No Jam today, or in fact the whole weekend! 

20^th June 2012

As last year, my Triumph activities are not as intense as they have been in previous years. Since my last posting I have only entered the International Auto Ecosse, that event taking place over the Jubilee Weekend in June.

I had a great time enjoying some spirited driving in the GT6 in the company of my old mate Darren Reynolds. We spent the whole weekend driving the event with Dave Langrick and his friend Gary in Dave’s infamous Spitfire 2000pi called the ‘Maiden’, Tom Key and Tom Bamford in the first Tom’s Golf GT1 mk1 and Jason Chinn and Carl Shakespeare in Jason’s mk1 2.5Pi saloon. Tom was using the Golf following his accident in his lovely old TR6, that is now being re-built. That VW is a beast, it has a Corrado engine up front and flys, making a gorgeous noise over 4K revs. Tom does drive the car with a certain verve, the car makes light of those who like the more established traditional motor cars in the UK old car movement and mock the more modern designs. Surely the Golf GTi is a landmark vehicle in the history of motoring and certainly proved that VW could make exciting transcendental cars after years of making the rather awful Beetle which has the vehicle dynamics of a snail. It is still beyond my comprehension why the Beetle and its awful derivatives are so popular?

The first day started with a loose ground test on some ground at the back of a local garage, followed by some atmospheric driving through the Scottish borders. Darren and I did the test in 32 seconds a competitive time that I hoped we could build upon to use to win the event! We then crossed the Fourth Road Bridge, only the second time I have crossed that road in daylight, all previous crossings being on the RBRR, and set off for the 2^nd test venue at an Amazon delivery centre car park near Glenrothes. This test looked to be fun as it consisted of a serious slalom and 360 degree manoeuvrability examination where the driver would rely upon his co-driver to guide him round a complicated course. We were the first car/crew to line up and I think did very well, Darren guiding me with the authority that a good co driver should exhibit, firm instructions making it difficult for me to go wrong. Our time was competitive and I drove away thinking that we were on the right track (literally).

Then it was onto St Andrews and up to Perth for the Saturday night. We stayed at a Travelodge just down the road from the nominated Travelodge venue and subsequently had to drive a couple of miles to meet up with the above motley crew in a pub. After a very nice dinner a few beers were consumed and the banter started to fly. Tom K came up with a gem of a comment following my statement that driving a ‘modern’ car like his that this event must be simple, his reply being that it was like driving an electric chair. Gary followed this up with a line about the car being a ‘Death Row Ride’. Maybe you had to be there, but all of us fell around laughing at the spontaneity of this comment. The beer started to flow and it must be said we all had a great evening talking Triumph BS!

The next morning dawned bright and very blue, amazing considering that London seemed to be under low cloud cover for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Surely there cannot be many better places in the UK than Scotland when the sun is shining, the skies are dark blue and the daylight is long! Actually, we had been surprised by the number of Union Jacks we had encountered throughout the route, we thought that the Scots would show complete disdain for the celebration of the Queen’s 60 years reign, how wrong were we! By the way if staying at a Travelodge, the £4.50 breakfast that is delivered to your door is a tadge disappointing, umm that is being mild, it was a disgrace! The night before we had gloated that we had sorted breakfast for the morning, I noticed that Jason did not say much at that point. Him, being a frequent UK traveller and well versed in the UK’s cheap hotel chains made me question our decision and on receipt of the breakfast packages I realised he was correct! I made a mental note, only use B&Bs in the future!

The first section of the morning consisted of a great B road that enabled fast flowing driving, something I have always felt the GT6 excels at with its torquey engine and handling that promotes progressive inputs. It was real fun, especially as we had the ominous presence of the two Toms in the Golf behind us, sometimes sticking to the posterior of the GT6, sometimes backing off, sometimes just well, roaring past!

We then set off down a very bumpy road that ran alongside Loch Earn, this must be a keen fishing hang out as the whole road was populated by camper vans, tents and slowly ebbing fires. I was worried that we might spoil the fishing with the loudness of the cars, however most of the people around the area seemed pleased to see us. After a bit of duck and diving we ended up on the A84 a road familiar to RBRR regulars, unfortunately this was full of slow moving traffic, a shame as the flowing bends make it a real pleasure to drive. We then dived down the A821 which is an interesting road that eventually leads into the tourist town of Aberfoyle. I have driven these roads before and must say that they remind me of roads in the Alps. One of the cars in our group started to encounter running problems, this resulted in us getting to the Loch Lomond tests too late to enable us to have a go. Therefore we were out of the event, to say I was disappointed would be putting it mildly. I was annoyed as no timings for the Tests were present within the Road Book, if we had known we could have got there a bit earlier and completed the Test.

After this we had a good look at the Road Book and decided to cross the Clyde over the Erskine Bridge and get out of the Glasgow district as quickly as possible by using motorways and dual carriageways. This took some time as the traffic was quiet heavy, but we got down and back on the route in the vicinity of Ayr and then followed the A713 until we got to Patna. Here we decided to pull over and decide if we should get back on route or just ‘boot’ it back to Longtown. We decided to take the B road through the Carick Forest and boy that was the right decision. What a marvellous road coupled with stunning scenery, so good that we decided to pull over and have a look around. This was a mistake as two days later I started to erupt with midge bites, gawd! After this was a fun and fast drive back to Longtown, via a minor excursion into a lay by. There was a test laid on in Longtown, as we had not completed all the tests we all decided to give them a miss, the reasoning being that the cars needed a breather!

After this it was back to the Graham Arms for a nice meal and the awards. Big downer, the only ale on sale being John Smith’s, why is mass produced UK so rubbish! This years IAE being won by a couple of Cumbrian lads in a wild Hillman Imp. There was a mistake by the timing judges and Steve Thompson and Gary Sneddon were given the main award, however Steve himself realised that the Imp lads should get the award and very sportingly gave the prize to them. Well done Steve, what a sport (Now, loose the bizarre clothing and start to dress like an Englishman)!

So that ended the IAE and whilst the eight of us had a great time driving around Scotland it must be said that the IAE was not as much fun as I had in previous years. I must say thanks to all the lads (The Mild Bunch)I spent time with, great spirit, banter and fun coupled with a few drinks in the evenings, marvellous!

Not a great pic this, but there they are, yep a mild bunch!

The GT6 went really well, not sure who started the rumour that I had wheel bearing issues, apart from adjustment of the fan belt I did not put a spanner on the car. I did check a wheel bearing by putting her up on the screw jack, but all I could detect was a minor bit of movement.

By the time we got back we reckoned we had covered some 1350miles, and it’s a great pleasure to state that we did not encounter one traffic jam, hence the total of this blog entry!

Massive thanks to Jason for sorting our B&B accommodation near to Longtown, he found a most suitable place for us for the Friday and Saturday. Nice work Mr Accommodation Officer!

I must also thank Dave Pearson of Canley Classics for finding a new CV pot two weeks before the event, without that our entry into the IAE was looking doubtful.

One final pic from the IAE, Matt Roughly's very nice BMW 2002, nice and standard!!!

One interesting aspect of driving the GT6 for its first major run since the crash re-build is that the lack of front bumper definitely reduces the water temperature, I think the car runs at 5 degrees C cooler. However, this does not make me think of continuing driving the car without a front bumper. I sold my crashed bonnet to Richard Brake and since I made the decision to stick the bumper back on, he very kindly gave back the bonnet support tubes to me so that I could use them. I will also stick the rear quarter bumpers back onto the car, these have been off her since 1984!!! To help reduce the water temperature I may well look to get a radiator built for the car similar to the one shown in Kas Kastner’s GT6 Competition manual of the late sixties.

I have nearly finished the Spitfire’s new engine and gearbox installation and will now have to run her in, this will consist of an over night run to the west country one Saturday night. I last did this in 1992 when I built a new engine for the GT6, seems a great way to get varied driving under the car’s belt and explore the rev range gradually.


Next up are Classic Le Mans and the CT Autosolo at Bovingdon. James Cooper is coming with me to CLM and I hope to take the 2.5 mk1 to Le Mans, the car will make mincemeat of the mileages involved and will enable us to travel in comfort and of course not limit the amount of stuff we can take. Today I got the old car MOT’d and must say that on the drive back she went very well, truly a superb car. I am looking forward to taking her to Le Mans, should be a blast. I have now sorted the overdrive, simple fault, a contact withing the column switch had become loose. A present I have used a 5 amp Lucas toggle switch, this will be replaced in due course by either the correct switch or a toggle switch with a LED in the end. Some jobs need to be addressed before CLM, the most important items to sort are the rear tyres, I will have to purchase some new 185/65/15 rubber, hope to be able to source either Continentals or Michelin tyres at a good price. The Revolution wheels are starting to corrode, so I will have to get the rims polished, bet that will be expensive, this may have to wait until the eve of the RBRR.

On the net the other week and I found this car for sale, in fact I believe it has now been sold. What a nice looking mk2 GT6, hope whoever has bought her uses the wee car. Apart from the 5.5J Dunlop holed steels, she looks very original and certainly makes me question the lack of bumpers on mine! Without being a GT6 anorak, the car also features an original mk2 steering wheel, very rare!

Times passes slowly... er, no it does'nt!

29th April 2012


Sitting around today looking out of the window at the torrential rain of the last two days and thought I’d better write something for this blog.


Not a lot to report on the saloon, its MOT has expired and I need to put her through it soon. At present it will fail as I think it needs some welding on the underneath, also I’d like to fit another speedo and new speedo cable. Looking at the Chris Witor website, I see that he does mk1 Pi speedos, good news and not an unreasonable price of £25. Otherwise I think the car would be fine. The aim is now to use her for the forthcoming Classic Le Mans trip at the beginning of July, she is so dependable and cruises so well that it is an obvious choice. After that it will be the RBRR, another event the car is ideally suited too. I used the car on the 08 RBRR and it must be said the car made the event relatively easy (RBRR easy, yeah, right!), hammering the fast motorway sections and with the nice handling compromise that these cars exhibit make the fast A road sections good fun. The route that we will be using is similar to that used in 2010 and will enable one to have fun in Scotland and Wales.

The Spitfire is progressing along again after a period of apathy. I have entered the forthcoming Bocardo Autosolo at a Silverstone car park and hope to use the Spitfire. I entered a 7Oaks event last year and came second in my class so I hope to do better this time in the light blue car. I will be in the same class as Matt Helm and James Cooper, so I expect some serious competition. Matt is nearly untouchable in his 1500 Spitfire, however James using his m4 Spitfire may be catchable. However, he has improved so much that I think this may be a problem.


At the present time a number of jobs need to be completed, these being:
1. Alternator and water pump installation
2. Carburettor and air filter installation
3. Re-fit the interior including wiring up the J type overdrive
4. Re-fit the exhaust


After this I will then have run the car in, this leaves two weeks, so it could be a ‘touch and go’ scenerio. After that, I hope to install new brakes to the front of the car these include Hi Spec alloy callipers I have in the storage shed. I have little bit of corrosion to deal with around the front indicator sidelight area of the bonnet. I will get this repaired over the winter. All in all, I am looking forward to driving the Spittie again.


Preparation for the June International Auto Ecosse continues for the GT6, the only snags being a MOT needed in May and the rear end vibration that is still plaguing the car. I have fitted the diff and driveshafts that I got Canley Classics to have a look at in March. One of the snags I encountered was that the rear chassis fixing for the differential had distorted quite badly, the outer sections of chassis closing in hard against the diff. This meant that I had to lever the diff out. I called up James Cooper who very kindly came over with his welder and stuck in some new reinforcement sections, these have done the job and made really hold the diff to the car. I replaced the rear bushes with red polybushes, this lead me to think that I might have solved the rear end vibration issue. Not a chance, what a bummer! Dave Pearson at Canleys found one of the inner CV pots to be badly corroded, as he did not have any in stock he replaced the bearings and fitted the pot to the driveshaft. On driving the car I found the vibration had diminished, sadly the vibe returned after the Autosolo event I did at North Weald aerodrome, in fact it is now worse than ever. I hope to collect a new inner pot soon and fit it before the IAE.


Got to say I am looking forward to the IAE, it will be nice to take part in the event again, many friends are taking part including some who have not before: Dale Barker, Tom Key and Carl Shakespeare. The mixture of great roads, tests and socialising make the event great fun. The only shame being that Dave Pearson, Joe and Frank Welling and Craig Gingell are not coming along this year, their prescence will be missed. Last years event had some stand out moments, the weirdest being standing in a bus shelter eating dodgy pie and chips with a lot of Triumphists while rain fell as if it had never rained before, er, yeah, you had to be there! Once again my old mate, Darren Reynolds is coming up with me. Darren should really drive the tests as he is a better driver then me. I am a bit pissed off with him at the moment as he has just sold his superb Subaru Impreza, a special factory one full of alloy panels and trick suspension parts. Possibly the fastest car I have driven, this at a time that the car was suffering from serious clutch slip! He's had some superb cars over the years, these include a couple of Kent engined Caterhams, Cosworth Sierra 3 door, BMW M3, Mini 1275GT, Elan Series 3, Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 and some MGs: MGB GT and Midget.

At present the GT6 is going well, in fact it seems relatively fast for a GT6. On Friday evening I went over to James Cooper’s to collect some parts from him and afterwards decided to go for a drive in the late evening sunshine over on the country roads that are around the Cobham Common area of Surrey. The car still seems to handle well for a GT6 and will rev out in all lower gears, in fact most of the performance seems to come in at over 4K revs. She still turns in well and seems to ride poorly surfaced roads quite well. In fact its an exciting little car to drive fast, the most excitement being the exhaust noise over 3K, fair makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up! 


Got to say I think I will replace the front bumper over the winter. To help with this Richard Brake has kindly let me have the old bonnet tubes that were on my old dented bonnet when I sold it to him last August. I still have the rear quarter bumpers that I took off the car back in 1984, these will go back on at the same time. 


I still have not delivered the suspension parts to my brother in law to get them powder coated, I will have to get my finger out on that one as I would like to have the new suspension on for the CT Autosolo in July.


This summer/autumn offers some great events for me to enter:


20/05: Oxford MC Bocardo Autosolo at Silverstone: Spitfire
2 & 3/06: International Auto Ecosse: Scotland: GT6
15/07: CT Autosolo, Bovingdon: GT6
5,6 & 7/10: CT RBRR: 2.5 SU
12/10: HERO Throckmorton Challenge: Spitfire


All seem quite affordable, that is apart from the HERO event, £250 is the cost of that single day event consisting of 17 Tests and a few regularities, a bit pricey!!! Maybe I should save my money and enter LeJog one year?
Depending upon how the Spitfire goes and what money I have available I would love to start Sprinting the car next year, however I think I may have to defer that idea for another year. The event that really attracts me is the 7Oaks Motor Club ‘Motorsport at the Palace’ sprint that is held at Crystal Palace park. The company I work for re-surfaced a section of the course in 2010, so I got to meet a few of the organisers and I must say the Club is staffed by some true club motor sport enthusiasts. The event seems geared towards historic motoring and I am sure would be really good fun. I think Matt Helm hopes to enter the event one year, if he does I am sure he will do very well as he is a talented driver.

I mentioned above that I used the GT6 in the recent CSMA North Weald Autosolo, it was good driving the little car again but must admit I found it hard work. The course used a large test area, however the tests were deceptively intricate and not really suited to the GT6. I won the over 2000cc Historic Class, but as Mike Helm (TR6) and Andy Martin (Vitesse) had retired I did not really have to struggle. Richard Brake was in my class using his mk1 saloon, Richard did well considering the bulk of the vehicle, but I am sure he would admit that he would never challenge me, howver using his Spitfire/GT6 hybrid and I am sure the story would have been different. I came 3^rd of the Triumph owners, being beaten by Matt and James Cooper in Spitfires. 


James is really starting to mount a challenge towards Matt and I think could well start to equal his times when his new Spitfire is ready. This car will feature a Subaru final drive coupled with CV driveshafts and lower wishbones, a tuned 1500 engine running on Weber sidedraught carbs and a fibreglass bonnet so I imagine he will be very competitive. I’d love to do similar mods to my mk2, however I think that would de-value the car, my reasoning being that I need to sympathetically modify the car in a 60s manner!


I have been reviewing this Blog recently and must apologise for the lack of photos, I will have to start to take the camera out into the garage when working on the vehicles.

It was never gonna turn out bad, and it did'nt!

Sitting here at the PC when I should be out in the garage, however it’s a tadge parky for any spanner action!

Having got the GT6 back from Dave Picton’s establishment I am overjoyed by the work that he and his team have done. However this has had one major downside, the engine bay now looks crap! With this in mind I have stripped out the engine bay valances down all the wiring and cleaned the cables with whites spirits and will bind them using expandable braided sleeving. At present a lot of the bullet connectors for that connect the bonnet wiring are those awful insulated blue bullets, once I can afford the proper crimping tool, I will replace those with the correct OE bullet connectors.

For many years the car has had alloy engine bay valances, these are now in an awful state, so I will clean these down and paint to attempt to make them more presentable. On the subject of engine bay valances, I see that a chap on e-bay sells new units that look to be very good. Two types are available, one set with louvres and one set without, both sets look very jazzy and at £60 a set not a bad price! One or two GT6 owning friends think I should not fit the valances as they deflect the heat from the engine and radiator into the gearbox tunnel and then of course into the cockpit, I can see the logic of this argument, but the majority of the heat that enters comes from the exhaust so I will continue to use the valances as they do keep the engine bay cleaner.

I have now stripped down the front suspension units that I bought from Dave down, I will be taking these to my brother in laws powder coating establishment next weekend to get them painted. Hit a snag though as the OS lower wishbone is not useable, but as usual the CT jungle drums have resolved that problem and Clive Senior will let me have one, ta, Clive! Once back from being painted, they will be polybushed and put onto the car. The turrets I have will look good when painted, of course, the snag when fitting the OS turret is that the steering column has to be dismantled, still a good time to check over the steering system.

Once this has been done, I will turn my attention to the bulkhead area around the master cylinders, battery etc. This whole area looks very shabby and needs some serious attention from the spray can. So it’ll be out with the wire brush and get stuck in cleaning and then paint it, thinking about satin black or maybe grey. On the CT forum, I see lots of people rave about Por paint, I am not so sure and will probably go for rattle cans! Richard Brake has just told me that Halfords mix up Triumph colours, blimey!

Then, it is time to get stuck into the interior of the car. A layer of sound insulation needs to be fitted under the carpet and then I need to clean up the luggage bay side trim panels and fit them. Unfortunately the luggage boards were damaged in the accident, I have a new OS board for the petrol tank side so will cut and fit a 8mm mdf board over the spare wheel. These will be bolted to the long bridging bracket that fits between the wheelarches. Once done, I will re-fit the roll over bar.

The drive back from Dave’s place at Waltham Cross, was very instructive. I still have the rear end vibration, so I will have to tear down the rear suspension and get that looked at before June as I desperately want to take the car to Scotland for the IAE. However the car drove straightly and seemed so solid, this all bodes well for some fast road action!

One of the snags of driving the car back from Waltham Cross was that I spent a lot of time looking in the rear view mirror with the dread that some plum was going to hit the car up the arse again, gawd, I was nervous! The rear of the car has been hit twice in the last 3 years and I half expect to be going through the whole accident process again!

I have attached two photos that show the car as she now looks. I must admit that at present I am in two minds about the bumperless look that I opted for, I think it makes the car look like a mk1. However it will cost a fair bit to change back to the original look, this cost would include the new bumper, from what I have seen these are dead pricey, £200? Of course, one attribute to the lack of bumper is that I have got rid of some front end weight, little less understeer? I do like the stick on number plate and this will stay, of course this means no front bonnet badge, but hey, more weight saving!

Once this chunk of work has been done I will then just use the car!

Overall I am really pleased with the outcome of the accident shenanigans. I must use this space to publicly thank Dave Picton, he guided me though the repair process and I think has done a great job on the car. Of course, one could say that Dave (hopefully) made some money out of the job, but it was a risky job as the car was very badly damaged. As we both discussed, the car is well known within CT circles and does seem to have a degree of notoriety, therefore anything other than a great job will be sniffed at by some of the experts within the Club. One or two who have seen her think she looks better than ever and I must agree, check out the gaps! Therefore, I would not hesitate in recommending Dave and his business.

All I need now is some good weather to enable me to go out into the garage and get stuck in!

Here are a couple of pics of the Spittie!

Blimey, its all getting a tadge exciting!

Just spent two days over with Dave Picton working on the GT6, amazed at how little we managed to do!

Anyway, thought it might be an idea to record the various conditions of the 3 cars:

GT6 MK2
Well its mostly painted, the exterior side of the new bonnet gets done tomorrow morning. Dave and Corry (Dave's painter) have had to do a lot of shaping and bashing to get the new bonnet into the correct shape. In primer, it does look superb and once painted will look very nice. The body tub looks superb, the paint finish that they have acheived looks very nice. Dave built up two new doors and fitted new exterior sills, by doing this he has acheived very nice gaps around the crucial door/sill area, this aspect of the car has always been disappointing. Shockingly Dave found that the previous company to have done sill work to the car did'nt bother completely welding up the various panels around the A post part of the cars structure. I am furious about this, a nasty side impact would have meant the car would have folded up and meant damage to me around the leg area, nice eh! I will not state who did the work as that could be libellous, however the guy who did the work used to be a friend of mine!
Most of the car is now back together, just needing the rear indicators, sunroof, door weatherstrips, door cards, number plates and the front lights fitted. Dave will also 'waxoyl' the car before I take her home. I have just laid the carpets into the car and fitted the seats over these at pres. as I wish to lay some sound insulation material into the car.
The car looks superb just sitting on axle stands at Dave's premises, the royal blue paint looks nice and deep and has polished up very well. The small amounts of chrome on the car look really good, I reckon it will look better than at any other point that I have owned her in the last 28 years!

When home I intend to strip down the front and rear suspension. I have just bought some GT6 front suspension units from Dave. These will be cleaned and powder coated, polybushed and installed. I will also take apart the rear suspension and re-bush that set up. As the CV shafts were one of the first Canley Classics units I will take these up to Dave Pearson (So many Daves in the Triumph world) and get those examined.

Spitfire mk2
I am slowly (Umm, that's a total understatement, 'shockingly slowly' is more apt) working through the new engine installation. I just need to bolt on all the ancillaries and source a few parts: bigger rad, pacet electric fan, water pump, air filter system. Also on for fitting 480lb front springs, need to get the car to handle better!

2.5Pi mk1 (SU)
This old cars just keeps going, however will need some localised repair welding works for the next MOT. Also the overdrive is playing up, I have a spare solenoid to try first, so will fit this after that? Still love driving the old car, getting on for 8 years of ownership now, ownership of the car been a total gas!

I should post some pics of the cars, will do when I remember to charge up the batteries for the camera!

Finally, the Focus ST has now done 127,000 miles, still going strong!