually
with some encouragement of a can of 'Eazystart', and after a while it ran
fine. But after the engine had been turned off for a few minutes, it would
only run like a dog for some time, after which it went back to normal.
OK, I thought, must be a fuel problem. And sure enough, there was fuel
dripping from the bottom of the front float chamber. The picture on
http://www.intuh.net/splitgrommet.jpg shows what caused it.
The question is: is this a common occurrance? Should I stock up on these
grommets? The carbs were rebuilt by a reputable (and expensive!) company
and I don't think this was due to an assembly fault.
One more thing: what a car! It impresses me more every time I drive it.
Sure, it's pretty agricultural even compared to a Spitfire 1500, but now I
understand what the enthusiasm was about in the early 50's. Bags of
torque, good stopping power and a closeness to the road that's scary to
some passengers. Next to the other cars available at the time, this must
have been quite something.
Even though the TR is off the road for a while, I'm still smiling. Can't
wait to drive it again!
E.
--
1957 TR3a TS23315L - black
1976 Spit FH88257L - Java green
http://triumphspitfire.nl/
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