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If the last coat you applied is dusty or heavily rippled or orange peeled, then leave it to dry for a few days minimum before flatting with your 1200 grit, wet, then dry the water off before applying more coats. If you're getting a decent finish, though, you're better to just re-coat before it cures, build up some depth, then let the whole lot dry properly.

Pete's right - you need to let it set properly. The book on painting that I bought long ago (definitely more than 20 years) says at least two weeks before cutting but the longer the better (within reason, obviously).

The trimmer who did mine recently had a bit of a moan about the Park Lane foams being oversize "so that you can trim them", and why didn't they just trim them themselves... He had a good moan about a lot of other things too, though.

I had an 1850 as my daily driver for a few years, then replaced it with a 2500S. I would definitely go for the 2500! Everything about it is just nicer. In terms of child seats, either a Dolomite or one of the 2000 range has got to be a better bet than a Vitesse,for all the reasons already given. In fact, the reason I was able to buy my current Vitesse was that the previous owner had started a family and child seat requirements meant Tessa never got used. (The child in question is now at Uni... I tend to hang on to my Triumphs)

The correct two-tone for a 1200 Herald would be as in the instructions with the kit. I opted for a different base colour.

Did you do the "wire to the solenoid" test?

Not quite. I have a pair sitting in my shed but I'm planning to refurb the Vitesse's ones eventually and I'll probably pick the best five from the seven in total. The two in the shed are already the least good of the seven I had, because five of them got refurb'd for the Spitfire (reverting to original from the Mk3 GT6 wheels it had).

Yes, as Colin says, it sounds like the solenoid is on its way out. BUT... also worth checking it's properly earthed, as a poor connection to the body could leave it just marginal so that the freshly charged battery from your run down the road is enough to make the difference.

My first non-Triumph was a VW Passat (with the 5 cylinder engine). It had power steering. When I needed some work done on the front suspension (accident damage), I discovered it had been bodged with the wrong bits - VW used beefier components on cars with PAS but mine had the non-PAS parts. Seemed to work fine and didn't seem to wear them out.

I've certainly had gauges that lied - in both directions - as well as engines that genuinely did overheat due to cooling system malfunctions, mostly leaks, although the car that managed ALL THREE (fake cold reading, fake hot reading and genuine overheating) was just a slipping fan belt. I've also had a 2500S with the most comprehensively crudded up and totally blocked cooling system I've ever seen... that never overheated and somehow managed to have a half-decent heater. I still can't understand how it managed that.

All three of mine have no trouble passing the MOT handbrake test. None of them will reliably hold against the slope of our drive.

It could be the switch but I'd suspect elsewhere. The wiring from the switch to the solenoid (at least two spade connectors to dislodge or to suffer from corrosion) or the solenoid itself (I've had a few of them fail the coil, or go weak so there's still a click but nothing more, and yet work fine with the button still) or even the way the solenoid is mounted (the coil earths through the body). A good test to do, with ignition on or off, is to take a bit of wire from battery +ve to the solenoid's small terminal (assuming it's an early type with only one small terminal). If that engages the starter then your fault is either the ignition switch or the wiring.

I think the difference between the red and the light blue photos is parallax. It looks to me that the letters on the red are all offset to the right compared to the number plate cowl, whereas the blue look offset to the left. If I compensate for that illusion the two Hs both sit above the 'er' in Herald.

Those are the late CDS type Strombergs. If you look at where that pipe attaches on the front carb, you'll see there's a barrel type affair that isn't on the rear one. This is the choke mechanism. The pipe is an interconnect - it supplies the cold start enrichment (extra fuel) to the rear carb. The original is made of a clear, flexible plastic. Rubber would be OK but use R9 rated stuff because it does carry fuel.

If it's well blocked, get hold of a very long masonry drill - as that's the type that are readily available in 14" length - somewhat smaller than the bore you want. Slide a couple of bits of tube (plastic, rubber or steel, whichever comes to hand) over it. Ideally you want something with a bore just big enough for the drill and an OD just smaller than the pipe bore. Alternatively, you could wrap a couple of loops of masking tape, layered thickly enough to fit cleanly in the pipe. Then when you insert this drill down one end of the pipe, the bits of tube will hold it central so that you're drilling through the crud, not the side of the pipe. Once you've drilled through the middle it'll be a lot easier to clean out to the edges. Use a slow drill so as not to melt your guide tubes.

If the form is a "fill & sign" type PDF then the free Adobe reader allows you to do that. That's what I did with the PDJ valuation form. You then get a much cleaner form to return and it's quite a bit smaller than a scan too. I don't know whether the TSSC form is properly set up for that, though. (Even if it isn't, there are free PDF editors from places other than Adobe, most of which work tolerably well)

I can't think of any way the drive shaft could foul on any part of the body tub as the spring is above them. The only bit that might foul would be the radius arm, as that's further inboard on a Rotoflex car, or the lever arm damper.

Needed a provisions shopping trip (butcher and Co-op) this morning so I took the GT6.

Another side-note if you've not done this before: in the process of removing the head you are going to take all the push-rods out. Keep them in order and remember which end was first, because you should really replace them in the same positions. This is even more true of the cam followers but you probably won't need to disturb them.

Yes, that wheel was adopted with the face-lift when the windscreen surround went black and the rear number plate light changed to a big clumpy thing. I believe this was the same on GT6 - all the rest of that facelift was - but I don't know whether the GT6 would have got leather on the rim.

Both my Vitesse and GT6 (and my old Vitesse saloon) have the 3-rail with fine spline input shaft. I understand this is not a combination the factory ever fitted but it was commonly built up as an upgrade when refurbishing.

Carburettors tend to run rich at altitude, which isn't too much of a problem. Speed-density EFI systems generally run lean, although the PI system is technically vacuum controlled and may go very rich. I've not driven one over the Alps myself. If your EFI is speed-throttle then I'd expect to to go rich without a BAP sensor to compensate. If you have a MAF sensor (not all OEM systems use these, by the way - a lot are MAP-based speed-density) then I think they're largely self-compensating, but they need to know intake air temperature to calibrate the hot wire.

Interestingly the factory did the opposite of a fuel cooler. On some later PI cars they coiled the fuel return around the body of the pump motor, thus using the motor to boil the fuel fuel to cool the motor.

Clive is right, RH is not a useful measure, and the ratio is high for your example. It's also similar to the ratio based on temperature alone. This just feels right to me, because in 30 years of working in automotive and motorsport engine control I have only once seen anyone ask for a humidity sensor, whereas inlet air temperature has been fitted to every ECU I've ever worked on. Even the really cheap ones.

Oops, wasn't reading the figures closely enough!