That was a year that was..

[Bfg]

3 hours ago, PeteH said:

Pete, The "reasoning" behind that is to ensure the "weight" of the lever holds the cock closed (Gravity). Standard marine practice. "Normally" the lever would be in line with the pipe when open. You don`t need "sea cocks" vibrating open!, nor cooling water valves closing, by themselves.

Pete

Didn't anyone warn you about bullshitting a bullshitter ?    Gravity has nothing to do with it.  The inertia of anything within a vessel pitching and rolling around in even a modest sea will often exceed the meek but persistent force of gravity.  So each cock ought to be rather tight to turn, even when liberally greased.  Indeed any decent marine sea-cock is adjustable in its tightness. The spring in the one on my TR engine block serves the same function ..to keep its cone tight within its socket. 

You are correct in saying that a lever in-line with the pipe would be with the valve open ..which is a clear visual check as to it position. You don't want to start a marine engine with its sea-cocks closed, or to pump a sea-head with its cock closed, nor would you want to leave a vessel unattended with its sea-cocks open ..so a very quick but foolproof visual check is an everyday occurrence. 

Sea-cocks are fitted any-which-way inclination  on a vessel (and therefore gravity) ; some being near horizontal up near the waterline, while others are inclined down to some 45 degrees or more ..such as the sea-cock for the heads in my own boat (..which is very low down below the turn of the bilges). This is of course according to the hull shape and what is being drawn in or to be flushed out.  And these are then inclined to a further 45 or more degrees in a heeling sailing boat. First and foremost their position has to work well relative to the water-line and the flow of water passed the hull, and they need to be readily accessible.

They are also turned any-which-way-around relative to the hull's opening. This is so, when being closed - the turn of the lever (to 90 degrees) may clear an adjacent hull frame, stringer, bulkhead or cabinet, or even other sea-cocks, and pipe or cable runs  ..of which there are multitude of each, always just where a sea-cock needs to go !  As a consequence - a sea-cock's lever, when closed, may turn to point to the left or right, up or down, or any other way ..it really doesn't make any difference.  But always, when open, its lever is in line with the pipe.  

Of course the TR engine block's drain tap doesn't normally have a pipe on it, so it poking out when closed (its normal position) is counter intuitive, and to my mind - more vulnerable.

Pete. 

[PeteH]

Pete, Whilst I take on board what you say. If you check steam practice, you will find the vast majority of drain cocks etc; all in fact conform to that practice. "Line" valves are different they conform to the "open in line with the pipework" Another controversial issue was the use of what are known as "gate" valves, they where invariably fitted upside own. The reason given was that If the "gate" came off it`s screw, it failed open. Caused many an argument when discussing it in the Bar!.

Pete

[Bfg]

^  indeed ...one or two other little jobs to do. 

[Bfg]

..continuing on yesterday, in nice but again gusty weather  . .

Following on from the " architectural plan " of the previous post towards the realisation . . .

Nice light inside..  The (presently) hanging side (right of photo) is next to be lifted up to the wall of the house, which will give a very useful extra 4ft of inside width.  

Now where did I put those seeds ? 

                 .. it's a car port, 'onest gov 

 

^ work in progress.  For drainage, and also to try and stop the wind getting under the cover., the beam alongside the house is being forceably bowed to be three brick-courses lower at the far end (by the end wall) and two brick courses lower at the entrance end.  The high point of the bow is of course by the patio door, which is also where the two 4m wide pieces of plastic overlap. 

^ the morning after..  This morning, after rain showers the sunshine is occasionally breaking through, and although quite blustery the canopy is serving well as an airy conservatory.

From just yesterday, there are a huge number of oak leaves to sweep up inside this poly-tunnel (?) but the objective of keeping out 90+% of the wet has been achieved.

I need to ensure it doesn't blow away or shred itself in the building winds, but what I see so far is very encouraging. 

Pete.  

 

p.s.  for those interested, the material cost for the original 10ft x 8ft gazebo, and now its extension to cover the whole of the 20ft x 12ft patio has been around about £350, with the timber being bought at Wickes and 20m roll of polythene sheet off ebay. I've used about 14m of that roll including closing the entrance end ..so if I get a major tear then I still have enough material to replace half of this cover.   

I see that cost as an investment to protect the car through the wet seasons, so I've saved in not having to buy a new car cover and there's no chafing of that against the car's paintwork.  It's also added passive (out of sight) security, and it gives me an undercover but airy garage to work in for the next six months.  It'll not be that warm but minimising the wind chill and wet will make it mostly tolerable. As a conservatory it extends the living space of my apartment, and it should help a little with the heating bills. 

[Bfg]

4 hours ago, Mathew said:

batton strips

what are they ?

[Bfg]

aah ha..  sorry, I thought you were about to suggest some sort of banding or webbing or Velcro strip to help tie the battens down.  

Yes I have full 6m length of double 25mm x 38mm timbers screwed together to sandwich the polythene edges along the house and the low-wall.  I'm planning to tie the latter down to bricks along its length.  I've used a single batten of 25 x 38mm along either side of the roof, to keep the top taught.  And I have a short (8ft) batten across the top of the entrance which I've yet to staple the polythene to.   The loose end over the honeysuckle is the one I'm not sure how to secure. That faces due east so is not the usual wind direction but nevertheless it it were to come from there with any force then that side is also an open field so things could get exciting !  

[Peter Truman]

Not pretty but they could be camouflaged here stall holders at markets use 15 litre plastic containers filled with water as anchors and tie the ropes to the handle.

Yesterday I spent cleaning up after we had 110kph winds all through the night, shredded tree leaves everywhere esp pool, the 10 by 8 poly tarp cover over the BBQ is just rawl anchored with low profile U brackets (2 screws) into the garage brickwork, all OK no damage. Elsewhere trees down all over as we've had a wet Spring so the ground is saturated.

[ahebron]

I would use a D/D H3 ply for that job or just get some cheap ply and seal it.

[PeteH]

I`v been thinking ahead about how to manage the Prep/paint on the 13/60. And was considering one of those cheap "party tents". They come in a 6x3M size which would make a fair sized Spray booth?. I`v seen them online for less than £150. The quality shouldn't be critical as it`s more a "one shot" job.

Pete

[Dick Twitchen]

Pete, I used the next size up last year to put the boat in to do repairs and paint when COVID lockdown closed the harbours.  Worked fine and once the sun came out was surprisingly comfy to work in.  Once the job was done I sold it on (Gumtree) for about £50 less than I paid for it.   Dick 

[Bfg]

3 hours ago, PeteH said:

thinking ahead about how to manage the Prep/paint on the 13/60. And was considering one of those cheap "party tents". They come in a 6x3M size which would make a fair sized Spray booth?.

Would you not find that 9ft-9in (max width) is a tad too tight to stand back and spray paint.?  

I guess those gazebos are light enough to carry / walk across by a foot or so when working on one side rather than the other.  You'll note that most have a disclaimer saying not to leave up overnight or unattended (..because they can tend to blow away). 

Pete

[PeteH]

The final finish is scheduled to be done in a pro shop. But the base coat, flatting, rubbing down with all the dust and over-spray involved would IMV be better done separately from the garage. The Herald is not a particularly wide car, i`ve painted one before in a single garage. We`ve had cheapo gazebo`s before and they can be strapped down fairly successfully with ratchet straps and ground anchors. short of the howling gale?, at the moment the jury is out on it.

Pete

[Bfg]

On 23/10/2021 at 22:10, Bfg said:

Dynamo...

^ Tested it and the output was 1-volt at tick-over.  Should be around 14 - 15v.   Mssr Haynes proposes its field windings are culprit,  so I took it off and opened it up to have a look see. . .  

^ One of the brush springs is very weak and so a lack of good contact is possibly why it's stopped working right now. but those copper coloured filings are from the plain bush, the other end bear doesn't feel too tight either.   Undoubtedly it could be refurbished with new plain-bushes, etc., but the rest of it doesn't look too bright ...so if you happen to have one on the shelf that'll fit ?

Cheers,

Pete - in Suffolk

^ Looking rather forlorn, the parcel from Bob arrive safely, albeit having been delivered to the wrong address first.

Great weather for working out in my new polytunnel, so I opened the parcel today . . .

 

^ Katie's old dynamo (left) is a 22704H and the one from Bob is a 22700.   Very slight difference as you can see in field-winding case. but overall the brackets and pulley wheel offset are the same and so the two are interchangeable. 

^ again slight variation but nothing much to write about

^ As a matter of course I opened it up to check the brushes, their springs and to lubricate the plain-bushes.  All looking used but good.  The brushes were fine, as were their springs. The bushes are little worn but serviceable for next 100,000 miles.   I'll most likely replace the bushes and springs in Katie's old dynamo to see if that's why it stopped working, so while at it I'll get a spare pair of bushes for this one.

Lubrication of those bushes is a bit hit and miss.  In the third photo you'll see that there is a hole in the end for oil.  inside this is felt pad to hold the oil and then a metal plate to keep the felt in place.   On the TR4 / 4A the exhaust down-pipe is close behind the dynamo and so I'm not sure how one is supposed to get in there to oil it, and if one did then how to gauge how much oil is going in.  I did this one by sitting the end cap facing up and filling the bush with oil until it dribbled out through the felt and the oiling hole.  I think it's worth taking the dynamo off every 25,000 miles to lubricate it.  It wouldn't take long to do so.  

I didn't dismantle the pulley wheel off the front of the dynamo, but I'm thinking the bush at that end is similarly lubricated by oil in felt. I don't see a lubrication point though.  With the field windings lifted off the armature, I could see grease had squeezed out of it. so I cleaned that away (not doing anything anyway) and stood the dynamo on end and used used a small paintbrush to apply oil around that bush so that it ran down into it.   I hope my presumption that there's a felt pad in there is correct.

Anyway after a bit of cleaning, a good go at lubrication, a light burnishing of the armature's brush contacts ..and my tarting it up to look pretty . . .

^ looking good for a 60 year old,  well better than I'm faring anyway   

p.s. what are the three tapered lugs on the fan-belt pulley for ?  I might only guess for winding the dynamo up to speed when testing, but as far as I can think of.. nothing else has this sort of built-in test feature.  So perhaps there is a tool to engage with those to help fitting the fan belt, sort-of-like a tyre fitting lever ?  If so, I don't recall ever seeing one being used.

 

^ Job done.  The bolt  for the adjuster was a different thread than Katie's previous, but all is now back together and suitably (very loosely) tensioned.  As before the red warning light comes on at tick-over speeds but soon goes out when revved even just a little.  

BIG THANKS  to Bob for helping me out with this.  I owe him.

Pete.

 

p.p.s.. If you happen to build an almost closed polytunnel or similar over your patio ..remember to first close the patio door before you start the car from cold.  Exhaust fumes in the house are not clever.   

 

[Bfg]

I took advantage of yesterday's calm and dry weather, to finish off the entrance-end of the gazebo and then also in lacing down the polythene's edge beam along the low side wall. 

Today it was blustery and wet but the extended gazebo is doing a great job of keeping most of the wind n' wet out, so I found a little motivation to get on with the TR (Triumph Recommissioning). . .

^ Back to Katie s  rear suspension's  'other issues'

^ while I remember it and have access to grease the outer UJ

^ probably hasn't been disassembled and greased in many years, so although the adjuster turned easily enough, the two pistons were really very tight (ancient dried grease).  And as a consequence of someone having used the wrong size of spanner ..the 1/4" square adjuster end was chewed up.

[ Tip :  If you don't have the right tool to adjust these..  might I suggest you use a very small 1/4"-drive socket inverted over the square peg, and then use an Allen key in the nut-end of the socket.  It really is that simple and very compact tools to keep in your tool roll.  ]   

^ to get the adjuster out I cut a screwdriver slot across its end.

^ Not wanting to disconnect the hydraulics, and therefore have to later re-bleed the brakes, I hung the backing plate / brake assembly (less its adjuster) on a cord, and dropped the trailing arm out from underneath.  Btw., it's nice and easy to get the polybush bolts out.. having slightly slotted one bolt hole in each bracket so the bracket's pivot axis are now in line (ie. without twist in each polybush). 

Of course, short daylight hours, combined with starting into the job late in the day, means working in the shadows.   I've brought some LED lamps home from the container so tomorrow I'll be rigging those up in the gazebo.

^ That's off and ready to be repaired or replaced.  Removing it took a little less than an hour and a half from start to finish ..working at my usual casual pace.  Aside from the brake adjuster, one of the studs which hold the wheel-hub has stripped out and also there's a crack in the underside flange (see below).  The first two I could deal with in situ., but if I am to have the arm welded then it had to come off. . .

^ Seems as if the prior owner, the TR specialist who swapped the chassis ..and the MOT man missed this crack in the trailing-arm casting.  That's a sad state of affairs  ..another one to look out for gents.!

Whether it is coincidence, just a wear n' tear thing, or they are related - I can't say, but this side / the offside of the car had been T-boned (while driven by the previous owner).  It was professionally repaired with another door, sill and possibly other panels. I replaced the half-shaft because the sliding spline was clonking. The wheel bearing was also loose, and then I found one or two of the studs holding the wheel's hub on were stripped.  While underneath, setting the rear suspension camber & ride height, I spotted this crack, but wanted to get that job done before being diverted by these 'other issues'.     

That's it for today

Bidding you a good evening,

Pete

 

[Colin Lindsay]

Well spotted!! I trust it's repairable?

[Bfg]

8 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Well spotted!! I trust it's repairable?

Yes I think so.  Cast aluminium cylinder heads and similar parts of engine are often welded up ..although of course those are mostly in compression or unstressed ..and this is very much subject to tension and possibly torsional loads.  But still it ought to be weldable by someone capable, even if they feel the necessity to add extra material to beef it up.  

Still, I spoke with my friend Rich earlier in the day, as he had mentioned he had a couple of odd trailing arms, but wasn't sure which side they were from.?  This evening he's dropped me a line to say that I'm in luck and he has the offside   ..so I'll swap this trailing arm out for one that has already been refurbished.  I will of course need to swap the polybushes over from one to the other, which ought to be interesting as I've never done that before. 

Pete

[Colin Lindsay]

That's god luck. I must admit I'd always be suspicious of rewelded parts, especially when the speedo starts to hit the higher figures and the road gets bumpy. 

Red or blue polybushes? Blue is relatively easy, red a nightmare.

[1969Mk3Spitfire]

On 28/10/2021 at 10:54, Bfg said:

…………in my own boat……….

Pete. 

Oops! That got my attention. What sort of boat do you have?

One of my other hobbies is sailing. Sorry for thread drift 😁

[Pete Lewis]

there are steel  drilling jigs about for drilling out sheared studs as drilling the steel stud in the alloy ends up wandering if not done carefully   easy to make a steel  bar  to hold the drill bit  in place     to straddle two other studs 

and a good few   on fleabay  

gorilla hands have been at work   they are quite a low torque    , more a hand nip 

Pete

 

[Bfg]

Yes indeed the nuts onto the studs which hold these hubs on, have a specified torque of just 16ft/lb.  imho using an UNF thread into a cast alloy is poor engineering practice .. but hey what do I know.

On 05/11/2021 at 12:05, Colin Lindsay said:

Red or blue polybushes? Blue is relatively easy, red a nightmare.

Pretty red ones of course   

^ I didn't actually know 'Polybush' was a actual brand, I presumed it was just a generic name for bushes of this material, but these have the name moulded onto them along with a code 34F.

Not a nightmare at all, imo ..just a little time consuming . . .

   

^ Replacement RHS trailing arm (left) courtesy of Rich, who had it blasted, and then visually inspected and refurbished it with new grommets, studs, thick washers and nylocs.  All very nice too ..would recommend. 

There are quite a few detail differences, and the castings were clearly re-tooled, so it may be that the new one may be from a later car (ie., a TR6).  Aside from the fact that Katie's had a big STANPART cast into it, whereas its replacement doesn't - the most obvious is of the stiffening web between the coil spring cup and the tube which encloses the half shaft.  I haven't run a tape measure over them to compare but the part numbers are the same (marked onto each of these arms) I'm guessing they are dimensionally interchangeable.  I flipping hope so anyway !

So out with the polybushes, and.. in with the polybushes . . .

^ Firstly I drove out the steel compression tube from each polybush.  I used an extended socket to do this with a block of wood as a hammer.  Thereafter this illustrates the extraction technique using a simple length of all-thread some washers and two nuts.  Sophisticated I know but I don't have much else in the way of facilities to hand.   (photo timed at 12:02 pm)

^ Going, going . . .

^ Gone.

^ This is the other end being drawn out.  This photo was timed at 12:22pm, so it took me 20 minutes to set up and extract these two nightmare  red polybushes. 

 

^ The inside, where the bush is fitted, was a little rough from where it had been blasted, so I quickly ran some emery paper through to smooth the high spots off.   

I then thought to clear lacquer the replacement arm ..to avoid surface corrosion and lessen grubby finger prints on it too.  While that was air drying, I moved over to cleaning up the rear brake adjuster. 

 

And then, back to fitting the polybushes . . .

   

^ I used a liberal smear of this 'synthetic lubricant with Teflon' inside the hole to help prevent corrosion of the aluminium, and to aid fitting.  Non was applied to the polybush itself.   Then using the same length of all-thread I pulled the bushes into place.   (This photo was timed at 14:11pm) 

^ drawing in

^ and then I moved the nut and washers to the other end, to fit that, again just the hole is smeared with the synthetic lubricant. 

^ Getting the first 1/8" of wider rim in is of course the most difficult part, but a pair of grips helped squeeze it.  I similarly used the grips (with soft rag) directly on the polybush, working my way around it to squeeze from different angles. It soon submitted to the pressure from the all-thread pushing it in.  NB. the steel compression tube is not in there yet, as that would make compressing the bush rather difficult.

 

^ Once the rim is in, then a block of wood onto the end nut is quicker than winding the thread in.  The block of wood (mallet) of course is used at an angle, as required to straighten the bush's alignment. 

^ that was not at all too difficult.  the bruising of the block of wood (which is only 350mm long so not at all massive) shows where I clouted onto the end of nut (while doing both ends).  This photo was timed at 14:43pm so with my dilly dallying around with running the nuts up and down that all-thread, my taking piccies, and making a cuppa coffee too, it took me 32 minutes to fit them.  Naturally I didn't break a sweat  and, unusually for me, I didn't have cause to curse either. ! 

The compression tubes were cleaned up, with a power wire brush, smeared with the synthetic lubricant, and the all-thread used to pull each in for the first few mm. then they were knocked home with the block of wood..  

 

^ Job done.

Pete

 

[Colin Lindsay]

1 minute ago, Bfg said:

it took me 20 minutes to set up and extract these two nightmare poly-bushes. 

with my dilly dallying around with running the nuts up and down that all-thread, my taking piccies, and making a cuppa coffee too, it took me 32 minutes to fit them. 

I bow in awe of your superior methodology. I had to go borrow the use of a hydraulic press to fit the red bushes into the GT6 rear radius arms, but then I suppose there's nothing to pull them against, as in the two-bush trailing arms. I use the same threaded bar method to fit steering column bushes, but then they're simple by comparison.

[Bfg]

3 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

I bow in awe of your superior methodology. I had to go borrow the use of a hydraulic press to fit the red bushes into the GT6 rear radius arms, but then I suppose there's nothing to pull them against, as in the two-bush trailing arms. I use the same threaded bar method to fit steering column bushes, but then they're simple by comparison.

I just used what I had to hand  ..and I happened to have brought the all-thread from my storage container to use as a spring compressor for the front suspension's coil.  Another item on my job list. 

^ This is just being pulled (or is that pushed ?) in against the one end.   I am unfamiliar with the GT6 radius arm, but would this not work. ?

Pete

[Colin Lindsay]

1 hour ago, Bfg said:

I am unfamiliar with the GT6 radius arm, but would this not work. ?

Pete

I tried pushing pulling and squeezing... but no go. The threaded bar actually stripped the threads before it even started to compress the bush in, so off to the press it went. I'll stick to blue in future (or actually orange, as my current versions are.)

  

 

[Pete Lewis]

supa flex from C witor generally come with a sachet of a waxy paste to lubricate fitting

soft soap is another good  aid 

Pete

[Peter Truman]

I think I read somewhere that you need to use the lubricant supplied or the bush/fitting dries out and the bush can squeak. TheDolly squeaks terribly after a long hot summer but stops if you wet the offending bush.