Peter Truman

Also just for clarity is the Lumination the optic type or their Magnetronic unit I’ve also had two Optics fail but had their Magnetronic fitted to the Sprint and all was good.

I like that one never heard that quote before but definitely for the archives! & at club meets or Mag!

I have an early OE NOS Herald rack that has only alloy clamps without the locating flanges. Now that rack has holes for the nylon plug at each end located under the alloy clamps. It was brought from an official Leyland Parts Supplier here "Lapco" when they had a fire sale around 45 years ago and it has never been fitted.

It should give being an all brass sender screwed into a cast iron water pump body. Original Equipment Smiths senders as fitted to my Vitesse had a steel sender body with crimped on internal brass bulb, now they were difficult, they rusted in. Try a small set of Stilsens, or Footprint wrench's, I have one of each around 7in long that would be great on that they would lock on and just bite tighter as you heaved, or maybe a Mole wrench, but that might slip

Never thought that LED's could/would be different, like bulbs I assumed a bulb of a certain rating were the same, in answer all LED's brought off ebay at different times and sources. I was thinking of buying new modern LED's for the Spit as there now 20 years old on the basis the modern ones could have better performance, but maybe it won't be worth the potential upgrade in performance, maybe Dad's motto of "if it ain't broke don't try to fix it"! pity he didn't follow his own rule "do as I say not as I do"!

My LED experience with the daughters Spit Mk2 Indicators, nearly 20 years ago for safety ie extra brightness I fitted LED's to the rear indicator's and the original Bi-metallic mech flasher worked OK, later on I changed the front too, the indicators didn't work as there was no load/resistance so I had to fit an electronic flasher can. I subsequently fitted a Lucas 4 way emergency flasher unit the push/pull type with it's own small rectangular Bi-metallic flasher can incorporated into the assembly that all works OK, the flasher rate is fast enough, so obviously the 4 LED's generate enough load. Similarly my Mk2 Vitesse, but the indicators work with front and rear LED's with the old style Bi-metallic mech flasher can, so where is the extra load coming from, all electrical male bullets on both cars have been cleaned and replaced as necessary and all female joiners replaced too, figure that one out, could it be the extra wire length front to rear, or the earth continuity isn't as good relying on the chassis bolts between the front and rear of the car, the battery is fitted in the boot??

Same what a pita those adds

Interestingly the most recent SU rebuild kit I fitted the float chamber to jet pipe was too long and hampered the linkage operation on forcing it to clear the linkage I kinked the pipe, solution was to shorten the pipe a little by repeated short lengths to get it right. Once kinked it obviously easily kinks again so beware!!

We were on holiday touring England at that time in 2007 toured thro Norfolk very waterlogged, then up the east coast across the Humber Bridge into Yorkshire & our short lived home area, viewed from the bridge the river was in severe flood & VERY VERY dirty even worse than our Yarra River noted for flowing upside down, I remember seeing military choppers landing on the Hull side presumably saving people? then onto Pickering which was badly flooded & then to our old home area of Guisborough. I also remember seeing a news video of the fire brigade pumping out water to secure a local dam wall, made me laugh thinking what a "pee into the wind" that would be re our largest dam which holds 1068Gl or 2.5 years of Melbourne's demand, We would blow the emergency dewatering structure 3mt dia capped pipes, the only way of stopping the free flow then is to drop the massive coaster gate into the tunnel, I mean drop into the raging flow, never been tried, all theory? Dropping the gate into a controlled release of a single 1.1mt dia pipe results in a tremendous air upsurge up the 6mt dia coaster gate shaft of over 30 mts height to dislodge the ground level open grate flooring (now bolted down), It would strip Marylin Munroe's dress off, not just balloon it, probably plaster her against the shaft building roof!

I have a cheapie GMC pedestal drill I’m happy with it esp as it was a freebie from a club mate who upgraded to a very old totally free standing pedestal drill. Funny enough the sons Father in law has just been over from Taiwan where he’s VP of a large Eng manufacturing Co who make good quality elect tools for all the major quality makers He said the GMC wasn’t a bad one but we can do better! Here’s hoping

Seen on eBay last night I assume a Triumph DIY spring compressor to compress the valve spring without removing the head, Anyone have an idea how it works? just looks like a long valve push rod.

My Vitesse Mk2 is the original set up and parts and the spring tension is maintained with a steel rod/wire ( old cloths hanger thickness ) with a eye at one end that the spring hooks into and a U bend at the bottom that hooks over the lip in the sump, it goes between the starter and engine block. Crude bit of Triumph engineering but works Interestingly the rod/wire has a Z shaped dog leg in its length I assume so you can adjust its length and get the spring tension you need/want Pic can be supplied if necessary

Me too cheapie plastic but I get the one with the nozzles stepped for 2 pipe sizes and cut off the smaller also the one with a right angled outlet as it fits the pump suction pipe work very neatly. No chance of breaking the plastic and condition of filter and debris easily seen and don’t have to bother cleaning also filter medium Buy them when there’s a shop 30% special off half a dozen at a time only $20 all up, does the 3 cars a couple of years

Being NZ is that the same as an Aussie 12/50 Coupe, or a Vitesse with Coupe body?

Here's some pic's of the Spits second wedding performance when our daughter Michelle drove her sister in law Mia to her wedding with a TR6 convoy, hood up because it was a 20 klm drive and the veil and dress and Mia had to arrive in tact! Michelle then a Project Mgr at GM Holden was big on safety I don't know how she fitted the safety belt on Mia without compromising the wedding dress and veil? The car arrived at our place the evening before with Michelle advising me the indicators weren't working, dirty switch contacts removed and fixed them but afterwards failed again so I had to buy a new Lucas switch in Lucas box marked made in Taiwan, this was ironical as Mia was Taiwanese & just immigrated to Aus to marry my son, the second part of the wedding was in Taichung Taiwan, with her family, friends and her dad's boss's in all 350 guests & we had to greet them ALL! Have you ever had Frog Spawn Soup, a delicacy but not for a Yorkshireman, I had half the bowl but the wife gave it a miss!

I had to take the passenger seat out of my daughters Spitfire to get her in with the dress I made a temp extension of the rear shelf for her to sit on, even tho she's a fly weight at only 6.5 stone (car and daughter still look the same after 21 years!) The courturier supervised putting her & dress inro the car and arranging the dress down the footwell and also at the church getting her out, what a palaver! Fortunately it was only around a mile to the village church, even then a truck tried to wedge us at the church roundabout, little car looking up at the big tyres, mother following us in her Jag blasted hell out of the truck driver, I thought madam was going to give chase and rip hell out of driver!

i' assume it's the same over there we get up to 5 calls a day, Compare the Market for Gas & Electricity, Grants for Solar Panels, Grants to convert from Gas to Elect Hot Water, free exhaust fan replacement, free LED lights to replace incandescent's, Oh and free door and window draught excluders, etc etc I'd had enough and earlier told the canvaser I didn't want any of the above freebee's he advised he could remove us from the auto dial list for $500, I told him there was a pool in our back garden and he was welcome to come & drown himself in it!! I've had 2 supposed messages from Norton today advising they had auto renewed my service for 3 years at $400, it's a scam so didn't open them, BUT Norton themselves keep trying to auto renew annually @ around $160 even tho they don't have any valid Credit Card info & I've disabled the auto renew, I usually purchase a renewal off a 3rd party ebay supplier for under $50?? anyway my renewal isn't due till later this year. We've supposedly opted out via a Govt run app of these nebulous canvassing calls! Like all Govt systems that doesn't work!

The Aussie CKD 12/50 Coupes came fitted with chrome bumpers as per the Vitesse Alloy style, they looked good. If I remember correctly even when relatively new the white rubber bumpers left a white mark on your trousers if you rubbed up against them!!

In the early 70's working for Water Board in the NE of England I brought and installed some in line pumps which just looked like a bit of oversized straight piping, the advantage was they could be buried ie no pits or pump house needed just a small control cubical. They were Swiss made Sulzer from memory. Pity there's no similar small 12v unit for cars, easy installation.

It was the next project for the Sprint I hated the internal engine water pump on later Triumphs and an elect pump was easy to fit space wise but I chickened out and sold the Sprint problem solved!

The Vitesse mech fan is fitted direct to the crankshaft so turns at engine speed say 800rpm at idle so it will get hot in traffic jams I’ve never fitted an electric fan as it all seems to tight a fit so when it’s over 35C here I sit in the traffic with foot on throttle idling over 1500rpm near 2000 sometimes to cool the beast down or stop it boiling. I know it feels counter intuitive to increase engine speed ie mote heat but it works! Elect fans spin around 3000rpm so must work in cooling when stationary. I must admit I’ve thought about fitting TR4 or Spitfire Le Mans bonnet side wing air vent holes to get rid of the heat just can’t go that far though. Iain if I do go elect fan I’ll go electric water pump too the issue is where to fit it? the Vitesse engine bay isn’t endowed with spare space.

I've recently been having issues with the front Stromberg carb pis***g fuel but the main issue was the O ring sealing the jet body to the float bowl, firstly the float bowl hole had corrosion which I sanded smooth then the kit supplied O ring was not thick enough to seal, now replaced with one of same dia but a thicker one, but I do need to get an ethanol compatible one. I've also had the same front needle valve gum up, presumably lack of use and modern fuel, there's always something!!

Well my post is about potential Fuel Spills due to an accident, some time ago I converted my Mk2 Vitesse from a mechanical to electric fuel pump, it mounted in the rear boot and having a drowned suction, for safety and a delayed start so I could get oil circulating I put a dash mounted switch with tell tale lamp, this achieved all my objectives at the time. Now I had noticed modern cars even non Injection cars including the Stag fitted a Lucas safety automatic inhibit switch which activates in the case of an accident, but that Lucas cylindrical inhibit switch was both difficult to obtain and obviously gold plated, so I did a bit of Googling and found a Mini version which was smaller and as an aftermarket item relatively cheap. At the same time the latest TCCV Courier had an article re fitting same with an electric fuel pump conversion in the TR4-6 section (Bernard Littlewood) so a plan was hatched and a Mini clone inertia switch purchased ($16 locally supplied and free postage). It was easily fitted on my engine bay bulkhead placed Relay board, and supplied by a dedicated fuse from the new multiple Blade Ignition Fuse Box. I wired the new inertia switch in before the dash switch so if the inertia switch activates the dash switch loses power and the Tell Tale goes out, which should immediately tell me I have a broken circuit, no head scratching. Oh and I have altered my extra wiring electrical circuit diagram so if needed in the future someone should be able to follow what's what in the car!!

I agree with above concerns, Cast Iron's an unknown quantity, we have a lot of CI water mains still in service after 150 years, some as large as 30in dia, BUT every so often they'll just let go blowing the side out interestingly the raw surface of the damaged section of pipe often shows no sign of corrosion pre failure they just let go! The large old pipes weren't spun so they can be 3/4in thick to 1.5in as they were horizontally cast, they came out to Aus as ballast in the ships hold when Aussie wool was exported to England.

He's gone to all the expense of an electric conversion when the VW's paintwork is blebbing everywhere!