More exhaust and engine goodies.

Well, one engine goodie anyway, a NOS rocker shaft - unobtainium, with the new rockers that I have it should make for a good quiet head in due course.

The ported manifold is now fitted, again a "feel different" response from the engine - no wonder the engines don't live up to their potential when fitted to a car. I have had to lower the idle speed significantly since completing the exhaust so it must be working.

I am now playing with a microsquirt kit, as I mentioned in my last post I intend to efi this engine while a build a new one (and overhaul the gearbox) so that I will have the efi all sorted - with perhaps some remapping required when the new engine is ready. The next project is to fit a trigger wheel so I can fit an edis module which will then talk to the microsquirt I shall make the brackets up for the crank pickup sensor on my spare engine block.

Exhaust Done

Outwardly the new exhaust still looks like an original triumph one. This was intentional as I like the classic look of the 2 Sprint tailpipes.

However they are a larger diameter than usual, and the centre box silencers are straight through - well almost - there's a U bend in the pipe at the end of the box - where the normal silencers just have 2 pipes going into a plenum, 1 in and 1 out, which significantly reduces back pressure.

The joints are flanged, there's a flexible section after the gearbox to downpipe clamp, to reduce loads on the manifold interface, and there's a boss fitted for a lambsa sensor.

All the pipes are larger diameter than normal, so all I need to do now is swap the cast manifold over for the ported one

Does it work, well its nice and quiet - hasn't ruined the character of the Sprint, and the engine is certainly more willing to rev, and go further upto the redline. I cannot quantify the power gains, hopefully I'll get the manifold on this weekend and see how it all is, but there's certainly more induction roar. Tick over speed has incresed too, presumably as the engine is doing less work pumping gases out f the exhaust

The costs came in at no more money than an after market large bore down pipe and system from a well known supplier. But this is of far superior quality to the phoenix system they market, it fits without issue, and with the flanged joints will be easy to remove or refit as and when I need to,

So well done to JP Exhausts - again.

The next part of the project is to EFI the existing engine, but a start on this will need to wait until after Christmas

More engine progress

While I have been in Edinburgh, the Sprint has been at JP exhausts in Macclesfield, I am due to collect it on Monday afternoon. I'm looking forward to that.

In the meantime some more engine goodies have arrived

NOS VP2 STD bearings from the states

There may appear to be too many shells for the big ends - there are, this was originally a set for a Stag, but the shells are the same, so I have a few spares now !

and the new inlet manifold for webbers or Jenvey throttle bodies

pictures to follow of the new exhaust

Its Christmas Time and exhausting work

Well maybe not, but I did receive some more presents in the post today

Adjustable front suspension tie rods

hydraulic clutch assembly - no more lever arm and clevis pins to fail

which assembled look like this

complete with pipework

and adjustable pedal stop

Thanks to Rob at Sprint Speed for these.

Now on to  the exhaust.  Sprint engine really like a reduction in back pressure, so the first job before getting a new exhaust system is to open out the exhaust manifold downpipe ports. Fortunately I have a nos manifold to work with.

As standard these are 35mm diameter,

even though the flange gasket is 43mm as shown by the ring of engineers blue round each hole

 

 

The ST manual recommends 45 mm with similar sized downpipes, so this is what they look like opened out (the socket is 45mm diameter)

Not a great deal of "meat" left between the ports, but just enough for 2 exhaust tube walls.

Here's old and new

I can take the car for its new exhaust system now

Bits and Bobs of work on the cars

I have done a few small jobs on the FF estate recently. One of the items that has always bugged me was the weatherstrip on the rear driverside door. Unlike all the others it was a repro one, and far too large in cross section so it always looked out of place.

I noticed recently that the originals were the same cross section as TR4 / 5 ones

and fortunately, these are just long enough to be cut before the curved section, and still fit the rear door on a 2000 - result - one correctly fitting, and correct looking weatherstrip, which matches the other nos ones I had managed to source for the rest of the car.

Due to work commitments I have not taken the estate out much recently, and it also needs an MOT which is now booked for 2 weeks time, but I have been running it up to temperature on our drive. last time I did this, it ran out of petrol, but the gauge still showed 1/4 full and the low fuel lamp wasn't on.

I thought it was the pump at first, but a check soon revealed no fuel at the pump either, so I pulled the sender out of the tank thinking this was faulty. When I did this I noticed about 2" of fuel in the bottom of the tank - removal of the fuel pick up pipe revealed the problem - it was bent and no where near the bottom of the tank. A little fettling of the pipe, correcting the bend soon saw the pump get fuel and it started again. Good job we kept the tank brimmed and didn't rely on the gauge on the RBRR!

Other cars, I have started an engine rebuild on the Sprint on my spare engine, and some of the parts have started to arrive. Apart from mundane items like gasket sets these landed this week

They each weigh 160 grams less than the original rods and have arp fasteners

and undoubtedley have been made with a little more precision.

I have ordered a few other bits and pieces to accompany them, but the lead time for these is a month or 2 or 3, so this won't be a rapid process. However its interesting to note that forged JE pistons now cost less than County ones from the usual suspects ! - no prices for guessing what I have ordered.

The Sprint will shortly be going to JP Exhausts (they did the FF exhaust and manifolds) for a new system, but I need to do some work on a spare cast manifold that I have first - more on that next time.

Sprinting on the RBRR

Well we made it, all Controls visited and following all the route in the road book - no short cuts, so no more rude comments about the Sprint and its reliability please - even I might stop being rude about it.

Thanks to my co-driver AJP - Shedtune we had a most enjoyable RBRR, much banter, rudeness and squashing of furry animals (badger, fox and rabbit spring to mind - there were others) happened during our drive.

Back  to the car, we got 36.5 mpg average out of it, which is significatly better than I had hoped, and we were not hanging arround on the twisty bits, the car had a Trackerjack Brake conversion with Mintex 1144 pads, and both of us managed to get brake fade, myself on the stretch from Conon Bridge to Glen Coe, and Andy on the twisty bits in Wales before Sugar Loaf.

The handling is just about right, Yoko tyres with lowered suspension and Gaz adjustables (nearly at maximum rate), make it turn in well and minimise roll, although they are a little harsh on the Motorway stretches.

All was going well, so well in fact that we had time to fettle a few outstanding jobs on the car at John O'Groats, stiff throttle cable - needed some lube and the passenger door that had wind whistling past the door seal - needed the window frame twisting to reduce the gap.

Driving down the loch road we were lucky enough to see a full grown stag (with large antlers) cross the road in front of us, followed by 2 other deer - we did stop and try not to add them to the road kill total, besides which, I think the car would have suffered some damage.

The loch road did however reveal that with two "large" drivers who had eaten a lot of pies and a boot full of spares and tools, the ground clearance was a little low ! - might need to replace the rear antiroll bar !

All went well until we left Badgers Holt, when the car ground to a halt 400m from the car park on the hill leaving the car park. This was soon traced to a blocked fuel filter, which was checked and clean before departure from home. Bad fuel somewhere.

Filter cleaned and carbs primed with fuel we were on our way and reached the cake stop at Pimperne in good time.

On departure the car misfired and stopped, we presumed it was a blocked filter again, but no cleaning, or blowing through the pipes fixed it. I replace the lumenition system with good old fashioned poits and capacitor and the car started again, but with a random misfire. Accompanied by Alan and Bradley in the 2000 (thank you both) we nursed it to Didcot, still within time and signed in.

Here we checked the car again and found the points gap was now 1/5", so this was reset and off we went again to the Plough still misfiring, to be confronted by the worst traffic I can remember on the M40 and M25, with the misfire, lights, electric water pump and fan on, the pump / fan controller started playing up too, so we had to reset that on the move several times.

We finally made it to the Plough, and after a brief rest pulled the distributor, which had significant wear in the shaft bearings, which explained the random firing and increasing points gap. Luckily I had grabbed the seized spare distributor ( from the timing chain tensioner donor engine) on my departure from home Friday morning, so we rebuilt one good distributor from the two on Michael Helm's signing in table in the bar at the Plough, and that's what got the car home to Birmingham on Sunday night. My mad hardcore co-driver drove back to Somerset that night!

On inspection the wear in the distributor was caused by the oil pump drive shaft seizing in the dristributor drive, which put excess sideways loads on the distributor bearings.

Would we do it again ? you bet, I'd sign up for 2016 now if I could, and Andy is so impressed with the Sprint he's going to buy one.

Lessons learnt, don't have 4 hours sleep the night before the run, replacing a timing chain and tensioner - I was wrecked before we started and remained so through out

The Curse of the Dolomite Strikes again !!!

Got the car home last night and the engine sounded very rattly, removed the alternator - it wasn't that so took the rocker cover off to find no tension in the timing chain.

The PO had rebuilt the engine and had obviously bought one of these crapy replacement rolon tensioners, where the rubber pad comes off.

Luckily I had an old engine to reclaim a tensioner from and a brand new chain, so at 4.30 this morning I started an engine strip.

Just finished and it workss, what else can go wrong ?

Right I'm off to the Plough to meet Andy and hopefully do the RBRR

Sprinting to the RBRR sorry RBR

What a pedantic name change, no longer the RBRR now to be the RBR - why does the word Reliability suggest racing on Public Roads ? What a shame to mess with the name of such an iconic event.

OK rant over.

Anne cannot make the run so AJP (Shedtune) has kindly agreed to accompany me - I hope he can drive in the dark ! No Lambrini either as McJim won't be manning the Scottish Border this year, Jason will miss his marigolds

Having put a few hundred miles on the Sprint last week it was time to fix a few things. I had already put the new alternator on, which has fixed the charging issue, and its rated at 50amp so will probably help the battery during the night runs on the RBRR

There was a blow from the manifold to downpipe joint, and once the old manifold was removed you can see where it was leaking, probably caused by a missing bolt as there were no threads left for the middle bolt.

However I had another manifold which I have helicoiled all the threads, so the bolts now fasten.

It was time to replace the starter too, the previous one which had been bought as reconditioned by the PO last December was playing up, solenoid clunking but no starter whirring away so I have replaced this as its easy to do with the manifold off.

I fabricated a small alloy heat shield for it too as everything gets very hot down there on a Sprint.

Next job was to swap the plastic expansion bottle for a genuine metal one which I aquired earlier, as the plastic ones tend to split.

Then it ws time to check the new wheel bearings which required a slight tightening of the castle nut by one notch

Then a general check over the car, fluids, etc, and what do I see but more EP90 leaking from the gearbox - this time it was from the gear selector rods - the PO had rebuilt the box but obviously hadn't replaced the O rings, or if he had they were from China - needing to fix this today, and not having the required size O rings, my spare Sprint box donated its gear selector cover, but it did mean transmission tunnel and part of the dash out. If this doesn't fix it, I will get some O rings on Monday and repeat the process again.

thats it for tonight, just headlamps to replace with some Cibies, and I have promised AJP a sound system ( that's so he doesn't hear the clattery engine at cold, or the gearbox whine, or has to talk to me I suspect) wonder what his taste in music is ? Hope he likes Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin

Triumph Therapy

It was Anne's turn to visit our girl in hospital tonight, so I got some Triumph therapy in !

Especially as the new hub bearing carrier had arrived from Moss !

All built up and ready to fit - the carrier is a repro part, and very similar to the original but must be made from billet not a casting as its machined all over.

Next fitment to the car - this involves replacement BUT you need to shim the endfloat to a maximum of 4 to 6 thou, by using shims like this behind the brake backplate

Needless to say its a little long winded as you need to do up the 6 housing bolts before checking endloat, and if you are unlucky - like me, there's no float to start with, so its remove halfsahft add shim, check, and repeat the process a few times. I needed  to add 14 thou of shims to this side and got 3.5 thou endfloat in the end - 4 to 6 thou is the maximum allowed so I am happy with this.

I still need to torque the castle nuts up, but I need at least one of the wheels on the ground as its 90 to 120 ft lb.

I have filled the diff with oil too before I forget.

As it was still daylight I started on the Trackerjack disc conversion, by stripping the hubs and replacing the bearings - good job I did, there were no felt grease seals fitted - another bodge ! at the same time I have fitted the Shacktune stub axle stiffener

which also needed shim adjustment, but only the castle nut and the outer bearing race to remove to achieve this so a lot easier. I had to replace the D washers in the bearing assemblies too - they were both like this (on both sides of both D washers ! The groove was several mm deep

So after dooing the bearings I fitted the new vented disks and checked disc run out - my dial gauge got a workout today 

The first disc was a pig to get right, and it turned out the the disc mounting holes in the original Triumph hub weren't quite at even spacing so the disc was sitting at an angle on the hub - a littlle work with a file on the disc holes resolved this and one disc has 2 thou run out, the other 3.5 thou which should be satisfactory

I then proceeded to fit the brake caliper carriers and the caliper - although the original caliper bolts were too short - even fitted without lock washers !! only about 4 threads were in the hub carrier as you can see from the dirty threaded end on the short bolt - you can see the difference between the original bolts ( which must have been replaced by the PO as they were shiny ) and the correct length ones here - very very glad I found this - who the hell fits bolts in a safety critical component like this at about half the required thread depth

and here we are, just brake pipe plumbing and a brake system to bleed to finish