GarageMahal nearing completion

Here it is, almost 6 months in the making. 30'x40' toy shop for Rags and the bikes. More on this later.

Woohoo! Garagmahal on the way

Things have been quiet as I have been planning my new garage/workshop. Rags has been dormant in a lock-up in town as I have no place to store it and work on it. But that will change with the new garagmahal. Stay tuned as we build this monument, and Rags will have a new home.

"JR" comes home

Here is the new truck. Good for hauling us through the mountains, hauling us out of snow, and hauling the Triumph. Picked up today a 2008 Chevy 2500HD Silverado 4x4, with 6.6L Duramax diesel and 6-speed Allison transmission.

We have decided to call it "JR", after my folks Jack and Rona. Maybe it also stands for "JR Ewing", from the 80's TV series "Dallas", about Texas oilmen. JR will certainly be keeping the oil industry going.

Here it is at the dealer in Socorro, NM. Looks clean, eh?

Big smile from the captain's chair.

Heading home to the Magdalenas. Still looks clean, eh?

Uh-oh, here we are at home. It was a warm day and what is left of the snow is melting leaving the dirt roads muddy.


The happy couple in their new truck. Don't they look sweet?


Here is a picture of Pam by the monster. Maybe next I'll buy an elevator for her.

At home in Magdalena, New Mexico

Yeah, yeah, I know, the rear camber has not been set. It's task #337 of about 5,000 or so more jobs to finish. One step at a time though, eh?

A word about lousy vendors

Generally, we in the Triumph hobby are served extremely well by enthusiastic and knowledgeable vendors. Today's rant is about one of the few who are not deserving of our business.

Chris Cancelli at Performance Research Industries (www.prirace.com) in Sutherlin, OR, is one of them. 3 years ago I gave him a $500 deposit for him to complete the development of the "big brake kit" for TR6 that he had been advertising on his website. 12 months later, nothing had materialized, though I had been phoning every 2 months for a status update. After 12 months, I asked for my deposit back, which he refused to return. When I tried to get the money back through my credit card company, Visa was useless as they offer only 6 months protection.

I have heard many others complain about PRIRACE. Avoid this merchant.

Nearly there.
Here are some pictures of where we stand today. I am still working on the brakes and electrics, but aside from the other zillion little jobs that need to be done, when those two larger jobs are completed the car will be ready for tech inspection and the road.

Here is an old video of Lenny Renkenberger straightening my alloy Surrey top, using another TR6 as a jig. No, this was not my car (though I used to joke with folk that this is how Rags started out). The Surrey top is an original alloy piece, that had been run over by a car - a common occurance when TR4 owners would put the top on of a night and forget to latch it down.

New little toy

OSSA road racer, first startup in many years. AFAICS, it is a 1973 250 Stilleto 5-speed stuffed into a 175 Wildfire chassis. Early Honda CB350 brakes. Frankenstein's motorcycle. This should be fun. Last raced on the west coast in 1989.

Fuel Safe

This was completed last year, but I'd not posted any pictures of it. You can see the 15 gallon Fuel Safe, fuel filter and pump. At some stage in the future I'd like to use braided lines, but the rubber hoses look workmanlike for now.

What you don't see is the impact switch which cuts power to the pump in an emergency. It works as a great ant-theft device as a slap with a hand in the appropriate place trips the switch disabling the pump until I reset it.

The drilled brace supporting the pump (on rubber blocks to cut down on noise from vibration) and filter saves a couple of ounces in weight; big deal. But it's intimidation factor to the competition is palpable. :)

Wilwood Calipers

Recent updates include Wilwood Forged Billet Superlite calipers and 11.75" vented rotors.To fit the Southwick alloy hub and uprated axle, a custom hat had to be made. This combo weighs exactly the same as the stock hub/caliper/hat set-up, so I am not adding to unsprung weight.

You can also see the 1" hollow sway bar. It is currently set to it's stiffest setting, and is easily adjusted by screwing out the bolt through the lower rod-end. Clearly it awaits track time for tuning, so I figured I will start at the stiffest setting and softening as required. Spring are pretty soft at 420 lbs/in. They are also suprisingly tall. These springs were on the car before it went on it's diet, and the car sat very low. I've dumped so much weight that the ride height is now an inch higher, almost stock.

Now I know why parts are often labelled "For Racing Use Only"; it's just another way of saying "Guaranteed Not To Fit"!

So I've been a lazy bugger and not posted anything for a while.

My favorite job - wiring! Not bloody likely. Kit by Dan Masters went in really easily. Wiring behind the dashboard will be a nightmare, but I'm wiring to minimise cable length to make it neat.

Rags lives!

Got the motor running last night. All the problems that I have been having; slow cranking, fire in the distributor, intermittent spark; were all due to...... engine was not earthed! Yup, stoopid me forgot to ground the engine.

I was hooking up some safety wire to run the 3 chokes when the wire started to glow red when it touched the body. So I hooked up a grounding strap, and the motor fired and ran within a 1/2 a revolution. 100 lbs of oil pressure, perhaps a little high and I should check the oil pressure release valve.

Motor sounds awesome. Ran it at around 2000 rpm. Plugged a few leaks while it ran. The GP3 is a nice sounding cam. Played with timing. I set the roller rockers per the instructions (17 thous on inlet, 19 thous on exhaust), but they sound a little noisy to me. The head is getting a lot of oil.

I'm going to have to strip the carbs. I pulled the plugs and 2 of the plugs (Champion RNY7C) were wet (not from the same carb, so not a float bowl problem?), and the other 4 were very sooty. Curiously, the header from one of the wet plugs was hotter than the others. Thats bizarre because I thought that the hot header would have been due to a lean condition. So I think a carb teardown is in order.

I'm going to run stock plugs (Champion NY9) as well, just in case the cold plugs that I was using were not correct.

I have a sound file of the unmuffled beast running. I'll post that soon.

Oil, coolant and gas lines are done. The gas line was a challenge as I did not want to route the 3/8" line up the spine of the car, alongside the exhaust system as was done by the factory. Wanting to keep the fuel cool, I routed the line under the car away from the spine. This was a little more trouble than expected.

Next up is the mufflers and electrical system.

Roll cage and corner weights

Roll cage is done. A real work of art having to fit in the small cockpit, under the Surrey top, and clear the old Porsche 914 race seats. Need to clean up around the welds, a little plastic work to smooth the finish (and hide the dents in the tubing from the pipe bender, and paint. I can now put the car on a lift, jack up 1 corner, etc, andf have the doors open and close. That should make the chassis stuffer.

At this stage I also measured corner weights (with no interior, no battery, no bonnet, no driver, no fluids. While it may seem premature at this stge, I wanted to have a baseline so that as stuff goes into the car, I am forewarned.

LF: 479 lbs RF: 494

LR: 430 lbs RR: 435

Total weight at this stage is 1837 lbs, a little heavier than I wanted. I'll be lucky if the car weighs in under 2100 lbs when complete. The weight over the RF I ascribe to the Webers.

Still a long way to go.

Well the motor is in, and the fun begins.

Everyhting fights me. This car is Kustom with a capital K. Hi-torque starter does not clear the rather massive repro Group 44 headers. 1 day later it looks like it was made for the car. The Cannon headers collide with the #1 and #6 exhaust. Hydraulic presses are a thing of beauty. Oh, and did I mention that the drive shaft should be attached to the diff before the gearbox goes in?

But one task at a time. Patience, creative thinking and careful execution with attention to detail completes the task in a most natural appearing manner. Patience, Grasshopper.