DVD3500

15 hours ago, Amy Wade said:

Most of the time? 🤔

Watch the YouTube Channel "Lost in the Pond" and you may be surprised...

On 16/04/2024 at 14:40, Velocita Rosso said:

Watch and realise....one or two mis named items.....one relating to the bonnet/ over rider hanger bracket....strut?

I am an American. According to most of you I am using the wrong terminology most of the time! 😄 

To be fair I have only watched maybe twenty or so "Bangers and Cash" episodes but I never ever saw a car sell for the price they thought it would.

"Flipping Bangers" also almost never got the money they wanted (though they did do a few good deals).

I get asked all the time why I get parts for XYZ of your favorite currency when something is "worth" a lot more... Mostly I just wait until I find it for the price I am willing to pay...

What wrong terminology?

Pretty good show on restoring a Spitfire...
Not sure about hoods/bonnets not rusting much though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AppkpUXuaVs&t=1372s

Some argue they are not 100% vital as the rim holds the drum on the hub be itself just fine.
In fact removing those screws can be nigh on impossible on a car that has seen some salt and rain...

If I had them I would use them but with something to ensure the threads stay loose...

On 01/03/2024 at 13:52, JohnD said:

DVD,  no problem, just that I'd found those makers and couldn't be bothered to go back to Another Place!

If your specialist can't/wont work with old BS standards, but you want an original style loom, why go on employing him?  You are the customer!

John  

He works for free. 😉 Well... beer... but I was going to drink that anyway! ;D

Hi John,

Thanks. Yes I know cross posting is not the zenith of online social etiquette but quite a few people tend to stick to only one forum or t`other so I figured no harm no foul. 🙂

I really don`t think getting a specialist to do it is 100% necessary mostly because I have an automotive electrical engineer willing to help me but his eyes glaze over when I mention Lucas or British/Imperial standards.

So for full transparency he asked me the above question and I figured I would ask.

I am breaking my project down into "modules" i,.e suspension, body, motor/transmission etc and one big aspect is more or less restoring/upgrading the wire loom i.e. electrics.

I presume it was done according to some British standard.

I actually have 2 looms from the two cars I bought (`72 European and `76 Federal) plus a guy gave my a European MKIV loom of unknown model year so I have lots to check.

However, should I need to replace a wire/cable I would want to get as close to original as possible (or even slightly larger...)

I did several searches but all I could find was the European standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60228

But I am not sure what standard was used on our cars so no clue what the equivalents are. (I do have the Lucas chart for the standard of what colors are used for what on a typical loom)

Just buying a new loom doesn`t make sense because the car will have multiple upgrades such as relays for headlights, upgraded heater, possibly subtle DLRs/fog lights etc... Engine mgmt will also be nonstandard...

Cheers and have a great day!

I thought it was to meet bumper height regulations?

Or is that another Internet myth?

Next you'll try to convince me the earth isn't the center of the universe...

The last two times I took it off there was a thin i.e. 3-5 mm foam strip on the leading and trailing edge with a mild adhesive on the cap side.

As it was on there twice I presumed it was original but perhaps not....?

Advantage would be making future removal easy. Not 100% sure how water tight it would be...

4 hours ago, MarkB said:

Owned a Hilka set for forty years. Maybe used a few times. Nice idea, but in practice because they lay flat on the nut/bolt, usually things are in the way, so you can't get the spanner to seat, or if you can, you can't get a swing on them.  In my experience it's easier, faster to use a socket.

The set I bought at a car show 2 years' ago is offset about 15°...

I love the things but I barely see anyone use them around here.  Particularly in hard to reach places I find them a huge time saver and knuckle-saver. I of course torque things done with "proper" tools...

What do you all think?

I used to run my then-department's online presence and in 2009 we decided to go on the "socials".

It took us a while to figure out how to get the most "bang for your buck" but a rough guide is that anything on social platform of any kind is like a cocktail party. You wander around, pick up on snippets of information, maybe join a conversation and more than likely most people won't remember or or come back to said conversation in the near future.

Someone said something about venues and event announcements. That is another area where socials are actually pretty good. In fact, anything of a timed-event nature is always well supported by some form of social media.

The reason is because most people access these via apps and they get the info immediately and can make a decision also immediately.

Sites and forums are great for having searchable content and for longer conversations you may want to refer back to.

It is nigh on impossible to find reliable information on "socials".

More static forms of communication are also better for the reliability aspect.

If someone posts something BookFace I have to look at their profile, scroll through the group and also wait for others to chime in to get an idea if they are reliable or not.

On a forum I can usually see at a glance by the number of posts, likes and length of time they have been on whether they are reliable or not.

Where site admins fall down is not cross-pollenating the info. 

As mentioned here you have to have important info across all platforms. There are technical ways to do this but if you are on a shoestring budget just make sure you have a checklist of everywhere.

(Hyper)Linking can help out a lot.

One final thing social stuff can do is drum up a vibe, or buzz around a topic and keep the interest going.
I attended the London Concours this past summer and  they post a different car or a picture of the venue at least once a week.

Key is having a very small number of people (or even only one person) in charge of the whole shebang.

I have been complaining to Scalextric a lot lately... I am their official forum moderator and their websites and other "traditional" online media are in a woeful state....

Recently they only did their advent calendar on social media and I am curious if it was at all successful...

On 05/01/2024 at 09:07, thescrapman said:

I seem to remember Tony Lindsey-dean used to ship lots of his stuff to a contact in Germany.

Might be worth giving him a call for a quick (?????) chat, see if he can help you out.

Thanks. What's his shop called?

On 22/12/2023 at 11:06, Tim Bancroft said:

UK Diff Rebuilders:

1. Mike Papworth: Nuneaton, Warwickshire

2. Canley Classics: Dave Pearson. Near Nuneaton, Warwickshire

3. 2Spec Transmissions: Solihull, Warwickshire

4. Hardy Engineering: Leatherhead, Surrey

 

Top 3 are Triumph specialists and very familiar with small chassis diffs.

 

Cheers.

I used to get to Gaydon from time to time. If the diffs weren't so darn heavy I would have no prob shipping them.

There is a place a few hours away (Bastuck) that also do the aluminum casings.  They will guarantee the work... Will cost north of 1000€ ... when you consider I paid about 2000 € for each car that kinda hurts.... 😄

While living in the US I got many parts from them for my '72 I had .... Real pity..

I have been keeping quiet about my project because frankly there wasn’t much to report on.

The car left in October 2021 and since then has been at a workshop in Stuttgart.

The car was acid dipped, galvanized, primered and some body damage came to light. By this point the guy who runs the shop (is essentially a one-man shop) had other projects that he thought he would get done quickly (a ’63 Beetle that came in for rocker panel/sill work and ended up being a body off restoration). Plus he is known in the area for allowing other people to do their work on their cars there.

Once I was there a guy was swapping out the gearbox on a BMW 3 series for a better one…

The original plan was to send everything off to Poland and then build it back up.

One of the local Spitfire drivers who is a master mechanic and helps build protypes for a star car manufacturer in Stuttgart pointed out how much Spitfire bodies flex (even with strengthening) and since the car obviously had had a few dings maybe we should make sure everything fits since banging and welding into a freshly painted body would be somewhat annoying… putting it mildly.

We will have the chassis and the underbody painted in the final color (Cobalt Blue) but leave the other panels until it all fits up nicely. I know many cringe at the effort of getting panel gaps to fit but this guy hung the doors back on after the dip and they are already nearly perfect.

As idle hands are the devil’s work he is having all the suspension components powder coated and I will put them together on the bench so that when the body is ready for the first test fit we can just bolt them on to get the whole thing rolling.

Then the rest of the car will get the final coat(s) of paint and I asked to have them put in the windshield/windscreen as I don’t have the skill for that.

Then she will come home and I can do the rest!

Only minor hiccup I see is the guy I had lined up to do my diff (convert it to 3.63, put an aluminum casing on it and overhaul it in general) says he can’t get the shims to do it. I tried to convince him but so far no joy. There is a company that will do it for about 1000€ but I was hoping to not have to go that route…  Open to offers! 😄

While I wait for the powder coated parts I am reading up on best practices for fitting the bushes. I got my Dad’s tap and die set and will chase the threads with that. Feels good to have them in my hand again after almost 25 years. I have some upgraded parts from the US and am tempted to put lightweight hubs on the front but the Finance Dept. might not approve that! 😄

So with any luck, sometime in the Spring she will come home and I can report back as I stumble through such tasks as:

Rebuilding and upgrading (relays!) the wiring loom from scratch

Upgrading the heater motor and wiring

Trying to find a way to mount a third brake light without it looking crap

Making a custom dashboard (see comment about new powertrain)

Rebuilding the top/hood frame (luckily I have two, one original and one refurbished in parts)

Reupholstering the seats/installing the interior (to a point… we are resto-modding the powertrain so may leave some of that to the very end)

Re-installing the windows (I have hands smaller than some former president’s so I don’t mind. 😊)

Etc etc etc…

Watch this space!

To all who celebrate something this time of year: Happy Holidays and wishing you all a great new Gregorian new Year!

These are my Dad's tools. The same ones I used one my Firebird, my first Spitfire, Porsche 924 and Sunbird....

I brought back a set of deep sockets and various wrenches last time I was in the US.

These come very timely as I will be getting the suspension parts back and we will be mating the body and chassis soon and will have to recut the thread since everything is now powder coated/galvanized/painted....

Using his tools seems to make the project more "mine".

Thanks for all the input!

Hi All,

My Mom is cleaning out stuff from my Dad's toolbox sent me a picture of this tap and die set.

If I understand the standard correctly the 1/4" 24, 5/16" 24 etc are in line with the UNF standard....

Am I correct?

Thanks!

16 hours ago, Tim Bancroft said:

Can't agree about the comment by a poster to this thread that Triumph did not make their cars look similar, in the early 70's the rear end's all had a similar look...Toledo, Dolomite, 2000/2500 mk2, Stag, Spitfire mk4, GT6 mk3, even the TR6....def some uniformity there....I suppose Vauxhall had it with the coke bottle styling of the Viva and Victor...BMW with their range...but not that common in the 70s.

 

 

There is a fine line between brand recognition because of the form (see Porsche...) and having "common" styling.  There was a "meme" a few months back of the top 35 cars where they were all painted white with blanked out wheels and you could not tell them apart regardless of the brand....

Some car names I almost convinced someone were real:

K-Lusion

Side-Sweip

Head Awn

Flatt-Ire

Reminds me of a guy with a Porsche 924 who had a rattle and replaced the entire torque tube (924s are transaxle i.e. gearbox in the read motor up front) only to find out it was spare change in the ashtray. :-)

I have read this before as well.

The Dolomite Sprint was in many ways a better BMW 2000 I think and the 2000/2500 were very good at beating similar BMWs in many aspects.

The only BMW I ever had a mild fizzy for was the Z1, mostly because I like quirky technology.

The more I live in Germany though the more loath them.

One time I was getting a lift from a colleague. A very privileged, only child West German who was shocked, SHOCKED when her manager actually demanded she work more than 4 hours a day (she literally spent the first hour at work doing her hair and nails... every day)...

She told me to meet her in the parking lot. So I went there and I picked out the most over powered BMW estate (SUVs were not a thing yet) with a personalized license plate that matched her.

She was very surprised I twigged which car was hers...

3 hours ago, GT64fun said:

And they don't work in fog either! (Porsche ones don't anyway)

I can count the number of time BMW drivers indicators have worked on one hand... 😄