Peter Truman

Colin I quoted your response to MG's to my B owning mate, he sent me the following MG club mag caption in response, and here I was thinking MG's and Triumphs had nothing in common!!

The B is roomier inside but that thumping engine gets on your wick compared to the smoothness of the GT6 engine, also six’s legroom excellent. The Triumph suspension is soo much better too., and styling the six leaves the B standing. I upset my friend who has aMG B by telling him it’s a cut down Morris Oxford but there again I’m a Triumph man

I think the 4.5 were also fitted to the Courier Van/Estate.

re animals that can kill you, more so up north not so down south, saying that my son who lives near us has had a couple of poisonous copperhead snakes in his suburban backyard this summer caused by a new housing development behind him a bit of a worry, the trouble is by the time the snake catcher arrives there've scarpered. He'd put snake proof mesh on the bottom of the fence at the rear, then a young snake came up the driveway of the townhouses next door and thro the front fence! more mesh reqd, then they'll probably come down the 80 foot entrance drive from the street, hopefully someone will do them in from that source first. We live in an estate of around 60 houses in the centre of a 18 hole private golf course and we back onto a 2acre council reserve and we we're the first house built and have never seen one bugger in 40 years. Re SA's there's a lot here now in fact our old neighbor was one, nice guy but the twang takes getting used to.

gearbox mount looks well made laser cut I assume and neat bonding, who was supplier pls

Karl your progress and workmanship is fantastic I watch it with awe, we are always amazed here in Aus how you in the UK resurrect what we consider basket cases!! I brought a 1960 Herald convertible rear tub here several years ago to convert my Mk2 Vitesse the only rust it had was a couple of little holes in the bottom of the rear side wing behind the B post where the conv hood was stowed probably wet. easily cut out and new steel shaped and welded in, a couple of hours work!l Have a drink on us!

An interesting side story re Witter towbars, probably over 15 years ago a young English lad joined my then local Triumph car club here in Vic Aus, the TCCV he had a 2lt Mk2 Vitesse convertible with Wittter towbar, he had inherited the car from his grandad the founder of Witter Towbars, who had taught him to drive in that car, on immigrating to Aus he brought the car with him, from memory it was a sound car but not concour, it was fitted with overdrive and I think maroon/plum paintwork. Unfortunately he returned to the UK with the intent of returning the car too, but the last I heard the car was in storage in Gippsland, I hope it did return and is still in the family.

Yes Pete a long time since I’ve seen one in captivity I’d forgotten they were two bands screw clamped but I still very destructive to the hose. Must admit I got mixed up with the later single band of wire that is sprung onto the hose what a bugger they are to remove and fit.

I gave up with the engine mech pump for the same reason and fitted an electricFacet Cube pump in the boot with a drowned suction from the bottom of the Vitesse tank pumps ain’t good suckers. Facet say no more than 13 in of suction head and there dead on!

Thanks for the update KISS is always the best option!

Pete, where does the garrotting emergency bonnet release cable go to ie how does it fix thro the bulkhead into the cabin?

doesn't Canley have the old 1300 4WD gearbox transfer box used by Triumph, I saw one for sale somewhere!

Like others I've only used Mikalor in special case's and exhausts. Ref the original wire clips they make such a mess of the hose distorting/cutting into them, they look cheap and that's probably why Leyland used them, to get the car out the door. I have a set of several special hose clamp removal tools/pliers but they don't work on those wire clips and using pliers they just swing round as you compress them! The modern band sprung clip works well but the barbs always find the back of my hands, Ooch!! I never use the jubilee clips with the worm slots that are cut right thro the band as they rip the hoses up too much, (Tridon here in Aus) when ever I see the older style jubilee clips with the worm slots only deformed into the band I buy them irrespective of the sizes, so fortunately I have a reasonable collection and all the classics have been fitted with them over the years, unfortunately there not S/S but they last eons, and they get a regular clean up and oil of the worm when working on the cooling system.

In my box's of spares I found a larger reservoir (2in dia) Vitesse style brake master cylinder to replace the smaller reservoir of the Spitfire (1.375in dia) it has the same cylinder/piston bore as Spitfire 5/8in. I refurbed this Vitesse style larger reservoir brake master cylinder several years ago & it checks out OK, it's not Girlock but the Aussie PBR brand as fitted as OEM on many Aus and American cars, so there's no worries on it's quality. Question, I've heard of priming the master cylinder before fitting so as to minimize the potential of air entrainment, what does this procedure consist of?

Don't know how I've done re the above, but thanks folks for the info, I think we had the master S/S sleeved so a new set of seals should suffice, if not a new master might see if I can get one with more capacity as the existing ain't big only about clutch master capacity

Around 3 weeks ago the daughter complained that the brakes on her Mk2 Spit were off ( a technical aero space eng description!) so I went down and the rear brakes were seized, I fitted one new 3/4in slave and got a NOS Girlock from a reputable UK supplier, arrived in OZ in a week, after fitting both new slaves and bleeding the brakes the daughter pushing the pedal she complained every second push of the pedal went to the floor but the alternate pedal was hard! At the other end the fluid from the bleed nipple was clear of any air and plenty of new fluid was purged thro, I didn't overhaul the type 12 calipers they were new around 12 years ago, and they apppeared to lock up and release OK. Over the last couple of days the daughter has operated the brake pedal with the car on axle stands and a hard pedal was evident even after repeated operations, we're going to continue this checking till the weekend then I'll take it a tentative run being very careful, and hopefully build up confidence. Any ideas anyone, could the caliper piston be releasing too much pushing back into the caliper, giving the long pedal, also I haven't looked at the master there's no sign of any leakage. i

Over 55 years I've sworn at the difficulty in undoing the Small Chassis engine square headed sump plug, I just can't get enough purchase on the spanner even with the special square holed aftermarket variant., & I'm too lazy to jack the car up so working space is limited! So I made a 1in square extension tube around 15in long that fits vertically up the side of the engine between the chassis and engine topping out near the distributor, at the bottom a proprietary laser cut 1/2 in square hole sump spanner is bolted into the tube which when fitted to the sump plug using a lump hammer and hitting the top of the tube loosens the sump plug, easy peasy, the plug is easily slackened and removed!

We had a Series 3 fuel injected XJ6 in the early to mid 80's which had a novel solution to vaporization the fuel pipe in the engine bay ran thro a steel tube which also had the air conditioning insulated but still cold pipe located in it, obviously cooled the fuel down!

I have a spare 305137 D type adapter it is 1.595in wide vs the original 313085 Mk4 J type fitted to my modified single rail/3 rail box at 1.673in. Haven’t measured the OD PCD flange can do that tomorrow.

Just in case and for info here's some pics I found on a forum somewhere where a single rail adapter was used on a 3 rail case with I assume single rail internals and J type

Nigel if I was going to do the job again I think I'd try the single rail adapter RKC634 as I think it would seal to the 3 rail case OK but just stick up above the top and the top hole in the adapter would be there but I don't think it would be open and thro more investigation reqd I think. I have a Dolly 1850 single rail gearbox with J type here in the garage, but haven't stripped it down yet so I'm not too sure of what fits what, it's for a 3 rail case conversion to put in my Vitesse Mk2.

Nigel here's a 3 rail case with single rail internals using the Spiy Mk4 adapter 313085 note the extra 1in thick aluminum spacer reqd as per Johny's advice

My Vitesse wth Stroms hasn't had issues with vaporization, but the daughters Mk2 Spit gave us grief several years ago I even pulled the head! The issue was the plastic bush that orientates the SU float bowl vertically had failed allowing the float bowl to rotate from vertical towards the exhaust manifold hence it was getting to hot and vaporizing the fuel. I also fitted heat DIY shields pic's attached, notice the shiels are bolted behind the manifold flange so they can be removed without disturbing the carbs. Also had vapor locks on a Series 3 XJ in the early 80's issue was the fuel filter was full of sh*t. In the mid 70's we had a 2500TC which from new always suffered vaporization on 38C plus days worst when in traffic, probably accentuated by the aftermarket air conditioning installed.

Now I understand your logic Colin with all the Heralds you have! I thought a spare was the old Jaguar pre-requisite.

I have a 76 Dolly Sprint that is kept outside on the front drive, for 5 years now I've used a fully waterproof poly/vinyl fleece lined Autotechnica car covers (medium saloon size), cost around $160. It is elasticated around the bottom with 2 straps that go under the car. The car paint is 2 part epoxy so very hard and has shown no damage with the rubbing from the wind movement, the fleece lining hasn't rubbed thro either even tho it does balloon up off the car a lot, the biggest draw back is the UV down here in Aus it wrecks the top of the cover in a year plus 1 day ie just out of warranty, but $160 per annum is cheap protection. Condensation isn't a problem ever in wet winter conditions, there are 4 air inlets in the sides near the top of the side windows. This is southern Australia so continuous damp conditions aren't encountered often & even then I put my hand thro the air vents to check the roof and there's no condensation on the cars vinyl roof. The silver poly/vinyl cover seems to protect the paintwork and cars vinyl roof from the baking summer sun, albeit the cover fails in JUST over a year!