rlubikey

My Nearest & Dearest restored the dash from my old blue X-reg Spit. A BMIHT trace showed it had been made in '79. She said the veneer was definitely Walnut, with a very straight, plain grain. Walnut can be very showy, but from the original dashes I've seen, Triumph didn't use these burr or fancy grain veneers. It might well be American Black Walnut, which starts off quite stripy, but should fade quite quickly giving the more restrained finishes we know today of our 40-plus year old cars. Cheers, Richard

Richard, is your Triumph a Vitesse or GT6 and are the wheels standard? If it's a GT6 Mk3 and you go for the big Triumph 7/16 UNF, you then have the option of TR6 wheel nuts which are visually very similar to your originals. You will have to enlarge the holes in the naive plates slightly, but will end up with something that looks quite original to the untrained eye. Cheers, Richard

I'm afraid I don't know Iain - too long ago. All I know is it's visually identical to the factory MC in my old blue '79 Spit. Cheers, Richard

While I was taking photos of the brake MC, I also took one of my heater valve in case it's of any help. You can see that the heater pipe has been stretched slightly to get it over the hose barb. The white stuff lower down is the plumbers' tape. I used the contact from a piece of chocolate-bloc (electrical joining screw terminals in a plastic strip) suitably drilled to attach the cable to the valve. Nowhere near as neat as Doug's! Cheers, Richard

Iain, here are some pictures of the brake and clutch MCs in my car. The brake MC bracket is out of a 1979 Spit, my old blue one. Not that the clutch MC is much closer to the brake than a normal car so as to make room for the PI inlet plenum. The clutch pedal has a double bend (jog) lower down so the pedal is in the normal position. From the side you can see that the top of the dual MC is horizontal. Sorry about the throttle cable obscuring the bracket. There's about 1/2" difference in the height of the brake & clutch brackets. From the front the MC cap is a bit higher but still misses the bonnet. Parallax has made the two brackets look the same height. The brake pipes come out of the off-side - much easier to access if some fool has moved the clutch that much closer than normal! I don't remember clearly, but I think the bracing between the bulkhead and shelf may also be lower than on a pre-79 Spit. If so, we would have transferred these from my old blue Spit as well as the "well" in the bulkhead. Hope this is of some help. Cheers, Richard

The Spit 1500 parts catalogue is your friend. Vitesse Steve, etc. Cheers, Richard

The dual circuit bracket holds the MC lower and makes the top of the reservoir horizontal. Have taken photo but too late/tired/wined-out to upload until morning. Cheers, Richard

Hi Doug. Did you use plumbers' tape on the threads? Not only does it seal the joint, but the lower friction allows a bit more rotation adjustment to get the right position. I'm afraid mine is different as it's the TR5/TR6 set-up coming directly off the head via a stand-off, and by happy chance it lines up with the hose absolutely perfectly! Cheers, Richard

The outputs of mine are on the off-side of the car when fitted. The top is of course obscured by the tandem tank, and having the connections on the off-side I found makes it easier to plumb. Cheers, Richard

OK Gully et al, I'm looking at another FOUR SEASONS valve - 74682 which appears to be almost the same but is described as "Cable Operated Non-Bypass Closed" which I think means pull to close, whereas the 74648 valve is "Cable Operated Open Non-Bypass" which I think is pull to open. If I ever have to do another heater valve I think I will order that and see if it's indeed the right one for a Spit & GT6. If you want to have a go with it, you should first satisfy yourself that my assumptions are indeed correct about the 74682 valve. One thing I think I didn't mention is that the output port is 5/8" instead of 1/2", but I found the hose stretches over without too much difficulty. Cheers, Richard

Hi Iain. I believe the original part was made by TRW. Unfortunately the TRW brand has been bought out and, looking in the TR-Register forum, quality has gone down and back up two or three times since then. Mine was TRW branded when I bought it new about 10 years ago, shortly after the TRW name had been bought. The quality was not good and the as new part was sent off to be reconditioned. It's been fine since. That's not a reassuring story, I know. Don't forget you'll need to let a "bowl" recess into the bulkhead (like behind the battery) and also the lower master cylinder bracket, so it misses the bonnet! Cheers, Richard

Snap - well, nearly!

Gully, Pete, the valve Doug and I used seems quite common in the USA but is not generally available this side of the pond. (There is a different model which is used on London taxis, but it doesn't have the threaded inlet.) Here's the valve that I recommended to Doug and which I bought via Amazon. It's a Four Seasons 74648 Heater Valve - the trick is to use Amazon.com but you can still log in with your UK credentials. It's also available from RockAuto where, if you choose the expensive shipping, the tax gets paid with your order. My 1500 Spit has a "pull for off" heater with hot on the left and cold to right on the dash. I expected Doug's GT6 to be the opposite after a conversation with Mark at East Berks, but it turns out Doug's heater is the same - hot on the left and pull for off. It's quite easy to modify the valve to do this. The Four Seasons brand have hundreds of different heater valves with several of the same general format. It's quite possible they even do one which is pull for off, if that's what you need. Hope this is helpful. Cheers, Richard

Toe out at the rear, isn't it Pete??? Cheers, Richard

Nick, how about Spitbitz near Reading - just down the M4 from you. Norman seems to specialise in parts, but he may have a body he's stripped? Give him a ring, but if he has something make sure you see it before committing yourself. No connection, etc. Cheers, Richard

Hi Tanky. There are tools shown in one of the last plates (Group N - 2F 02R) of the 1500 Spitfire parts catalogue. I have some of these and also a tool pouch, which all came with the car - though the pouch doesn't look like the one in the catalogue! I find that having the part numbers is half the battle in getting the parts, or in this case the tools! I don't know if all the tools shown were in the standard tool kit. The next page is for the oil cooler, which was an option. BTW, I stopped using the pouch when I could see it had started to deteriorate just knocking about in the boot, so now all the tools live in a tool box which sits nicely by the side of the spare wheel. Cheers, Richard

Pete - pound to a penny it's the OD wires in the gear stick. If you can disconnect from the cable loom and the fuse no longer blows then you've found your culprit. I used high-temperature sleeving - the sort of thing to protect cables in cookers - over the wires inside the gear lever. It's glass-reinforced silicone stuff. Dunno where I got it, CPC maybe, or out of some broken electrical thingie? There's not much room in there but if you can get something the right size to fit then it's worth it. I also put heatshrink around the little connectors that connect to the switch inside the knob. Heat shrink it on, then cut a slot for the contact with a scalpel when cool. The other thing I did was to make an overdrive logic circuit. As well as inhibiting OD when shifting into 3rd/4th from 1st/2nd (which I was always doing having forgotten to disengage!) the circuit removes the relatively high current from the switch and wires so the switch lasts longer. But it does something else too; in this new circuit, one end of the switch is now connected to chassis. This means that a short circuit isn't terminal, it just engages OD if you're in 3rd or 4th. Cheers, Richard PS: The sleeving was probably one of these CPC - Fibreglass Sleeving and it was probably a friend/colleague who got it for something else. NB: Other electrical vendors are available, except Maplin .

Tip-Ex on the timing mark on the pulley. Cheers, Richard

Thanks Doug, I'll ask him next time. But I know Nick has normally thought these things through. I suppose the thing about the rockers is that it's a reciprocating action (a few degrees one way then back and repeat) instead of continual rotation, and a high side force from the valve springs. This is not good for a sleeve bearing such as the normal factory rockers as all the wear is in the same place. But at least what oil there is must be forced into a very small gap (until the surfaces wear) and in any case it tends to sink to the bottom of the bearing where it's needed most. The oil should sink to where it's needed most in the roller/needle bearings too. I remember rejecting an external feed when the engine was being built as I knew of its bad reputation. I hadn't heard of the restrictor at that time, and one thing that worried me was the more open structure of the needle bearing and I envisaged oil pouring through and out to the top of the head, with the consequent starving of the main bearings lower down in the engine. Cheers, Richard

Nick, you've got me worried now. Do needle bearings need that much oil? I wouldn't have thought so but ... Cheers, "Roller Rocker" Richard

John, I think this is the video BadWolf is thinking of. bugs bunny banana boat song Now, if someone could just tell me how to embed that into my post ... Cheers, Richard

Hi BadWolf, that's exactly where I get that from. Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) was popularised by Harry Belafonte, then parodied by Stan Freberg in the 50's. Someone did the stop-motion (claymation) with a Bugs Bunny-like character which was shown on childrens tv in the 70's - Blue Peter, I think. Cheers, Richard

Hi cggs. I had the Triumphtune wheelbarrow system like you (oval "Falcon" boxes with acoustic tailpipes) and they look the business! Sadly the sound doesn't match. I eventually swapped mine for a GT6 system and, although it's VERY tricky trying to get the centre box rattle-free (clear of the chassis), the sound is well worth it. I can hear myself think now. (See my post above) The GT6 centre box is also a straight-through type, and the dimensions are minimal - there's not much space, as you know. So I'm afraid I don't think it's going to make much difference to the wheelbarrow. It'll make a bit of difference but neither you nor the exhaust people will know if it's enough until it's fitted and you've handed over your cash. My advice? Fit a standard Spitfire system. Or, for an even more mellow sound, the GT6 system. This doesn't answer your question, I know! Cheers, Richard PS: Different people experience sound differently. One person's "nice sporty note" is another's "too loud man, too loud!" Never take someone's description of how something sounds, especially if they have a vested interest.

Pete, I would suggest you have the original reconditioned - it will probably be better than a new part. Cheers, Richard (Dual-circuit MCs where also 0.75" but they are longer and would require modification to your bulkhead to fit)

What's wrong is the bad old knees! Cheers, Richard