Deleted User Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Yes those new 4.55 CW & P's have been a nice little earner over the years, we only recently sold/built our last one. The shelf is still full of new 4.11 sets (the Dolomite type) and as you say each one built requires a solid spacer. There is a rumour that there are still more 4.55's out there to be had. I could kick myself as we were offered a shed load a couple of years back from the same source the first load came from but I didn't pursue it because I hadn't noticed how few remained on our shelf. At one time we were building a couple of 4.55's a month, mostly attached to a Quaife, or more recently a Tom Seal Gripper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 I honestly can't understand the great attraction with the 4.55....It's pretty unsuitable as a ratio for racing unless you have a VERY VERY good engine, because the car will be flat out at about 100mph, and well past peak power at the critical speed of 110.After years of debate about this, we invariably end up coming back to the 4.11, because if you get the extra torque up, it will post quicker lap times.The same situation comes with Jags. Most people try to gear them down and run in 5th at fast circuits, which is stunningly stupid, because any heavy crank (true of 2.5PIs too) will simply NOT accelerate as fast as the low gearing allows, + the power loss in 5th is the equivalent of driving around with the brakes on...I broke my own rules here, because I left the overdrive in, ran a light short stroke crank and just lived with the huge power losses that came with it and the rotoflex suspension..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 [quote=GTEVO]As I have been routinely bleeding them away since well before those traders even started and was quote]You started before Fitchett? Fitchett was supplying spares to Moses for his Triumph! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 GTEVO wrote:I honestly can't understand the great attraction with the 4.55.........A good percentage of the ones I have built have gone into the TVR community, the last one to a guy hill climbing in Jersey. He came back recently for a 4.85 also attached to a gripper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 30, 2007 Share Posted June 30, 2007 [quote=canleyclassics]GTEVO wrote:You started before Fitchett? Fitchett was supplying spares to Moses for his Triumph!Indeed yes!Back in them days you could get new stuff from our local agent Les Noviss, and my bro was driving a Vitesse back in 1977 when they were only 5 years or so old...I must have been the first person to export a gearbox to France and Austria, and in the early 80s there ONE Triumph specialist in Germany.Ray Gill started even earlier he tells me......many funny stories/.... brand new TR6 axles arriving by the stillage........M Foster-Smith (now dead) trying to set everyone in the trade with those NEW 2.5L cranks.....There were literally TONS and TONS of them all going for 50p a crank....(Fitchett wasn't around then) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 30, 2007 Share Posted June 30, 2007 GTEVO wrote:, and my bro was driving a Vitesse back in 1977 when they were only 5 years or so old...)Yep and I bought my TR5 30 years (1977) ago yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted June 30, 2007 Share Posted June 30, 2007 GTEVO wrote:Indeed yes!, and my bro was driving a Vitesse back in 1977 when they were only 5 years or so old...I must have been the first person to export a gearbox to France and Austria, and in the early 80s there (Fitchett wasn't around then)So did you start trading in 1977, or the early 80's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 I realised in about 1979-80 when I got my GT6 there was just No-One around able to do the job right, the factory was closing and I met a few people,- ONE notably that was able to rebuild a Vitesse gearbox properly....So if you can't get someone else to do it, DO IT YERSELF!We were all a pretty isolated lot in those days....My Bro was a TSSC member UNDER 100 btw... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 GTEVO wrote:I realised in about 1979-80 when I got my GT6 there was just No-One around able to do the job right, the factory was closing and I met a few people,- ONE notably that was able to rebuild a Vitesse gearbox properly....So if you can't get someone else to do it, DO IT YERSELF!We were all a pretty isolated lot in those days......My experience was different. By 79 I was running the TR5, and a Stag, and the old man had a PI estate, and a Dolomite 18/50HL (although it might have been a 2.5TC saloon by then?). Dad was still at the Triumph so running the cars was easy as. I was half way through a full chassis off resto on the TR5 in 79 so was bending the ear of Dad's colleagues. The factory knowledge base was still strong in those days, and the part's supply situation was fantastic, but not necessarily through 'official' channels! I remember needing a new hood for the 5 about that time, so it was fortuitous to spy an advert in the Telegraph for the same. I remember going to some guys lock-up near Baginton and collecting a lovely US spec TR6 hood complete with dayglo tape for about 20 quid. He wouldn't let me see right into the back of his lock up but it was apparent that it was full of the things end to end! Was your gearbox builder Ken Tomlinson by any chance? By 79 I was doing my own, and getting the bits for them from some guy not far off the Fletchamsted Highway. His garage and shed were a real treasure trove of new Triumph gearbox components, I wonder what happened to it all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 The Triumph was known for having some of the most transparent factory gates in the UK.Today you can laugh, but if you saw what they scrapped, buried, smashed up with sledgehammers in 1980 :o :'( (anyone want a RH stag head?).....well good luck to ppl that made stuff walk!I mean......what would have happened if ppl hadn't spotted all the new Sprint c/w and pinions and Salisbury LSDs down at Hillditch's scrapyard?? :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 GTEVO wrote:The Triumph was known for having some of the most transparent factory gates in the UK.Today you can laugh, but if you saw what they scrapped, buried, smashed up with sledgehammers in 1980 to :oThe old man was involved in the factory clear-up. After working at the Standard for nearly 20 years in broke his heart spending his last two years there destroying the place. A couple of tales I remember are;They (Leyland) moved TR7 production (again!) to Solihull and in the process it underwent an interior trim change away from the tartan stuff. Dad was tasked with slashing hundreds of complete seats with a Stanley knife so that the scrappies couldn't flog em to Leyland dealers. At the end of that week the manager in charge asked Dad for his Stanley knife back!When stores was being emptied hundreds, if not thousands of surplus windscreens surfaced, Dad was tasked with driving a fork lift into them, and then using a digger to put the residue into skips.Again when stores was being emptied boxed metering units were going straight into the skip. At the time I was rebuilding the TR5 so the old man got 'a few' out on a scrap ticket for me. Why anyone ever nicked anything from the Triumph I'll never know as it was perfectly legitimate to pay a nominal sum and get stuff out on these scrap ticket's with authority from above, I recall Dad paying no more than a couple of quid apiece for them. Warning thread drift! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 GTEVO wrote:I mean......what would have happened if ppl hadn't spotted all the new Sprint c/w and pinions and Salisbury LSDs down at Hillditch's scrapyard?? :oOne of the Coventry scrap yards had the contract to clear and crush Triumph prototype's. The man tasked with the final clear up of Triumph experimental fleet gave me all the documentation from that period, it makes interesting reading. He told me that one of the Lynx fastbacks didn't get crushed, it remained under a dustsheet at the back of a warehouse 'somewhere in Coventry' for years afterwards. One thing that surprised me was how large the 'O' series TR7 prototype fleet was, we have documentation for loads of them.Further thread drift. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 That is too depressing to contemplate!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 More thread drifting.... ;DIt's no different anywhere...Capital generates waste, which generates work, which again generates more waste.What do you want?Carry on producing Hindustanis in India in a protected market, or order them to be produced soviet style....they just end up even worse, produce unsaleable motors and more waste.Admiring or liking any product has no compatibility whatsoever with capitalism, least of all when it was run by labour (so called socialists) "in the public interest", and subsidised by everyone in the useless incompetent 60s/70s UK version of that capitalistic model, and where workers went on strike every 3 days about stuff like a 5 minute longer/shorter tea break...Political expediency just said, -bankrupt companies like Triumph or Austin couldn't be shut down in 1965-70, because LABOUR has deemed- "we can't throw the entire midlands out of work right now"..so they got a stay of execution until Margaret came along in 1979/80 and trashed it all... :-/'twas Henry Ford said "history is bunk", so that makes Triumph bunkum, and motor enthusiasts "petrol headed" bunk errs..If you don't like it, that's tough - it's our oudated way of life, with it's Tesco superstores outside towns, YOU HAVE TO DRIVE TO, energy drug addiction and sheer collossal waste that's to blame.The sooner it changes the better...but I just happen to like cars with wood interior, so that means only 2 really. ;D :-/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 GTEVO wrote:More thread drifting.... ;D, and where workers went on strike every 3 days about stuff like a 5 minute longer/shorter tea break... ;D :-/The old man never went on strike once in twenty odd years at the Standard. Something to do with being in the Maintenance Dept. They had dispensation from the unions that allowed them past the picket lines, didn't want the plant blowing up, or flooding, whatever did we? The boilers were kept running 24/7 regardless, you can't leave them to there own devices.It was very strange locally when the car factories were on strike, everybody else's Dad was at home, the pubs were full, the bookies did a good trade, gardens looked great, car's got polished, the divorce rate went up............ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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