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It was built after Jan 1 1982 so it's not yet exempt. The exemption should roll on, though, so it will become exempt from 1st April, but you have to apply for that status on renewal. It's probably not possible to do so online. If you want to avoid visiting a post office, you can go to your local DVLA office instead 🤭

On the earlier, flat-top blocks, it doesn't matter terribly much. The later engines had recessed rings round the cylinders and the gasket must be the right way up on them, so they added a tab to show which way to fit it.

That sounds reasonable, Colin. If the (white) feed from the ignition switch to the fuse box big terminal is at least the same size as the brown (blue/brown?) wire from battery to ignition switch, then it should cope. The four white wires are over-spec in total. All the current flowing out of the switch must have flowed into the switch through the brown, so that's the size you need. Technically, of course, all the subsequent white wires from fuse box outlets should really be green, but we'll not worry about that.

That was how my first Vitesse was, when it was only 21 years old and stood some chance of still having an original set of locks.

I've got a plastic one on the Vitesse. The dual diameter is handy for converting the 1/4" main fuel pipe to fit the 5/16" pump inlet. 😉

Yep, much easier and more convenient. If your engine is in good condition then the benefits of a (horizontal) spin-on filter are minimal.

That looks like somebody tried to remove it with a sharp pointy thing, failed, and decided to leave it in there.

That depends whether they've fitted the reinforcement / attachment plates behind the panels. If not, it will need very awkward welding and much of the work done will be destroyed. My guess is they haven't - they've used saloon parts without consideration of the need to restrain the doors on a convertible.

No anti-burst hooks on the door or B-post I'm really not convinced by that driver's seat either.

As an electrical engineer, your dealings with resonance and harmonics probably resulted in increased transmission gain at particular frequencies. It wouldn't normally break things... So, as I understand it, in simplified terms... When no1 cylinder fires, it attempts to accelerate the crankshaft from the front end. At the back end, there's a big flywheel, which resists that acceleration. The result is a torsional force trying to "wind up" the crankshaft. Later in the cycle, this wind-up is released, and the front end falls fractionally behind. Normally, this effect is very small, but at the right RPM it hits the resonant frequency of the crank, and gets amplified. At a minimum, this is unpleasant. In extremis, it could result in stress fracturing of the crank, rather as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge incident. The damper on the pulley is tuned to suppress that resonance by absorbing some of the energy into the rubber.

Note that you actually need to do that with the original rubber ones, too, otherwise the bushes will not be in compression and the rack will have play in it.

That concertina hose is a particularly fine example of the rubbish quality of modern rubber bits.

The pipe is 3/16" OD, which is a standard size for brake and clutch pipe. The fittings are 3/8" UNF. But as Johny says, it's easiest to buy them from one of the usual suspects.

Interestingly, SWMBO's Yaris gives batteries a really tough life, but the only one it's so far managed to completely kill within a year was a Bosch. Personally, I'd prefer a Yuasa or Varta. I've used Tayna's cheapest and second-cheapest 063 options (Enduroline and the like) on my Triumphs and they've all been excellent.

So you've come on here, for your first post, to misquote a boring bit of "pub wisdom" and exaggerate it based on erroneous claims supported by an incident of an extremely rare terminal failure. How sad. If a critical component of the suspension on a Ferrari fails terminally due to rust and neglect, it will result in a dangerous situation. But you're attacking the engineers at Triumph for something that can't be blamed on them.

Glad you got home OK. The refusal to run at high speed / load sounds exactly like what my Vitesse did when it had a (dodgy) electric fuel pump. Putting it back to a proper, original spec, mechanical one fixed that. My Toledo also did the same when the pump filter gauze was blocked. Vibration above 45mph does sound like a propshaft problem.

I believe the only difference between the Vitesse/GT6 clutch "kit" and the TR7/Dolomite 1850 one is the 10 teeth against 23 teeth, which is why my Vitesse and GT6 both have Dolomite clutches (uprated gearboxes with J-type OD, fitted last century)

No, the floors are the same. Very early Mk3 may have a marginally different pressing for the slightly raised bit where the seat runner fits, but most are "universal" in that they have flat bits wide enough to drill for either type. I think the GT6 got the wider runners first and the floors were a common pressing.

There's not very much difference in the floor pans - and none of the available replacement panels have any distinction between the various versions. In fact, I'd be surprised if you could find a carpet set that's specifically Mk4 against Mk3. What makes you say you have Mk4 floors?

That looks like it's all the way in, then. How high is the hoop when fitted? Can you stretch the fabric over it? If you can, then the frame is as far down as you'd want it.

Beware the small print. Green Flag's definition of "any vehicle" has a 15 year age limit, which thus excludes not just all my Triumphs but both of our "modern" daily drivers, too.

I don't have the thread indexed for easy retrieval but I recall the official Triumph method involved adding a plate above the chassis rail so that you could weld the edges of the main rail and outrigger to that plate.

I suspect it's a bad idea to remove the buttons. It will result in metal-to-metal contact which will squeak and boing and all sorts, not to mention the wear. As far as I know, the lowering blocks work fine with a swing spring but you may well need longer studs.

Twin SU was definitely an option on 948 coupe and I'm fairly sure it was available on CV too. I'm not sure what years that applies to, though.

I don't think the factory ever centre-punched these timing wheels but there was a note in the WSM that, to preserve the correct cam timing, it was wise to punch both of them in line to indicate the position to re-fit. If that's been done at some point then you could have reused that alignment indication, but you'd have wanted to confirm it first. Otherwise, as long as you've assembled it with the cam correctly timed, you should probably ignore them.