No comment......  

Nacht van het Oosten 

GT6 in Sprint sandwich... 

Saloon at the start 

First driving event CTH

Finally after the long winter stop, yesterday was the first 2005 meeting of Club Triumph Holland. A night rally over a distance of 180k. I really like night rallies so I wasn’t bothered about 2 hours motorway cruising to the start of the event. We went down in my GT6 and Theo took the TR7 out. Over 50 cars were competing in this event, not all of them being a Triumph or even British. A couple of French, one American and also two Swedish cars appeared to the start. They all suited very well to the British cars and it gave a nice mix of cars. After a very nice dinner first cars started for the rally. We blasted off at 18.20. The route was set up in ball and arrow system. There were 205 drawings for 180k!!! That’s what you get in a Dutch rally. Loads of short distance roads, all very narrow and twisty. Also covered in mud and dirt, which makes it tricky too. Hard work for navigator and driver. Especially when your tacho stops working. Just before the start of the rally I filled up with petrol and reset the tacho. After that it decided to stop all activities. Very difficult navigating without distance and even more difficult in the night. Luckily we picked up behind a local chap in a Mini. At least I think he was local, otherwise he must be insane! This chap really kicked tires in his Mini. It was a pleasure for us to follow that racing-green box with white roof. Best action of the night. Overtaking a Saab Sonet by taking the shortcut route over a roundabout. Mini in front, GT6 on second!! The shortest way is always the quicker one. Second best action. Loosing the exhaust of my car after hitting a ditch in the road very hard. The rubber mountings at the back were snapped off and the exhaust was then only attached to the car at the manifold. Luckily we managed to put it back under the car by using some spare electric wire. A damn good repair, it held all the way back home. Back at the finish we met up with Theo and Rene again. They were in already for an hour. Which means they pushed the wedge around really quick. (as usual) After a nice beer we went home. It was a great start of the driving season. Next week there’s the next event already. I bit more relaxed as it is on Easter Monday!

Pics will follow soon............

Things that make you go...........

The windscreen on the driverside of my car winded up very heavy. It actually did this for more than two years now.... No prob, I'll fix it the other week. and the week after.... and after .... Not being my favorit job! Finally the knob on the handle seized. Then I had no choice. I actually thought the mechanism needed some greasing. But what a happy surprise after I removed the doorcard. The returnspring on the mechanism was missing! How on earth could this happen?? Haven't got a clue to be honest. I found the spring back at the bottom of the door. That's even more magic, as the spring normally sits on the outside... First I tried to put the spring back in place without removing the mechanism. As you can imagine, this ain't working. So I ended up removing the complete mechanism. The spring is back in place now and the windsreen winds up very easy. It was only a two hour job. And then another hour for putting back the lockingpin into the handle. A job you need three hands for.... I managed with two in the end!

Spring 

The inner life of a Weber DCOE

Not much fiddling around Triumphs today. It's freezing cold in my garage at the moment, so the better option is staying inside the house. Unfortnately the battery of my daily driver went flat, so I had to change it for a less older one. Not a pleasure job to do out on the street. Especially not when it's snowing... Stayed in for the rest of the day, finding out about the inner life of a Weber carb. It starts making sense to me now...... It all seems very complicated which isn't actually.

Seats and fusebox

Fitted some Corbeau Classic seats to my GT6. I think they suit the car really well. At least they give a better hold as the standard items. I also sorted out the electrics. In future I will need an electric fuelpump to feed these thirsty webers. So I made up a second fusebox. It's placed at the passengerside behind the glovebox. One of the very little spaces available in a GT6. Now it's out of sight but still easy accessible. The fusebox has five fuses and two relays. One for the fuelpump and one for the foglights when fitted. The other three fuses are in use by the radio, maplight and 12V output.

The new fusebox 

Corbeau seats 

The rollingroadtest 26-2-05

As in preparation for my triple weber conversion I did a rolling road test the other day. I thought it would be usefull to know what the output of the engine is before the conversion. The car is all standard except for a SS sports exhaust and tubular manifold. (6-2-1) It also has a Aldon electronic ignition. Luckily the company I work for (Bosch service centre) got all the equipment to do the run. Unfortunately I have this problem with the engine, sometimes it cuts off power at 4000RPM. For some reason (don't know why) it happened again during the run. It just wont rev up anymore. Did some investigation today and I think I found the fault in a worn dizzycap. The centre bit (black pin, don't know the proper name for it) was almost completely gone. Changed the cap for another one and went for a spin. No faults so far, It now revs up to 5000RPM without any problems. Hope that's sorted then.. Anyway the results for the run are 67kw at 4000RPM, which is 92BHP at the crank. Not too bad actually.

Johan at the wheel.... 80MPH and going nowhere! 

On the rolling road 

BRB

Roger's blog will soon be back on the track!!!!!!!!

Thanks to James C..