Taking GT6 apart

After a long vacation, it is time to get on with the GT6. The spit is with the painter. Need a respray of the bonnet after the reversing woman incident...

Anyway - was in the garage yesterday. Has been pulling all interior and doors from the GT6. It turned out that the tank was completely shot. A good example has been sourced.

Last night was "pull the dashboard" night. Was a bloody nightmare. Basicly the dashboard are held in place by the gauges. Unfortunately the small knurled knobs were rusted solid to the studs on the instruments. And it is so cramped behind the dash that I could not get to it with any tools. Amazing where this car is rusted - the sills and floors are spotless - but the gauges - oh horror!

I spent the better part of 2 hours removing the dash! The dash itself has pretty much disintegrated - will be a right challenge to get it sorted. Great fun ahead!

I suspect the former owner of this car was either a plummer or just has a serious fetisch for bathroom accesories. The draintap on the batterybox was this

and even worse - a bog roll was used on the steeringcolumn for unknown purposes (unless the car was used as a loo!!)

In an attempt to reduce heat/noise the former owner also glued foam all over the car (as seen above). Had a party removing all this. Nasty stuff. A really bad idea fitting this kind of foam - it absorbs moisture and had it not been removed car would have suffered in the danish climate.

Bits and pieces.

Bulkhead is soon cleared - master cylinders and pedals has been removed. Starter solenoid and wipermotor are also gone. Batterybox was some homebrew thingy riveted on - was a bliss to se it gone!

Next time the heatermatrix will be out, and I can proceed on removing the engine. On seciond thought - might leave the engine in until I am done with the chassis. Rear valnce is doomed - will soonish be replaced. Progress really depends on when I will get the spit back from the painter - I will need to prep it for Round Denmark Reliability Run which is in 6 weeks. Uh oh - I am in a busy...

CRASH, crap ........

Crap. Women should NOT be allowed to drive >:(

I was in town witing for the lighths when some woman decided to reverse her car into mine. She didn't see me - she said. :'( :'(

Bumper is dead. There is a kink in the frame just behind the rad - I fear the left hand side of the frame has been lifted.

Paint has cracked on the bonnet where the lamp panel is joined with the centerpanel.

Shit

Stats of the day - Gavnoe

OK - was at the autojumble on Gavnoe. Wether was arite - not fantastic - but at least not raining! I got up at around 6 oclock in the morning. Grapped som coffee and headed south. Got lost around Roskilde and switched on the satnav. Said I would be 17 minutes late for the meetingpoint. Booted the car - turned up 7 minutes late. Entered parking lot sideways :-)

It was bloody cold - next time I will be wearing gloves!

Back home (add another 50 kilometers that wasn't logged before I turned the satnav on.)

Car is running close to fine, but still need alot of adjustment. Dizzy is crap and cant wait to get rid of it. Shaft is slightly bent and car is running very uneven with a lot og missing beats. Bring on the megajolt please! Need to get the wiring sorted!

We had a good run from the meeting point to Gavnoe. Got to check out the brakes a few times. I love those mintex pads. Locking the wheels is no problems - especially when the pads are warm.

My spit next to Peters very nice TR4

Dirks Spit Mk2/Mk3 hybrid.

Lovely GT6 engine department




More spits

Nice steering wheel! (but probablu pretty uncomfortable on the long trips)

Well sorted TR4

With proper tyres!

Prepraring for Gavnoe

Got a bit of driving last few days. Went to see hillclimb yesterday. Good fun, and the lonely Triumph did very well coming in second overall.

Tomorrow is Gavnoe Autojumble, which hopefully will be graced by nice weather. I went to a mate today and who was so kind to get the carbs in perfect tune. Found out the dizzy has a slightly bent shaft causing all a somewhat uneven engine. I reaaaally look forward to megajolting it!!!


Come autojumble tomorrow and hopefully some nice pics. Here is a pic of my car last time I went - think it was 2001. My spit mk 3 with the missing front valance. The short big bloke resting his hand on the window is the previous owner. All the panels you see in the pic has been replaced since the. Front, door, sills, windowframe, rearwing, bootlid. It didn't look to bad from a distance but it was very very bad! Actually - the only thing in the pic still on the car is the wiperams and the front bumper......

It drives

Isn't it great. There is absolutely NOTHING to report. Car drives - gives me a good 20 minutes therapy each morning commuting to work, and then again in the afternoon. Nice ride through the forrest. Excellent. I need to adjust the carbs and ignition. Can't really be arsed with ignition - I will megajolt it sometine in the future. So it's max a question of using to minutes on the ignition.

Carbs are completely out of balance and running to rich. I broke the choke-cable holder thingy - so cars is running with a slight choke permanently. Need to adress that one!

Back on the road - life is wonderfull

Been a while since last update - been busy with all kinds of non-triumph stuff. However - there has been progress - car is now back together, brought home and put into daily service. Nice feeling. My clutch release pin operation has been a succes, biting point is now exactly where I want it - right in the middle of the pedal travel. This small mod making the pin adjustable is really a wonderfull thing.

Here is as pic of the modded pin and an old one for comparison


Love the feeling when things work out as planned.

Braking was a new positive experience. I had gone from noname cheapo pads to Mintex 1144. Brakes like a moderne now!!! Again - wonderful.

I took the exhaust of a while bace in order to refit gearbox. I took the opportunity to correct a minor flaw. The exhaust had been blowing - just a very very little bit due to the joint from 2 to 1 not being equal lengths. I chopped a ring of the exhaust. Another problem of the list. Wonderfull.




As a positive sideeffect - the vibration I had round 55 mph has gone as I rotated the propshaft - Wooooonderful.

So all in all - everything is fine. After a good long drive last night I checked the plugs. I really need to get the lambda sensor fitted so I can get some more info on the AFR. Plugs looked like this after 30 miles cosy driving.

Plug 1: (closest to the radiator)


Plug 2


Plug 4


Maybe a slight on the lean side??


Project now is getting the interior trimmed decently. And fix the sidewindows. The are deadstuck in the middle - and for the worse. I suspect some quick and dirty assembly of the doors are to blame. Seems that the winder mech is interfering with the doorskin - making an outward going dent - not so wonderfull.....

Tapping for Megajolt

First - sorry - no pics. When I wanted to get a few pictures I realized (again) that the battery on the camera was flat. That's second time recently this has happened. Better get some fresh batteries soon.

Still - I have had some fair progress. The exhaust prop and engine are all bolted back together fine. I took the inlet manifold of and drilled 4 holes in it for vacuum. First a 2mm pilot hole. Then a 4,2 mm hole and finally tapping for 5mm thread. Went quite smooth was OK result. I have had some problems with the choke sticking. It is a SU1.5. It has been converted from waxstat jets to proper jets. Problem is (I think) that the links used to convert isn't all perfect and creates a bit of tension. Morten and I tried messing with the links to see if we could release a bit of he tension. After quite a bit of fiddling the choke got better - not perfect - but better. Carbs went back on - all nuts on the manifold studs were tightened.

I found out I had forgot to put the radiator overflow bottle back on when I put the radiator in. Bit of a problem as the radiator has to be tilted a bit to get to the bolt where the overflowbottle-bracket attaches. So - undo 6 radiator bolts - overfowbracket in. Tighten bolts again. Mission accomplished.

Finally I put in a very neat bit of wire harness that The Mad Welder had made for me. I am converting from dynamo to generator plus a few other thing. So I needed a new harness for the generator, the oilpan temperature and halogenlights. But it was made perfect and very easy to fit. Thanks Morten

Enough for this time. Next time I get to spend a bit of time with the car I will try and start it.

A few steps forward again

After a few setbacks thng are progressing again

Gearbox has been bolted back on the engine. I har to take prop ang exhaust off to get to the gearbox - and now the exhaust wqs off I used the opportunity to get a few things right. The joint from 2 to 1 was never really good as one pipe waqs a bit longer than the other. I pulled the manifold and made a cut. Now lengths are perfect. I also made another bracket to hang the exhaust by on the differential. It was onky attached on one side making the two exits not sitting even.

Exhaust and prop are now back on - and theoretically I should be out enjoying the fine weather. Ahem - now everything waqs off I couldn't resist taking inlet manifold off in order to tap holes for the megajolt vaacum takeoffs. It needs four holes tapped.

I was going in circles round this job last night doing all kinds of other stuff. Perhaps I get a chance later this weekend. I don't really like the thought of messing up having the takeoffs looking weird pointing in all directions. I have t get the drill and tap entering manifold at exactly same angle. Better not rush this job.

Also need to work a bit on the choke. It is sticking. A bit of fettling with grid 1000 on the jet should help - hopefully....

Thats it for now

Triggerwheel attached to front pulley

So - despite my cars effort to piss me off there has been some progress. Triggerwheel has been attached to the front pulley.

First - clean pulley - find out how to position triggerwheel - done a while ago


Next - engage The Mad Welder to do his thing

Finally - put nut back on and tighten it well. Rad in.

Things are brightening up

One step forward - and 10 backwards :-(

The plan:

1. Put exhaust on
2. Put front pulley on
3. Put radiator on
4. drive and enjoy the 20+ celsius weather this weekend
   

Reality:

1. Put exhaust on
2. By accicdent drop a nut down into the exhaust - I fear the unlikely event that it will be drawn into engine by bacjpressure
3. Take exhaust of
4. Remove nut
5. Refit exhaust
6. Put frontpulley on
7. Try to tighten nut to 150 lb/ft, engine turn, hhmm now what
8. Put car in gear and slam the brakes
9. Find out that something is very wrong with the clutch
10. Diagnose shows that idiot me has NOT managed to get the clutch actuator pin into the slavecylinder
11. Cry for 10 minutes
12. Undo all bolts round bellhousing
13. pull gearbox back - realise that this does not offer enough room to get pin out
14. Exhaust and prop must come of
15. call it the night - i give up

Off course batteries on camera are flat. well just enough power to get lens ut - but not in again

Lets realise - I will not enjoy a drive next sunday - it will be well into may before I get all this sorted.

Pick-up sensor and triggerwheel for MegaJolt

Last night in the workshop had one purpose - find out how to attach the triggerwheel sensor. When sensor is placed I will know where on the pulley the triggerwheel has to be, as the sensor has to point 9 tooth before the missing tooth when engineis at TDC

First I knocked up a very rough template for at bracket (no points for aesthetics!) which can be seen here






The triggerwheel had been attached with clamps, so could easily be adjusted so the sensor would point at ninth tooth.

With this position, TDC would be appr. at third tooth



Now - mark it - and leave it for the mad welder to attach to pulley while I am taking a well earned vacation under the sun waaaaay down south :-)



The bracket will be fabricated when I get home again. Initial thought had been along the lines of some angled iron. I have deserted this thought when I saw the rough mock up. I might just make the bracket from heavy gauge iron without angles on it.

This gauge should just about do it.

BUSTING BRAKES

In an attempt to improve braking I have fitted Mintex brakepads to the fronmt of the Spit. To avoid glazing of the pads I decided to bust the surface of the disc.

So caliber of, and start rubbing with rough sandpaper. The disc have a slight blueish/brownish tint which dissapperar after a little rubbing with grit150 sandpaper.

Ideally disc should be machined, but time is short, havent got the hardware for it and really didn't want to disturb the bearings.

After a while (10 minutes each side of disc) disc had got the right slightly rough surface, and all the miscoloration had gone - clear silver!

Next find pads - mintex at the left, Countys finest at the right (500 miles wear on them)

I fitted the anti squeel shims, and slammed the entire bit together.

Job done.

Daniel R. (aka SpitmkIIICPH) came by and dropped off a much needed lift. It is more rusty than rysty, but will hopefyllu clean up nice and work. A lift is defo needed. I can't get under the car anymore. I say it's because car has been lowered - some says it's because I am getting old and fat!

Anyway - here is the solution. Just needs a lot of care and grease/paint/slight repair

Round Denmark Reliability Run

Do not forget this years Round Denmark Reliability Run.

http://rdrr2009.blogspot.com/

Anyone interested can mail me direct at nikolaj.blomberg@gmail.com for more info

It's the weekend 18-20 september.

1250 miles in 36 hours.

Cheers

Fooling around with ignition coils

A few mates and members of the Danish Triumph shared my interest in finding out - what is unside an ignition coil, and is there any significant difference in power output of traditional oilfilled coils vs modern dry coils

We made a simple test bench from an old distributor and a battery. Looked like this




Next step was to test the coils: an unipart coil, a lucas sports coild and a modern dry coil

The very scientific test was to experiment with how long a spark the coil could draw, and look at color and "fatness" of the spark.

In action it looked like this



There was no doubt that the modern coil supplied the longest and warmest spark. In second came the lucas sportscoil, but only marginally better than the Unipart coil. I doubt there would be any difference in car - at least not any that would justify the extra cost!

Now to the fun part - take the coils apart (boys will be boys...)













There was no big difference between the coils. The lucas coil had more windings, but basicly same construction.

Great way to spend an afternoon with good friends :-)