Colin Lindsay

Good movie, though. Some great cars, but I think the bit where he closed off half of the twin exhausts in order to conceal his rifle in the 'cold' half might not have worked in practice.

Has this always been the case? Mine ran at full, and the temp gauge at half way, for many years but last summer took a sudden and dramatic lurch to the left as I drove along, so that the fuel tank now reads about 75%, and the temp gauge points to a third, not half. I suspect the stabiliser, which is solid state from the early 2000s, but as the car is running well enough I just left it as is. Does the gauge stay at 3/4 for a long time then start to move, or does it start to lower quite soon, but stay at the bottom for a long time without running out? (Carry a can of fuel just in case!)

Well to be fair, the guy was under a false name, on a false passport, and they had absolutely no idea of who they were looking for. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands similar we have in the UK, currently evading deportation, who are content that they'll never be asked for any kind of ID? (On the TV series today, Uk Border Force raided a Chinese Restaurant for an illegal resident who was working there illegally, found him in the kitchen, and the female owner claimed "I don't know him, he just walked in there and started cooking food for himself...")

Chic Doig remanufactures the brackets. I've used them before, and as Paul says they point up for 1200 and down for 13/60 or Vitesse, but these brackets aren't identical so can't be used for both. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-HERALD-948-1200-12-50-FRONT-CHASSIS-BAR-OVERRIDDER-BRACKET-CHIC-DOIG/352340974616?hash=item5209289c18:g:Fu8AAOSwQ~ha5GVy https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-VITESSE-HERALD-13-60-FRONT-CHASSIS-BAR-OVERRIDDER-BRACKET-CHIC-DOIG/352188602778?hash=item520013999a:g:nhIAAOSwiBJZ52nR

I'd have pinched one from one of the other cars and tried that; doesn't matter how long it is or what it looks like as it's only to check that the other lead is the problem. Of course I'm tighter than a duck's whatever.

Yes, I think I dodged most of those in my youth. When HM Gov tightened up on dynamite and gelignite over here in the early 1970s we had a variety of home-made stuff demolishing our town centres, the first being CO-OP, a mix of Sodium Chlorate and Nitrobenzine, so called as it demolished the CO-OP in Belfast. They then moved on to ANFO, a mix of Ammonium Nitrate (sourced from fertilisers) and Fuel Oil, and this proved successful for a time, but then some foreign chappie imported Semtex which really took the fun out of things. The current batch of ne'er-do-wells are using hydrogen peroxide and acid which were easily available on the high street - the London Bus Bombings being one such example of how effective they are. Even these days some of it really is trial and error using stuff stolen from school chemistry labs.

Sending stuff out is far easier than getting it in... there'll be no customs fee as it's within the UK; it's only goods coming in that require Certification and there just isn't the manpower or resources to do it.

One is unfortunate, but two is downright careless.

A great mate of mine once demolished an old mill chimney with drums of thinners. The chimney came down alright, with quite a few parts of it going through roofs and windows quite some distance away. He got the idea from his previous workplace in Banbridge Motorworks, where they exploded a tin of thinners in a pile of old tyres - the instructions were to burn off all the old thinners, presumably the unused stuff which would have gone off or been a fire risk over the weekend; he poured it into one tin, placed a stack of tyres over it like a chimney, and on top he placed a Landrover bonnet complete with spare wheel. The bonnet flew clean over the roof and came down in the next street, through the roof of a hairdresser's. He ended up in court and got a substantial fine...

Don't start me about Northern Ireland which is now in limbo - neither in the EU nor completely out of it. We were told it would be the best of both worlds, and a great advantage; all I've seen in the past fortnight is problem after problem, and all caused by EU red tape. I'm now getting parcels with Customs Declarations as although we're still in the UK, we're also still in the EU, so no-one has thought it through as to how the regulations would address this. Some couriers are refusing to deliver to NI due to endless red tape; other suppliers are just being lazy and quoting fantastic figures they've plucked out of the air - once again I'm being quoted prices for carriage that are almost twice as high as the value of the goods. If I can do it cheaper, well then send a Courier from your side to collect. Supermarket shelves are visibly empty - rice, fresh foodstuffs, other consumables (Kelloggs Frosties!), and the big chains are putting up notices about how they're 'working on it' to keep supplies flowing. In the past they performed a loop - Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, back through Wales to depots in England. Due to delays at Northern Ireland ports bringing produce in, and delays getting back out through Dublin, they've decided it's not worth it any more. The In-laws were trying to send completed orders to Nass outside Dublin this morning; there was so much red tape on the Courier's Customs Forms they've asked if I'll drive the 90 miles down with the completed work. It may actually work out a lot cheaper, as I have the Insurance green card allowing me to drive over the border. I'll do it just to get out of the house...

You're right, wrote without checking as usual..... doh!

I'm been sorting out my drawers (ooohhh 'err) and have found quite a few SU-carb related parts that I can't positively identify. Anyone want to give it a go? This one is quite large, and Waxstat - there is no serial number on the body, anywhere, apart from a '12' on top of the manifold flange. There is a serial number on one of the operating levers AUD 2859, and the float chamber has a tag reading AUD 480, but reads AUC 1310 on the lid and AUD 9203 on the bottom. The carb body has no serial numbers at all. These two are marked AUC 870 and AUC 871 and the float chambers are tagged AUD104L and AUD 104R so a matched pair on a manifold I suspect to be Mangoletsi - going by the colour only; no serial numbers or casting marks anywhere. The carbs are listed to fit Heralds and Spitfires, and it was bought at a Triumph Show many years ago, but it's a twin-port that fits no head I've ever tried it against. The carbs also fit Riley 1500, Mini Cooper and MG Midget but not on this manifold, which is very steeply angled which may point to a slanted engine. This last for now is an air intake elbow, but no idea of application. Serial number is 7219236 and there is also a number ADC2 beside a little Star Trek badge - any ideas of maker or what it's from?

Not far off, Pete - same shape of mounting. I don't seem to have a carb that fits, though, despite having quite a few SUs in the garage - I'm going to start another thread to help identify those too, just to pass the time on a rainy day during Lockdown.

Have got boxes of new ones, plus a few spare cams... so will just use plenty of oil at the start and keep my fingers crossed.

Probably... just thinking out loud before bracing the weather towards the garage... bucketing down here as usual. I do have gaskets that match them, but so far not carbs, so it must be something related to a car I've owned before - I suspect the gaskets are left over from a complete engine set.

My Herald versions are turning out a real dog's dinner... smooth them one direction and get a huge crease in the other. Those speakers are nicely placed but the sad thing is that you'll hear them better if you point them upwards, which unfortunately means turning them upside down.

I've tried all of the SUs that I have, from small to quite large, and they fit none. Didn't try Strombergs, now that I think of it... Might as well pass them on to someone who will use them, if I can work out the application.

I have the intention of using the original cam in the current 1200 rebuild but the cam followers are all in a box, in no particular order... I might have marked the base with indelible marker but not sure... oops.

It's deterioration from age that I worry about rather than the very low mileage mine do. I was always a great believer in regular engine oil changes although mostly on my moderns - the Triumphs get it once a year. To me, oil was cheaper to replace than an engine.

I thought Lockdown was doing that?

Can't be Boris as he's in power, and it hasn't happened. Now, if only we'd vote Labour in...

Wasn't that Keir Starmer's manifesto?

If it's up and down movement then it's probably the universal joint that's loose, either at the shaft side or the rack side, and this is allowing too much downwards movement at the top so that the ring is making contact with something it shouldn't; as Pete says it may be the column shrouds which I've seen happen when the column bushes are almost gone and allow the wheel to move too much from side to side. Can you pull the wheel up to break any contact, just slightly, and then tighten the steering column joint at the steering rack, to see if it will hold in place? If not then again as Pete says drop the outer tube slightly for the same effect.

The pump looks like an AC 661, so internally it should look the same as the one I've just dismantled.

Update: went out just after lunch and dug out a few old pumps to repair to destruction; this is an old AC version with the brass filter. I know it's been lying for a year or two but when you see what the filter traps over the years, you'd definitely go for an in-line filter at least, if nothing else... any tips for removing the old valves? One won't play at all.