Broken brakes

Well, the brake rebuild is underway - I've got it all apart and cleaned up, now I just need to order some more parts and then I can put it all back together again!

It doesn't look like the calipers had had any attention since they were new, and the pistons were so stiff I had to force two of them out with a pair of mole grips - hence the new parts. There's no way those pistons are going back in!

While I'm waiting for the parts, I decided to spruce up the calipers with a bit of paint - my original choice was gold but I ended up with yellow, based on the fact that the shop didn't have any gold paint! As it happens, I quite like the look so far, but time will tell whether they look any good on the car.

Obligatory 'before and after' photos:

Not good!

Last Tuesday was the monthly Club Triumph local meeting over towards Northampton - I thought that would be an ideal run out to give the car a bit of a shakedown.

So off I went and all seemed fine, the tracking was perfect, no juddering at all. Then after about 30 miles, the problems started - firstly, a squealing from one of the front wheels - bearings? I checked the hubs as best I could by the roadside, they didn't seem too hot, and there was still no free play, so I elected to carry on (on the basis that I was closer to Northampton than to home) and check them at the weekend. Then my oil light came on. Strange. Fortunately I had a bit of spare oil from the weekend in the boot, so in it went, and all was good - until about 20 miles later when it came on again. Realising I had an oil leak, I bought some more oil (cheap stuff - no point buying anything fancy if it's just going to leak all over the road again! ;-) ), topped up and carried on. I needed to fill up again just before getting to the meet, but I eventually got there in one piece!

After the meet, I had a good look under the bonnet to see if I could spot the leak, but everything looked fine, so I took a deep breath and set off home again...

To cut a long story short, I ended up using all 5 litres of oil on the way home (the leak got worse!), and had to drive the last 10 miles or so - very slowly - with my oil light on (nowhere was open for me to buy more oil). I've found roughly where the leak is from though - it's somewhere around the oil filter/pump area. The problem is, the whole side of the engine is now caked in oil so I can't see exactly where it's coming from. I guess it'll have to wait a week or so before I get round to sorting it - grovelling around under the car is no fun when there's 3 inches of snow on the ground! :o
I just hope it's a seal blown and not something more serious - and I also hope I haven't damaged the engine by running it with low oil like that (I'm sorry Rosie, I had no choice!)

Oh, and one of the headlights has blown as well. :-( All in all, not a good trip.

Done.

Well, the car is now back together, with no major hiccups. The steering is awful right now, very vague and it keeps trying to wander off to the side. I'm putting that down to poor tracking for now - at least I hope that's what it is! I've got it booked in tomorrow to have that fixed, so we'll see.

Otherwise, I changed the oil and checked the valve clearances - the clearances are a bit out, but I'm not too sure how bad it is - I've got no idea how sensitive these engines are to this. Something else to look into.....

And I ordered all my brake bits today (as promised!) - the helpful guys at S&S Preps tried to sell me some uprated discs, and then a full vented disc kit - I was sorely tempted, but my wallet said no. I'll be looking at doing that upgrade after the summer, in the meantime a well set up standard (apart from greenstuff pads) system should be fine.

One of these days, I'll learn to stop spending money on this car - then again, maybe not!

A place to work

Recently I've been having problems getting somewhere to work on the car, meaning major jobs have been out of the question.

No more - I've found a place!

Where I work there is an old shed where the roof collapsed, and is now derelict. So I got permission, and am now free to use it for my work. It's not ideal - there's no power, water, or even a roof! But there's plenty of space, it's out of the way, and it's free, so it would be churlish of me to complain too much.
















So, on with the work.

As per my last post, I needed to change the wheel bearings and steering rack gaiters, so with all the parts to hand, off I went.

Taking the hubs off revealed a couple of surprises - firstly, the front brakes are in a right old state, the pistons are stiff, the pads are nearly worn out and the discs are pretty worn, too. I knew they weren't great, but I didn't realise they were that bad! I know it's a bit iffy, but the brakes do actually work reasonably well even in this state, so I'll be leaving them for now and sorting them out properly another time - sooner, rather than later...

Secondly, the reason I was changing the bearings was because of excessive play on the front wheels, which I put down to worn bearings. When I went to undo the hub nuts, however, I realised why there was play - the nuts were only finger-tight! Remarkably enough, the bearings were still in virtually new condition, so I'll be keeping them for emergency spares.

The steering rack gaiters were a little bit less straightforward though: the track rod ends were seized solid (had they ever been undone?) on both sides. Fortunately, I'd planned to replace them both, so I showed them no mercy when taking them off - suffice to say, they're now in no fit state to go anywhere other than the bin!
And the gaiters I'd bought (from ebay) were wrong too; one end was fine, but the other end was way too small to fit. Great. A little bit of handiwork with a knife, and they now fit just fine. It's a little bit 'Heath Robinson', but they should be fine - I'll just have to keep an eye on them.

Before I'd had the chance to get the hubs back together it was getting dark, so I'll be carrying on tomorrow.