Triumph event at Nurburgring

It's already 2 weeks ago that we visited a (sort of) track day organised by a German Triumphclub. They hired the famous Nordschleife for 2hrs. Basicly it's Triumphs only but you will find the odd MG or Jaguar as well on track. Who cares , it's good fun!

First I drove down to a petrol station at the German autobahn to meet up with Rob and Monique in their TR7 V8. Due to major roadworks we ended up in heavy trafic which slowed us down a bit. Luckily we made it in time for the infamous lunch at Hannes. Traditional pommes und currywurst always tastes good! Suddenly it started to rain, typical for the eifel region. But now the sky looked very dark and I had a feeling it wouldn't clear up anymore. Not good for driving the Nordschleife. The track becomes very slippery when wet. Just before the openening of the track it stopped raining. Time to go out and have some fun in the GT6. First lap was still wet so I took it easy. GT6 was going really well, I felt really confident about the car. Amazingly the track dried up very fast so the second lap was mainly dry. Still took it easy as you can hit a wet spot after every corner. Never trust the Nordschleife! Only once the backend came out as I was a bit to quick on the throttle. Luckily it happened at slow (ish) speed. Third lap was completely dry and I really started to enjoy myself. Amazingly I was one of the quicker cars on the track. Even more amazing as you see what cars the Germans bring. Their Triumphs are all very well build to high standards. (a big contrast compared to my rustbucket) They spend loads on go faster goodies (including racy outfit!) but for some reason there's not much go! They prefer to look fast instead of going fast... In the first lap I was behind a E-type in full race trim (including driver) but he could'n get away from me. At Adenauer Forst I think he got nervous from the white mini E-type in his mirrors that he spun his fancy racer. Finally I could get past him, as the E-type is the faster car in a straight line. (no surprise) Not sure how many laps I did in the end, must have been 10 or 11. I drove 2 hrs full time! Must have been the best 2 hrs in my GT6. Rob also had a great time in his Tr7 V8. He has done many laps on the Nordschleife but told me he never had so much fun as today. He only had to stop once for fuel. That V8 needs loads! Afterwards we stopped at "Pistenklaus" for dinner. which was excellent. Finally an uneventful drive home and again we enjoyed a great day of Triumping!

First official unofficial Triumph meet Limburg.

Here we are, at the end of another smashing run through the German eifel. We had a great day out enjoying our cars and of course ourselves! It was also the first official unofficial Triumph meeting since our local area has separated from CTH. Amazingly we had a good turn out with 6 cars, 5 Triumphs and one Escort mk1. For today I volunteered to codrive with Rob in his Escort. We met at 9.00 in Sittard at Ron and Mary's place (our new clubhouse....) After the usual chat we left for Germany around 10.00. The first section was a bit boring with long straight roads and many villages to cross. It didn't take long for us to loose the cars behind us. Only Rob and Monique in the TR7 V8 stayed on our tail. Not much later I missed a lefthand turn (on my own designed route, Hooray!) and we got lost. Luckily rob had satnav which brought us back on track soon. The further we drove down south the more challenging the roads became. Robs RS2000 is going really well, only suffering some very bad vibrations at certain speeds. Doesn't really matter as long as there is go! I think Rob enjoyed the twisty roads very much. Then we got lost a second time in Bad Munstereifel, but luckily came back on track soon. Now we were up on the last section before the halfway stop. This section was used last year as one of the stages at the rally Koln-Ahrweiler. A fantastic road, big respect for the rallydrivers who do these sections at more serious speeds. Now we were close to our halfway point, restaurant Steinerberg which is situated on top of a hill. The road up there is amazing. Looks like the road to nowhere and seems to be climbing and climbing up the hill for ever. It's only one car wide and the hairpins are proper first gear stuff. Top entertainment! Once we've reached the top we notice it's very busy at the restaurant. 15 minutes later the other Triumphs arrive. It took us a while to order food but managed in the end. Unfortunately the second part of our group deceided to drive down and search for another restaurant as the food supply was slow. Shame as we haven't seen them since then. They drove straight home after lunch, due to illness of one of the codrivers. Once we got our food it turned out to be really nice. It was worth the climb and the long wait. After lunch we drove down the hill where I tried to make some pics of the wedgies in front of us.

Theo's new pride and joy, scraping the mirrors on the tarmac... :-)

Drive it like a hairdresser stole it!

Once out on the open road again we headed for the Nürburgring. The road from Kesseling to Adenau is a narrow but good visible road which can be driven in anger. This is how it looks like!

Cupholder RS2000 style!!!

We stopped at Bergwerk to see some track action. It's a great spot as you are very close to the track. Not sure if it's safe, so far I have never seen a car crash.

Our tool for today, Robs Escort mk1 RS2000

Some on track action pics

After the usual Porsche and BMW watching at the Ring we continued our trip towards Adenau. First a quick pitstop for fuel in Breidscheid, then we would be ready for the last section.

Robbie stays cool, V8 needs juice!

Wedgetastic....

Beans fills up the Beans way!!

With the cars filled up, we hit the road again. From Adenau we took a great road towards Reifferscheid. This was another section out of the Koln-Ahrweiler. Think this was the best stretch we drove today. Just amazing! And very quiet as well. Luckily the backroads in the Eifel are still undiscovered, gives us plenty of room to play. Especially the downhill section towards Fuchshofen is spectacular. Next time I want to drive uphill, must be even better! We continued our tour on more interesting roads and finally ended up in Aachen. Last section on the busy motorway and we were back home again. I really enjoyed being in Robs Escort as a codriver, it's a great car that can only become better once all the vibrations and rattles are sorted. It was a good day out in good company. Shame we got split up and some of us had to go home early. Next time we'll try again!

GT6, well fed up! 2.5PI, no progress

No report on the GT6. Still struggling with the engine since it "went up in smoke" on our way up to the start of "De nacht van het Oosten" Hope to get it running again soon. For now I've lost motivation. It still won't run properly and also engine temperature is a bit on the high side.

Also no progress on the 2.5PI. Hopefully by the end of this week there is news about the missing bits and the available donor car. I'm a bit in a Triumph down at the moment. Not good! I'm sure things will change soon!! Just keep on smiling. It ain't broke, only not working at the moment! :-)

Finally

It's back in and it runs! It's all smooth and quiet again and I was very excited this afternoon when I finally heard it running again. I'm talking about my GT6 engine, which came out of the car because it made some unhealthy bottom end noises. After a closer examination I found some pretty worn big end bearings. Luckily the crankshaft didn't suffer from it. We measured the crankpins and endfloat of the crank which was all within the limits. Oilpump was also OK, so only new big end bearings came in. I managed to find some OE quality replacements which isn't as easy as it sounds. My supplier in the Netherlands only has the cheap repro County bearings in his pricelist but can also do OE quality if you ask for it. I think this is a bit odd, but according to him his customers only want the cheapest. Not me though, esp not on bearings.

I was a bit worried about mating the engine back to the gearbox but surprisingly it slided in very easy. It's all about having both gearbox and engine in a correct angle! Well I first started the engine today and it sounds very sweet! Hmm I love the Triumph sixpot.

PI progress

Not much really. I've been sorting out the bits that came with the car and found out there is a lot missing. Luckily the specific PI bits are all there, it's mostly trim and stuff that I need. I've spoken to the previous owner who still has a donor car somewhere in a lock-up. Hopefully I can get it off him and complete my car. I cleaned the leather seats, they are in reasonable condition, only the leather has completely dried out. Not sure what to do yet, I'm thinking of fitting modern (BMW?) seats which will give more support than the original ones. Still plenty of time left to think about these things. James made up this PItastic pizzledown that shows exactly how much time is left before it has to be finished. RBRR08 is my goal !!

Also had a quote for doing the bodywork and paintjob... Why is paint so expensive??

Triumph voting

PI has landed

Picked the PI up today. Of course we did it in style, by using a 73 Chevy Pick up as a towcar!

New car (part two)

Well, it's not new and it's hardly a car at the moment. It's more like a box of meccano!

It's a '69 Saloon 2.5PI mk1. One of the few LHD ones that are still around and this one is even an original Dutch registered. The car has covered 70.000km and has been off the road for more then 10 years now. It's all original and very solid. It has been welded on 2 places (not done very well) but doesn't need any further welding. The engine has been rebuild and so has all the PI gear. It comes with a J-type overdrive and the wider mk2 rear axle.

The car looks very poor from the photos but it's much better irl. You can see some patches of filler on the front wings, but these are only some attempts from the previous owner to prepare the car for painting. Haven't got a clue why he was using fiberglass filler for it..... Luckily he stopped "working" on the car and didn't cause any serious damage to it. Hope to get the car back on the road in the next year. Still a lot to do, have to get my thoughts on what I want to do with it. What I do know for now that it's not having the original colour back. Emerald green is a bit yuck to me!

New car (part one)

Due to a job change I had to sell my beloved BMW and get a sensible car instead...

Here it is... my pride and joy!

A 90hp Veedubb diezzzzzel

CTH Nachtrit 4th of November

For the 18th time in succession we had our famous CTH nachtrit. As last year we had guests over from the UK to do the run. This time we had 6 cars entering which shows the popularity of such events. Thanks to Doug, Katie, Don, Sarah, Dave, Hayley, Colin, Michelle, Michael, Gillian, Tim and James for coming over! Special thanks to Andy and Jutta for joining us on sunday. Much appreciated!

Leaving early saturday afternoon together with my co driver Paul, followed by Rob and Rodi in their Escort mk1 RS2000. For them (or actually the car) this would be the big shake down. Exciting stuff! We arrived at the hotel around 14.00, ready to welcome our UK entries. Not much later Theo arrived at the hotel too. Then there was Michael and Gillian in their TR6. They had a different crossing and managed to be there in time. The other crews had some problems at the tunnel and had a huge delay. They arrived at exactly 16.00. We were very short in time now as the rally would start at 17.00. So a quick check in at the hotel followed by a slice of vlaai and off we went. We arrived at the start of the rally exactly at 17.00. Not good as we all had early starttimes. Nachtritmeister René decided to start 30mins later, which gave us some time to relax. As we had no. 1 we had to start first at 17.31. It's actually quite nice to start first, the empty roads and no slow cars in front makes it possible to drive your own speed etc. It was all going really well as Paul is an excellent co driver. But René is famous for finding the narrowest roads in Belgium and so it happened we missed a rh turn into one of these narrow roads. As we turned round we saw Doug and Katie passing by, also missing that road. The road was as wide as one Triumph, going up very steep and ofcourse very bumpy! We had to take it easy on this one. As we cathed up speed again it all went very well again. We managed to find a good pace, which is essential for driving such events. Then we missed another turn on a fast section as the distance wasn't always accurate. That road came a bit early and we missed it. Coming from the other side there where big road signs which made the road more visible now. Ahhh yes, we're in Belgium!! They must have the worst road layouts in the world.. Arriving at the half way stop we had not seen any other car. We were first to have spaghetti! After 5 minutes Rob and Rodi arrived as second at the stop. The Escort was going really well and they really enjoyed the event so far. It took another 5-10 minutes for other crews to drop in. Some of them didn't realise they would have to pass the restaurant twice on the run. There was a 20 minutes loop to do before you could stop for a rest. Always good to see those confused faces! After a 45 mins stop we left for the second section. This turned out te have longer stretches on faster roads, also a lot easier on the navigating side of things. We drove faultless through this last section. The only concern was the fuel gauge. It was pointing to the lower side of the scale which wasn't very promising. Getting fuel on a saturdaynight in Belgium is a real problem. There are loads of petrolstations but they are all closed. Only with a Belgium bankaccount you can get petrol by using a cashmachine. Not very usefull for us foreigners. Luckily we managed to find a Q8 petrolstation just outside of Chaudfontain that had a machine that accepted banknotes. Filled the car up for €20,- of RON 98 and off we went again! I felt much more happy now with the fuelgauge pointing halfway the scale. We arrived back at the finish at 22.35 ish. Still being the first, wich surprised me. I wasn't pushing it that hard and expected to be overtaken by several other cars. It was a very quiet Nachtrit for us, not seeing any other participants. At the finish we met up with Andy and Jutta, they couldn't make it in time for the start but came down to cheer us up at the finish! It took another 5-10 minutes for the RS2000 to arrive not much later followed by Herald, 2.5PI and TR7 16V. The other UK crews needed some more time but I think they all managed to get back before midnight. They all enjoyed it very much I guess! Time for a good sleep at the hotel.

The next day we all got up around 9.00 to have breakfast at the hotel. The TR6 crew left first as they had to catch the 14.00 ferry. The others joined us for the rest of the day. After the usual CT spannering session we were all ready to hit the road again. I thought it would be nice to drive down to the Spa-Francorchamps racetrack. I sort of planned an interesting route which turned out to have some unpleasant features in it. The first section of this route we had to cross a crowded area which I expected to be a pain to drive through with so many cars. It became even worse as we bumped into a fair, some WW memorial and a huge international mountainbike event. And one road was closed due to roadworks. It all slowed us down on our way to Stavelot. We had to wait several times to catch up with the other cars again. All very annoying, have to do better preparation on this next time. Once we hit the wide and open roads through the "high Ardens" we went on very well. Crossing the Baraque Michel (2nd highest top in Belgium) it welcomed us with it's typical weather, cold and foggy! From there a twisty downhill section leads into Malmedy. From there it's only a couple of minutes to Stavelot. The road between both towns used to be a part of the 60's GP track. Just before Stavelot a banked rh turn is still visible. In Stavelot we parked up at the old market where we enjoyed a decent lunch. Don and Sarah left us here as they had plans for visiting Brugge. After lunch we visited the small Circuit Museum which has some interesting cars on display. After that it was time to say goodbye to our UK guests as they had a train to catch, but a quick stop at the amazing Eau Rouge corner had to be done first. You can't imagine how steep it is if you've never seen it before! Luckily there were some guys trashing their E30 M3's, so we had some "on track" action as well. Well, that was it..... the end of another fantastic weekend. Unfortunately on the way back we ended up in a huge traffic jam on the motorway. It was caused by a nasty accident. Then another one caused by roadworks. As we lost the others in traffic we decided to take a diverted route avoiding the busy motorway. Luckily the CT crews managed to catch their train in time! I was a bit worried they would be in trouble because of all delays.