Club Triumph Competition Committee

I do hope people reading this do not mind me writing about the above Committee.

I think it is important to remember that Club Triumph is not a 'Classic' Car Club, but the original Triumph Motor Club owing to its 50s origin. By stating this I have nothing against 'Classics' but I think the terms 'Motor Club' or Car Club' portray the Club's history. The Club used to organise a wide range of events such as tours, autotests for new owners of Triumph cars, however by the late 70s membership was dropping off. The 'Classic car culture that sprung up at that time boosted interest in Triumph cars, membership starting to pick resulting in the membership of 1475 we presently enjoy. CT always had a problem in that it used to organise the biennial RBRR but for driving events more or less become dormant in between, thankfully the Club had the Show scene available to show its prescence.(Please note that the above comments are mine, not the Club's and certainly not the Club's policy).

This situation was relieved in 2003 by the first running of the 10 Countries Run, as conceived by Martin Randle. The other great tool in bringing together the membership is this website and its superb forum, making it easy to tap into the enthusiasm of the membership of make things happen-nice one, Mr Bennett!

Therefore in 2005 we formed the Comp. Ctte. and since then have produced some decent events, managed to get together a calendar of events that CT members can take part in and recently inaugurated four Championships. All of this hoping to make it exciting to be in the Club and of course further the use of Triumph cars either competitively or just getting them onto the road. The help of organisations such as Bedford Car Club, MG on Track, Caledonian Historic Motorsport Club and NESCRO must be acknowledged as they have been very willing to let our Members take part in their events, often making it unecessary to join their organisations. I do hope that this does not get read as self congratulatory, we are fully aware that we have lots of work to do to keep up the interest in Triumph cars and of course most importantly create or maintain events that the membership of CT can take part in and enjoy.

The aim of this Ctte is to provide cheap motorsport for the members of the Club to take part in. The Ctte will never be able to organise races or stage rallies, but we see no reason why we cannot organise fun events at the small budget end of motorsport culture. Talking with Dale Barker and Martin Randle, I think the CT Competition Committee have a few more exciting events planned over the next few years, information will be forthcoming as soon as finalised. This Committee is an imaginative bunch and whilst some of our ideas are a bit whacky the ones we run with are sure to offer a good time for CT members.

We have just held the first of what is hoped to become an annual event, the Club Triumph Autosolo and we managed to get 33 entrants together, this being far more than we expected. All CT members taking part seemed to be having a good time, whatever car they were using and however they were doing all were smiling throughout the day, not bad considering the awful weather we enjoyed. Top 3 results were:

1st. Mike Helm: TR6

2nd. Nigel Abdullah: Herald 1200 (Using Dale Barker's Herald)

3rd. Andy Martin: Vitesse 1600 (Ex Monte Carlo Rally car)

Their cars are shown below. Amazing pic of Andy's Vitesse eh!!

After the Autosolo, we have the first 12 Car Rally that the Club has organised taking part in Essex in August. New Ctte. Member Mike Banks has sorted this out, the attention to detail and planning he has done is top notch and again we are sure the event will be both challenging but fun.

Right, end of my sermon.

However, please get involved as driving cars is fun!!

Blimey, 2 useable Triumphs!

After an afternoon and early mornings work on the GT6 the longer driveshafts are now fitted to the car. As this involved stripping the rear suspension off the car, this meant dis-connecting the rear brakes. My old mate Diz popped over and pumped the pedal whilst I bleed the brakes. Alot of enthusiasts use 'Ezzi Bleeed' kits, personally I do not get on with these as I find it difficult to get a seal at the lid of the master cylinder. Therefore I have always used simple little bleeding pipes that have a one way valve fitted, these being available in motor factors for not much money. In fact they are so cheap that I have four of them are used in conjunction with small water bottles that have drilled caps with the pipe pushed through, makes it tidy for when they fall over as fluid does not get everywhere. So with one attached to each brake bleed nipple., its an easy job to whizz around and get a pedal, something like 15 mins.

So that was it the car is ready for next Sunday! After years of stripping and re-building rotoflex suspension and fighting gainst the distortion bought about by the rotoflex couplings its a joy to work with the CV suspension. The only sticking part is the attachment of the inner CV pot to the diff output shafts as getting the 3/8unf nylocs onto the studs is a bit fiddly. As usual the car exhibited positive camber whilst up in the air, however a reverse out of the garage and back in soon had the suspension sitting at the correct level, surprisingly enough it seems to be showing 1 - 2 degrees of negative camber now, weird as the longer shafts should not be at the end of the splines within the CV pots?

Its great to have the car back in use after its short time off the road. I mentioned last time that rot is starting to break out again, this is very apparent in the bonnet and the tailgate. Also badly affected is the return panel in the boot, this being badly holed especially in the area by the exhaust silencer box. Once the summer is over I will be taking the car to one of my mates houses as he has kindly agreed to let me leave the car in his dry garage. This means that the Herald can go into my garage. I think I am going to cost out how much it will cost to build a new double garage, luckily I will be able to buy all the materials very cheaply through work.

Right, next week I will be using the car in the Club Triumph Autosolo, I have also offered the use of the car to James Carruthers for this event. James is a tidy and smooth driver so it will be interesting to see how we compare, last time I did this I only managed to beat Katie Foreman using my car by 0.3secs over the day, I hope I can do better against James?

Found this photo of my car taking part in a TR Register Track Day back in 2004 at Mallory Park, really like it as the car looks to be going fast owing to the slight distortion, pretty little car eh!

This one is from the 2000 RBRR and is of my old mate Richard Arthers looking remarkably happy after 36 hours in the car!

Spanner time!

Been working on both the GT6 and the 2.5. GT6 to get ready for next weekends CT Autosolo and the saloon for last weekends CT National Day at Beaulieu.

I replaced the TCAs for the saloon, of course this was not easy as both the bushed joint was rusted solid on both arms and the drag strut to TCA joints were both rusted up. As speed was of the essence I bought re-con'd arms from James Paddock and bought a pair of secondhand drag struts from Canleys. This meant that I went up to Dave's to pick them up as well as the new longer CV driveshafts for the GT6. As I got there late in the afternoon we decided that a pint would be in order, so I popped down to The Manor in Fillongley with Dave and Joe Welling. Talking with them both, it looks like Canleys are about to enter another period of exciting new products for both small chassis'd, TR and big Saloon Triumph cars. I cannot divulge too much, but one or two saloon boys will be spending some money with Dave in September!

Anyrate back to the saloon, Saturday was spent sorting the front suspension out, I took the front subframe off the car and cleaned that up, re-fitted the frame, fitted the new TCAs and drag struts and then fitted the hubs etc. Followed by a good wash of the car it was soon time to get inside as darkness had descended! I enjoyed the day apart from the humidity. Only pig job being the fitting of the ARB links, these being the ball joint type as sold by Paddocks, I ended up having to drop the arb to get the link into place. Must say I did not find much difference with this better locating system, maybe its time to think about a different mounting and link them directly to the TCA. The car does roll, however I am loathe to fit a bigger diameter arb as I do not want any more understeer.

The next jobs to do to the car before the impending September CT 10CR are to get some localised welding to the sills of the car done to enable a MOT ticket to be obtained and change some UJs. Also of course I must change the cylinder head for the 2.5s unit I have.

Pic. showing the ARB link. I wonder how long it will last?

On the Sunday it was the CT National at Beaulieu in the New Forest. After talking to Doug Foreman during the week before the National, I offered to go and get the big fella from Ringmer, picking him up at 08.00. After an eventful drive we arrived at the National in a mega rainstorm making my fear of every CT National as a wet disaster seeming very probable. Anyrate it did not rain again, in fact many of us left the establishment looking a bit pink, especially Pete Fern and Alex Chandler, must be their ginger colouring? Besides is a pic of Mark Bland's fantastic 2000mk1, great the way mk1s are becoming so appreciated-Triumph's best?

It was great to see many old friends at the National. Good to see Doug and Mary Crutchfield in their glorious TR2, which got voted 'Car of the Day' following the submission of voting slips by nearly all present. Must say I was disapointed not to receive one vote for the 2.5, come on, open your peelers and see the quality of this car! Doug and Mary's TR2 won this award back in 2005, what is great about this car is that it is used, in fact I spent some time with them on the first 10CR in 2003. Last time I saw them was at last years Classic Le Mans, they were in Doug's gorgeous Morgan V8, they are always very welcoming and always good fun, some of Doug's observations are priceless and boy oh boy can he build a car!!

Also heartwarming was the reaction that Doug Foreman received from many who have not seen him since his M25 incident in March. The obvious fondness and greetings that he received from so many CT friends at the National emphasise the fact that he is a a popular sod! Doug's a strong old bugger, his injuries would have put paid to many a person, to see him walking around and obviously enjoying himself was terrific!

I always enjoy the CT National, it is not as big a day as the TR Reg or TSSC events, but it def. has a certain laid back charm, where the vibe seems to be have a chat, a cuppa and chill out talking about one's old car-seems ok to me! Club Triumph, the Club that likes to chat-dammed right!

On the way to Beaulieu we had passed a massive queue of cars on the A27/M27 attempting to get into the Goodwood Festival of Speed, as we seemed to have a ready made audience on the other side of the road I enjoyed giving the 2.5 some revs and letting the exhaust do the talking-fun if very childish!

I got in for about 19.00hrs after dropping Doug back at home, pleased in the fact that my work on the 2.5 had been successful and the car was definitely better than when I brought her back from Scotland following the LCC in June.

Above are the Vitesse of Nick Jones and 2000 of Chris Allen, both cars completed the last RBRR in October of 2008. I really like Chris' 2000, he uses it alot and the car has more or less converted Chris from being a Herald man to a big saloon man! As for Nick's Vitesse, I doubt if there is a more advanced Vitesse in the UK, the car features a Toyota gearbox, megajolt ignition and Nick's scratchbuilt single throttle body fuel injection. A superb car that will be going to Europe for the September 10CR. Also lurking in the background is Alex Chandler's 2000 mk1, a car that is coming on leaps and bounds, keep going Alex!

The snap below shows Carl Shakespeare's superb Dolly Sprint, this car also completed the last RBRR and is another example of a well executed rebuild where the owner is not scared to get out and use the car. I must get Carl to take me out for a spin in her sometime.

Right time to discuss the GT6, as mentioned previously the car did not get to Brands Hatch for the MGoT track evening as one of the driveshafts popped out. Well I stripped the rear suspension down on Thursday evening and have now got both suspension units ready to put back into the car after fitting longer shafts to the CV pots. Getting the old shafts out of the inboard pots was a bas*ard, ending up have to use some angle iron as a drift. Anyrate they are all back together and ready to go back in, one unit is in situ being held in with drifts at present as the picture testifys! Excuse the mess, but I slung everything back in under the car after finishing this evening. As can be seen my garage is a precast concrete type, this is hastening the departure from the world of the old car. In the 1.5 years I have left her in there she has taken on some serious rust owing to the way that concrete sweats. Once I have managed to save up some money I'd love to build a timber framed garage, however this could be some time as any spare dough seems to go back into the cars! I hope to have the car back on the road tomorrow night and will road test her on Sunday morning, cannot wait! Oh yes its the CT Autosolo a week on Sunday-fantastic!

At present I feel I have not done myself justice as my cars seem to be unreliable at present, the main reasons being complacency, lack of time and apathy! Spread too thin, umm!

Right too bed and then get up and meet some old friends for breakfast at a cafe, the three guys being friends of mine who I have known for 27 years and all having owned Triumphs at some point-TR6, Vitesse, 2.5Pi estate and Heralds. Might take the 2.5?

Blimey!

Umm, TD at Brands Hatch did not go so well, I had a good drive in the GT6 over to Brands around the M25 fighting and sparring with the continental lorries and got to within 1.5miles of Brands Hatch when disaster struck!

I was coming down 'Death' hill (Yep, the locals call that section of the A20 that, nice name) when the car lost drive, I managed to freewheel around the roundabout at the end and into the Texaco PFS. Quick look underneath to discover the OS driveshaft hanging out of the hub. Spent an hour attempting to get the shaft back into the CV joint to no avail. The best way to have attempted the job would have been to have taken the shaft of the diff end, push the shaft back into the outer CV and put bolt the shaft back onto the diff. However this would have entailed getting under the car supported on a small trolley jack on a hill, thinking about either the car falling on me or the car running down the hill damaging the underneath made the decision to get her recovered home easy! So first use of Peter James Insurance breakdown recovery system. Must say the company who picked me up, PJM from Swanley, were excellent, the recovery man took alot of care and was very courteous, not bad as he seemed to be suffering from the mother of all colds!
I must say thanks to Richard and Hilary Brake and Mike Banks for stopping and helping to move the car, they pushed the car up a part of the hill, no easy push, so thanks very much. Its great the help one receives from fellow CT members, all the members I come across are very friendly and pleasant.
I spoke to Dave Pearson, and he has sent me some new 1/2'' longer shafts, these will cure the problem, I will fit these next week and hopefully the car will be good to use for the impending Club Triumph Autosolo at Buntingford.

Managed to get home by 17.30, immediately leapt into the Focus and drove back to Brands Hatch. I took my crash helmet back with me and enjoyed passenger laps in Michael Helm's TR6 and Andy Martin's Vitesse (6003VC-Ex Works Monte Carlo Vitesse-I think driven by future Le Mans great Porsche driver (911 and 917) Vic Elford), both being great cars and very well driven. Mike showed me some great lines and boy did he attack the corners in the car, the ride over the rumble strips being impressive! Mike told me that the car has hard springs, but as is usual for cars when on a track the car felt lightly sprung. However I felt the roll was abit too much, Mike agrees and I believe he may source a stiffer anti roll bar for the front end.
Andy's Vitesse is a beauty, very well tied down and just it goes where he points it, very good-who said Vitesse do not handle? The biggest difference I felt between the two cars was the extra grunt afforded by the 2.5 engine in Mike's TR over Andy's triple weber'd 2 litre six. This was the first time I had been in Andy's car, and I was totally won over by the car, the attention to detail is superb, minor things like the seat belt webbing used to pull the perspex side windows up and down, the authentic haphazard layout of the dash being two examples of the hard work that has gone into the car when built by Canley Classics and by Andy since he got her back 3 years ago. Andy often uses the car for work, how many ex-works rally cars are used for commuting!
Andy and Mike are both proper enthusiasts and good members of Club Triumph who get out there and use their cars. Thanks to them for the fast but safe laps of Brands!
As usual Paul Michelmore was terrorizing the circuit in his glorious six pot injected Spitfire, what a car. I must get Paul to take me around a track sometime, sure it will be fun! I reckon Paul's car is as well sorted as a Spitfire with a six cylinder engine could be. If ever there was a car that makes me think about moving the engine back in my GT6 then Paul's car is the one, terrific! Also great to see Richard and Hilary Brake having fun in Richard's injected six cylinder Spitfire, afterwards in the pub we had a chat about the rear suspension of the car, Richard feels some more work being needed to tie the rear end down. He has just fitted CV driveshafts to the car, these being a design using Escort and Volvo parts, as many have found after moving away from Rotoflex driveshafts he has found the driveability of the car to be very much improved.

Whilst at Brands is was great to see Doug and Katie Foreman who were taking the opportunity to have passenger rides in various cars. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Doug is looking after his horrendous accident in early March, what a resilient chap!
Also present were Dave Picton and 'Fred', Slezak, Dave using his mk2 Jag and Fred using her mk1 2000. This 2000 is another great car that is used in alot of CT events, as usual Fred was driving the car in her spirited manner. Talking later on I was told that Fred is driving her newly acquired Spitfire mk3 to Finland where she lives and works at present, good luck to her on that mammoth drive. Evidently Dave has bought her a nice toolkit for the car so she should be ok if any problems occur!

On the subject of roll, my 2.5 rolls alot, as previously mentioned I have bought some harder bushed arb links for the car, it will be interesting to see how they affect the roll of that car, there always seems alot of lost motion on the normal rubber bushed arb links.

Anyrate after Thursdays fun I now seem to have 4 Triumph cars and not one runner amongst them! Looks like Sunday will be busy!

I am comforting myself with the thought that if the driveshaft had popped out whilst driving around Brands Hatch it could have been disasterous!

Getting ready for Brands Hatch, Jaguars and the 'Space Race'

Have decided that I will use the GT6 for this week's TD evening at Brands Hatch. Therefore I have spent some time today working on the old car, this consisted of making some plates for sticking on the inner wheelarchs to spread the load for the roll over bar fixings, all went well. However I have found that the bottom of the rear NS wing has broken away from the floor and is flapping in the breeze. After having a good poke around a fair bit of welding is needed, I will need to get someone to make some plates up and get welding at some point (Maybe its time to start to learn to weld).
I also fitted the 5.5J steels onto the car, however I do not think they suit the car so will take off and go to Brands with the Revs fitted.
I had wanted to fit the Wilwood brake calipers to the car, however I do not have the correct studs so will not bother for now. I hope to be able to find the correct studs at say the Silverstone Historic or buy some from Namerick the nut and bolt supplier in Hove, Sussex.

Sort of looking forward to the evening, reckoning on getting about an hour or so solid driving around the track. Chris Shaw the Club's Track Day Organiser has done a great job selling the tickets, at one point it looked like we would only sell 10 tickets, his networking skills are good!

Talking to Dave Picton and 'Fred' Slezak who always do the CT TDs, I understand that Dave will be taking his mk2 Jag along as he does not have a Triumph on the road at present. Its a great car that is now looking a bit scruffy, in fact very similar to the mk2 Jag that featured within the film 'Withnail and I'. Dave and Fred left it with me one Xmas whilst they went to the USA and told me that I could have free use of her over the break, so took it out on Xmas Eve for a tour of few local pubs with my buddy Diz. Gotta say I enjoyed the drive, the weather was lousy, but we had some fun in the car. It was interesting to compare the car with my 2.5 saloon, in most areas I felt the Triumph was superior. The handling and ride of the 2.5 was superior and felt more modern. However the Jag had more grunt but was let down by the recalcitrant moss gearbox, but boy did the car have some prescence and it felt special to be driving something different on Xmas Eve.


Must say that I think the mk2 is a better looking car than the Triumph, William Lyons could definitely draw and style good looking cars. I think Jaguar saloon cars were better looking than the sports cars they produced, the XJ6 series one being to my eyes the best looking saloon car ever made. One of my neighbours has a newish XJ Jag and it sure is one good looking car, especially since Jaguar added the duct into the front wing just past the wheelarch. So exciting that Jaguar seem to be making cutting edge cars after years of being overshadowed by the German luxury car makers. This summer will see the replacement Jaguar of the XJ saloon and from what I have read it looks to be a tour de force, the car will again be alloy bodied, glued together like the present XJ and will have the latest Jaguar V8 engines in both petrol and stump pulling diesel guises. If it looks and goes anything like the XF they will have a winner on their hands. Gotta say I get sad when I think about the way the British car manufactuering business went, this nation has produced some great cars especially in the 60s and its sad to think they have all gone away. I know some will say that one can still buy Minis, Bentley and Rolls Royce, but they seem sort of fraudulant, especially the 'plastic' Mini that is sold on a bogus 60s Britain ticket, reckon Issigonis must be turning in his grave! I just hope that BMW do not ever re-introduce the Triumph marque name, time to let the name die!

With regard to the saloon I have purchased two TCAs with which have polybushes fitted from James Paddock, also bought some up-rated anti roll bar links and a head gasket set for the impending cylinder head change. Must say I was impressed with the service and prices I received from this company, will use them again. I hope to get stuck into the car next weekend. As I have mentioned before I bought the head from Andy Pearce, he contacted me the other week to tell me to get the head on pronto as its a good one and I will notice an immediate increase in both power and torque. I cannot think why I have never fitted the thing?

On a completely different subject there have been a number of programmes on BBC commemorating the 40th Anniversary since the NASA Apollo moon landings. I was eight when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped on the moon and don't really have much memory of it. But my word how amazing that they did such a thing, I think the computing power of the moon landing craft was less than the computer I am using to type this blog! Shocking really that the promise of the Apollo missions was not built upon apart from the Space Shuttle missions. One of the programmes had a NASA chap on who stated that they hope to go back to the Moon in I think 2018. Blimey from Kennedy's emotive speech about going the moon it took 8 years, even though the missions in 2018 will be alot more complicated it shows the speed and will power involved in Apollo!

Post Unofficial La Carrera Caledonia

Well back safe and sound from Scotland after a mammoth 535miles drive yesterday. I left Aviemore at 6.20am and got home at 14.40, not bad.

Following the trip, I have a number of issues to address on the car:

1. Bottom ball joints (TCA) need replacing. Some have told me that these are easy, some others tell me that one needs to get them done professionally, not sure. I see Rimmers sell rebuilt TCAs at £38ish. Seems dear, will shop around.

2. Valve seat recession is starting to get very bad. I checked the valve clearances at Callender and found that the car had no gap on the exhaust valves. Years ago I bought a 2500S head from Andy Pearce, so will have look at that and fit it. It is fitted with bigger valves so should be suitable.

3. I reckon the sills need to be replaced, the car is creaking and when jacked up the doors do not close very cleanly. (I remember this happening to a new Pug 405 I had years ago-good eh). Money being a bit tight means that I will have to wait abit though. The MOT test is due before the Club Triumph 10 Countries Run, so will hope to get the car through with some localised welding?

4. Ujs are knocking on take up, so will replace those once the problem ones have been identified.

Otherwise she remains a great example of one of these under-rated cars, what old sixties saloon car could travel 500 miles very easily in 8 hours and still be able to mix it with the fat cats in their modern Jags and BMWs on the M40 motorway as we headed to London!

Talking with Dave Langrick a couple of months ago he feels I am stretched attempting to keep two cars on the road, gawd knows what it will be like when I start to use the Herald. Still I have nothing I wish to do to the GT6, so hopefully expenditure will not be needed on that little car.

Back to the 'Unofficial' LCC, it was ok, but taking part on my own was'nt as good as I had hoped. However spending time with Dave Pearson and Jason Chinn was good, thanks to them for letting me tag along. Dave's Vitesse was fine, low geared but otherwise she went well, very nippy.

As usual the Scottish scenery was breathtaking, I always find it amusing that British people like to bog off to Europe, when all they need to do is travel up to Scotland and see such marvellous views, still leaves it all unspoilt. Best thing about Scotland is the sense of pride the locals have in their beautiful countryside, exemplified by the lack of rubbish everywhere.

The best moment for me during the event was finding a superb dinner stop at Dull, a village near Tummel Bridge. If ever in the vicinity, do go to the 'Adventure' business and have lunch-very tasty. As is the way on the LCC, the Saturday night was a bit boozie. I enjoyed a nice curry with Dave, Jase, Mike and Ive and then we stumbled into the Waverley Hotel to find Dave L, Frenchie and co already stuck into the beer, seemed rude not to join them. I waddled back to the Dreadnought Hotel (Reckon its days are past-knock it down!) at gone 12, marvelling at the darkness of the town, remember that in June it does not get dark until 10.30-11.00 up there. The Dread's Scottish breakfast lived up to its name-nouveau Brekkie anyone!

What to do next year now that McJim has finished the event. Many feel that Club Triumph should take it over. At last nights CT Ctte meeting we discussed this, but will have further talks and make a decision soon. One thing is for sure if we do, we must invite other old car clubs along, the variety of vehicles makes the event more interesting. Also Jim's knowledge of Scottish roads is extensive, so I am sure he would have to be consulted/utilised.

A Saturday afternoon stop when we bumped into the Notts lot.

Saturday early evening at the car park near 'The Dreadnought Hotel'. Looks like some of the usual CT small talk is on! Actually what a poor pic!

Car park at Kenmore, Dave and Jase look to be deep in conversation. Nice orange ST in the background eh!

So all in all a nice weekend.

What next, MGoT Track Evening at Brands Hatch on Thursday 25/06: I will use the GT6 and I hope to have the Wilwood brake calipers fitted.

As a postscript, if ever in Cumbria, have a drive along the B5305 from M6 jct 41 to Wigton, great road!

Off to Scotland

Thursday 09.00am:

Right, getting ready for this weekend's fun in Scotland. I was going to take the GT6, but as I need to be back in London for Monday nights Club Triumph Committee Meeting I have decided to use the 2.5.

The La Carrera Caledonia was a CT Drivers Challenge round, but as the 'Official' event was cancelled and we are now all taking part in an unofficial event, CT have decided to delete the event from the DC. Therefore I could have taken the Focus, however I suppose that would not be in the spirit of things!

The 2.5 has not been used since the HCR in April and I have had a number of issues to rectify as follows:

Re-build front NS hub include replace the stub axle and fit new bearing.

Fit a new electric fan. As the engine is now in the correct position (!) the crank shaft pulley fouls the Pacet fan, this has caused the spindle on the fan to break. Therefore whilst I await a smaller unit, I will fit the electric fan of the GT6. I will take a standard crankshaft pulley mounted fan with me as back up in the boot to Scotland. Only snag with that could be that the oil cooler will be in the way!

The carburettor throttle linkeage fouls the choke spindle bar, this will need a bit of light filing!

Adjust the valve clearances, standard camshaft therefore 10 thou everywhere.

That is it apart from a good wash-the car that is!

Thursday 11.00pm:

Umm, managed to get the above done today as well as find time for a 1.5hour kip on the sofa, I do like an afternoon snooze! Took the car over to Andy Martin's to pick up some items that he needs to get to Dave Pearson tomorrow (Some ex-works Rally Car parts-bit daunting having irreplaceable stuff in the boot) , the car seemed to be going well, although it is still pinking. This is down to the shagged out dizzy. I have two options, buy a 123 or buy a second hand Lucas unit that is correct for the car and get that re-built. Dave Langrick has one of those spare and will sell to me? At present I am thinking 123.

Tomorrow morning will be spent travelling up to Dave's to meet up with him and Jason. Also Tim Hunt is going to meet us as well, a spot of lunch and then off to the Old Stone Trough at Keswick. I will check the wheel bearings before I go tomorrow morning though!

It will be nice to get some mileage done in the 2.5, and after checking on Google Maps, I have found that the mileage from Aviemore to Crews Hill is 520miles! Looks like the long legged gearing of 27mph/1000 revs in overdrive top will be useful!

Below is a pic of the car and James Carruther's 2000 on last years LCC