Triumph - That was a year that was..

RayMK · September 3, 2021

I was sitting on the edge of my seat reading of your Triumphant return. It is often the case that a car which has had extensive work and much dismantling and reassembly will have a few wobbles until it settles down to being used again. Fortunately, you were able to overcome the difficulties and complete the journey in style. I like the steel wheels and the car looks very smart. Will the ride height adjustment be a matter of eating more pies, or will it require shorter springs?

Bfg · September 3, 2021

Thank Ray, Yes indeed, it's a little odd that even things which haven't been touched suddenly happen to fail or be a nuisance.. I don't recall things fixing themselves though :rolleyes:

Katie is without bumpers at the moment, but the spare wheel and tools are in the boot along with a gallon of fresh water and a similar volume of engine oil. Pies would be nice but too mid-ships I fear, and not enough for how I'd like her to be sitting (..in rather on top of her suspension). Rich has suggested loosening the suspension fastenings and taking the car for a drive across a field, and then without jacking the car up to re-tighten things up again. That may help a bit but again I rather suspect not enough. So very likely I'll be refitting the car's original / previously fitted rear springs again. With new poly-bush collars that might then be where things should be. I just need to check that the car then sits evenly side to side. If not then spacers are available to correct that. The rear I'd like down an inch half to two inches, the front I'd like her down about inch. I guess I'll need to borrow a spring compressor to do the fronts.

Of course it might just be that Katie is keen to show off to inquisitive TR enthusiasts the additional chassis bracing she now has ..or perhaps it's to show the skeptics that those mods were really not at all that heavy

I too like / prefer these wheels to the wires. I need to find a set of TR6 or perhaps Spitfire hub centres to finish them off a little, but I'm pleased with the look. I even like not having the bumpers on, but I don't know if I dare to use the car like that.? I might only guess that even minor body repairs are even more expensive than bumpers.

Pete

Noel Tidybeard · September 6, 2021

maybe you are rushing her and she just needs time to settle down by herself

Bfg · September 8, 2021

^ you might be right, to a degree, but I'd like her 1-1/2" to 2" lower both front and back. And that's just not going to happen. 1/4" perhaps but not that much ..unfortunately.

. . . Evening all,

I started making a list of the jobs I've been doing since I got Katie back last Wednesday evening, but I reckon those two-dozen items would make for pretty boring reading, so I'll just mention one topic at a time. And as the current issue is fuel peeing out like its a Belgium fountain, I guess I'll start off with that. . .

^ This was in the float bowl of the front carb, and then rather similar in the rear one. The glass bowl of the petrol pump was worse and had larger flakes, perhaps black paint ?

However I should add that I'd not checked them before now and so this sediment might be 20 years old, and the issues I've had may be from my trying to temporarily fix leaky joints. In brief from forcing old rubber pipe over sharp edged metal tube, whereby the inside of the rubber pipe is scraped and tiny rubber slivers then find their way under the float chamber's needle. I guess I'll never know for sure.

Anyway, it isn't worth mucking around with ..for the sake of £10 for a meter of 1/4" rubber pipe (ethanol stable) and £1 each for new and neat little stainless clips. These I bought from the TSSC club shop at Duxford - Thank you to those unsung heroes who provide a great service, not only throughout the year by post, but also in providing advice and the convenience of being able to collect parts from an event ..on a Sunday.

Katie's fuel pipe run was like this (..tidied up a little but otherwise pretty much as bought) . . .

^ Rubber pipe from the pump ( Rear LHS of the engine) with 1/4" connection, going to a chromed-copper-tube (approx 5/16" OD) which sort-of / just about / almost swept around to a support bracket under the thermostat. From that end - plastic / hard rubber 'flexi' pipe to an in-line fuel filter, and then to the front carb ( Front RHS of the engine ) with its 1/4" pipe connection on the float bowls. From there thin plastic pipe (5/16" fitted onto a 1/4" connection) went to the cross-over-tube (5/16") leading to a similar thin plastic pipe to the rear carb. You'll note there were no pipe clips on the cross-over-tube.

The unsupported length from the bracket on the front LHS of the thermostat - sagged uncomfortably close to the fan-belt pulley. Naturally this was not helped by the span, nor by the weight of fuel in the filter. You might say that I paid good money for these leaky issues, with there being no gasket for the forward float bowl, and its pipe connections seeping.

So, this is what I changed things to . . .

^ The chromed-copper-tube from the pump to the thermostat was reshaped to follow the contour around the front of the rocker cover and to tuck inbetween it and thermostat. The rubber pipe from there to the filter was swapped out (now 8mm), and the filter moved close to the carb, where it was better supported and further from the exhaust manifold. The rubber pipe from there to the forward carb was also changed for new (also 8mm) and a sleeve inserted into its end ..to take its bore down to the 1/4" connection of the float bowl. The pipes to the cross-over-tube remained as they were, because by this point I'd had enough of leaky joints and was about to buy 1/4" fuel hose of the latest ethanol spec.

Despite cleaning out the pump's glass bowl and the sediment in the float chambers, I then faced repeated needle jets sticking . . .

^ the float bowl's needle is by any other name a shut-valve, actuated by the float floating on the petrol being pumped into the float chamber. When that needle doesn't close that valve (because a speck of debris is holding it out of its seat) the fuel continues to be pumped into the float bowl. In short time it overflows and petrol squirts out of the breather hole, situated just under the pipe connection. On the rear carb, this hole points towards the bulkhead and so a squirt of fuel shoots out and splashes everywhere and vaporises in the vicinity of exhaust manifolds .. not quite the ideal ! The front carb's vent points towards the inner wheel arch ..so again when that overflows - petrol similarly splashes off that surface, before running down the engine-bay's bodywork ..to then dribble directly onto the main chassis rail. I guess its just tough luck if any of the paint isn't petrol resistant. Fortunately Katie's was.

Having bought the 6mm / 1/4" rubber fuel pipe at Duxford on Sunday.., today I swapped it all out. This is what I now have . . .

^ all the rubber fuel pipes have now been replaced, and while at it - I re-routed the tube to go around the back of the engine to feed the rear carb first. I'm biased but I think it now looks to have been designed ..to be this way.

To do this, I reshaped the chromed-copper-tube, yet again, so that it now sits parallel and close to the battery (..now well clear of HT leads, the hot water / heater return pipe, and the fan pulley. I've used a velcro strap to loosely tie it, and the rev-counter cable, to the earth lead.

On the far side ; the chromed-copper-tube bends upwards, and from there a new piece of rubber fuel pipe goes directly to that rear carb. The new rubber fuel pipe is 1/4" and so I soaked its end in hot water to soften it enough to stretch over the 5/16" copper pipe.

The distributor's auto-advance vacuum pipe I've left where I'd previously moved it to, behind the thermostat (..away from the fan belt) and I've removed that horrid little sharp-cornered, pain-in-the-arse-to-remove fuel-pipe support-bracket, which was clamped there by the thermostat cover's bolt. I'll have to get one of those 90-deg elbows for the vacuum pipe to tidy that up a little more.

^ despite the impression given by the perspective in this photo.. the new fuel pipe's route is well clear of the exhaust manifold. I've discarded the cross-over-tube ..and now simply run the new rubber fuel pipe from one carb to the other ..that gets rid of two potential leaky joints, and the steps in size. The speedo cable goes down passed the steering column, before sweeping back to the gearbox (..you can see it cable-wrapped to the loom at the bottom of this photo). And the fuel pipe loops smoothly around, from one carb to the other, on the outside of that cable ..so it cannot stray anywhere near the exhaust down pipes, nor the steering column.

Job done, and another tick on the "replace every item of perished rubber" list.

I haven't refitted the inline fuel filter, not least because it's both big and ugly. I hope with everything now clean.. the gauze mesh in the fuel pump's glass bowl will do the job.

We'll see.!

Pete

Bfg · September 10, 2021

On the Triumph Sports Six Club forum someone posed the question - why did they run the pipes around the front ?

For those who like to look under car bonnets, here's my reply. . .

I'm pretty certain the original / standard routing of the fuel pipe was like this . . .

^ From the fuel pump, a metal tube (no rubber connector needed) ran forward and around the thermostat and most the way across to the forward carb. This continuous tube was a 1/4" and so even the last rubber pipe had no step in size. Their fit was matched and I don't believe any pipe clips were originally fitted on the connections.

^ The fuel pipe support bracket from the underside of the thermostat was like this, and had a specially formed rubber holder, which similarly supported the auto-advance vacuum pipe.

Various design of cross-over-tubes (from the forward carb to the rear) according to whether early SU's (TR4) or Stomberg (TR4A ..for a while), or later SU's (later TR4A's) were used. But again in each case the metal tube was 1/4" ..so the rubber connector pieces didn't have to deal with any step in connection size.

^ This is a TR4 with SU's and the earlier type air filter. The in-line filter is of course not standard, but the point here is how simple the cross-over-tube between carburetors is. Again the metal tube size is the same diameter as the connections on the float chamber caps. These earlier SU's had a different cap on their float bowls, and the pipe connections were inline rather than diagonal.

When the later TR4A swapped back to using SU's and the air filter was changed to the oval paper-element type, that you see on Katie. These were through-bolted, and two P-brackets were used to support that cross-over-tube . . .

^ it's surprisingly rare to find a car with these air filters and the cross-over-pipe still on it. The clips on the rubber pipe were not originally specified.

As you might gather Katie's was a hash up of bits n' pieces of different sizes. Going back to original would have elevated most of the issues I had with getting pipes to fit over different sized tubes, but in my opinion those fuel pipes spanning across from the front of the engine and the cross-over-tube between carbs is rather ugly.

- - -

Why did the pipe go around the front ? Well I think the answer to that is two fold. The first being that traditionally engines fitted out to be run on a test bed, so things like the coil were bolted onto the engine as was the fuel system from the pump onwards. Not necessarily Triumph's but many pre-war chassis cars were assembled to be started and driven as a rolling chassis, even before a body shell was fitted. This was useful where there was a split in the production line, and cars had to be moved from one part of the assembly plant to another.

The second half of the answer probably lies with these things being carried over from the TR3 where the nose of the car / the bonnet enclosure came all the way back to cover the radiator, and of course 'Why not ?' . . .

^ why not ? in 1950's maintenance was more important than everything being neat. The car's heater return pipe runs back along that side of engine, as does the conduit for the oil pressure gauge. The HT leads are rarely tidy nor the wiring to the coil and distributor. The rev counter cable is down there too. There's not a whole lot of space around the back of the engine, and so when the engine with gearbox is lifted out or refitted.. it's quite common for the back of the block to clout the bulkhead. Any pipe back there would be vulnerable. You'll also note that the carb's float chambers are forward of their venturi. The car's heater valve and pipe and the pedal assembly with master cylinder, a bundle of wiring loom and the solenoid nearby the starter motor, and of course the close proximity of the bulkhead ..leave very little room for them to be on the rear side of the carbs.

So I think the simple answer, in technical jargon.. is that it was just "easier" to run the fuel pipe around the front, along with the auto-advance vacuum pipe.

Pete.

Bfg · September 13, 2021

I've now done a couple of dozen jobs on the car since I got her back, but now I really need to address the ride height before anything else. The car's handling is what I'd regard as uneasy and unpredictable, and because of that is verging on the dangerous.

When I bought her - she was a little low on the back and sitting lop sided, but when I over-did through a corner she settled into a very controllable slow-motion-like 4-wheel-drift and looked after me. Presently, she's just about OK down a dual-carriageway, but coming off a curving slip-road, or driving down a straight country road with undulations, or twisting through even modest corners ..the positive camber on the rear wheels wind up to make the car feel as if it is on the brink of twisting over and breaking away. My old Mk.2 Spitfire had wind-up rear suspension ..but it had such a low centre-of-gravity that it was great fun to drive. But not Katie as she presently is.

Russell, in our local Triumph Sports Six Club invited me, in Katie, to join him in coming across to Duxford. He and a friend drove across in his navy-blue Stag. I asked if he was going around the A14 or across country, he didn't mind. As it happens fuel leaks prevented me coming in Katie, but after sorting the fuel pipes out I test drove the car and realised that a cross country jaunt with this suspension geometry would have been a horrid drive and possibly inviting an unscheduled expedition into hedgerow brambles.!

Like many IRS cars, the TR's ride height directly effects the camber, which I gather should be around neutral when unladen and an increasing degree of negative camber (spread the footprints wider apart) the more it is loaded ..when cornering. Negative camber helps the tyre's footprint stay flat to the ground during cornering, even as its side walls are deflecting.

When the springs are harder and longer than they should be (I'm suspecting TR6 springs have been fitted).., the ride height is very high and, because of the geometry of these trailing arms, the wheels (as you can see above) adopt a noticeable amount of positive camber.

When cornering ; an excess of positive camber tends to tuck the wheel under its suspension, rather than the car squatting. Less roll might seem to be a good thing but not when the car's higher-than-correct centre-of-gravity rolls the body over the axle ..which just makes things worse. When cornering enthusiastically, the tyre's footprint (contact-patch to the road) moves to the outside of the tread. With still harder driving, the effective contact-patch might be reduced to perhaps just a quarter of the tyre's tread, and then all it takes is a road irregularity to loose traction. The narrow width of these cars, and therefore its narrow track, amplify this scenario. As of course does the nature of a driver's sportscar ..which encourages an 'enthusiastic style'.

Positive camber on the front make the car's steering a little twitchy and tends to induce over-steer ..so not only is the suspension winding itself up, but so is the steering. This car's suspension caster has similarly not been checked.. it was just bolted together.

Brand new tyres with very soft walls and those being 165/80 section, rather than low profile, would also contribute to the tyre tucking under. Again fitting those tyres to narrower wheels (4" rather than the wire wheels at 4-1/2") works against us. And then, it's also very probable that a predetermined (..well accepted anyway !) amount of chassis flex contributes to negative camber, and my chassis stiffening mods have altered that, whereby I'll need to adjust for a little more negative than standard. We'll see.

NB. the TR6 springs were up-rated by the factory, due to that car's excessive squatting under accelerating power which caused their steering to go light and their twin exhausts to drag. The TR6 also has an anti-roll bar and wider profile tyres as standard to help keep its grip.

The front axle's tracking was checked and presumably adjusted by a tyre centre before I collected the car. Of course i do not know what figure they used for their adjustment. I haven't checked with a taught string yet but a careful visual check suggests little toe-out of the RHS rear wheels ..perhaps, according to a quick geometric calculation it's about -1/2 of a degree from being in line My calc takes into account the TR4A's front-axle track being 1/2" wider than the rear. Although not perfect I cannot see that as a significant issue.

I'm advised by my friend Rich, who has a few TR4's, that Katie is not (noticeably) crabbing. . .

I investigated rear springs this afternoon, well the rear RHS one anyway.

^ I'd not done this before ..but the process is simple albeit laborious, insomuch as the half-shaft coupling needs to be undone from the diff. With other wheels chocked, the handbrake needs to be off to turn the half-shaft around to undo all four bolts. Sockets do not fit and so it's a two 9/16" ring or open-ended-spanner job. Awkward when your working on the floor under a low car, even one on axle stands. Otherwise, with the chassis supported., a trolley-jack under the trailing-arm takes the spring tension as the damper's tie-rod (one nut on the underside of the trailing arm) is undone. Once that nut was removed - the trolley jack is gently lowered while the half-shaft is supported - to prevent it's gaiter from being damaged by it dropping down on the corner of the chassis rail. That's all, the spring sort-of pulls out, but there's not quite enough room for the rubber or poly-bush) collar ..so that falls off.

Comparing the new and old springs, sort of surprised me. . . .

^ Replacement spring left, old spring right. Although first impressions suggest they're different, they are the same length (11-1/2")

And when weighed, they both come out at 3kg (bathroom scales are not that accurate but close enough for this). This suggests they have a very similar amount of steel in them.

And then when tested under arbitrary load, of 24kg (three night storage heat bricks) . . .

^ they each compressed by the same amount ..just 1/4". For all intent and purpose then.. they appear to be the same specification of spring.

The tyep of spring collars were shown to me when I visited M&T and those were black poly-bush types of 7mm thick.

^ New 7mm thk polybush collar left, old 5mm thk rubber collar right.

According to those in the know, because of the suspension's geometry ..the difference in spacer (or collar thickness) equates to just a little under double its thickness in road height. So the difference in thickness here is 7 - 5mm = 2mm + 1 for the rubber being squashed a little more = 3mm, so that'll make 6mm difference in ride height.

I put the replacement spring back in, sitting on a poly-bush collar at the bottom, in the trailing arm, but with the old rubber collar fitted at the top. Took the car around the block (which here in Ipswich is like a lap around the pavé track at Millbrook vehicle test facility) ..and low and behold that side is now 5- 6mm lower. Exactly as predicted but never-the-less worth checking for peace of mind.

Very oddly, the positive camber now appears much better.?? That changing was not something I had anticipated, nor something I can presently explain. I'll check it again tomorrow.

So, if the springs are the same, and the collars make such little difference - I'm still a little baffled as to why the car is sitting 40mm too high.

^ The spring saddle looks to be standard, aside from the couple of extra corner-triangulation gusset plates and its colour of paint.

I did however note that the body used to rest on the old chassis' spring hanger, and in fact the inner-wheel-arch bottom flange was chafing through the top of the cup on the RHS. Whereas the body, sitting on the replacement chassis, is notably higher. The gap between the top of this spring hanger cup and the flange is now possibly 12mm (higher). I've just checked the RHS and that has something like 8mm clearance now.

^ looking down into the spring cup of the trailing arm. No spacer in there just the 7mm poly-bush spring-collar smeared in silicon grease.

So where does any of this take us ? ..but around the block and back again ?

Well, my present conjecture is that the old rubber spring collar I fitted - was the best of the three removed from this car, and one was missing. Swapping back to this (best condition) one made 5-6mm difference in ride height. Double that, and add a bit more for the even more squashed rubber of the spring's bottom collar ..and we'll have 12-15mm additional ride height, which together with the body now sitting 8-10mm higher on the chassis.. totals 20-25mm extra ride height. Quite possibly the old springs are a little tied and so when loaded under the 450+kg weight of the back of the car ..that might account for the other 15mm or so difference in static ride height we now see.

Tomorrow I'll swap both rear springs for the original ones, just to try it and see.

Pete

p.s. when fit recently repainted or powder-coated wheels, take a minute to run around the bolt holes with a blade to clean out the paint before fitting. Possibly I should have done this before I gave the steel wheels to M&T to be fitted ..but their mechanic should have known better and very quickly done it as a matter of course. It's really bad practice to fasten structural parts or anything that's safety orientated onto a thickness of paint rather than metal to metal. The paint will crack and flake, which may happen a few miles down the road ..and then the wheel nut will be loose. Aside from that.. seeing cracked paint really pisses the customer off.

Bfg · September 14, 2021

Rain today, light at first progressively wetter.. as I'm not exactly keen on laying down and crawling under the car in the wet ..progress was slow. Before I swapped the road springs back to what was previously fitted, I thought it prudent to first check that the trailing-arm's poly-bushes were not binding up. When we collected the car, my friend Rich suggested loosening the bolts through the trailing-arm bushes, just in case they had been tightened up with the car jacked up, and were too tight to settle. With a host of other tasks and then fuel leaks I've only just got around to doing it.

Rich had suggested I loosen them and then drive the car around the block, but I opted to do it a little different, not least because they would have needed to be re-tightened, and for that to happen I would have needed to jack the car up again ..for me to crawl under it. So I first lifted the rear wheels onto blocks. At the same time I loosened the bolts through the four trailing-arm brackets / poly-bushes (5/8" spanner & a 5/8" socket).

..you can see the sort of wheel arch gap I'm trying to sort out.

with the front wheels loosely chocked and the handbrake off, so the wheels were free to turn as they settle, I loaded the boot. . .

^ I estimate that's about 95kg sitting on a 6x2" timber, which together with my own weight (105kg) bouncing up n' down on the rear wings and rocking the car from side to side, ought to turn the poly-bushes in their brackets / on their bolts for this loaded condition.

And then still loaded, and without jacking the car up, I crawled under and retightened those bolts. Once done, and unloaded the bricks out of the boot and popped around to the local shops in the car, so the wheels were then sitting normally level to the ground. The result of my efforts was to make things 5mm worse (ie.., raised) on both sides ! ??

Btw the LHS has a bigger gap than the RHS rear arch ..hub centre to the arch, by about 12mm, despite it having a thinner collar fitted above its spring.

It's still wet so I'll change the road springs back to the old ones tomorrow.

Pete.

Bfg · September 15, 2021

Half-shaft has now been swapped out..

^ the original from this car (top) and one I bought hoping it was OK below. :huh: fingers crossed.

Rear springs now swapped out for those that were originally on the car.

Five hours later, as I had to first swap the wheels studs over, and then had issues with one of the six studs holding the hub to the trailing-arm being loose / a stripped thread, the sliding handbrake mechanisms having no lubrication, and then again the handbrake cable mounting on the top of the trailing-arm being loose, no washer under it, and a binding nut. It's all back together now but for doing the wheel bearing nut up. Not turned a wheel yet so don't know what the ride height like is yet.

Pete

Bfg · September 17, 2021

Yesterday Mathew (Puma-powered Spitfire) from the TSSC., very kindly drove down from Norfolk to give us a hand. Two minds looking at the same problems from different experience-perspectives, as well as another pair of hands when measuring toe-in, camber and tracking, was very useful and he's good company and an interesting chap to hang around with. Mathew also has toe-in checking equipment which gave definitive, if at some times a little confusing, data. I might add that the confusion was mostly on my part because I'd never used such no-smoke-&-one-mirror tricks before. I'm old school and so still use a length of cord along with a tape measure and a spirit level.

First thing though was to do the final task of swapping the half shaft out and replacing rear the suspension springs for those that came off the car. I'd assessed that they were of the same spec as the replacement ones, but I figured the replacements were perhaps less 'tired' than the originals ..so with the old springs back in the car - she might settle lower. That final task was to tighten the central hub-assembly nut up to the prescribed 100-110 ft lb. which with my background in old bikes rather than cars, leaves me a slight disadvantage. To me (having never had a hub apart to see the bearing assembly & inner workings) that big nut appears to be a wheel-bearing nut, which with old cars I thought was "pinched-up tight and backed-off by one flat of the nut" ..then put the split-pin in and it's good to go.

However, the Triumph workshop manual, under torque settings (at the very front a manual with no index) it says "Rear Hub Assembly ... 5/8" x 20 UNF stub axle ... 100 to 110 ft. lb." In part this information is copied across to the Haynes manual but their semantics confuse things by describing it as "Inner driving flange to inner axle (IRS), which doesn't tie in with either my jargon nor their exploded diagram. Anyways up, the figures agree and so 110 ft.lb. is what it was done up to.

We then went for a few miles test drive around Suffolk's unclassified and b-roads, pushing the car into corners as fast as other road users would allow. Aside from a quick stop to lift the top off the carb's float bowl to clear its needle from sticking again, the handling felt much better. In fact the car in general sounded and felt almost passable, albeit with rather light steering and a tendency to over-steer in faster tight corners where subsidence made the road surface uneven. However, when we got back and measured the ride height (having rolled the car forward and onto a level packing (plywood under one wheel) - the car is sitting no lower with these springs than those M&T fitted. It also remains higher on the passenger side than the driver's. In summary, I might only attribute the better feel of the car to having two people in it rather than just myself.

Mathew then got his laser and mirror toe-in checking device out and we checked the rear axles . . .

Toe-in of the rear wheels and Tracking..

^ Having set up the mirror to the LHS rear wheel rim, the laser's red dot is reflected back to its gauge and centred ..as a datum to compare with. The laser is then left untouched as the mirror is moved to rest against the rim of the RHS rear wheel. The reflected red dot now tells us what the difference in angle is. As you can see in the second photo., that was recorded as about 13 minutes of a degree (ie., about an eigth of a degree toe out). The workshop manual tells us that the axles (front and rear) should be set zero (neutral) to 1/16" toe in. I could convert from 1/16" to degrees but for the time being we'll leave it ..as to adjust the toe-out to toe-in would involve re-shimming inbetween one trailing arm bracket and the chassis rail. And Mathew reckoned that even removing just one shim would result in too much adjustment.. He has a Triumph 2000 with much the same IRS suspension as this, so I'm happy to take his word for it. In any case although the device highlights this tiny inaccuracy, it doesn't tell us which (left or right) trailing arms is out of alignment.

Me, well I'm old school.. and I had a piece of cord to work with. . .

^ with the cord tied to the exhaust tail pipe ('cause I'm right-sophisticated with my engineering set-ups) and pulled taught around all four tyres (the cord clearing the sills and otherwise pretty close to being parallel to the ground) we could then use a tape measure or rule to measure front and back dimensions between each wheel rim and the cord). Those dimensions were of course in inches or mm, and it's intuitive to see which wheel was pointing where. NOTE : we did allow for the difference in width of front and rear axle tracks, with 5mm packers under the cord on each rear tyre.

The rear wheels were very close (measured as about 2 - 3.5mm out of track) but the front wheel tracking ..which I was told by Mark had been done by a commercial tyre centre in Wolverhampton, was 10 - 12mm toe-out. Oops ! It is meant to be 0 - 1/16" toe-in.

So we went for lunch

Thereafter we adjusted that, at the steering rack's tie-rods (..either end to try and keep the steering-wheel straight). For this task - the laser & mirror was helpful and very much more precise than the cord and tape measure. Accordingly, I've now set them to about 3-5 minutes toe in, but I also accept that's a temporary setting, as there's play in the steering rack itself.

At the local TSSC evening meet-up a member kindly flagged this, as most likely being the rack's inner ball joint. Again this is something that I would have thought M&T's mechanic should have noted and advised on ..perhaps asking if I wanted it exchanged or refurbished while the body was off. It's noticeable enough, as is a wobbly rear wheel bearing, that they otherwise ought to have been flagged by the MOT. Anyway, they're now just other items on my job list.

Checking the cord, now with the front wheels in line, revealed that the rear track was so close to being correct as to be of no concern. The cord, previously held out of true by the front wheels - corrupted our previous measurements at the rear. Measured again, the rear wheel rim to cord dimensions were so close, on both sides as to be negligible, and indeed (if I recall correctly indicated) 1.5mm toe in. I'll check that again because the recollection contradicts the laser readings, but 1.5mm, in or out, on a 15" rear wheel is pretty close ..and it may yet adjust when the ride height and the wheel's positive camber are corrected.

Our second test drive confirmed that the steering was very much better now, with a little feel (rather than being a little too light), and so very much better feel in corners, in particular left-handers for some reason. I still felt that the car was rolling over its suspension and skittish when pushed (or over pushed !) ..but still we had achieved a noticeable improvement for very little effort. I leveled the floor by the patio before driving straight in (no reversing to wind-up the suspension) and we checked the ride height again and also looked into the positive (leaning out at their top) camber of the rear wheels.

Ride Height . The ride height measured (wheel centre to underside of wheel-arch rim) as 405mm on the RHS, and 425mm on the LHS. Checking against a spirit level across the car, we've determined that the LHS wheel-arch is 10mm higher than the other (down to body tub, wing shape or where it's fitted), so the passenger side will look higher by that amount. The body is sitting some 8-10mm higher on this chassis, probably thanks to having new rubber body-mount pads inbetween the two. And the poly-bush spring collars are each 3 - 5mm thicker than the old rubber ones and so, due to the geometry of spring to hub distance, would raise the rear suspension by 6 to 10mm for each collar. x2 collars for each spring = 12 to 20mm increase in ride height. I'm not sure I can do much about that, but to fit shorter / lowered springs. But I'll wait to see how correcting the camber changes things.

Camber. Unfortunately Mathew's camber checking device wouldn't work on this car, because there is no flat surface on the wheels for the device to fit it against. Apparently it's often set against the flat of a brake disk. So back to old-school ways of doing things.. ie., a spirit level set vertically from the ground and resting / steadied against the wheel arch. From this straight edge datum its easy enough to measuring the distances to the wheel rim. BTW., for these dimensions to be accurate, 68 kg or thereabouts, in night storage heater bricks was set onto each seat (in accordance with the workshop manual.

The measurement itself is meaningless (because of wheel arch brow dimension is not accurate) but the difference in dimension between that taken at the top and bottom of the wheel rim - tells us the camber. That is measured in mm but is easy to convert to angle when you know the diameter of the wheel rim (395mm in the case of these 15" wheels). Each wheel measured 10mm or thereabouts of positive camber. That equates to 1.45 deg positive camber when it should be +/- 0 to 0.5 of a degree. Only with my 105kg bulk sitting on the rear wing / on the rear light did we get close to getting the suspension height change to adjust the wheel camber to close to being zero.

At speed around a corner I'd fall off :help: so I'll next need to adjust the camber by altering the trailing arm brackets. I'm going to try reversing which way around they are fitted onto the chassis rail.

That's it. It was time for a quick cuppa tea, and for Mathew to look at some Caterham seats I have, before he headed for home.

I know what's got to be done. It's a little frustrating that I'm having to do it, but I'm at least of a calm piece of mind to get one with it, possibly over the weekend.

Big Thanks to Mathew for his help, patience, amicable nature and positive motivation.

He's taking an unscheduled break from jobs right now, and I wish him a speedy recovery.

Pete.

Bfg · September 20, 2021

Yesterday was interesting, but not as productive as I hoped ..and my back now aches something rotten. Nevertheless here we go . . .

Ignoring for a moment the ride height, which I hoped might be helped a little, with what I was about to do - the challenge was to adjust the rear wheel's positive camber.

But firstly, I needed to ascertain where we were at.

^ eight approx 8kg night storage-heater bricks in each seat, half a tank of fuel, the spare wheel and another 15kg of weight in the boot to simulate normal load conditions.

The car is on the level having been rocked and rolled forward.

^ The spirit-level is standing on the floor and leaning against the wheel-arch brow, with a piece of wood leaning against it to hold it steady while I measure to the rims top and bottom. The dimensions recorded (rear LHS) were 46.5mm top and 50.5mm bottom, so the top of the wheel was tilting out (positive camber) closer to the spirit level rather than being upright or slightly tilting in.

I did a scale drawing of this (on the computer in ACAD) and the angle equated to 0.73 degrees (positive). The TR4A workshop manual tells me it should be +/- 0.5 degrees. Personally speaking I would like to see zero to -0.5 degrees negative camber. In any case the requirement is to alter the positive camber to negative by about 3/4 of a degree (have the wheel sitting vertically when the car is loaded or leaning in by about 3mm difference) or just a little more. NB. the difference on the rear RHS of the car was the same 5mm / 0.73 degree positive camber. It's reassuring when both are the same.

Now, working on the rear RHS of the car, only because that was easier in my present working environment, and with the wheel off this is what we see . . .

^ Taking the chassis rail as being level, you can clearly see how the trailing-arm brackets adjust the camber of the trailing arm and therefore the wheel. It ought, by the look of things, to be negative camber (top of the wheel tilting in) as the orientation of the brackets are correct for this car. The camber does go to negative as the suspension is compressed. This is so.. when cornering - it's like putting the tyre at a very slight angle to stop it sliding sideways. As it is the tyre leans outwards and the so is scrubbed further under the side wall. This positive camber then is consistent with the car's ride height being more than it should be (the springs are not compressing enough).

Looking on Buckeye Triumph's report on adjusting the camber ; I read this . . .

^ This records three different bracket shapes, 1, 2 and 3. each marked with the corresponding number of notches on its top edge.

Type-1 has the trailing-arm pivot / axis bolt (where the rubber or poly-bush goes) just 3.2mm below the centre of the bracket (between the bracket's two mounting bolts). NB. This type-1 is what I have.. seen to the left of my photo (above).

Type-2 has its pivot/axis-bolt 9.35mm above the centre of the bracket. This type of bracket is what I have (outboard by the sill) seen to the right in the photo above.

Type-3 bracket doesn't concern me because I don't have those (they're sometimes used on the TR6), but for record their pivot/axis-bolt is some 16.8mm below the centre of the bracket.

3D-2D means Outside a type-3 bracket with notches Down, used in conjunction with an inside type 2 bracket, also with its notches Down. In this configuration the camber between the brackets is -4.16 degrees ..which because of the trailing arm's geometry gives -3.3 degree (negative camber) of the wheel. (it say 3.61 degrees in another table). Another row starts with 2U-3U whereby the U signifies that the bracket is orientated with its notches UP.

Katie presently had the configuration I've highlighted in blue. 2U-1U ..that is type-2 brackets with their notches facing Up on the outside, and type-1 brackets, also with notches Up on the inside (nearer the centreline of the car).

Editing that table into what is pertinent to me at this time .. insomuch as I only have two type-1 brackets and two type-2 brackets to play with, let's clear all the other permutations away ..and so this is what we see . . .

^ The configuration Katie has (correct according the manual) is again highlighted in blue.. Outer ; 2 with notches Up, inside type-1 bracket also with notches Up.

I want more negative camber by at least 0.73 of a degree ..and the table says to reverse & invert (in red) the brackets I have. That it says would alter the camber by 0.6 degree which is very close to what I want, and the most these particular brackets will give us.

However to me it doesn't make sense. Surely if you rotate the brackets 180 degrees ..the angle between them will be the same.? I wasn't convinced ..but at the same time I remained uncertain, as this report is reputed to be accurate. Perhaps I was missing something.? So., I took the brackets off and did what it suggested . . .

^ getting those brackets out is a pain-in-the-arse when you're an old fart working under a car on axle stands. Firstly the road springs had to be removed to take the pressure off them, so driveshaft inner coupling and damper, then the spring could come out, and the trailing-arm pivot-bolts removed, and then finally the bolts holding the brackets to the chassis rail. Thankfully the corner triangulation / gusset plates I had added didn't restrict access too much but still it was working blind to get the socket in there.

^ brackets off the RHS of the car. The Left bracket with notch Up is type-1 and from the inside, and the right bracket with notches up is the type-2 (which I'm also indicating with the blue masking tape) and that was next to the sill. on the table this was designated 2U-1U

^^ RH piccie shows these reversed and inverted as suggested. On the table above this designated ID-2D. Nope., the angle didn't suddenly change as I stepped over them to take a photo from that side. But as I say, I might have been missing something so I put the car's suspension back together again with the brackets this way around.

Then loaded the car up again and bounced, rocked and rolled it forward to the marked-level ground. But I do admit that I haven't yet driven the car to re-settle the suspension, but for a quick check I presumed this might give us an indication.

Results ; that side's wheel has adjusted, in part the suspension appears to have dropped by 10mm (wheel centre to wheel arch) which was much more than was predicted in the Buckeye report. This change is in part due to the pivot axis (although the same 2.08 degree angle) being of a different height (as illustrated below) relative to the chassis rail / the bolts on the brackets . . .

^ Drawn to scale, the brackets -3.2mm (type-1 bracket) or +9.35mm (type-2 bracket) offset relative to the chassis rail / the mid axis of the bolts through those brackets.

Top is how the car's RHS trailing arm brackets were. And across the bottom is how they now are. And yes as I thought, the pivot's axis angle is unchanged (at 2.08 degrees) and the height relative to the bolt's horizontal axis is lower (by some 6mm). According to the report this height change should have rotated the wheel, around the spring by " 10.5"/19" or 55% of the change in the bush axis height" ..which translates as lowering the ride height by 55% of 6mm = a little more than 3mm. For whatever reason my quick check suggests its lowered by around 10mm. And this is with the M&T supplied replacement road-spring fitted.

The camber angle did not change by 0.6 degrees, as the table suggests (..so I've not yet gone completely nuts !) but it does appear to altered by almost 1/4 of a degree ..from 0.73 degree of positive camber to 0.51 of positive camber. Because the angle between brackets has not changed - I might only attribute this change to ; 1. the camber changing according to suspension compression (ride height), and 2. because each of the bracket bolts have been pinched up but not tightened yet, so they have self adjusted with the bushes now being in line and also with any slight slack in the chassis or bracket's holes.

The looseness of fastenings, until the road-spring was refitted, probably also accounts for the noted change in ride height.

- - -

So that's about it. I think to further correct the camber, I'll need to buy two more type-2 brackets, and to swap them out for the type-1's that are fitted. This ought to alter the angle between the brackets by almost exactly 1 degree, which will translate through the geometry (according to that report) to -0.87 degree of the wheel. That would take the present 0.51 deg positive to -0.36 (negative) camber ..which is exactly what I want. However the ride height will go back up again be 3 or 4mm.

I think only shorter / lowered springs, or less than 7mm thick collars, is going to help with that.

^ Interestingly, or not, from photos taken when I was first looking around under this car.., the brackets this way up (now inverted) are close to what we had before the chassis change. . . particularly evident with the inside bracket (top left in this photo) whose the bottom edge is almost parallel with the bottom of the adjacent chassis leg.

I'm particularly grateful to the gentlemen who wrote the article for Buckeye Triumph as, although their data is in some parts wrong, they have provided a lot of useful measurements and an overall well-worthwhile insight into the geometry of these IRS components. BIG THANK YOU to them.

Pete.

Bfg · October 12, 2021

Following on with my adjustments of Katie's rear suspension, from 20th September ..and it's now 12th October - phew but that's how life goes.

Ten days after my op I was down under again. I'm sure the NHS discharge sheet says something about 'light exercise' including (but not limited to) getting down and back-up again from the floor (x100 times), twisting, crawling and reaching to undo rather tight half-shaft bolts, pumping up n' down on the trolley jack handle, and of course moving 136kg of bricks into and out of the car.

During my convalescence I was struggling to fathom out why suspension adjustments on the car didn't match the figures in Buckeye Triumph reports. So I looked again and picked up a few errors, then remodeled the Trailing-arm geometry for a second time in 3d (Rhino computer program). Possibly I'll pull together a fuller report for the benefit of other TR owners, but here are a few tidbits . . .

^ this is one of the 3d computer models I generated and manipulated to try and better assess what was happening to ride height & wheel camber when the trailing-arm brackets are swapped around. I was working on and so modeled the rear RHS trailing arm of my TR4A. And so as if viewed from the back of the car, the wheel can be identified in the bottom RHS of this screen capture. The row of lines at its base are a visual guide to wheel height (best seen from the side view) which of course is a direct representation of ride height.

The black line up from those is a vertical datum, against which I measured the wheel's camber. The wheel and the green lines (which represent the trailing arm) were joined together as a block, so they might be pivoted as an assembly around the polybushes, in their brackets bolted to the chassis. The row of blue lines near the middle of this image represent the various position / options offered by the selection of three types of trailing-arm bracket. The red line seen running diagonally though those is axis of the polybushes,, around which the arm and wheel-hub, and the therefore wheel itself is swiveled (3d_rotate in Rhino ). The cyan coloured circle represents the bottom of the coil spring.

The coil spring, with its vibration insulation collars, have a predetermined length ..for any particular load condition. The TR4A manual suggests setting the suspension up with 150lb (68kg) of weight in either seat. The top position of this spring length is fixed (within the cup of the bridge on the chassis). In regard to swapping from one trailing-arm bracket to another.. the height of the polybush axis moves higher or lower relative to the chassis rail. So then., if the height of the polybushes is moved down (when a different trailing-arm bracket is used) ..and the road-spring has a predetermined length, then the back-end of the trailing arm ..complete with wheel-bearing hub and wheel, go up. In short, the change in height of the polybush seesaws around the bottom of the road spring.

It's position was estimated from the dimension given in the Buckeye report. The rough dimensions were 10.5" to the spring and 19" to the hub, but I feel they were incorrect in calculating the effect of height rotation based on those dimensions " If you draw a couple of sketches you'll see that the car height changes 10.5"/19" or 55% of the change in bush axis height " How's that.? When I draw a 19" long seesaw with its pivot at 10.5", and then raise the polybush end by 1" ..the other end goes down by 0.81".

I suspect they were also very slightly inaccurate in assuming the axis of the wheel hub was in the 2-dimensional same plane. In practice the polybushes are quite a bit lower on chassis than height of the centre of the wheel (..as you can see in the illustration above I've drawn the height difference into my 3d model). Conversely the bottom of the spring is down at the chassis level. I wonder too, if measuring to the centre of the road-spring within the trailing arm is correct. I'm thinking a drop in polybush height rotates around the front edge of the bottom coil of the road spring. That may not seem like much but again this effects the ratio of change, so instead of 10.5" the dimension I used is 8-3/4". Referring back to the sketch of a 19" long seesaw, but now with its pivot at 8-3/4". Raising the polybush end by 1" ..and the other end goes down by 1.17" ..compared to their 55% (0.55") that's a over double the effective difference. Not only does this effect the ride height, but any suspension travel also changes the angle of wheel camber.

Moving on. . .

As you can see in the illustration, I've played with the model and listed the effects of changing from one bracket to another. NB. this computer model's adjustment is completely manual, and therefore subject to minor error. I'll come back to those figures in a short while, but firstly let's quickly review the trailing-arm (bush mounting) brackets . . .

^ this screen capture of my Autocad drawing shows (on the LHS) ; a plan, side and end view of a bracket. It shows the two mounting bolts to the chassis rail and the one through the polybush (rubber was original and so may be substituted). Through the side view you can just about make out the yellow centre-line, equidistant from the two bolts. And from this a dimension of 9.35mm up to the centre axis of the polybush. With that offset, this bracket is a 2-notch type. Turned over, on the two bolts, and the offset to the bush would of course be down rather than up. Not illustrated, but the 1-notch type of bracket has a 3.2mm offset from the yellow centre-line, and the 3-notch type of bracket has a 15.8mm offset. These figures are very slightly different to those in the Buckeye report because I've assumed they were designed & made to imperial dimensions.. with offset of ; 3/8", 1/8" and 5/8" respectively.

The two trailing-arm brackets are centred at 13-5/8" apart when mounted onto the chassis (illustrated across the top and bottom of the drawing), and the ends of each blue dashed line (each 1/4" apart), represent the bush centre with each possible bracket position (viewed square-on to the chassis rail). The brackets illustrated represent a 2-notch and a 1-notch. Drawn to scale the height of the polybush bolt is very apparent, with the ' OUTSIDE ' bracket (left) being higher than the INSIDE bracket. It looks a lot but the angle between them (seen as the green dashed line) is only 2.08-degrees from the horizontal.

However in detail, the polybush (or rubber) is expected to do this . . .

^ I wasn't happy with that, because it's like hanging a door on hinges which aren't in line, so.. ^^ on my own car, I've slotted one hole (in either bracket) sideways by a millimetre. The other hole(s) were untouched, and so the bracket's position on the chassis is unchanged, but the slotted hole allows the brackets to tilt so the polybush bolt and pivot axis are in line (ie., the whole bracket now sits at that 2.08-degree angle rather than torturing the bush).

Anyway back to the figures I took. . .

The TR4A with standard ride height, wheels, tyres, etc., was designed with a 2-notch bracket (notches Up) on the OUTSIDE and a 1-notch bracket (notch Up) on the inside. Then, at the correct ride height / loaded according to the workshop manual's specification (a nominal 150lb / 68kg on each seat), the rear wheel's camber would be zero, +/- half a degree. ie., they would be vertical - That's easy. And so that's how I set my computer's 3d model up.

I modeled what I had on my car ; with the 2u-1u brackets, and its ride height being a little high, and its +0.73 degree wheel camber ..and then rotated the 3d 'trailing arm, hub & wheel assembly' around the polybush axis until the wheel camber measured zero. This was the equivalent of lowering the suspension by almost 12mm.

This gave me the as-designed Standard rear suspension geometry. Then I systematically changed the type of bracket and their orientation (up or down), and for each I rotated the back end of the trailing arm back to where it touched the bottom of the road-spring (that having a predetermined length for that load condition), and measured the consequential height and camber of the wheel. The results were as follows . . .

Brackets Height Camber (degrees) ;

3d-1d +6.59 +0.83
2u-1u 0.00 mm 0.0
1d-2d - 6.53 - 0.83
1u-3u - 12.50 - 1.63

Then tilt the bushes one notch and repeat ;

Brackets Height Camber

3d-2u + 11.58 + 2.30
2u-1d + 5.00 + 1.47
1d-1u - 1.50 + 0.64
1u-2d - 7.93 - 0.19
2d-3u - 14.29 - 1.02

The first thing you'll notice is that, compared with the Buckeye report's table (submitted in a previous post), there are very few results. This is because reversing the brackets (inside to outside) so the trailing-arm bush would be lower on the outside bracket, isn't (for all practical purposes) likely to happen. If that extent of camber change ..to positive, is required, then it very much points to the chassis having collapsed in the middle. Similarly, if the same type of bracket is used both on the inside as outside ..whereby the bush axis would be parallel with the (supposedly horizontal) chassis rail. Only if a car is custom-lowered might those bracket configurations be required, and those are outside the remit of my investigation.

The second thing you'll note is that I've presented the figures in two parts. The first four bracket configurations are simply moving the axis up or down, from standard, with the 2.08 degree angle of the polybush axis (relative to the chassis) remaining the same. The second set has tilted the bushes one notch (one degree greater angle) and then again moving that polybush axis up and down.

For those who prefer here is a graph representation of the above figures . . .

^ Mostly speaks for itself, but the grey grid lines are from the first four bracket configurations and those with the green grid lines are from the last five. Those with the blue lines are the datum (standard TR4A set up) from which the others are measured. This means that the figures are relative (..albeit hand measured). So anyone adjusting their own car's suspension (whether TR4A, TR5 or TR6, or Triumph 2000) has to firstly accurately establish what they have, and then to adjust from that datum.

The graph is easy enough to read insomuch as if you were to change from the standard (blue grid lines) bracket configuration of 2u-1u (outside bracket - inside bracket) to 2d-3u (found as the lowest red dot in the bottom left hand corner), then you might expect a 14+mm (14.29mm) drop in ride height and the wheel camber angle would tilt towards the negative by 1.02 degrees.

This is what I did on my car (this last weekend) and the car did indeed drop in height and the RHS rear wheel's camber is now -0.30 degrees. Starting off from +0.73 minus 1.02 = -0.29 degrees ..so what I predicted was achieved (+/- 0.01 degree). That is on the RHS of the car. The LHS of my car is sitting 10mm higher, and so has a tad little less camber (it is now negative though). I'll (hopefully this week) correct this by swapping the spring collars out for thinner ones.. The ride height will drop and so the wheels camber will tilt a little more to the negative.

^ after swapping out the trailing-arm brackets, I'm checking the camber angle of the LHS rear wheel. I have each seat loaded with approx 64kg of night storage heater bricks, and the ground has been leveled (with a piece of 1/4" plywood under the RHS rear wheel). The car was lowered, loaded up and bounced upon, and moved forward onto plastic bags (which are a poor man's slipper plate, to allow the tyres to slip sideways and otherwise settle where they will). The car was bounced upon again to allow it to settle without the tyre's wanting to scrub sideways. The spirit level is vertical and aligned to a mark on the wheel-arch (so the same place is measured from each time) and then the dimensions to the top and bottom of the wheel rim was recorded (in this instance just 1mm difference between top and bottom). With 395mm height between rim measurements, the figures were used in a drawing (on the computer) for it to tell me the camber angle was -0.15 degrees.

Hey ho., getting really close to what I want. This (above) is the side which is 10mm higher, and although I'll lowering it ..it already looks much better than as the car was sitting when I collected it after the chassis swap. It then had both a higher ride height and the wheel had positive camber ..measured as 5mm difference between top and bottom (wheel rim to the spirit level) = +0.73 degrees).

How much difference will lowering make ? Well, while I had the computer model open I checked. Again using the same 2u-1u brackets as a Standard setting to assess these things from, I rotated the trailing arm around the polybush axis to simulate a change in ride height (whether caused by car load, cornering load, or alternative spring length) and here's the figures . . .

Brackets R/Height Camber

2u-1u +30mm + 1.94
2u-1u +20mm + 1.29
2u-1u +10mm + 0.65
2u-1u 0.00 0.00
2u-1u -10mm - 0.64
2u-1u -20mm - 1.33
2u-1u -30mm - 1.94 degrees

Those same figures present in graph format . . .

^ Again self explanatory. The figures (red dots) are again from the hand manipulated computer model and were close enough to set a line through (the -20mm figure along the bottom was adjusted by 0.03 deg to fall into line).

From this I can see that if I drop the suspension on the rear LHS of the car by 10mm, it will have a -0.65 degree effect on that wheel's camber. However when doing this I also have to factor-in that the tilt of the car (over a 48-1/2" track of the rear axle) is about 0.4 degrees, and so the net result will be closer to -0.25 degree. But then the camber on the RHS corner will also alter.

With this information I can get it right (..with a fraction of the trial and error of spanner work under the car), or I can determine how much effort is it worth versus whether I'll actually notice the finer aspects of its adjustment. Most likely I'll drive the car a little, let the springs settle into their poly-bush collars and reassess things later on.

Out of interest though . . .

I was interested to assess the car itself when removing the passenger, and adding more weight into the driver's seat. I'm 105kg so I loaded 13 x8kg bricks into the driver seat and all off the passengers..

The ride height (hub centre to wheel arch) on the passenger side went up by just 6.5mm, and the camber changed by +0.15 degree ..taking that side to zero camber.
The ride height (hub centre to wheel arch) on the drivers side went down by just 2mm, and its camber changed by -0.29 degree ..also taking that side to zero camber.

Interesting !

These are of course static loads and the camber would change when the suspension is loaded ..around corners.

Have a good one,

Pete

Bfg · October 12, 2021

6 hours ago, Bfg said:

From this graph I can see that if I drop the suspension on the rear LHS of the car by 10mm, it will have a -0.65 degree effect on that wheel's camber. However when doing this I also have to factor-in that the tilt of the car (over a 48-1/2" track of the rear axle) is about 0.4 degrees, and so the net result will be closer to -0.25 degree. But then the camber on the RHS corner will also alter.

..the question is ; would these estimations be right. ?

These are the spring collar options I have available to me at this time . . .

^ Top left is a rubber collar, as previously fitted, the spring sits on the rim whose thickness is about 1/4" (6mm) which soon squashes down to being 4 - 5mm thick. To the right of that is the poly-bush collar fitted by M&T, which as you can see has a larger overall diameter and a thinner inside brim. Its rim is 7-8mm thick and so probably soon squashes down to 5.5 - 6.5mm thick. Bottom right is one of the rubber collars previously fitted under this car's front suspension's coil spring. Larger in diameter and its rim is only 1/8" thick, but the impressions of having been used suggest that it doesn't squash down very much at all., let's say to 2mm.

The advantage of the larger diameter rim is that it helps prevent this . . .

^ the collar seen squeezed out from under the spring ..when the spring load was reapplied. Clearly isn't going to do it job so it had to come out again. Perhaps it should have been assembled dry.? Anyhow it happened both top and bottom and so I used the new rubber collar (kindly supplied to me by M&T) at the top, in place of this previously used and slightly contorted one, and then I used a large diameter collar at the base, within the trailing arm's recess.

^ The front spring's collar is a larger diameter (inside out out) but just about squeezes into the rear coil spring, and then sits well in the trailing arm's socket.

So with those swapped out, it was time to lower the car, load it back up and re-assess the car's ride height and rear wheel cambers. . .

The results are perhaps a little better than hoped, with the LHS of the car dropping from 396.5 to 381mm, so 15.5mm. As before, the measurements were from the underside of the wheel-arch to the wheel-hub centre and so is independent of tyre size or pressures. That's more than I had previously planned (which was 10mm) and is a result of my using the very thin front spring collar in lieu of the original type rubber one. I'm happy with that ride height, as recorded as a static load with 150lb driver and passenger. I suspect it'll settle a little more with use ..which will then be even better for when I drive alone. The camber of that wheel has changed just a little more than predicted, because the ride height was changed more. So rather than -0.4 degrees it now measures as -0.44 degrees, which is a tid-bit of a bonus ..as my arbitrary target was -0.5 degrees.

The RHS of the car, although its suspension was untouched, measured a drop in ride height of another 4mm. The only explanation that comes to mind is that the car is now sitting level rather than on a tilt. Whatever the reason, I'm glad for it. The ground clearance under the chassis side rails (one side to the other) is within 1/16", with either side now sitting between 5-11/16" and 5-3/4". I'm very happy with that too. Its negative camber has increased because of the car's tilt being corrected, and now measured as -0.94 degrees ..which is more than my target.

Next I altered the load condition once again, to simulate no passenger and with me (105kg) driving.

Without the weight in that side, the LHS rose by 11mm but the reversed tilt of the car changed its camber to be -0.51 degrees. I like that.
With the additional weight in the driver's seat, the RHS of the car dropped by 5mm and the camber (because of the car's tilt) swung back to -0.58 degrees. I like that too ..but for the implication that I ought to loose some weight !

That's it., the rear suspension is set up to where I wanted it for solo driving. The rear's ride height is now acceptable (..the body mounts are new & thick so the body is a tad high on the chassis but I'll live with that).. and the car is even from one side to the other. You may recall before the chassis swap Katie was riding particularly low on the RHS. Most importantly for handling, the rear wheel camber on either side is so close to my target figure that... I'll not write more about it .!

I just need to crawl under the car once again to tighten all the bolts up in this load condition. Then it'll be.. Job done.!

And if i can do it without specialist tools, then so can you

Bidding you a good evening,

Pete.

Asimo · October 12, 2021

I think that you have put more engineering thought into this than the whole of the TR developement team at Canley!

Bfg · October 16, 2021

On 10/12/2021 at 7:32 PM, Asimo said:

I think that you have put more engineering thought into this than the whole of the TR development team at Canley!

I think that their thought was an accumulation of their many years of experienced. My working out what they were about is sort-of-like archeological research.

Bfg · October 16, 2021

Back on the job., albeit slowly..well even more slowly than usual !

Yesterday, while the car was still unmoved, on the ground, and level I checked the front wheels were straight (tight cord again) and checked the ride height and camber of the front suspension. the check was both from the wheel centre to the arch and again under the chassis. I did this three times with no weight in the car, the 68kg in either seat, and then finally with the 104kg in the driver's seat only. Bottom line is that the LHS is 10mm high (as the rear LHS was previously) but otherwise the camber on either wheel was good to go. Sometime in the future I'll borrow a spring compressor and swap out the coli spring collars on the LHS but otherwise leave it as it is.

Final job on the suspension then (..for the time being) was to lift the car back onto the ramps, load it up again with the bricks so that I might tighten the trailing-arm / poly-bush bolts up underneath. While at it to check the tightness of the half shafts and the flexi-brake pipes, etc..

Moving on. . , there were a number of jobs that needed addressing under the car. . .

Firstly to grease the half shaft UJ's and the rear propshaft UJ. The first grease nipple was snapped off. I was very fortunate though insomuch as I managed to undo the broken off piece without dismantling again, by poking an Allen key in and turning it out with that. I swapped it out with one from the half-shaft I'd previously replaced. Although it (the grease nipple) had a slight kink in it - I presumed that was to provide a better angle for greasing. But no It had been bent.. and so as I pinched that one up, it too sheered off level with the surface. An Allen key didn't work on that one, but by chance I had a Torx key which did the job. With that removed I found one more grease nipple in the yet to be replaced half-shaft. Job done. Two pumps of grease and the gun was empty ! Hey ho., of five UJ's, I managed to grease the two closer-to-the-diff ones and the rear of the prop-shaft. One outer UJ had no provision for greasing (sealed to destruction) and the other had a grease nipple that was impossible to get at, unless I removed the half shaft again.! For the time being I've left it. I'll need to pull that half shaft out again anyway.

^ Why did it have to be the one tucked up behind the exhaust pipe ?

..just a two minute job huh ! ?

^ second grease nipple. On the right of these photo is the correct long straight type of nipple with small spanner flats ..borrowed from the spare half-shaft.

Other jobs while down under . . .

The brake pipe on one side would have been squashed under the bump stop, so that had to be moved aside a little.

The brake and the fuel pipe were only loosely secured by a cable tie ..where they went into the rear of the tunnel, and the fuel pipe's run would have also chafed on the chassis. The cupronickel pipe was also buckled and I'm sure with vibration it would soon have cracked, so I'll want to replace it. In the meantime, they needed 'adjusting', securing and preventing from chattering against each other or the chassis. ^^ Note on the RHS of the second photo how the exhaust pipe is resting against the chassis gusset, and the way the T-shirt panel is buckled up in the middle.

The brake and fuel pipes further forward were clipped but still loose enough to rattle against each other &/or the chassis. I've locally rubber sleeved and neoprene padded behind the pipes as necessary. The hard fuel pipe is joined at that corner with a short length of flexi rubber hose, with no ethanol-resistant markings on it and no pipe clips. I'll want to correct this sooner rather than later. And yes there is a drip of fluid from the slave cylinder ..which I'd asked to be done. The LHS sill repair is not pretty ..more on that in a future post.
The holes in the side of the chassis rails were taped over (white PVC tape) to lessen water ingress. Those in the bottom are being left open for drainage.

The chassis' underside T-shirt plate being pulled straight
The crossbox silencer mounts were adjusted (re-done), to raise it up and better support one side (..one bracket now surplus)

The exhaust bracket and clamp under the gearbox was 'adjusted' (..also a clamp now surplus ..the car is getting lighter by the hour !). A clamp was fitted at the front of the pipe (where it joins the double down-pipes) as that was missing. The second of those clamps is also missing and the old one is bent so I need to buy another.

^ when all was said n' done the pipe and silence are now secure ..and there's 1/4" clearance at its tightest spot. You'll note in the top RH corner the brake pipe was very close to the exhaust. that too has been adjusted.

While under I was also spotting the oil drips from the recently rebuilt gearbox (which was 99.5% oil tight beforehand)..

^ Dripping even when the car is sitting unused does not please me.

So., progress is being made, but its slow because of my own post-op limitations and the fact that working under a car on 8" ramps is itself a slow business. All so many details though will simply take some time to work through. And there are many more yet.

Pending the weather, more next week, perhaps,

Bidding you all a good weekend,

Pete

Dick Longbridge · October 16, 2021

That's really frustrating to see the issues you've identified. Surely a phone call to those involved is in order, particularly the company who rebuilt the gearbox? The customer really shouldn't need to get their hands dirty after paying (I'm assuming) handsomely for the privilege?

Bfg · October 16, 2021

I very much agree. Had the company not been on the other side of the country, and had I not needed to pull the gearbox out to have them do it again, then things might have been different. I have many hours of work doing jobs still to do after this chassis swap ..that ought to have been done properly. The gearbox, the sill and the door shut are annoying as anything to me. But hey., this is the nature of the world we live in, there's nothing new in it. Irrespective of budget, I don't think anyone anywhere does a truly excellent job ..that doesn't need a recall to sort out one or two 'teething problems'. Or Perhaps I just have become disillusioned and a skeptic in my old age ?

Bfg · November 2, 2021

Sorry that I've been amiss in keeping things updated.. anyway here's a quick one . . .

^ It was leaking just a little but it's not good when the radiator is half empty (..and that's not me being a pessimist ! ).

I feel rather grateful that it reluctantly came out, rather than shearing off (..as the water heater valve had), so then it was just a matter of cleaning it and the hole up, and putting it back in ..this time with a fibre washer rather than goo.

^ Everything cleaned up fine, and was greased, but it strikes me as odd that the 'open to drain' hole isn't in line with the lever.. That's just so counter-intuitive to me. :wacko:

^ with the lever in this position - the drain is closed. Hey ho., what do I know ! ? ..but that it ain't that way with my boat's sea-cocks.

Anyways up., another little job ticked off the scroll.

Pete

Bfg · November 2, 2021

Having done that I discovered the car's battery was no longer charging. . .

^ Tested it and the output was 1-volt at tick-over. Should be around 14 - 15v. Mssr Haynes proposes its field windings are culprit, so I took it off and opened it up to have a look see. . .

^ One of the brush springs is very weak and so a lack of good contact is possibly why it's stopped working right now. but those copper coloured filings are from the plain bush, the other end bear doesn't feel too tight either. Undoubtedly it could be refurbished with new plain-bushes, etc., but the rest of it doesn't look too bright ...so I placed an ad on the TSSC (Triumph Sports Six Club) forum and again on the TR register forum to see if anyone happen to have one on the shelf that'll fit.

I was very fortunate insomuch as ' TR3 Bob ' on the TR forum, had a couple sitting on the shelf. One with a wide fan-belt pulley and the other with a narrow belt pulley. Very generously one would be mine for the cost of postage. Excellent ! 8-) He'd swapped to an alternator on his car. It seems as if that's the way many TR owners go, possibly because they don't like the wide belt. Personally I sorta prefer it ..as it can be run very loose and still not slip, and that of course puts less load on the water pump bearings.

In the meantime I got on with putting up a better cover over the patio, where Katie is parked and worked on.. < here >

Pete

Bfg · November 2, 2021

^ Looking rather forlorn, the parcel from Bob arrive safely, albeit having been delivered to the wrong address first.

Great weather for working out in my new polytunnel, so I opened the parcel today . . .

^ Katie's old dynamo (left) is a 22704H and the one from Bob is a 22700. Very slight difference as you can see in field-winding case. but overall the brackets and pulley wheel offset are the same and so the two are interchangeable.

^ again slight variation but nothing much to write about

^ As a matter of course I opened it up to check the brushes, their springs and to lubricate the plain-bushes. All looking used but good. The brushes were fine, as were their springs. The bushes are little worn but serviceable for next 100,000 miles. I'll most likely replace the bushes and springs in Katie's old dynamo to see if that's why it stopped working, so while at it I'll get a spare pair of bushes for this one.

Lubrication of those bushes is a bit hit and miss. In the third photo you'll see that there is a hole in the end for oil. inside this is felt pad to hold the oil and then a metal plate to keep the felt in place. On the TR4 / 4A the exhaust down-pipe is close behind the dynamo and so I'm not sure how one is supposed to get in there to oil it, and if one did then how to gauge how much oil is going in. I did this one by sitting the end cap facing up and filling the bush with oil until it dribbled out through the felt and the oiling hole. I think it's worth taking the dynamo off every 25,000 miles to lubricate it. It wouldn't take long to do so.

I didn't dismantle the pulley wheel off the front of the dynamo, but I'm thinking the bush at that end is similarly lubricated by oil in felt. I don't see a lubrication point though. With the field windings lifted off the armature, I could see grease had squeezed out of it. so I cleaned that away (not doing anything anyway) and stood the dynamo on end and used used a small paintbrush to apply oil around that bush so that it ran down into it. I hope my presumption that there's a felt pad in there is correct.

Anyway after a bit of cleaning, a good go at lubrication, a light burnishing of the armature's brush contacts ..and my tarting it up to look pretty . . .

^ looking good for a 60 year old, well better than I'm faring anyway :rolleyes:

p.s. Anyone know what are the three tapered lugs on the fan-belt pulley for ? I might only guess for winding the dynamo up to speed when testing, but as far as I can think of.. nothing else has this sort of built-in test feature. So perhaps there is a tool to engage with those to help fitting the fan belt, sort-of-like a tyre fitting lever ? If so, I don't recall ever seeing one being used.

^ Job done. The bolt for the adjuster was a different thread than Katie's previous, but all is now back together and suitably (very loosely) tensioned. As before the red warning light comes on at tick-over speeds but soon goes out when revved even just a little.

BIG THANKS to Bob for helping me out with this. I owe him.

Pete.

p.p.s.. If you happen to build an almost closed polytunnel or similar over your patio ..remember to first close the patio door before you start the car from cold. Exhaust fumes in the house are not clever.

Bfg · November 4, 2021

I took advantage of yesterday's calm and dry weather, to finish off the entrance-end of the gazebo and then also in lacing down the polythene's edge beam along the low side wall.

Today it was blustery and wet but the extended gazebo is doing a great job of keeping most of the wind n' wet out, so I found a little motivation to get on with the TR (Triumph Recommissioning). . .

^ Back to Katie s rear suspension's 'other issues'

^ while I remember it and have access to grease the outer UJ

^ probably hasn't been disassembled and greased in many years, so although the adjuster turned easily enough, the two pistons were really very tight (ancient dried grease). And as a consequence of someone having used the wrong size of spanner ..the 1/4" square adjuster end was chewed up.

[ Tip : If you don't have the right tool to adjust these.. might I suggest you use a very small 1/4"-drive socket inverted over the square peg, and then use an Allen key in the nut-end of the socket. It really is that simple and very compact tools to keep in your tool roll. ]

^ to get the adjuster out I cut a screwdriver slot across its end.

^ Not wanting to disconnect the hydraulics, and therefore have to later re-bleed the brakes, I hung the backing plate / brake assembly (less its adjuster) on a cord, and dropped the trailing arm out from underneath. Btw., it's nice and easy to get the polybush bolts out.. having slightly slotted one bolt hole in each bracket so the bracket's pivot axis are now in line (ie. without twist in each polybush).

Of course, short daylight hours, combined with starting into the job late in the day, means working in the shadows. I've brought some LED lamps home from the container so tomorrow I'll be rigging those up in the gazebo.

^ That's off and ready to be repaired or replaced. Removing it took a little less than an hour and a half from start to finish ..working at my usual casual pace. Aside from the brake adjuster, one of the studs which hold the wheel-hub has stripped out and also there's a crack in the underside flange (see below). The first two I could deal with in situ., but if I am to have the arm welded then it had to come off. . .

^ Seems as if the prior owner, the TR specialist who swapped the chassis ..and the MOT man missed this crack in the trailing-arm casting. That's a sad state of affairs ..another one to look out for gents.!

Whether it is coincidence, just a wear n' tear thing, or they are related - I can't say, but this side / the offside of the car had been T-boned (while driven by the previous owner). It was professionally repaired with another door, sill and possibly other panels. I replaced the half-shaft because the sliding spline was clonking. The wheel bearing was also loose, and then I found one or two of the studs holding the wheel's hub on were stripped. While underneath, setting the rear suspension camber & ride height, I spotted this crack, but wanted to get that job done before being diverted by these 'other issues'.

Spoke to my friend Rich earlier in the day, as he had mentioned he had a couple of odd trailing arms, but wasn't sure which side they were from. And it turns out that I'm in luck and he has the offside so I'll swap this trailing arm out for one that has already been refurbished. I will of course need to swap the polybushes over from one to the other, which ought to be interesting as I've never done that before. :rolleyes:

Bidding you a good evening,

Pete

Bfg · November 6, 2021

Much is said about polybushes and in particular the supposedly hard red ones., here's a common opinion off the TSSC forum . . .

On 11/5/2021 at 12:05 PM, Colin Lindsay said:

Red or blue polybushes? Blue is relatively easy, red a nightmare.

Pretty red ones of course

^ I didn't actually know 'Polybush' was an actual brand, I presumed it was just a generic name for bushes of this material, but these have the name moulded onto them along with a code 34F.

Not a nightmare at all, imo ..just a little time consuming . . .

^ Replacement RHS trailing arm (left) courtesy of my friend Rich (in the TR Register), who had it blasted, visually inspected and refurbished it with new grommets, studs, thick washers and nylocs. All very nice too ..would recommend.

There are quite a few detail differences, and the castings were clearly re-tooled, so it may be that the new one may be from a later car (ie., a TR6). Aside from the fact that Katie's had a big STANPART cast into it, whereas its replacement doesn't - the most obvious is of the stiffening web between the coil spring cup and the tube through which the half shaft is fitted. I haven't run a tape measure over them to compare but the part numbers are the same (each of these arms are so marked ) and I'm guessing they are dimensionally interchangeable. I flipping hope so anyway !

So out with the polybushes ..and in with the polybushes . . .

^ Firstly I drove out the steel compression tube from each polybush. I used an extended socket to do this with a block of wood as a hammer. Thereafter this illustrates the extraction technique using a simple length of all-thread some washers and two nuts. Sophisticated I know but I don't have much else in the way of facilities to hand. (photo timed at 12:02 pm)

^ Going, going . . .

^ Gone.

^ This is the other end being drawn out. This photo was timed at 12:22pm, so it took me 20 minutes to set up and extract these two nightmare red polybushes.

^ The inside, where the bush is fitted, was a little rough from where it had been blasted, so I quickly ran some emery paper through to smooth the high spots off.

I then thought to clear lacquer the replacement arm ..to avoid surface corrosion and lessen grubby finger prints on it too. While that was air drying, I moved over to cleaning up the rear brake adjuster.

And then, back to fitting the polybushes . . .

^ I used a liberal smear of this 'synthetic lubricant with Teflon' inside the hole to help prevent corrosion of the aluminium, and to aid fitting. Non was applied to the polybush itself. Then using the same length of all-thread I pulled the bushes into place. (This photo was timed at 14:11pm)

^ drawing in

^ and then I moved the nut & washers to the other end, to fit that, again just the hole is smeared with the synthetic lubricant.

^ Getting the first 1/8" of wider rim in is of course the most difficult part, but a pair of grips helped squeeze it. I similarly used the grips (with soft rag) directly on the polybush, working my way around it to squeeze from different angles. It soon submitted to the pressure from the all-thread pushing it in. NB. the steel compression tube is not in there yet, as that would make compressing the bush rather difficult.

^ Once the rim is in, then a block of wood onto the end nut is quicker than winding the thread in. The block of wood (mallet) of course is used at an angle, as required to straighten the bush's alignment.

^ that was not at all too difficult. The bruising of the block of wood (which is only 350mm long so not at all massive) shows where I clouted onto the end of nut (when doing both ends). This photo was timed at 14:43pm so with my dilly dallying around with running the nuts up n' down that all-thread, my taking piccies, and making a cuppa coffee too, it took me 32 minutes to fit them. Naturally I didn't break a sweat and, unusually for me, I didn't have cause to curse either. ! :unsure:

The compression tubes were cleaned up, with a power wire brush, smeared with the synthetic lubricant, and the all-thread used to pull each in for the first few mm. Then they were knocked home with the block of wood.. The all-thread helping keep them in line.

^ Job done.

Pete

Bfg · November 10, 2021

^ Sorry to keep you hanging, time for a quick ( ! ) reassembly . . .

First, I fitted the replacement trailing arm, looking very neat and clean, sealed in clear lacquer and complete with the poly-bushes. As the brackets on the chassis rail hadn't been loosened, the task was simple enough.. I first loosely hung the rear of the trailing-arm on the damper's drop link to hold that end up, and then fed the polybushes forwards and upwards into their brackets, aligning the pivot-bolt holes first with a screwdriver and then with a tommy-bar, so the bolts (liberally coated with Copaslip) then slid in easily.

I then refitted the (cleaned up and well lubricated) brake-shoe adjuster onto the backing plate.

Before moving onwards to fitting the handbrake cable. . .

^ A minor mod being fitted, for the handbrake cable. . .

Good man Marco, in Germany also has a TR4A and while investigating the poor performance of his own car's handbrake, recognised that the Bowden cable's run wasn't in the same plane as the actuating lever arm on the brake. As a consequence, as the handbrake was applied., these arms (one on either rear wheel) would twist down / be tilted at quite an angle, instead of their being pulled perpendicular to the backing plates. And this of course caused binding of the supposedly-sliding brake mechanisms and so a good percentage of the applied force (by the driver on the handbrake lever) was being lost. The solution was simply to raise the height of the cable run.. to that of the actuating arm.

To do this, he very neatly turned on his lathe, an aluminium block to fit under the cable's original end-stop. Naturally this block was sized and carefully shaped to fit onto the trailing arm's casting, without further modification to the arm or any other original fitting. It of course had to be robust enough to take the full force of the handbrake cable, and so a steel inner sleeve was made and internally threaded to accept the stud of the original end-stop.

^ Unfortunately I assembled things in the wrong order. And having bolted the post in place on the trailing arm.. the end-post of the cable couldn't be twisted and screwed in. Duh .. I must have been having a greying-blonde moment. :wacko: Never-mind I thought, I'd just undo the end of the Bowden cable, remove the original end-post so that it could be screwed on. Wrong ! ..the cable end doesn't come off ! Hey ho., the height post from Marco had to come off again, to be first assembled onto the Bowden cable, before it was fitted to the trailing arm.

I took the opportunity to clean and lubricating the end of that cable.

^ assembled and now with the handbrake cable in the same plane as the actuating lever. Nice one Marco

He also specifies, for better still efficiency, a very stiff spring (suggesting one from a sprung clutch) to be inserted between the cable's end adjuster-nut and the forked-end-bracket. This is to give a bit of elasticity in the cable's length ..to enable pulling an extra notch on the handbrake ratchet. Unfortunately as I no longer have a garage full of bits to rummage through, I didn't have such a spring to hand.. so that'll be acquired in due course, to be retrofitted on another day.

The bolt through the cable end / lever arm was replaced for one which had a plain shank.

^ Rowlocks.., the thread of the height block was too long, to allow the flange of the half-shaft to go through. Out it came again, for me to cut the thread a little shorter. This sort of thing is quite usual in prototype development and so no big deal. I suspect that there is a slight variance in the wall thickness of these trailing arms.

^ There she goes, and all is good.

^ With the half-shaft back in place, the hub was bolted up to the trailing arm. The brake shoe was refitted, and the cleaned and now working adjuster used to accommodate the wear of the brake shoes. The handbrake cable was then adjusted to length. The loosely-fitted lever arm was disconnected, with the trailing-arm resting onto the trolley jack while the coli spring with its collars were refitted, and then this jacked up again to refit the lever-arm's drop-link. The half shaft flange was re-bolted to the differential with new locknuts. Lifting under the rear of the trailing arm to take this side of the car's weight (suspension compressed), I slipped back under the car to pinch up the polybush pivot bolts. Wheel back on - Job done.

I haven't yet done the same (cable-run / height) mod to the near-side handbrake brake cable yet, and I never recorded braking efficiency as it was. Nor does the recent MOT record the braking (in)efficiency from before. Although I had well-lubricated the sliding brake assembly before, I've now correctly adjusted things. Still., I can categorically say that before .. the handbrake was not nearly secure enough to tighten up the wheel nuts. But Now with the handbrake and its cable so configured, those same wheel nuts tighten securely with absolutely no indication of the handbrake not holding. The difference in feel is so obvious - I'm really pleased with it. Highly recommended. It's also worth remembering that without dual-circuit brakes.. the handbrake is truly an emergency brake.

Thank you for this excellent work Marco, and thank you again Rich for your generosity with the trailing arm.

Pete.

...Next please !

Bfg · November 10, 2021

Near side front wheel off this afternoon, as grabbing hold of the front wheel and one could feel a discernible amount of play in the steering, and it also produced a very noticeable clonk.

Because the clonk is only from the near side, and the track-rod-end looks to be new, I mostly ruled out the likelihood that the rack & pinion was the issue, next out then is the inner ball joint. This is hidden under a rubber gaiter but I felt would be accessible without removing the rack. And once dismantled it has shim adjustment. . .

^ The gaiter is passed its best, not least because wire was used to secure it, and that has cut into the perishing rubber. Can't complain as it that wire has most likely done its job for the past 20 - 40 years.!

^ There's the inner ball joint. But no discernible play was to be felt. ..good news or bad news Pete ??

Excessive play was found in the mounting of the steering arm onto the hub.. well when I say excessive, I ought to quantify that there shouldn't be any at all. More of that in a moment.

First thing was to apply some fresh grease to the now exposed parts of the steering rack and to slip the gaiter back on place. I particularly like CV joint Lith-Moly grease (lithium-molybdenum) for this sort of application, but the downside is that the grease is black and slimy to handle anything ..and it tends to get everywhere. . .

"Oh what fun I had" ..trying to get an already split gaiter, slippery with black grease, over the twice-as-large knuckle of the inner-ball-joint. I tried pushing and poking, I bent a teaspoon handle to hook and pull it, I carefully eased a small screwdriver in there to slide the gaiter up ..all to no avail (..temper intact but I was starting to get warm enough under collar to remove my jacket !)

So, off to the kitchen to raid the store of plastic pots and jam jars. I had an idea :blink: . . .

^ up-cycling the plastic walls of a sour-cream tub to be used as a cone to slide, and to evenly stretch, the gaiter up. It's surprisingly easy when you know how, but it's just not something I had experience of doing on my old motorcycles ..which don't even have rubber gaiters. :huh: hey ho., summer holidays are over, now every day is a school day !

Having succeeded, very neatly if I might smugly say, to get it over the knuckle ..I then needs to get the plastic out. Too slippery to grip well enough, but my small vice grips came to the rescue.

^ The gaiter is now back in place, this time with a couple of cable ties. I'll order new gaiters and replace both sides in due course.

In the meantime., it's back to the steering's clonking and looseness. . .

^ The steering arm was loose, but its securing nuts were good n' tight. When the nuts were removed the rust was obvious. The arm is rusted onto the bolts and most probably have been like this (with a little slack) for a very long time. I applied penetrating oil and levered with large screwdrivers, hammered and sweated the arm on its bolts, and I used plain-washers under the nuts to pull it tight. I then undid the nuts and sweated it some more, and then again, and again. The arm barely moves on those bolts., and with it in situ I'm not going to apply heat, so (again) for the time being, there's more penetration oil squirted on and I've pulled it up tight.

With that tight, and no clonk, I can still feel a little play in the steering rack ..that ought to be addressed at some time, but it's not excessive, nor probably enough to vary the toe-in very much.

More jobs to do tomorrow, but for tonight ..it's time for supper.

Bidding you a good evening,

Pete.

Bfg · November 12, 2021

I questioned on the TR-Register forum about lubrication for the TR4A, which is just slightly different to the TR4, and to my way of reading the workshop manuals were unclear. Kindly gents replied and then some more on the steering rack, suggesting how to change its end bush, etc.

Excellent replies as well as useful photos from Marco, in Germany. I was particularly glad that he took those in English.

As some of you will recall, I rebuilt a Citroen steering rack a few years back, needing to replace the guts of my rack and pinion ..from another model of car (because my car was too rare to find the correct parts for). It worked great but changed the steering ratio ever-so-slightly.

^ Oops pinion that didn't work very well. It's not at all worn but damaged beyond use. ..And you think you have problems with Triumphs ! Anyway I resolved the issue and managed to identify the cause, which in essence came down to needing to tighten the track-rod-ends up ..only when the suspension was normally loaded. This was not something mentioned in the manuals. :ph34r:

From Citroen's diagram (above) you can see its thrust button (plunger) with its spring (items 16 & 17) on the right hand side. The spring pre-loads the pinion against the toothed rack, and also allows the interlocking teeth to lift off a little when the steering hits a bump. Marco, the spring's give also compensates for lesser or no wear towards the extremities of lock (left and right ends of travel). Suitably lubricated the button (plunger) and back face of the rack will polish together but shouldn't rasp. Over many miles the rack and the button (plunger) will of course wear excessively, possibly through their surface hardening ..which will then tend to rasp, and so need to be replaced.

Without pulling my rack apart, I cannot say how badly worn these rack or pinion or thrust button are worn, but the end bushes clearly have a little play in them. I think they need to be on the job list but not at the very top. I have yet to check anything on the offside, but for feeling for any slack on that side ..and if there is any - then it's very little.

Today, I emptied one of my motorcycle-kit grease guns and refilled it with gear oil to use on the bottom steering trunnion. . .

^ that's darn slippery oil when you get it on your hands ! I pumped that oil in until a little grease came out of its top rubber-boot, and then pumped some more, left it for half-an-hour while I topped up the grease in my other grease gun and did the wishbone's top ball-joint & track-rod-end (their different sized nipples needed different grease guns) and then, after refilling the gun, pumped the bottom trunnion with oil again until it was coming out all around that boot. I think I'll leave myself a mental note to do that again in a 100 miles. There's no discernible play in the trunnions and I'd like to keep it like that.

I cannot see how to lubricate the bottom wishbone trunnions, without removing the road spring, but the TR4/4A manual (page 4-106 item 36) shows it to have nylon bushes, so I'm hoping these were assembled with silicon and don't otherwise require lubrication, despite the TR4 showing grease nipples for these.?

As an aside I didn't like this lock washer (below) so swapped it out. . .

^ spring / lock washer stretched open. I don't see the purpose of the spacer tube between that and the splash guard clamped to the back of the brake caliper, so I've swapped the bolt for a shorter one and did away with the spacer.

The brake pads are in good shape, but the rubber boots in the caliper feel hard, so I'll get a set of those in stock for when I change those pads. Aside from pinching up the bolts through the wishbone (most were replaced by M&T and have settled with use) and a bit of cleaning up and repainting, a bit of Copaslip here n' there rubbed into the brake-pipe's securing clips to help prevent corrosion, I think that's it for this side for the time being.

With the wheel back on.. the play in the steering or anything else in this corner would, I'm confident in believing, not be flagged in an MOT. And thankfully no more clonk !

We'll come back to the steering rack and other bits ..after other higher priority items have been deal with.

Pete.

Bfg · November 12, 2021

... I moved across to the RHS / offside front suspension this afternoon with the intent of inspection, a quick clean up & repaint, and lubrication. I ended up with more items on my job list . .

^ first impressions is that it's tidier than the LHS was, still . . .

^ the steering rack gaiter is shot.

^ track rod end gaiter, most likely pinched ..and now split.

^ Lower wishbone trunnion, also severely rusty (long-term and from its inside)

^ Brake pads held in with a set screw.

Top wishbone ball joint has a hole alongside the grease nipple (it was a small sized one which I removed to clean things up, so I could see what was what). Although this had a nylon body washer over it, the grease was still coming out of the little hole.

So., for now . . .

The steering rack gaiter I can't do anything about until I get the replacement in.

The track rod end gaiter is not perished so I'm trying a 'fix' of CT1 over it . . .

^ Cleaned off first with carb cleaner, it's a fudge ..and it'll either work or not. If not then a new track rod end is pretty cheap as and when it's required.

Lower wishbone trunnion ; I realised that if I lift under the wishbones to take the road-springs compression, then I ought be able to release the lower wishbone trunnion bolt to lubricate those nylon bushes. On the other hand I also know how stubbornly a steel bolt through spacer tubes (which of course are not plated inside their hole) rust together. Still it was worth a look while i was here . . .

I reasoned that with the jack supporting under the wishbones, that lower trunnion would only be bearing the weight of the hub and brake.

Out with the split-pin & off with the nut. . .

They came off easy enough, the nylon bush and its inner dust seal are in my hand. However even with copious amounts of penetrating oil squirted into and around the steel sleeve (red arrow) and the castle nut ..put back on upside-down so I could hammer the end of the bolt - it wasn't going to shift. The trunnion is doing its job for now, and there's no discernible slack ..so there's no urgency to battle with it. NB. Despite appearance I'm not actually looking for work, I'm just trying to get the car in a fit state and on the road.

Anyway, for now I flooded the bolt and steel sleeve with more penetrating oil, and quickly put the bush, dust seal, the thick washer and the nut with its split pin all back together again. It can stay like that until those bushes need attention. At that time ..who knows, the penetrating oil might have soaked in and tilt the forthcoming battle in my favour.. Always the optimist huh Pete :lol:

And finally for tonight, the hole next to the grease nipple in the top ball joint . . .

^ I simply swapped the nylon washer that was on there for a stainless steel one which likewise covers the hole, after having degreased it and a blob of CT1. It'll not leak again.

I'll come back to do the greasing and oiling (of the steering trunnion) tomorrow. It's time for a cuppa !

..oh., just a quick one . . .

^ The hub next to the cap is bright and shiny from where it's been cut back with a grinder. I hadn't noticed it on the other side as that was smeared over in black grease. Anyone know why this was done ? anything to do with someone fitting wire-wheel adapters ?

cheers,

Pete

Bfg · November 13, 2021

Just finishing up on the offside front suspension this morning. . .

^ for the time being, I've also sealed over the tears in the steering rack gaiter, with CT1. Their replacement is still on the job list, but again this 'fix' moves them down the priority list.

^ oozing after a liberal dose of gear-oiling in the steering trunnion. Also greased of the top ball joint and the track rod end (now that the CT1 has re-sealed it rubber boot). So those are a few more tasks off the everyday-maintenance check list.

^ And then I finished up with wire brushing off the flaky paint & surface rust, then splash some paint around, and some copaslip over thread ends and the flexi brake-pipe brackets. Time to move on.

I think I'll next go back to the rear LHS corner ..to do Marco's handbrake cable mod. I liked that.

In the meantime, this afternoon, I was supposed to be getting a Honda 125 running for my ex-neighbours grandson ..who I gather wants to sell it. I used to have a Honda CB125 and thought it a great bike, so if this one was a sensible price then it would be handy as a run around. Alas, no-one was in and the bike wasn't there. Another time perhaps.

That's it for now, so I'll bid you all a good weekend.

Pete.

Bfg · November 15, 2021

Personally I think these TR's were pretty robust ..bearing in mind that most of what I'm dealing with on Katie, is a consequence of five-and-a-half decades of use, deterioration with age of rubber parts and sealed-in lubricants, plus a fair dose of poor maintenance &/or mechanical empathy, and some very iffy parts.. she's (and many other examples) survived surprisingly well for a UK-climate car.

But sorta related.., I was reading on Sunday morning ..in bed with a coffee and crumbs from toast n' chunky marmalade, the following from August 1969 . . .

It sort of puts things in perspective, that these cars were not considered that brilliant when new. And were mostly daily drivers, often driven with vigour, not wiped dry to be put away in an integral garage each night, and then ..as already cheap cars, were most likely passed down the line to the lowest-budget family member / owner.

Anyone thinking their car has only done xx,ooo miles might like to think again about Trigger's broom

Pete

Bfg · November 15, 2021

Started today with opening presents .. no celebration, just some tools I thought best to invest in..

^ six-point A/F sockets with 3/8" drive ..for continuing work on the TR. I've been using Koken's six-point Whitworth sockets for some years now (including while professionally restoring 1950's Sunbeam motorcycles for a couple of years) and have been delighted with their quality. They're compact and easy to handle yet tough. My Makita sockets are all 12-point (also 3/8 drive) and whilst excellent tools, six-point is very much better to avoiding rounded off bolt heads and nuts.

I also received an external rod / thread deburring tool, as recently discussed and recommended in the TR Register website's topic on 'Modified and fabricated tools . '

^ Big box, little package.

Otherwise today was very much.. same ol', same ol'. In-so-much as I decided to check the rear RHS brake adjustment, which previously I had assumed was good to go ..with the car having just come back from a chassis swap. I also wanted to further my greasing schedule ..so the half-shaft had to come out to get to the outer UJ. And then pleased with the improvement to the LHS rear, I also wanted to fit Marco's handbrake cable run spacer. All in just a ten minute job then. . .

^ despite Copaslip copiously slapped all over it, the handbrake adjuster nuts were seized on to the rusty thread. Just undoing and cleaning up this cable end took 45 minutes. The pin connecting it to the lever arm was again a threaded bolt, which I've now changed to a set screw with a suitably long plain shank.

I then had call to use my new external deburring tool today for the first time, in cutting the thread of Marco's handbrake cables spacer to suit the thickness of my car's trailing-arm casting. . .

^ measured, cut to length and deburred / chamfered. The tool needed a little care to centre and isn't as smooth a finish as the linisher I'd normally use, but my cordless drill is always to hand and so it was quicker than getting another power-tool out.

I disconnected the rear wheel hub and pulled the half-shaft out. This is the first time I'd touched this side and so was anxious as to whether I'd find another stripped thread in this swinging arm. Thankfully not and so all went well. However this grease nipple was also bent and split . . .

^ When the outer UJ is cranked over (perhaps while the springs were being changed and the trailing-arm was lowered to full rebound) the UJ's forks foul the extended nipple ..and bend and crack it. This has happened, on this car, on both sides ..whereas its inner UJ's long grease nipples were undamaged, even when disconnected and the UJ is cranked right the way over they are just about clear. The half-shaft's inner UJ forks are rounder and have wider gaps than those of the outer UJ's.

^ I didn't have a normal (shorter) nipple to hand, so for this outer UJ, I've borrowed another extended nipple to do the greasing. And then I removed it and fitted a set-screw to blank the hole. I'm learning ..slowly :unsure:

^ not only was the cable's adjustment seized, but so was the adjuster in the brake itself. Penetrating oil wasn't enough to sweat the adjuster loose so I resorted to a little heat. Then it only took a minute before it started to move, and then getting the adjuster out and cleaning it up was easy-peasy. Copaslip then liberally applied to its thread, with heavy grease inside the adjuster.

Moving on to reassembly . . .

^ the hub was refitted with new nyloc nuts. I have noted that the brake shoes only have 2-1/2 to 3mm of thickness left on them.

Tip to anyone who doesn't know.. if you can thread a nyloc down a clean thread without using a ratchet, then it's already way-past time to replace it.

^ That's it, those tasks have now also been checked-off in this corner. Marco's spacer block can just about be seen under the handbrake cable stop and the cable's run looks good and true. Shame on Triumph for not casting such a height block into the swinging arm. Thanks again Marco for those

With all things lubricated and correctly adjusted.. the handbrake lever inside the car has possibly half-the-angle of lift than it had before.

I think for tomorrow.. I might not crawl under the car ! . . . yippee

Bfg · November 18, 2021

On 11/15/2021 at 8:23 PM, Bfg said:

I think for tomorrow.. I might not crawl under the car ! . . . yippee

.. Well that only sort of happened insomuch as I didn't work on the car at all on Tuesday, but on the other hand.. on Wednesday, the following day I did work on the car I found myself underneath again..

^ Seats & tunnel out, to address the leak from the recently rebuilt gearbox. I've been here before when I first collected the car, because the overdrive stopped working. That was just a matter of the replacement overdrive solenoid's wire having a 3+mm (?) bullet being loose in the Lucas 4mm bullet connector. That was odd because M&T had soldered new bullet connectors where some were loose to the headlamps. The gearbox and overdrive refitting was done by a sub-contract mechanic (Keith) who clearly cared little for his customer's business reputation.

Anyway while finding that fault, I also noted the gearshift spring was fitted upside down in the cup ..which is why I was having difficulty changing gear, and the propshaft UJ bolts were loose. Two of the four bolts I could tun in my fingers, the two others each took up by about 1/4 of a turn. The oil leak, all down either side of the gearbox, was clearly coming from around the top cover.

^ I'd also noted that this bolt was stripped out (wouldn't tighten) and as you can see it is different to the one nearer the front. It did have a spring washer under it but I removed that to try and get a pinch on the next thread down. I couldn't do much else about it at the time, so corrected the solenoid wire and tightened the prop-shaft, with the intent to coming back to this before I drove the car much further. Accordingly that's why I pulled out the interior (again) yesterday.

^ as removed from the rear of the top cover

^ the two forward holes are stripped out for the most part, the bolts fitted were wrong / of fine thread.

The spotlessly clean interior of the gearbox case reflects it having been just rebuild, a couple of month and some 200 miles ago, ..no ?

^ aside from the stripped out thread to the right of the case, which similarly had a wrong (fine thread) bolt in it, the rear two threaded holes are likewise mostly stripped out. I understand that these bolts should be about 1/8" shorter than the front ones, and so they too were wrong (albeit of they are correct thread). One is an all-threaded bolt, which I suspect should have a plain shank like the other.

That's five of the eight threads which hold / seal this cover down are mostly stripped out, and similarly five of the eight bolts were incorrect. Unfortunately, each of the bolt holes are through the turned-inwards rim of the gearbox casing, so any broken threads or bits of aluminium drop straight into the gearbox. And that gearbox oil is shared with the overdrive.

The overdrive is a newly refurbished one ..thankfully that was not rebuilt by Klassic Transmissions, Wolverhampton, who did the gearbox.

Can these thread repairs be done in situ. ? Well if it were the one then I'd pack underneath the hole and take the risk, I might even do that for the front two as well. but the rear two not ...

^ I cannot even get my head around to see this ..the camera is somewhat smaller and more nimble ! But as you can see the flange / overhang at the back is very close to the gear, and I cannot even get a little finger in let alone to successfully build a dam to collect any dropping swarf. If they were blind holes rather than open at the bottom then things might have been different, but the rebuild cost of an overdrive unit is at risk here, and I dare not take it.

^ The underside of the top cover, as it was lifted off, reflecting both the amount of oil leaking passed it and a lump of displaced aluminium ..from where a screwdriver or some other butchery had been hammered in to prise the cover off. It doesn't take much noddle to realise that this 1mm of ridge of crude would prevent that top cover sealing again on a thin paper gasket.

As an incentive to leak even more, the gearbox was over-filled by 1/2".

^ Bottom line is that the gearbox has to come out for those threads to be repaired ..without risking of dropping swarf bits of metal inside.

This sort of conning the customer is a sad reflection on our society.

NB., This is not M&T's fault, they did not rebuild the gearbox, they just offered, while the engine was out to drop the gearbox off for me. And that was done because the lay-shaft bearings were noisy. The car and there the gearbox was pleasantly oil-leak free beforehand.

Pete

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