Colin Lindsay

I hope you can make this out - my dash has been removed for rewiring (remember the article on the LED bulbs? Never got it all back together yet.. ) but the centre section slots under the long dash support bracket and two screws go up through the two holes in the L-shaped metal strip and into captive nuts behind the support bracket. Once these are loosely tightened the top two screws can be fitted then the entire section aligned and tightened. I’m just holding mine in place with fingertip pressure.

Happened to me in the queue for the MOT. Got out to talk to another driver, got back in, then noticed little springs and bits all over the floor. I had a spare switch at home so had to go back for a retest an hour later at a cost of £18 extra.

At a guess it’s either a MK3 Spitfire reshelled with a GT6 body, or a GT6 Mk1 rebuilt using Spitfire parts; I’d guess the former. The shape of the door glass reflects the Spitfire and the body appears to have been adapted / built up for this shape of door glass. The lack of rear overriders, the large brake master cylinder and various other assorted ‘bodges’ point to, as Colin says, a bitsa. No doubt some hopeful seller has decided to raise the price by claiming it’s a factory experiment, but I very much doubt it.

Engine valences cover the lower part of the block and don’t really make any difference to heat dissipation. Most modern cars have them still in the form of inner wings (more or less). Keep a good flow of air through your radiator and keep it moving i.e. as John says let it escape through properly sited ducts or else with electronic help e.g. an electric fan. The difference between properly functioning and overheating isn’t great so it only takes a good flow of air, not an arctic blast. A well-maintained system is more than adequate for even stationary traffic and remember a good heater will also remove a lot of the engine heat if necessary. Just keep the windows down!

The two lower screws screw up through the L-shaped metal trim into captive nuts on the under-dash support. I can get pics by tomorrow if that will help?

Good point. All the extra heat has to go somewhere and it will put more strain on your cooling system, so that needs to be top notch. Is your under bonnet heat really excessive, or causing problems? I’ve always found the best solution to be a good free flow of air, possibly with an uprated fan.

Personal taste, Aidan. If you ask for opinions you’ll get as many people saying to fit one as you will saying don’t, you’ll also get people telling you how good a Webasto is in their own car, which won’t be a GT6, and you’ll always get someone who hi-jacks the post with the problems he’s having with his own vehicle and thereby effectively kills the thread. (Long experience, that…) However: I’d get it done professionally, if at all. It’s a big step cutting a hole in perfectly good - and quite rare - roof.

Is a roughly Triumph-shaped car, with nothing mechanically Triumph about it, still a Triumph? I’ve debated it for years and been shouted down many times by the vociferous mod-brigade - it has to be faster / better / safer / stronger than the original, so lets use Subaru diffs and rear axles, space frame chassis, Mazda engines, Ford gearboxes, all sorts of weird and wonderful wheels and interiors and by the way it’s still a 1973 Triumph for free tax purposes. And why oh why won’t the DVLA believe it’s only slightly altered from factory spec? It won’t affect Triumphs that have been rebuilt to original spec, or restorations that use like-for-like components i.e. a donor engine. It will affect major alterations until this minority of cars can prove they’re properly made and no danger to the drivers or other road users. It’s the usual story of a few ruining things for everyone else by bending the rules further and further.

Treat them as a service item and expect to change every two years or so. They don’t make ‘em like they used to!

You may find the gauge and the sender are from different eras of Triumph; stabilised or unstabilised. Mixing the components will cause this. You need either a 10v stabilised gauge and matching sender or a 12 volt unstabilised setup. Does it have six screws around it at the tank, or a locking ring?

The early cars were always rare, when I bought my Mk1 it was positively unloved and unwanted but they’ve increased in popularity in recent years. Don’t believe the hype about poor roadholding and how the Mk2s are much better than Mk1, it all comes down to personal preference these days, so don’t expect to automatically pay a higher price for the Mk2. Just make sure owners know you are looking - maybe post a wanted ad - and see who responds.

Your ears will be your best guide; listen at the bell housing while someone gently depresses and releases the brake pedal. You should hear sufficient creaking noises as the release lever moves and the clutch depresses to let you know that it’s moving. Try a long-handled screwdriver with the handle against your ear as a stethoscope.

I like it!! When my convertible finally hits the road I’ll be looking out for one like that.

It’s probably the same residue as you may find under the rocker cover…. possibly caused by a blown head gasket at one stage but certainly caused by water (condensation?) getting into the oil. You’ll see more of it if your car is sitting idle for a long time or if it’s only used for short journeys where the car doesn’t really warm up enough to burn the moisture off. Just clean it off and use a good engine oil when refilling.

I used the hard yellow bushes from ksclassiccarparts - Kevin was at the TSSC International for a few years and had a stand selling these. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-SPITFIRE-HERALD-GT6-VITESSE-BOND-FRONT-WISHBONE-POLYURETHANE-BUSH-/251068317849?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3a74d68099 I have them on the front suspension of my GT6 and found them excellent; I also have blue Polybushes on my diff and red polybushes on the rear radius arms, so an entire selection on one car. The red bushes are quite unforgiving, I needed a hydraulic press, but the yellow ones are good and I have two more sets for my Herald restorations when they’re ready for suspension.

Errata: for ‘NOT’ read ‘NOW’. I’m starting to really hate spell checkers.

Think of it this way: the tub has spread out and is wider at the top than the bottom. Doors which hang vertically now stick out at the bottom, as they’re further out at the top to match the B post profile. If you pull the top of the tub inwards, this will allow the doors to move towards the vertical again and so the bottoms will pull in to match the new profile. Think of the body like this: \_/ and if I add doors: |\_/| you can visualise how narrowing the top would pull the two vertical sides closer in. Of course if your doors are improperly skinned they may not be the correct profile at all; the skin should be folded around the door frame and fitted to the car and twisted - often substantially - to fit the profile of the body and the door gaps. Only then should it be welded. If it’s been welded off the car then any distortion will not be a permanent part of the structure.

My favourite solution to all things Triumph….

First site I went on the Net - http://www.teglerizer.com/triumphstuff/gt6/GT6specifications.htm - claims 4.5 litres for the MK1. The second - http://www.oocities.org/rotoflex/gt6-oem.htm - claims 6.2 litres or 11 pints for all three models. Otodata listed it as a 2-door convertible sports car… so I ignored them. John Thomason’s ‘Guide to Originality’ lists capacity as 6.5 litres and to be honest I can’t see how they’d miss out on two entire litres, although possibly this smaller capacity is for a car with no heater system fitted? I suspect the radiator was the same for all three models so no smaller version fitted; cooling was marginal enough and if this had been the case we’d see a lot more owners looking for the larger radiator to retrofit earlier models. Aidan - as long as yours isn’t air locked, and the heater is working well (and you have the correct radiator!) - then I’d try to flush it to see if there’s any kind of blockage around the system, particularly around the engine block. HOWEVER - and that’s block capitals as it’s a BIG however: are you sure you had yours totally empty when you refilled it? It’s easy enough to simply drain the radiator, without draining the block and heater as well, so this may account for the two litres already in there.

Hard to tell without seeing it, Doug, but if it was me and I was in any doubt, I’d replace. I’d be the worrying type and while it may soldier on for a while yet I’d always be wondering when it was going to fail.

If they were common, I’d never have bought any in the first place… However this often makes me laugh, when I see Triumphs at shows labelled “the only one in the UK’… and of course, the prices on any marked “For Sale” also raise a smile.

Always nice to have, there’s a great feeling of nostalgia with these old books, especially when you find one in the bottom of a box at an autojumble and it’s of no use or interest to the seller but a great find for a Triumph owner.

Herald headlamp cowlings in stainless… nice but heavy…. but as I mentioned in an earlier thread on the subject I’d love to see Herald overriders, particularly rear ones, in some kind of material that doesn’t rust from the moment they’re fitted.

I do hate that sort of ad soooo much; so does eBay and some of the advertisers have had their accounts suspended as being against the rules. I’d be tempted to advertise as ‘breaking Spitfire 1500’ and let prospective purchasers make contact and ask if a specific part is available; even advertising a few parts as a ’normal’ eBay advert may surprise you as to what is sought-after and what parts will sell. Even a rusty chassis, sold as ‘collection only’ can be useful for restoration or repair sections, so don’t throw anything out until you’ve tried to advertise it first.

Silly question, and not wanting to insult your intelligence: you’re sure it’s not just tyre noise? I’ve had to swap tyres over on moderns more than once when new tyres made too much noise on one axle but quietened down on the other… just a thought!