Howard

Clive, When I rewired my previous house, (I am a chartered electrical engineer & this was before the requirement for Part P certification) I replaced the original VLCB (voltage operated circuit breaker) with a combination of RCD's - the whole house was then protected with a 100mA breaker, the sockets with 30mA and the stables with 10mA (horses are more susceptible to electrocute than humans) which worked well, provided reasonable discrimination and avoided nuisance trips. In my current house I will be modifying the wiring to the garage / workshop since the builders installed a 16A supply fed from the main consumer unit along with the house sockets all protected by a 30mA RCD, connected to 13A fused switched spur unit feeding a buried armoured cable to the garage where another small 30mA protected consumer unit is installed supplying the sockets and lighting... Needless to say no discrimination at all - but it is safe. I haven't checked the building regs / BS7671 requirements for a few years, but does the buried feed to your garage need to be protected by a RCB when a MCB / MCCB suffice? Then inside the garage the sub-distribution board could be a mixture of individually protected circuits with 30mA for lighting and 13A sockets plus a 100mA C curve unit feeding a dedicated BS 4344 240 v socket for the welder. Cheers Howard

John, If you still have HRC fuses, I recommend you check carefully since electrical equipment of that era frequently used asbestos sheets and mats in their construction. H

Its not a good idea to run the lighting from the same RCD / ELCB as the equipment since a trip could leave you in total darkness .. Something happened at Gatwick Airport some years ago when the power & emergency power failed and a cook was carrying a pan of boiling water - he was only save from serious injury by a single battery powered emergency light that had been overlooked...

if it starts, it is being fed 12v via the boost circuit. Releasing the ignition switch diverts the feed to the ballast resistor circuit (integral to the wiring loom) to feed at 6v - the resistor can fail & give these symptoms. PM me with your email address and I will send you a much easier to read wiring diagram. Cheers Howard

My Edinburgh born wife suggested the Museum of Scotland. At least it should be warm and dry there. Not sure if it's still there but I discovered the scotch that is now my favourite at the whisky centre on the Royal Mile.

According to this web site: History of Brand Ownership, BMW retain the following names:- Marque Name MINI Riley Triumph Model Name Clubman Dolomite Kestrel Maxi Metro MINI Cooper MINI Cooper Monte Carlo MINI Mayfair MINI Minor MINI Sprite MINI Van Spitfire Stag Name Countryman Knightsbridge Steptronic TR 4 Triumph The rest have been sold, mainly to Chinese companies.

If I remember correctly, BMW used to view Triumph as a competitor with their upmarket sporting saloons. For this reason they held onto the Triumph brand when they dumped the rest of the old BL / Rover group.

Apparently they exactly copied the original parts without any upgrades and the car was only completed a few days before the rally, so hopefully it will be well sorted before the next event. 😀

I have been following this build anyway, but totally love the video & music. Maybe we should use this route for next year's C2C 😃 Triumph TR7 V8 video Just close the FB login, set it to full screen, max volume and enjoy ! Cheers Howard

Clive, Any update on the planned date to open entries?

Chris and I have been undertaking recce of the first half of the 2024 route in my TR and it should be a good drive 🙂 See you all there we hope. Howard

Inertia switches are cheap and a very sensible addition, however the matching plugs can be nearly as expensive as the switch. I acquired the unit I installed on my TR7V8 from https://www.carbuilder.com/uk/inertia-safety-switch. The matching plug from them is £6 each. Howard

It's what happens if you enter Morris Garages as your password as this site is protected against the dark side 😂😂😂

Daytime running lights come from Scandinavia where it was found to overall reduce the number of accidents. Low level ( below bumper) lights like mine are unlikely to be mistaken for motorcycle lights, but the cars with then installed at headlight level are clearly a concern.

I totally agree with fitting daytime running lights to come on automatically whenever the ignition is on. H

Just replaced the brake light switch on my 7 which failed yesterday. Its a job best suited to an Octopus as you have to work upside down under the dash and need at least three pairs of very small hand....

IMHO having a totally independent set of eyes checking our cars is no bad thing. As many more recent classics have performance that equals or even exceeds many modern cars and a serious accident due to poor maintenance could result in what we were allowed to do being seriously restricted, for me an MOT is a no brainer.

Looks like a scam to me - having to pay before you can see the forum or anything else... Correction - their forum looks quite busy with plenty of posts

We have a planned date, but has to be OK'd by the club to ensure it doesn't conflict with anything else. Cheers Howard

Recently I have become aware of Zeiss DriveSafe lenses which are reported as improving vision significantly in poor lighting conditions. As someone who had cataracts and lens implants some haloing is unavoidable, but Zeiss lenses claim to significantly reduce this. Not particularly cheap but might be worth the money if they work Cheers Howard

Not sure if I made explanation clear. Brightness is equivalent to illumination and is how well it illuminates the road. Colour temperature is more a measure of how warm (yellow/red) the colour appears. Cold white is a very blue white and is seen frequently with modern HID bulbs. The optimum for our cars would be an even warmer LED than is currently available from Classic Car LED's or any of the other usual suspects, but failing that the 3000K versions are the best we have available for now. Cheers Howard

K(Kelvin) is the measure of colour temperature. Warm white is usually about 3000K, cool white is anything above 4000K. The measure of illumination is lumens. A conventional halogen bulb is around 1200 lumens on main beam. An LED from classic car Lead's will produce 4500-5000 lumens. Cheers Howard.

Our cars have to be legal for use on the road, so headlights have to already meet the MOT beam requirements. While not a legal requirement, many of us still have a regular MOT inspection, so our lights have already been checked. I suspect that the main cause of the problem is that when the car is MOT tested it is unloaded, but during events like the RBRR in addition to a crew it also has a boot loaded with tools and spares. After I realised some years ago that my dipped lights were still causing problems for people in front, I leave a representative load in the boot when its MOT checked so my lights don't blind people in front. Cheers Howard

Can anyone assist with the following problem which has been passed to me while Rob Pearce continues his recovery. "Hi Howard. I have just replaced the rear spring on my early 1972 mk4 spitfire. But now the rear wheels seem to kick out a long way at the top, the spring is the same length as the old floppy one. Can you give me some advice please. Cheers Vic Ayres." Many thanks Howard

They heard we were arranging another hen party 🤣🤣🤣