My GT6 restoration thread -updated 7/3/08

[irish44j]

rotoflex wrote:

OH while the radiator is out:

One of Kas Kastner's books mentions that the rubber inside the harmonic damper on the 6 can deteriorate & cause the timing marks to not line up correctly with the indicator.  

They discovered this problem working with a track car, & their procedure thenceforth was to drill a hole into the damper from the side, so that the accurarcy of the timing marks on the pulley could be checked by sticking a drill bit into the holes to make sure they line up before timing the engine.

Lots of nice tidbits like that in his books, which are worth far more than their cost!

good tip. Actually I have to replace the crankshaft pulley anyhow, since mine fell off a shelf last month an chipped part of the lip off. DOH.

instead of drilling a hole, wouldn't it work to simply scribe lines on the pulley and the damper?

[rotoflex]

I don't know why he went the hole & index route.

It would probably be a good idea to confirm that it's not already inaccurate & that 0 is at TDC before marking, drilling, whatever.

[irish44j]

With the long memorial day weekend, I managed to get some things done on the car in between BBQs, working on the Jeep, and watching the baby.

- finished install of the water pump, timing chain cover, and related new gaskets and hardware.
- wire brushed off 30 years of rust on the driveshaft. Will get it balanced once I paint it and install new u-joints.
- flushed the water galleries
- did some serious cleanup of the radiator, which was simply nasty. Repainted and reinstalled with new hoses and clamps
- installed new manifold studs on the head
- installed addco 1" sway bar, which required some customization of the frame mounts and u-clamps, since the bushings and clamps were not correct for this car (Mk3 maybe?).

Anyhow, a few pics. After I had wire-wheeled the radiator down to the brass, I masked off the coventry stamp when I painted the radiator. Then clearcoated the plain brass, just for a little bit of "bling" haha..

[Richard B]

Looking good;  to paraphrase Shakespear ''is that a non-overdrive gearbox I see before me?''

[irish44j]

Richard_B wrote:

Looking good;  to paraphrase Shakespear ''is that a non-overdrive gearbox I see before me?''

aye, that's a non-OD with a 3.27 diff....standard US fit for the GT6+

Someday I'd like to switch to a Ford 5-speed, but that's another project for down the road if/when this one finally blows up....

[irish44j]

A few things today:

1. Finished cleaning up the driveshaft and fitting new ujoints. Will get it balanced sometime this summer.



2. After some thought, I'm just going to use the Pace Setter header that was on the car. I know it's not very good, but the $1000 it would cost for a quality 6-3-1 set can be better spent on more needed parts this summer. Will think about a nice header this winter as a Christmas present to myself :)

So, did some serious wire-wheeling and cleaning, painted it up. It may perform poorly anywhere under 4500rpms, but at least it's not rusty anymore!





3. Spent a few hours cleaning up and reorganizing in the garage. I'm starting to run out of space for any more shelves/storage racks!



3.

[G-man]

Fantastic attention to detail, Irish.  Unfortunately, I missed your question about the straps on the rotoflex couplings.  I seem to remember having to take them off before getting the upright to line up with the spring eye.  Did you?

Nick.

[irish44j]

G_man wrote:

Fantastic attention to detail, Irish.  Unfortunately, I missed your question about the straps on the rotoflex couplings.  I seem to remember having to take them off before getting the upright to line up with the spring eye.  Did you?

Nick.

yep I did. I took them off once the axles were assembled. Lining up the spring eye was tons of fun ;(

[Tim Bancroft]

I think that could be the worse job to do on a GT6 mk2/3!

I have now fitted CV shafts to my GT6 and its so nice assembling the rear suspension.


Great job so far, Irish.

[irish44j]

timbancroft61 wrote:

I think that could be the worse job to do on a GT6 mk2/3!

I have now fitted CV shafts to my GT6 and its so nice assembling the rear suspension.


Great job so far, Irish.

thanks.

Yeah, CV axles are on the list of "things I want but won't get until the car is on the road again and running well"

That list includes header, 14x6 panasports, and lots of aluminum bits (radiator, etc) to lighten the front). For now I'm trying to get it on the road "on budget" and then upgrade parts later.

[Greeks]

irish44j wrote:

yep I did. I took them off once the axles were assembled. Lining up the spring eye was tons of fun ;(

And tons of pressure, too! Nearly put my back out doing that I think.

Looks great!

You probably don't care, but I expect you'll have to repaint the propshaft if its balanced professionally

[rotoflex]

I really have no problem replacing the rotoflex couplings.

To add weight, I put a large cooler in the back, & fill it with the garden hose until its right.  Afterwards, I siphon the water out with a 4 foot or so lenght of garden hose.  Yes, the cardboard floor long ago was replaced with thin plywood.

[irish44j]

rotoflex wrote:

I really have no problem replacing the rotoflex couplings.

To add weight, I put a large cooler in the back, & fill it with the garden hose until its right.  Afterwards, I siphon the water out with a 4 foot or so lenght of garden hose.  Yes, the cardboard floor long ago was replaced with thin plywood.

yeah, but you forget that I did it with the body off, so there was no weight back there. I had to stack all my race tires from the other cars on top of the frame to hold it down while I flexed the spring upward with the improv'd tool...

[Llessur]

Beautiful job so far by the way. Just a thought - looks like you have reinstalled the propshaft the opposite way round to which it was removed (comparing the first and last pictures of this thread).

I'm just about to put mine back in - what way round should it actually be? My gut instinct is the recessed end towards the gearbox (i.e. your pre-restoration picture) but am finding it hard to determine this from any documentation I can find...

[irish44j]

yeah, I noticed that too. My 40-year old factory shop manual drawings "seem" to show it with the slip-joint to the rear, which is why I flipped it. But need to pull out an old GT6&SPitfire magazine where they have the old GT6 ad showing just the frame and drivetrain and see how it looks there :)

[Tim Bancroft]

I think the sliding joint should be at the rear. Easily accessible as well.

[Llessur]

Yeah, I came to that conclusion (splined end to rear) in the end after looking at a fair few pics on the web. It's in now so hopefully I won't have to swap it round again!

[irish44j]

Got the bored (to 1.75) intake manifold back, so test-mounted the old Pacesetter header (sigh) and the SU's with TT adaptors and plates. Also shaved the frame a bit to give more clearance where the header passes by.







heh heh heh



I'll probably have some clearance issues if I use the big fat K&N's (they may foul the inner wheelwell), but we'll see....

[sbarc]

So what finish are you going to use on your valve cover?
How did you polish up your dash pots?

Your car just keeps looking better with each photo.

[rotoflex]

Valve cover & wheels are the same color!
(On the Mk3, that is.)

I'll have to look at some promotional stuff to see when they changed from the chrome valve cover.  That's the Mk3 oil filler cap on there I think, the earlier ones had a little breather on the filler cap.  But I think that's an earlier than Mk3 valve cover, as the Mk3 had the square hump instead of the round thing on top.

[mark spit]

timbancroft61 wrote:

I think the sliding joint should be at the rear. Easily accessible as well.

I had a chat with the long time served bloke in a commercial prop place a while back whilst getting a new prop for my Spit.  The view from there was that sliding joints should always be fitted at the gearbox end to protect them from road spray / debris etc.

The other was that original Triumph pot joints were rather poor quality......

Yours
Mark

[irish44j]

sbarc wrote:

So what finish are you going to use on your valve cover?
How did you polish up your dash pots?

Your car just keeps looking better with each photo.

The dashpots were done by the guy that I bought them from. The carbs are basically completely rebuilt good-as-new condition. the valve cover I partially wire-wheeled, but put that aside for the time being, as i might just get a new valve cover (this one is dented up a bit.

[irish44j]

rotoflex wrote:

Valve cover & wheels are the same color!
(On the Mk3, that is.)

I'll have to look at some promotional stuff to see when they changed from the chrome valve cover.  That's the Mk3 oil filler cap on there I think, the earlier ones had a little breather on the filler cap.  But I think that's an earlier than Mk3 valve cover, as the Mk3 had the square hump instead of the round thing on top.

to my knowledge, that's he original GT6+ valve cover. not sure about the filler cap. The valve cover had/has about 5 layers of paint on it, which is partially wire-wheeled off.

[rotoflex]

Here are some photos from the dealer showroom brochures, mostly for entertainment purposes, but I think it's possible that the filler cap might have some significance:



GT6 Mk1.  Chrome rocker cover, breather filler cap, round hump thing on the top.  Where is the vacuum advance line?  It's not seen routed over the rocker cover like in photos of later engines, & it's hard to make out detail in some of these photos.

Parts manual gives these numbers:
Rocker cover:  213496
Filler cap:  143393
--------



GT6+ brochure, 1970.  Painted rocker cover, same color as the wheels & air cleaner, breather filler cap, same round hump thing on top as Mickey One.  
Numbers from parts catalog, for both Mk2 & GT6+:
Rocker cover:  210908
Filler cap:  143393
---------------



USA GT6 Mk3 brochure, 1972 model.  Painted rocker cover, same color as the wheels & air cleaner.  However, it's got the NON-breather filler cap, & the square hump thing on top.

This photo is of the USA cars; the parts catalog numbers indicate that the non-emissions market early Mk3's continued to be set up as the Mk2/+.

Here's where things start to get fishy, though.  My Mk3 is a 1972 model (built December 1971), & its valve cover/breathing setup/intake manifold/carbs look more like the photo from the brochure from the 1973 model below.  This may have something to do with the fact that photos for the brochure had to be taken in advance of releasing the model, so some eariler equipment (even a mix) may be in the photo.

The GT6 Mk3 parts catalog shows the breather arrangement to be as the photo for the 1972 model up to commission # 10,000 E.  My car is a 1972 model, but is KF 10,1404, however; SO SOMEBODY'S GETTING SLOPPY SOMEWHERE.  Maybe it's just because mine is a late 1972,
------------



GT6 Mk3 brochure, 1973 model.  Rocker cover & cap same as photo for 1972 model:  painted, square hump, breatherless filler cap.  This is what my 1972 model looks like.  Notice the breathing arrangement is different from the previous photo:  instead of dumping from the valve cover through the Smith's valve into the intake manifold balance pipe, it's piped into 2 ports at the back of the carb.  This setup has different carbs & intake manifold (& has no Smith's valve).

From the parts numbers, it looks like outside of the US & Sweden they were still using the round hump cover & breather cap  until the time that a lot of stuff was standardized to the emissions-market engines for all markets.

GT6 Mk3 part numbers:
Rocker cover:  
  210908 (all markets except USA & Sweden, up to KE 10,000 E)  <- same as Mk2/+
  214816 (USA & Sweden, also all other markets after KE 10,001 E)
Filler cap:
  143393 (all markets except USA & Sweden, up to KE 10,000 E)    <-same as Mk2/+
  138176 (USA & Sweden, also all other markets after KE 10,001 E)

___

So at any rate, this indicates to me that the switch to the flat filler cap was made with the switch to the rocker cover with the square hump, likely as a tightening up of the breathing arrangement.  You lose the Smith's valve, & instead have the baffle in the square hump.  This would have been designed for the benefit of new engines, of course, but you can see it would be a great deal of help as engines became worn & there was more blowby.  Although at that point, it's really best to take the filler cap off & go with the traditional sock over the filler hole while hoping to get by until you can stop long enough to fix the engine.

With your SU's, & breathing to the balance pipe on the intake manifold, the setup mostly resembles the setups from Mickey One through the early Mk3.  It's possible that the best result there might be to dispense with the Smith's valve, use the square hump rocker cover & flat filler cap, & route to the balance pipe as the early Mk3.   Or you may use the round hump cover as the Mk2/+/non-emissions early Mk3 with the breather cap (for whatever reason they decided the breather cap worked best with the round hump cover/Smith's valve setup.  Or you may be planning to just go to a catch bottle to collect material to create a roux for a delightful Coventry Cajun gumbo.

[irish44j]

great info, rotoflex!

I'll have to think on it, as I am not particularly concerned about emissions equipment (would just as well do away with it altogether) and was planning to use an oil catch can rather than blowing it into the manifold (ew...).

I may hit you up offline for some discussion at some point if you don't mind!