N Dentressangle

21 hours ago, High Jetter said:

After looking at the car @FakeConcern posted in the tarp challenge thread, I drove past a local garage that sometimes has interesting shite and saw an X90. I've no idea how long ago I saw one previously. Searching for a pic I find it described as 'the worst car ever' on a familiarly named site:

2wd X90's are actually quite in demand as trials cars, believe it or not

Vol 1 Nr 3 for your viewing pleasure:

Part 2 to come...

Not surprised.

That is exactly what a car should be like.

Brilliant that you're actually going to use this.

Someone where my wife works in Gloucester actually commutes in their Austin 7 Ruby (I've seen it in the car park!). I would deffo do the same if I didn't have to piss about with the M5.

Does anyone else think 'Danny The Champion Of The World' when they see these? 😉

When you think that Mercedes introduced the Sprinter in 1995, you realise quite how dated and awful the LDV stuff was.

The warmed over Austin J4 underpinnings were really showing through by the 80s, never mind 20 years later.

21 hours ago, CrapCarNerd said:

Ooo whats happening to this one? looks ready to be saved! Does it have an engine in it? Looks a bit high at the front. 

My Dad has a 1979 1500 we bought from Glasgow in 2017. Its a lot of fun, bit quicker than my 2.0 Capri too. I keep thinking one day I'd like do do an mx5 engine swap on one at some point but it doesn't look as straight forward from what i've seen on youtube.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4V6OeX4Zvag&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE

Your dad's looks a lot smarter than mine!

I do think a Kenlowe fan is worth fitting, if only to get rid of the racket the viscous fan makes.

Well I hope it's grateful, the bastard.

It's winter. You're cold.

You have an ungrateful bitch of a Volvo that won't start.

You need heat.

WIN

Classy motor

Having driven big Sherpas of that vintage back in the day, be under no illusions how it would feel on the road. The Transit engine is probably more power than you'd want in a chassis that could kindly be described as 'wayward'

OTOH simple and cheap to fix.

Still not tempted.

FFS. What a PITA

Disco 3's are temptingly cheap and look great, but there are so many stories like this there's no way I'd risk one.

I'll stick with the cobby old donkey

11 hours ago, Matty said:

You bloody smug sods with long legged diffs and overdrive boxes. Some of us can only dream of cruising at 65/70 on the motorway without a push rod exiting through the bonnet. Don't know you're born 😄

I don't understand why so many old cars were left with silly low gearing for so long. We've had motorways here since 1960ish FFS, and longer than that in Europe.

I remember in the 70's as a kid wondering why pretty much everything was geared for 4k revs + at 70mph in 4th gear - 5 speeds were still pretty rare then. Sensible gear ratios took a hell of a long time to come in.

More bits n bobs.

Some of the interior trim was loose and flappy which always makes a car look scruffy, so I slapped some Evostick in the right places and raided Mrs D's peg bag (don't tell her!) for things to hold in place whilst the glue dried:

Bigger puzzle was why the car seems to use so much oil - a good pint or so in 300 miles. The engine doesn't feel or sound worn, although I haven't had the compression tester on it yet. There's also no obvious blue smoke from oil burning, which I'd have thought would be a good cloud if the pistons were rattling in the bores.

A bit of research suggested that the fancy dan alloy rocker cover might be the culprit. There's no baffle in front of the breather as there is in the original cover, so all the oil mist is being sucked straight into the carbs. Probably not an issue in 'normal' use these days for cars like this - B road bimbling and the like - but maybe more of a problem at a constant 3k revs on the motorway. I rigged up a jar and pipe to catch whatever came out:

60 miles of M5 produced about 1/4" of oil in the jar, so with the suction of the carbs it's not impossible that more being extracted. I'm not keen on aftermarket bling like rocker covers anyway, so I was happy to have an excuse to go back to standard.

Off with the alloy one, and here's the underside, sans baffle:

Badly RTV'd on gasket was giving some seepage too, and I took the opportunity to check and adjust the valve clearances whilst I was in there. 6 fine, 2 slightly wide so I nipped those up and things are now quieter and smoother:

Found a good original rocker cover on Ebay that didn't need paint and hadn't had its securing nuts gibboned down like most of them have. New cap in the latest Paddocks order and job's a good un:

Much prefer the original look!

All done in time for a quick trip down to ATS to re-set the tracking following me replacing the TRE's. Apparently it was miles out, despite me being careful to count the threads etc:

Off to Bristol again tomorrow!

9 minutes ago, Crispian_J_Hotson said:

I know right... I've got 46% of the parts already!

👍 just the body to take care of

Well, it is basically an S type underneath, and V8 is a Jag one.

6 minutes ago, grogee said:

Is the yellow thing JDM? Looks unusual.

Safe travels.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-reviews/15504/daihatsu-yrv-turbo-130

That's some achievement, to actually cheapen the look of a Chevette, a car I remember as seeming pretty povvy even when they were new. The way the headlights and tail lights were fitted seemed really 'oh fuck it, that'll do'

Shame really - the Kadett version looks so much better to me, and they're a decent car underneath

It's been years since I fitted a rack gaiter - that's what happens when you mostly drive old Land Rover stuff 😉 - so I'd forgotten anything I ever knew about getting the gaiter over the inevitable wide bits it has to squeeze over.

Struggled with it for an hour then resorted to Google. Post #10 on here is the winner:

https://www.triumphexp.com/forum/spitfire-and-gt6-forum.8/installing-steering-boots-gators.1295381/

Cut some plastic out of an old milk bottle and gaiter slid on beautifully:

You can see my plastic cone - actually a cone with a cut all the way up one side so it can be tightened to a smaller diameter. Hope it's a useful tip for someone else.

With that in place, the top balljoint was easy peasy and 20min later job done:

Made in the UK!!!

Nice one, https://www.chicdoig.co.uk/

4 hours ago, cort1977 said:

Up early for a mission to the south.

Slightly Glaswegian toast.

Guesses welcome but no clues yet as it's too early.

Poo #1 was on the toast?

40 minutes ago, grogee said:

That looks as if it was quite spendy. I believe @Cluffy might get staff discount although it's only about 10%, which after the faff of posting is bugger all.

Even the oil seal was 17 squids! Classy motors, Jags 😉

I wouldn't bother, but the 1500 engine is notorious for bottom end failure. As long as you're not doing longer motorway runs you probably don't need a cooler, but 30 miles of M5 at 3k revs and an oil cooler will help the bottom end last a bit longer.

I've been trying to decide how to fit the oil cooler. It was available as an option when the Spit was new, so the official parts look like this:

but obvs I haven't got those fancy dan twisted brackets, so I was thinking of mounting mine something like this:

Wonder what Triumph originally intended.