Bloody trunnion

[bcsalt]

Well I'm the latest victim of trunnion failure!
Obviously just what I wanted on a Sunday evening! I use my GT6 everyday for work so it was inevitable that something would break, it's done bloody well the last 3 months.
What's more annoying is that I have a lovely shiny set of trunnionless uprights at home with some gaz adjustable shocks and uprated springs that I've taken time off to fit at the end of this week!

Oh well, 2 tow trucks & a traffic jam with irate bus drivers later, car is being nursed home.

Bugger!

[G.in_Lux]

Sod's law in effect again ;)

[Sheepy]

Always the way isn't it!

Looks like you got away without too much damage, now you will have to fit those new uprights!

[Deleted User]

Question, did you service the Trunion every year? Would be interesting to know

Rob

[Rubce]

Yikes, I hope nobody was hurt?! Has the bonnet been damaged?

Regards

Bruce

[Duncdude]

Ouch!
Hope it didnt' cause too much (or any) damage to the rest of the car.
Being new to the world of Spitfires and therefore their Trunion foibles i'm very cautious of this happening with my as yet unfamiliar car.
i assume the only way to check them for potential failure is to dis-assemble them and visually review?
Is play a give away?

[BrendanD]

London?
Nice to see another Triumph around. I havent seen one in several years.
Had two trunnion failures in the past but both on poorly maintained cars I had just acquired, so keen to know what your maintenance regime has been?

[bcsalt]

I've had the car for just under a year, and have slowly been undoing all the previous bodges as they are discovered.

Replacing trunnions were next on the list for this weekend, looks like 40 years of abuse caught up with me a bit too soon! They would have been done a few weks ago but fitting my custom designed wiring loom (and sorting the bits that didnt work) took longer than expected. Did mean that my hazard warning lights worked well though!!

Luckily was reversing into my parking space in Camden just as it went, so noone was hurt (apart from my pride!), really slow speed so I dont think anything else was damaged too mych. The bonnet looks ok but I do already have a new one on order anyway...

[heraldcoupe]

bobyspit wrote:

Question, did you service the Trunion every year?

Year? I top up the oil on mine every time I'm doing any routine maintenance, about 3000 mile intervals max.

Cheers,
Bill.

[Sheepy]

heraldcoupe wrote:

I top up the oil

Cheers,
Bill.

Note OIL not grease!!! (for the new owners!)

[TimW]

heraldcoupe wrote:

Year? I top up the oil on mine every time I'm doing any routine maintenance, about 3000 mile intervals max.

Cheers,
Bill.

3000 miles is probably a years driving for most in their classic Bill

[heraldcoupe]

339 wrote:

3000 miles is probably a years driving for most in their classic Bill

It's a lot more than I do at the moment in any Triumph, but it's a better benchmark than an annual consideration - whichever comes first I suppose.

Cheers,
Bill.

[TimW]

heraldcoupe wrote:

It's a lot more than I do at the moment in any Triumph, but it's a better benchmark than an annual consideration - whichever comes first I suppose.

Cheers,
Bill.

agreed

[Deleted User]

yep I strip and inspect mine every 12 months then re oil.

Been fine

[bcsalt]

I think its probably the slightly unexpected 70mile a day round trip for the last 3 months with some shocking potholes that saw mine off.
Luckily its only for another month...

Will find out what else has broken when I strip and replace this weekend. And there goes the plan of selling the old ones off to recoup some money from the shiny canley ones. Never mind!

[Tim Bancroft]

With out sounding rude, not much of a market for secondhand vertical links.

Good luck with the repairs.

[Paudman]

timbancroft61 wrote:

With out sounding rude, not much of a market for secondhand vertical links.

You'd be surprised! Watch some of them on eBay...  Personally I'd only buy them from autojumbles, where you can at least inspect them at the time of sale. It's still a big chance though.

[Tim Bancroft]

Madness!

[bcsalt]

It was some of the ones on ebay thay peaked my interest in selling them.

But eBay does have an odd pricing spectrum for most things!!

[junkuser]

I wonder how many people here have not purchased second hand vertical links.
There ain't many brand new Spitfires available these days.

[bcsalt]

Well I apologise to all trunnions everywhere, it wasn't what broke!

Slightly more worryingly the bottom bolt holding the trunnion on to the lower suspension arm sheared through.
It's all now been replaced with shiny new trunnionless uprights from canley, and new bolts...
Unfortunately when it went, the track rod end also got bent out of shape.
Hopefully a new one will arrive today along with some C spanners to adjust the ride height of my new shocks. Would have thought they could include a set with the bloody dampers! If the postman doesn't deliver it'll be a trip around caterham to see if anyone has them!!

At least the uprights went on pretty quick leaving yesterday to finish my witing loom and fit my trigger wheel for future megasquirting. Now if only I could get megasquirt to talk to my laptop! The list of jobs never seems to shrink does it. At least it's all entertaining!

Ben

[TimW]

Make sure you jack the car and take the weight off the suspension before adjusting otherwise you will chew the adjusters.