MARCH 2005
“Assembling for our First
Run Out, Sunday 3rd April”
MARCH 2005
“Assembling for our First
Run Out, Sunday 3rd April”
MEMBERS PRESENT: Paul
Bowler Stag –
S**t brown
Reg & Irene Bowler
Derek Bramford
Andrew Burford
John & Chris Day TR6
Martin Faulkner
Alan Fuller TR6
Dick Goodey TR4
Phil Gunn Stag
Roger Guy
David Guzzetta
Andy Holyoak TR6
John & Margaret Martin
Andy & Claire Moltu
Terry & Sue Pruce
Nigel Rees
Tony & Ruth Richards TR6
Ben & Lisa Ward
Martin & Jenny Ward 2000 Estate
Gail & Allan Westbury
MEETING NOTES
All of this year’s meetings to date have had a
theme to them. In January it was
cylinder heads, in February it was clutches (with the odd slippy diff thrown
in). This month it was spark plugs, well
one to be exact, and lets face it, it was much easier to carry into the room
than a couple of cylinder heads. Brought
in by Tony to show the new style forked electrode it was an NGK BKR6E and is
supposed to be the dogs what-knots. With
a modern electronic ignition system these can run a gap of 40thou and give much
improved performance.
It seems Tony also does a nice line in lawn
mower parts. We will draw a veil over
this; I know the TR2 engine was reported to derive from a tractor engine but I
think this is stretching the club limits just a bit too far!
A number of forthcoming events were discussed,
initially the return skittles match against the Coventry Group the following
evening, and some final booking in and cancelling agreed at the last minute with
Irene Bowler. Thanks Irene for
accommodating some last minute changes.
First run out, on 3rd
April
– see separate article later.
Tuesday 5th April, TR Track day at
Thursday 7th April, Raid on the Coventry Group.
Friday 3rd June to
Sunday 5th June, the LTRG Welsh
Weekend – 8 cars booked in so far.
Saturday 9th –
Sunday 10th July,
the LTRG Derby weekend – all 24 are booked in for Saturday night, does anyone
want booking in for the Friday night?
For those that do please let Tony know asap.
16th – 18th September, Goodwood Revival. Graham Ransome has found a potential campsite for up to 12 tents max and is wondering if anyone is interested? Cost is £15/night plus £5 per extra person. There is a BBQ on the site and toilets. If you want to go to Goodwood you need to decide which days you wish to attend and book them early, last year the tickets went very quickly. Prices are believed to be £35 for the Saturday, £45 for Sunday, the most popular day, and £70 for the weekend. Dave Guzzetta is coordinating the bookings so please phone/email him if interested on 01530 260556 / dg@dgace.co.uk
Provisional date for your diary’s, August
13th, Wine tasting in Bunny and then onto Alan &
Susan Fuller’s for a BBQ.
FIRST RUN OUT, 3rd
April.
On a sunny Sunday morning we all met up
at our house at
The total of 11 cars caused interest among the
neighbours, some of whom came out with their cameras. Nigel & Wendy arrived in the nick of
time, just coming up the road as we all set off in convoy down the road. Members present were: Andrew Deacon (TR6),
Ben & Lisa (TR6), Martin & Jennie (TR6), Terry and Sue (TR6), Nigel
& Wendy (TR6), Phil Rachael Sam and Hannah (Stag), Reg and Roger (TR6),
Tony & Ruth (TR6), Allan & Susan (TR6), James (driver) and Martin F
(TR6) with Sue (TVR).
First stop the garage for petrol. Very quick, except for Mr P who nearly filled
up with diesel. Luckily he didn’t –
Diesel Terry doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Diesel Dick. After a good run to the edge of Tutbury (how
many times did we go around that roundabout?), we arrived at the Glass factory,
via a cul-de-sac where all cars turned around one after the other. The noise got all the residents out in force,
luckily in good humour. Money was
apparently spent on glass goodies [the men don’t need to know that bit Sue],
before we set off to hunt for food in Fenny Bentley. The carvery was excellent and there were even
a few old Citreon Tractions in the car park to look at. At one point James was very concerned as he
saw his pudding go past several times, before it found him.
The original plan had been to go to the
caves at Castleton, but this was changed in the pub car park when we realised how
far we still had to go. So a quick
detour found us at Dovedale where we all had a good walk and sampled the local
ice cream. (Un)fortunately no-one fell
in across the stepping stones, even when I had my camera ready, and the more
adventurous – Ben, Sam and James – climbed the hills instead of following the
path. When we all stopped for a
breather, Phil, not to be outdone by his son, followed Sam up the nearest peak,
much to the amusement of everyone watching.
We didn’t quite take bets on whether he would make it or not, but he
looked very relieved to have got to the top.
Well done Phil, it did look a long way up.
Next stop was Hartington, a very pleasant
village with a good teashop selling enormous scones, which were eaten in vast
quantities. The local cheese shop also
did very well out of us with its delicious produce. As time was getting on by then, many people
went their separate ways home, except for a small group of us who came back to
our house to finish the morning’s biscuits.
It was an excellent first run out, with many
more cars than in previous years. There
were no mishaps with the cars, just good (well dry anyway) weather, a great
route with well-chosen places to visit (thank you Martin W) and the usual group
banter. Where shall we go next?
MEMBERS CARS:
Ben Wards Engine re-build completed.
Here is one I did earlier - the newly built
engine ready to be fitted back into the car.
Let
us pray; or should it be healing hands?
Finally
finished, or is it? Where’s the nice
shinny new aluminium radiator?
Last
chance! Membership fees of £15 are now
overdue. Please pay by the April meeting, if you wish
to keep receiving your copy of the newsletter.
All cheques should be made payable to Leicestershire TR Group.
Update
from
ALMOST
APRIL
Happy
Easter. Where is this year going
to? Why is it still snowing? When will Spring arrive? So many questions.
I have to
be honest now, we haven’t had any new snow for nearly a week, so perhaps Spring
is on the way. And with the continuous
rain for the past 28 hours, the snow that’s still lying on the garden is
beginning to vanish. We can now see some
areas of yellow lawn.
On the
subject of gardens, I ordered some plants a while back from a mail order
company who deliver when the time is right for planting. When I got home from work on Friday one of
the plants (a Kiwi vine) was on the doorstep.
I called the company and explained that we’re still 12” deep in snow and
that I didn’t think the conditions were conducive to delicate plants. I was advised to keep the plant in a cool
dark place until the ground has warmed and then to telephone them for the plant
guarantee to become effective. The lady
then apologised that they’ve also dispatched the willow tree that I
ordered. Now just where will I keep that
until I can dig a 3’ hole?
In Pete’s
article this month he mentions his lovely new washing up gloves. I had to giggle at the packaging. “Sassy colors” it declared. They are pink. I think I’ve only ever seen pink and yellow
rubber gloves.
In an
effort to lose a bit of weight, I’ve joined the gym at the YMCA and, twice a
week, I go to aquafit class. There are
about 4 people of a similar age to me and then 10 or so who are in the 60-80
year range. The older members tend to
stay in the shallow water and I noticed today, as we were leaving the pool,
that one of the ladies still had full make-up on; lipstick, mascara, the
lot. I just wonder how much effort she’d
put into waving her arms and legs around.
The class is good fun and (for some of us) surprisingly strenuous; foam
dumbbells are quite heavy underwater.
Life at the
synagogue has been busy. We recently ran
a course entitled “A Taste of Judaism”.
It was aimed at non-Jews who wanted to learn about the faith or were in
multi-faith relationships. The course
was very popular and well over-subscribed.
This has been followed by Purim (a celebration of the escape of the Jews
from
That’s it
for this month. Take care,
Heather
REBUILD OF BLACK TR 4
CT 14790 LO – AN EMBARRASSING TALE
I left last
month’s thrilling episode with you gripping the edge of your seats wondering
whether I would ever find the missing gearbox mounting, or, more accurately,
the cross-member. I turned every box inside out, identified everything, put all
related parts together and generally did what I ought to have done ages ago. Still
no mounting. I then turned out an old can that the garage had given me back
with odds and ends of body fittings such as window winders etc, and there,
lurking at the bottom, was the cross-member and the mount. Also in that can was
the steering column mount, which I hadn’t even missed yet.
So I called
Heather off from her task of trawling the web to see if she could find what I
was calling a mount, but which I should have been calling a cross-member, as
nobody had a cross-member to sell from the catalogues.
So here’s
the embarrassing bit. I matched all the bumpers with the mounting ironwork, and
am pretty confident that I have everything. Unfortunately I have some
heavy-duty bits left over, and no amount of going through parts catalogues,
studying the workshop manual or matching to spare holes in the chassis has
identified anything. I am really wondering if they came back from the body shop
and belong to somebody else. If anybody
recognizes anything from the picky, can you please let me know. Just one thought
– can any of them be from chassis to body direct? The more I think about it are
there hangers from behind the wings to the chassis? If so why are there no
spare holes to bolt to? Mmmmm. By the way, I know that the shiny bit is the
crankshaft.
So, progress
of some kind. We’ve had a few warmer days recently and I was able to spend last
weekend completely on the car. Saturday, assembled all the handbrake
components. Very impressed with my rebuild of the lever with new pawl and
ratchet, spring and pins a few weeks ago. Then I ran into a problem I had
forgotten all about. The forks on the compensator had both consumed the threads
of the handbrake cable when I was taking them apart a couple of years ago.
Could I drill ‘em out? No chance. And of course you cannot buy replacements, so
when I take some engine parts to the shop for machining I will take the two
little buggers and get them to drill them out and re-tap them. Then would you
believe the next problem? The replacement back left cable is short by 8”. A
call to the shop elicited the same sort of conversation that I had with Moss as
reported last month. They have promised to call back within 48 hours and tell
me what the problem is. (And by the way, since you asked, Moss still haven’t
answered my technical question on the fitting of the boot on the steering
rack.) At least I have everything in place as far as I can.
Sunday I
tackled the footbrake system and discovered that if the day job gives out on me
I shouldn’t rely too heavily on being able to bend pipes prettily. I think I’ve
got all the plumbing right if not beautiful. Unfortunately, as I haven’t got
all the handbrake cables in place at the rear I cannot tell if any handbrake
movement fouls the hydraulic lines. I haven’t fastened them up properly as I
will have to disconnect everything again to change the wheel studs to
accommodate the steel wheels.
I’m now
waiting to complete the brakes, drill and re-tap the gearbox cross-member hole
and then I’m ready to replace the body. I’ve already stripped the instrument
panel prior to removing rust and re-painting in black rather than in that
wretched cream that Triumph obviously got for free. Somewhere Heather has a
picture of me using a very fetching pair of pink washing-up gloves to avoid
having all the skin removed from my hand by this stripping liquid that smells
as though it could remove rhino skin at 100 paces.
I wish there
was some way of avoiding using the 2 biggest
Enjoy your
spring Tr-ing.
Until next
time
Peter
CALENDAR
FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS:
|
April |
|
|
21
Thurs |
Group
Mtr |
|
May |
|
|
1
Sun |
TR
race day, Castle Combe (check) |
|
5
Thurs |
Raid:
Trent Group |
|
10
Tues |
Ashby
Folville |
|
13
Fri |
Euro
Meeting |
|
15
Sun |
TR
race day, Rockingham |
|
16
Mon |
Euro
Meeting |
|
19
Thurs |
Group
Mtr |
|
June |
|
|
1
Wed |
Raid:
Camb Followers |
|
3
Fri |
LTRG
Welsh w/e |
|
4
Sat |
LTRG
Welsh w/e |
|
5
Sun |
LTRG
Welsh w/e |
|
12
Sun |
TR
race day, Snetterton |
AND FINALLY: Things that are difficult to say when you're drunk...
a)
Innovative
b)
Preliminary
c)
Proliferation
d)
Cinnamon
Things
that are VERY difficult to say when you're drunk...
a)
Specificity
b)
British Constitution
c)
Passive-aggressive disorder
d)
Transubstantiate
Things
that are ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to say when you're drunk...
a)
Thanks, but I don't want to sleep with you.
b)
Nope, no more booze for me.
c)
Sorry, but you're not really my type.
d)
No kebab for me, thank you.
e)
Good evening officer, isn't it lovely out tonight?
f)
I'm not interested in fighting you.
g)
Oh, I just couldn't - no one wants to hear me sing.
h)
Thank you, but I won't make any attempt to dance, I have no co-ordination. I'd
hate to look a fool.
i)
Where is the nearest toilet? I refuse to vomit in the street.
j)
I must be going home now as I have work in the morning.
Next meeting Thursday
21st April 2004, the Rose & Crown, Tilton on the Hill.
See you there,
Martin & Sue.
p.s. Check with Andy Moltu, since when was Poo Brown an official Triumph colour?