ahebron

Hi Peter My 6 is a saloon. I have sorted the seat issue by replacing the flat bar with 40x40x3 SHS. This does lift me 35mm closer to the roof but also enables me to slide the seat back fully so a compromise. I have bolted the seat to the top of the box and fix it to the floor through the bottom of the box, to access that one I drilled a 1" hole in the top and used a cap head bolt into the floor fixing. This is a prototype, I only have one piece of the shs and it is about 5mm short, I used Jims packers to lift the front. The photo of the transmission tunnel shows how the seat was hitting the insulation, I now have 5mm clearance so enough for carpet though I might adjust the side rail with the angle grinder if needed. Thank goodness you are not burning at present, the last few seasons of Aussie bush fires turned our skies orange and affected air quality. I dont care much for temps above mid 20s, if this goes on for another week I will start to pine for a good old Wellington Southerly. I recall an article I read a few years back that weather forecasters can tell us what will happen in 3 days and 10 days time but the bit travelling across the Tasman can vary so much that between those days is just an educated guess. I did a job in Fiji and the thermometer hit 50 C at our locations on 2 days, first on a sailing ship with no wind flat calm sea and the second up a cliff. The locals looked at us like the idiots we were but we had a schedule to meet come hell or hot water. Off for a lunch time dip soon

Reviving an old post here. I decided I need to fit a drivers seat into my Vitesse 6 and as I have a pair of MGF seats on the roof of the car I thought why not use them. Also here it is 30 degrees celcius and as I live by the beach traffic is chaos and my Herald seats are 5.5kms but a 20 minute drive away I had previously made the brackets as mentioned at the beginning of this post, had the correct fixings and modified the seats so in theory a simple bolt in job. First problem was my car floor didnt have the captive nuts at the front but I found a pair of the smaller chassis plates with nuts that will do the job nicely and I might use a body adhesive to fix them But the bar under the MGF seat is lower than the bars I made so a hunt around the garage turned up some stainless steel spacers using two provided the perfect height, they are courtesy of James Cameron. Thanks Jim! But I could only use 2 of them on the door side so I found a few aluminium spacers the same thickness but smaller diameter and used one stainless and one aluminium on the tunnel side, this was due to the fixing of the MGF rails to the mounting bar getting in the way. Also on the fixings on the tunnel side I have had to use allen head cap screws as I do not have enough room beside the MGF rail and the Triumph fixing hole. But I only had one length of 5/16 UNF cap screws so could only fix it at the rear. I will have to go hunt some down on Wednesday when suppliers open up again after their Christmas/New Year break. The only other issue is when I slide the seat right back (I am 6'5") it digs into the tunnel so I might have to raise the seat and either use packers or remake the mounting brackets out of a decent thickness box section. I did read that Pete had the seat hitting the tunnel problem as well and used packers to solve it. This is the time to sort out these issues as I have another set of seats that I am getting retrimmed in leather as good ones. The ones I am experimenting with cost me NZ$1 a few years ago and the set I am getting reupholstered I went crazy and spent NZ$80. So bloody hot I have had to go for 2 dips in the sea today (130m from the gate)and burnt my foot from hot tarmac.

I did think about it briefly but as I am keeping this car on 4 1/2" steel wheels either standard or Mk4 Spitfire I decided to stay standard. They are 5mm longer than the original ones. When I rebuild the Mk2 Convertible I will most likely go the 3/8" route as I have a nice set of 14" Stag-ish alloys for that.

Since I got my Vitesse engine running two years ago it has been in the back of my mind that I didnt see any oil coming out of the rocker shaft. Today after fitting new wheel studs into three hubs I thought what do I do after lunch. Remove the rocker shaft and have a wee look at what could be wrong was what I did after lunch. When I undid the pedestals oil drained out of them which was reassuring as it meant oil was getting to the shaft. My rocker shaft was a hotch potch of Mk1 and Mk2 components so 2 years ago I made up one from matching rockers, pedestals and various other shafts I had about so I could get the car running and I used copious quantities of engine assembly lube on the shaft. When I put the shaft back on the engine today and started the car oil began to drip from the rockers which was a reassuring sight and one thing less to worry about. Even with the tappets correctly gapped this engine is very quiet, it almost purrs!. Maybe there is still a bit too much engine assembly grease in it still but better to be safe than sorry. I am thinking I should be prepping the car to be driven but I need to hook up the petrol tank first.

Ah ha that will be the other week when I had the not allowed box pop up when I was signing in from NZ. Thanks for all the work you guys are putting into this site.

Today after a year of procrastination and not much work on the car I decided to fit the new standard size wheel studs to my Vitesse 6 Hubs off and hammer the old one out and try to pull the new ones through using the rattle gun, not a good idea as I strip one stud. Remembering I have a 12 ton hydraulic press in my garage I pull that out and adapt various bits of metal and tools to enable the correct fitment of the studs. Luckliy I had a rear hub puller made a few years ago so the rear hubs pulled off easily. I now have three hubs with new studs and have ordered 4 so I will have one to replace the stripped item and 3 spares. And happy new year to all.

It does make you wonder how many Triumphs or any car are running around with cracked pushrods. If you don't pull it out and examine it thoroughly then you wont know it has a problem Like the doctor said to me when I went to see him about blind spots in my left eye (stroke in the eye) I am one of the lucky ones who has it in my vision so what caused it can be treated. Plenty of people have this problem but it is not in their vision so dont know they have a problem.

Hi Peter I have never understood fitting airshocks to the Spitfires. I gather the Americans are into it but to me it just seems odd. I have always though of them as a cheap solution when towing or carrying heavy loads but not something for sportscars. But I am willing to be educated in what it will achieve. Mind you my Mk2 Vitesse that has the original motor in the boot (2500 under the bonnet) could probably do with a set, but not the way the idiot mechanic fitted the telescopics by bolting them through the floor. Luckily the car needs a full restoration so the cracks and holes will be repaired.

I fitted individually controlled airshocks to the rear of my Mk1 2.5PI Estate. By this I mean each shock had its own schrader valve. This meant I could set each shock for side load and when individually loaded one would not pump air into the other and great for towing. Another option I fitted the rear of my 300TDi Discovery was airbags in the springs though I doubt they are available for the small Triumph springs.

My Vitesse 6, Spitfire Mk4 with Vitesse Mk2 engine and running gear and Mk1 2.5PI Estate never bettered 26MPG and that was way back when petrol was cheap. The worst thing was I learnt how structurally weak the Estate was when I it was rear ended by a Toyota Corolla.

Twin tanks in the back of my Vitesse 6 was an idea I had when I was a lot younger, I would have used the smaller Herald ones.

Poor mans fuel injection🙄 I was fiddling with a pair of recalcitrant Amals on a vintage car recently and the only way I could make it run without dying was to wind the fuel pressure up till it would idle. I had removed the original pump from the engine bay and fitted a modern one with an adjustable regulator under the floor behind the seats so I could lean back and adjust the pressure while it was running. Didnt need any throttle to idle at 2000rpm just lots of fuel.

When I took my Vitesse 6 apart far to long ago I found the body was welded to the chassis along the rear left outrigger. Obviously a work around for a shot rear outrigger without removing the body, therefore I had to use an angle grinder to remove the body from that outrigger.

I will add my ot effort to the mix. Top bracket on door pillar is bolted to the door lock plate and the top seat belt fixing point. Lower fixings are inner and outer seatbelt fixing points with a brace to the handbrake pivot to keep it all in line. Obviously I have a fixing point made for the left side of the car As well a pull ram I can fit a push ram for those moments when a little is too much. I over did it on this side and cracked the topdeck in the right rear corner of the tub, easily welded and primed. I built it to pull each side individually as the strap method pulls both together and the weaker side mover first and the most. More info here

Excuse my ignorance Shaun but what model is it?

https://www.ulanzi.com/collections/video-photo-light/products/ulanzi-led-tube-light These do a passable police car. I have a few lamps that can do this in my kit.

Like Peter said as in Aus NZ Triumph bought in from the UK assembled drive train components. NZ assembled Triumphs have the prefix 3 on chassis numbers.

Cardin Shaft brake. A lot of secondhand Japanese imported trucks in NZ have them. From outside the truck I managed to start a Hino 8x4 parked in reverse gear with the cardin shaft handbrake on. With its ramp down it went backwards along the main shopping street till I leaned in and tuned the motor off. I learnt a lesson that night, but that truck was like a 22 tonne go kart and I would regularly find myself going to fast into corners.

Of course, they are localish to you. What one did you order? I quite like this one

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?iaCode=all-masks&query=triumph vitesse&ref=search_box

Isnt that Browns gas.

That takes me back. Alternative fuels used to be a thing here in NZ. When I was doing my time at the local power board (electricity and gas) most of the petrol vehicle fleet was converted to CNG Marina vans, Transits and Bedford vans, Minis etc. A mechanic friend managed to convert Triumph 2.5 PI saloons to CNG whilst keeping the PI in place. I owned a Ford Falcon XD Ute (4.1 litre straight 6) that was on LPG and later a Land Rover V8 110 County. Both vehicles ran fine and economically though the Ford would dry out the accelerator pump so it needed replacing. When I owned my 300TDi Discovery I was tempted to add LPG to that but the knowledge to 'fumigate' didn't exist in NZ at that time. CNG is very hard to find in NZ these days and LPG is getting rarer

Used my Ultrasonic cleaner to clean a pair of Amal concentrics we are fitting to a car. Already clean carbs came up cleaner still then I sprayed them with a spray of electrical cleaner and corrosion stopper spray as they started to corrode with white powder soon after removal. Cleaning fluid mix of simply green and water turned almost black.

What a superb example of thread drift. Though I will add to the carburettor discussion. I have a pair of brand new Mikuni HSR42 to fit to one of my Vitesse, will try the 6 first. The rubber mounts should bolt on but the manifold will need opening for the bigger bore. Got to get the car finished and road legal first. And back to Webers when the Lada Rally (Stasys Brundza) team competed in NZ International Rally in the 1980s they sent out cars without carbs, rally wheels and other bits and bobs. These they bought locally. Unfortunately the car threw a rod early on in the first day so it was out, being a driver for the support team we went in to recover the car which had a nice hole in the block. I put my hand in the hole and fished out as much of the piston as I could but it was still missing a large amount of it. Back in Wellington they stripped down the engine to salvage parts and as I was removing the air filters out fell nicely chopped pieces of piston. When the rod had let go it must have been on the upstroke as pieces of the piston had been fed through the intake valves, Weber and come to a stop at the filters.

Coffee tastes funny anyway. Cup of tea every time any reason.