The Lemon Fool

Rebuilding an old engine -

http://i.imgur.com/R6WzG95.gifv

With an age-old ending.....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Aaaah, those were the days when you could strip down a simple four-pot with push-rod valves in your garage, without needing to align the cambelt and then tow the car down to your dealer to have the electronics set up and the gizmos initiated.

Did anybody spot what the car was, BTW? Triumph Herald? Mark 1 Cortina?

BJ

With the clamshell bonnet, it could have been a Herald but not a Cortina. And were those twin SUs?

John

My immediate thought was a Herald or Vitesse, and when it showed the dash, those dials looked BMCish rather than Ford.

Edit: The gearknob, visible briefly towards the end of the video appears to have a Triumph logo on it too.

The fact that the bonnet hinges from the front of the car, the twin exhaust pipes and the gear-lever knob suggest to me that it's a Vitesse. This was the first car that I ever drove at 100mph - in the late 60s.

Peltiq wrote:The fact that the bonnet hinges from the front of the car, the twin exhaust pipes and the gear-lever knob suggest to me that it's a Vitesse. This was the first car that I ever drove at 100mph - in the late 60s.

Wasn't the Vitesse 6-cylinder?

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:Wasn't the Vitesse 6-cylinder?

--kiloran

It was, and given the fairly crude suspension, rather interesting to drive

RC

Itsallaguess wrote:Rebuilding an old engine -
http://i.imgur.com/R6WzG95.gifv
With an age-old ending.....Cheers,
Itsallaguess

Well, oldish.
No casting of white metal for the big ends, mechanics blue and scraping.

It's a Triumph bit not a Herald. Looking at the video using the YouTube link makes it much easier to get at the right bits for identification.

The 2:12 mark shows a Triumph badge on the gear knob (as another poster has noted). The 2:00 mark shows engine and gearbox being lowered into a vehicle with a rounded front end on the chassis and a separate chromed bumper - so definitely not a Herald. The same front end can also be seen, from the offside with front valance, grille and over-riders on the bumper as the vehicle is being reversed at the 2:13 mark. This also reveals the registration to be LNP 211 D, making it a 1966 Triumph Spitfire Mk 2.

I advised my son to go Triumph because on the Herald, Vitesse and Spitty you can raise the whole bonnet sit on the front wheel and work on the engine. Tbe result was we both had and still have a life-long love ❤ affair with Triumph!

modellingman wrote:It's a Triumph bit not a Herald. Looking at the video using the YouTube link makes it much easier to get at the right bits for identification.

The 2:12 mark shows a Triumph badge on the gear knob (as another poster has noted). The 2:00 mark shows engine and gearbox being lowered into a vehicle with a rounded front end on the chassis and a separate chromed bumper - so definitely not a Herald. The same front end can also be seen, from the offside with front valance, grille and over-riders on the bumper as the vehicle is being reversed at the 2:13 mark. This also reveals the registration to be LNP 211 D, making it a 1966 Triumph Spitfire Mk 2.

I had one of those. I bought it as an insurance write off for a fiver, it had a small dent in the front of the bonnet which made it uneconomical to repair. It was impossible to fill and finish to a professional standard and therefore needed the bonnet replacing. I whacked some filler in and got it looking so so. It was fun to drive but it eventually fell to bits.

Itsallaguess wrote:Rebuilding an old engine -

http://i.imgur.com/R6WzG95.gifv

That is the most wonderful video I have ever seen. I want to watch it again and again for inspiration.

It is indeed a wonderful video. The last moments reminded me of my evil ways in the past when I would drop the odd nut or bolt underneath a mates car when he was rebuilding it.

martint123 wrote:It is indeed a wonderful video. The last moments reminded me of my evil ways in the past when I would drop the odd nut or bolt underneath a mates car when he was rebuilding it.

Now that was evil!

I used to share a student house with the most phenomenally clumsy person I have ever known. He was a dentistry student, and a very skilled one at that, but when it came to fixing the teeth of his motorbike's gearbox he didn't know his back row from his front row. Since we all knew he was a complete klutz at anything mechanical, we all watched in silent fascination while he stripped the box on his BSA A10 and then accidentally kicked over the tray that held every shim, every washer and every bit of the gearbox in the exact laid-out order in which it needed to go back.

After several weeks of pure guesswork, the gearbox was reassembled and he set off down the road. All was going well until he changed up into fourth, at which point it jammed solid.

I really shouldn't laugh, it could have been a terminal error. But he had the last laugh on all of us. He graduated in dentistry, moved to the United States, became a world-famous cosmetic surgeon (putting diamonds into Madonna's teeth, and so forth), and became a multi-millionaire. And then the bastard went and wrote the best ever children's book on dental care, and became a multi-millionaire again.

Nowadays he has a fleet of Harleys in his garage. He pays somebody else to do the spannering.

BJ

tea42 wrote:I advised my son to go Triumph because on the Herald, Vitesse and Spitty you can raise the whole bonnet sit on the front wheel and work on the engine. Tbe result was we both had and still have a life-long love ❤ affair with Triumph!

Me too. After owning a Spitfire for a few years I had a TR6 (well - still more or less a Triumph ) when I got married and we still reminisce about its styling and (for its day) performance.

I remember driving all the way from the Lake District to Fife without a clutch when the bolt holding the release claw sheared. Mid -January and I ended up cutting a hole in the bottom of the bell housing, and another in the passenger side of the transmission tunnel, then disassembling and reassembling the clutch release mechanism through the holes! Damn cold lying under it out in the street but no money or facilities for a full engine out job.

We still toy with the idea of a Stag if I could only convince myself that the engine would hold up (not a great track record ISTR).

If you join the Stag Owners Club and use their forum for a bit you should get some reassurance. Most enthusiasts Stags have been well sorted. Mine would get hot on baking hot days but the Kenlowe Electric fan would cut in. Buying a Stag from a long standing club member should be a safer bet.

Just sold mine after 10 very enjoyable years. Its been replaced by Rusty (he was but aint no more!) a 1980 VW T25 Devon Moonraker Camper which resulted in 9 months of expensive renovations. So we are looking forwards to a few years of Blighty and near Continental Camping and Festival fun. Its easy to spend £30 grand on a VW Split or Bay, and much more on a modern motorhome that basically does the same thing. But, I love faffing along to the tune of the air cooled motor and wrestling with the non power steering. T25s are relatively cheap and do the job. I'm a glutton for punishment!

t42