garyf

I'm considering alternative seats for my Vitesse, I know MGF and MX5 will fit but I've got a Shadow Blue interior in my Car and this would mean a re-trim for the MGF/MX5 Seats and more expense :B I've seen a Vitesse with Stag seats fitted and I know they did them in Shadow Blue, so if I could get a secondhand set in Shadow blue in reasonable condition it will match my interior:) However can anyone confirm if it's an easy conversion to fit the Stag Seats in a Herald/Vitesse?  

I've got Koni's on the front of my Vitesse, well chuffed with em :) They're set on the middle of the 3 setting's on my Car but I have standard springs fitted. If you've got stiffer springs then it maybe best to set them to the harder of the 3 settings if you get some? Got mine from Canley Classics.

I run 28 front 30 rear on my Vitesse but with 175/70 tyres fitted, it seems to drive ok, with reasonable ride comfort and the steering not to heavy. (The Vitesse Handbook however states 24 Front and 26 Rear for the standard 155/80 tyres on the Mk2 Vitesse?) I suspect the front pressure should be less on a herald with the lighter engine, say 22 front 24 rear if only one person in the Car, but this may have been the recommended pressures for crossply tyres :-/?  

184 wrote:Might seem a bit daft, but can you replace the top shocker bush with the spring/shock in place? (provided the full weight of the car is on all 4 wheels) Yes, but it's the bottom one that wears the most :(

The Standard Vitesse sealed beam units should be flush where they fit into the chrome surrounds (one only per lamp as stated), it look like your aftermarket Halogen ones won't do that? :-/ The painted covers that go over both The main & dip Beam headlamps should also be a snug flush fit with the headlamps/chrome surrounds.

A usefull tip to stop rust is to dip the end of the Rivet in Rust Proofing fluid, Waxoyl/Dinitrol/Etc. You do have to be carefull, when the rivet snaps off keep a firm grip of the Rivet Gun ??)

Yes the D1's are 5.5J x 13 with ET16 Offset so no need for Spacers and no catching on Wheel Arches :) I do get the front catching very slightly on the Bulkhead when reversing on lock though :( The D1's look good on the Spits and GT6's too, saw a GT6 on E-Bay recently with them. but then again so do the Revolutions ;D ;D ;D

Love those Revolutions :P :P I nearly got a set for my Vitesse but got some Dunlop D1 Replica's instead? To be on the safe side I would make sure you clean any paint off the mating surfaces of the spacers where they contact the wheels and the Hub? You may find your wheel nuts work loose if you don't ??)  

2191 wrote:How did you remove the muck Gary? Pretty much the same way as Clives description, I used a Garden Hose to blast some of the Stuff out ??) You can never get all the Gunge out, but some is better than none! I reckon my Car had been run without Antifreeze, although it was off the road for 5 years  :-/

It's worthwhile having a poke around the waterways with a coat hanger or similar homemade tool to remove the crud! It should help the Car run Cooler, I was amazed what gunk came out of my Engine ??)

I restored an original Formula type wheel on my car, I used standard Wilko Clear Varnish and a decent paint brush? The secret was lot's of coats and rub down in between each coat with fine wire wool or fine sand paper. It came out ok, for saying it only cost me a £1 at an Austin 7 Rally Autojumble ;) Gary

3762 wrote:I have the same problem on both my GT6's one with a Motolita steering wheel and one with a standard wheel. I believe the problem with the original s'wheel is the fact that the horn contact ring, situated behind the steering wheel,  is cracked and does not sit level so when you turn the steering wheel it closes the horn contact. The other I have not investigated as yet but I believe if I move the steering wheel away from the boss it will clear the problem. You should be able to do this by slackening the clamp, two bolts but not the preset grub screw, on the steering column, the one next to the bulkhead in the foot well behind the pedals, then pull the steering wheel back and away from the boss to give a little more clearance. I should be able to tell you more in a day or two once I have tested my own theory. This is more than likely the problem, this contact ring can come loose too, it's happened to me on my first Herald? Increasing the gap between the steering wheel and the column should solve it 4 a while, but if cracked, repair or replace, if loose retighten.

Make sure all earth connections to the Chassis, Body and Engine are cleaned back to bright metal and are tight, then coat with grease or rust proofer after. Or you may get your Choke cable for the Main Earth when you try and start your car ??) It gets rather hot, ask me how I know :B  

I've recently fitted some 13" X 5.5J Alloys on my Vitesse, I've got 175/70 Tyres and have slight rubbing on the front bulkhead on the nearside when reversing on lock :-/, overall though I'm happy with the way they look, ride and steer, I was expecting much heavier steering but it's only slightly heavier when turning at low speed. The Triumph Swing Axle rear Suspension on Heralds & the earlier Vitesse's is just not designed for low profilie tyres with the large Camber changes? Personally I don't like the look of the Herald/Vitesse or Spitfire/GT6 with 15" wheels, they just don't look right in my opinion, 14" with 175/65 tyres look ok though. If you want quieter cruising and better economy a diff change, overdrive or even both is the way to go, the Ford Sierra 5 speed gearboxes are another option, although it won't be cheap ??)      

The Wiper spacings changed on the Herald/Vitesse models around Mid 1970, have you got the wider spaced Wipers? I think the early type (Wipers close together) give 160 Degrees of sweep and the later type 120 Degrees, not sure how this relates to the teeth on the drive gear wheel though :-/ I got a replacement gear wheel & reconditioned Motor from TD Fitchetts when rebuilding my Car, give them a call they should be able to advise. Found this post below on the subject of Herald Wipers:   Having finally got round to replacing the wiper wheel boxes on my Herald 1200 in preparation for the RBRR I wondered if any fellow Herald owners might like to hear the tale and save themselves some grief.    The original part no. of 122781 (Triumph) is apparently available again according to some specialist suppliers (Rimmers/Fitchett). This part no. translates to the original Lucas no. 72722A which is stamped on the boxes themselves and visible from under the dash.    Having bought a pair you can imagine my consternation when I compared the old ones with the new ones to find that although they will fit and work, with 22 teeth on the old ones and 31 teeth on the new ones the arc of the wiper sweep is nowhere near the 130 degrees it should be but more like 90!    This fairly obviously leaves most of the screen unwiped and is useless. Having remembered that Canley Classics used to offer a conversion to the wiper motor gear designed to correct this, I contacted them only to find that it has been discontinued.    Luckily the up side of being in possession of a goodly number of old units is that I pulled all the motors apart and found that one of them had a gear stamped as 160 degrees instead of the usual 130. I have no idea what this came out of originally but as it has restored the sweep to a total of about 120 degrees, it`ll do!    I had also heard that some early Minis had the same wheelboxes, but found out by visiting Mini Spares in Potters Bar that the ones they keep have 32 teeth which is even worse, though the early Mk1 Cooper S ones are smaller. Unfortunately they didn`t know how much smaller and didn`t have them anyway.    The message here then would seem to be that if your Herald 1200 (13/60s are different) has knackered wheelboxes, find some early Mini Cooper S Mk1 items and count the teeth. If they have around 22, give or take a couple, you`re in business, if not then you can use the `new`122781s available from certain suppliers if you can track down a gear for the motor stamped from 160 to about 180 degrees max. otherwise you`re going to be looking through a small cheese wedge shaped patch whenever it rains.    Failing this I suppose there`s always Rain-ex!

Finally one more from a different angle, I'm afraid the Royal Blue paint and dark garage don't help picture quality :B But I hope they help?

External View

garyf wrote:Photo's to follow of an original wing later ;)

Photo's to follow of an original wing later ;)

A tip I read in the Courier years ago was to Fit the Springs to the Shoes off the car, then use Wooden Wedges where they locate in the shoes to hold them in place. Then fit to the Car and remove the wedges when everything is in place? I have tried this method and as long as you get the wedges a nice tight fit it does work  ;)

The step between the wing and the bonnet top looks about right to me to, although it may not look right now, when the stainless steel finisher strip is fitted it won't be so noticable, the Door skin also has this slight step which should match up to the bonnet? I've noticed that a lot of restored cars have problems with the Rear of the front wing not aligning with the Door, obviously because of the reasons stated by Bill with the Reproduction wings. I'll see if I can get time to take some photo's of the this area on my Vitesse, which to my knowlegde has never had replacement wings. It may help you during the rebuild? (If you where to use an Original Stanpart Vitesse wing everything would line up for sure, but they're as rare as rocking Horse Poo!! ;D)  

Thats the one, thanks Clive :) Ben have a read of the Blue book, Body Training notes. Page 20 onwards details the Front bulkheads and doors, this should help you understand what to do ;)

Ben One possible solution is to loosen off the front bulkhead body mounting bolts and add packing washers to the rear body mounting to tilt the bulkhead to give you more adjustment on the Door? When I was building up the body when rebuilding my Vitesse I had to do this to stop the drivers side quarterlight catching the 'A' Post :B Re-assembling the Herald/Vitesse body sections can be fraught with problems when sections have been repaired and rebuilt incorrectly :-/ Standard Triumph issued a book telling dealers how to adjust the Herald/Vitesse body sections to get correct gaps, I'm sure someone on here (Steve?) has a Pdf version you can download, where are you Steve?

1953 wrote: Jealous! It didn't look like that when I bought it! It didn't have the centre boss either, had to pinch that off the wheel which was on the Car, that had a flatter dish to it. Still a bargain though, the chap wanted £2 for it? I had to offer him less, it was an Austin 7 Rally Autojumble ;D

1218 wrote: I guessed that woodwork was Chapman & Cliff's handiwork.  Top quality.  If you look closely you can see that the dash and the door capping veneer are all cut from the same sheet, thus the grain follows all the way through the car.  Nice work. Mark I never noticed the Cappings matching aswell, They told me it's American Walnut which was the original Veneer used for the Hearald/Vitesse Dash's? The Dash & Cappings Still look good now :)