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"Radders"
posts: 1637
Essex group
joined on Mon 17th Nov 2008

More fuel issues!
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 Thursday and Friday I decided to take the Blue car to work to test drive it. I had recently changed the differential. Again! The test drive showed that I had at last got rid of the awful vibration at 60mph that has been plaguing this car, although the replacement I fitted is still fairly noisy between 30 and 50mph, so I'm still on the look out for a nice quiet diff. 

After leaving work on Friday night, I didn't get very far before the car just cut out and died leaving me stranded halfway over a railway bridge. 

 All the symptoms pointed to loss of fuel even though the fuel gauge was reading just over quarter of a tank. I bounced the car up and down with the fuel cap open, but couldn't hear any fuel sloshing about. I then rang my work place and one of the guys there found a can and went and bought me some more petrol. While he was doing that, I decided to remove the fuel line and blow down it to see if there was an obstruction. Annoyingly one of the plastic nozzles on the Huco electric fuel pump snapped off while I was trying to remove the rubber fuel line. 

With no way of fixing it I had no choice but to ring my insurance company breakdown line who then had to arrange recovery. They sent a patrol van out first even though I had told them it was unfixable. The patrol man arrived, tried to fix the broken nozzle for an hour with glue. (Even though I told him that petrol will just melt glue!) After his unsuccessful attempt and wasting a lot of time he then radioed in and told control I needed recovering! (Which is what I originally told them two hours previously!)  after another long wait for recovery, I eventually got home at 1am Saturday Morning! 


After replacing the nozzle on the fuel pump on Saturday morning, a friend of mine investigated the 'over reading fuel gauge' issue. It turns out that the float in the fuel tank had been fitted the wrong way round and was possibly catching on the side of the tank. Also, where the sender unit was seated it, it could be in two positions. In one position the gauge was showing empty and the low fuel warning light on the dash was on, (Which is correct with only a gallon of fuel in it)  in the other position, it was reading quarter of a tank and no warning light on. (Which it was when I ran out of fuel!) 
This would also explain why on the recent weekend drive along the south coast, my gauge appeared to be stuck on full all the time. If my car was always on three quarters of a tank (which is likely with the the amount of fuel stops we did) it would have been reading full. So hopefully, this is resolved now and I wont be running out of petrol anymore while still thinking I have quarter of a tank left! 




 posted Sun 8th Nov 2020
"Beans"
posts: 5728
Netherlands
joined on Sun 5th Mar 2006

FHC resto nr. 113; Boot light (#151353)
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Slowly preparing the parts needed to finish the boot area. Today I was able to tick the boot light (#151353) of the list. I am 95% sure I should have one or two complete units lying around somewhere. But so far I have only found one incomplete unit. It was missing one of the brass contacts. Luckily I managed to source a complete unit from a friend today.
First job to do was to remove the contacts and drop them in a small dish filled with a cleaning vinegar & salt solution.


After that it was time to attack over 40 years of accumulated dirt.


It did look rather dirty, but it is complete and has no visible damage. And after soaking it for 15 minutes in hot soapy water, most of the dirt and wax-oil could be scrubbed of without too much effort. It did need some tiny detailing with white spirit afterwards to get all the dirt of. And by this time the contacts had been soaking long enough in the home brewed solution. After rinsing any acid residue, they only needed a little attention with a fine scouring pad for a nice finish (considering they are well over 40 years old). Another small job done.



Next job (I think) should be sorting the last bits of the boot wiring. There’s also the unfinished business of the striping … 
 posted Sat 7th Nov 2020
"Jason"
posts: 5906
Website Administrator
RBRR organising team member
North Hampshire group
joined on Mon 20th Oct 2003

It looks like I've been asleep!
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 Well it's been years! since I made a blog post. Sorry about that, been busy - work mainly. Never mind, I haven't been in total hibernation, I've bought another Triumph! Yes, back to a Vitesse, this one's just a bit special and so I'm going tease my reader with just a glimpse.

I'll try and write the story of it's acquisition and why I wanted it plus as I establish all the features I'll post here what's been done (and continues to be done) to it - this is not a standard car :-) Oh, and yes it does have Lucas PI, of course.

 posted Fri 6th Nov 2020
"Beans"
posts: 5728
Netherlands
joined on Sun 5th Mar 2006

New mudflaps for the DHC
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During one of the very few tours with the DHC this year I managed to tear off both left hand mud flaps. This happened while reversing into a narrow entrance. But I overlooked the high curb on one side, which trapped the mud flaps between tyre and curb. With this result:


Luckily I have been using very simple mud flaps made from soft rubber for many years now. As a result the mud flaps were simply torn from their mounting points without any further damage to the car’s body work. This left me with the fairly simple job of making some new flaps and put them on the car.


So when I was in their vicinity for one of my current sewerage projects, I paid a visit to “Het Rubberhuis” in Maastricht. Here I ordered 6 rubber plates (dimensions 400x260x6mm), 2 for the DHC and a full set for the ’76 car.


And using the ripped off items as templates, it was easy to duplicate the outlines onto the new rubber plates and cut the new mud flaps in the correct shape. As the mounting points and bolts were fine, fitting the new mud flaps was pretty easy. Though a bit fiddly as room to work was confined a bit by the wheels.


Hopefully I will be able to use the car for a few more trips this year. It has been a bleak year so far from a TR7-driving point of view!
 posted Sat 31st Oct 2020
"Radders"
posts: 1637
Essex group
joined on Mon 17th Nov 2008

Pi Engine work continues.

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 Further stripping of the Pi engine revealed more damage than I had hoped. I removed all of the pistons and when I removed the cap from number three piston, the bearing just fell out. It was also badly scratched and grooved. Both halves of the bearing were a very loose fit and wouldn't push back into their locations. This would indicate that at some stage the bearing has spun on the journal and caused excessive damage. 

The remainder of the engine was stripped and the crankshaft was removed. It looks like the main bearing journals on the crankshaft are ok, so the may get away with just a polish, but we'll have to see what the engineering firm says. 
The cam sprocket and rear crankshaft seal housing both had a fair amount of gungy oil on them, so it looks like both oil seals had failed as well. The camshaft does look to be in good condition though, so hopefully this can be used again. (I haven't had a chance to clean it or inspect it fully yet though.)
So, the pistons are now on the work bench and the engine block itself is pretty much stripped for cleaning. 


Friday morning 23rd  October, I met Colin Wake for breakfast to swap some other bits over, then took the crankshaft over to Thurston Engineering at Ongar for them to carry out the work. They are an established engineering company that have been operating for many, many years and have a very good reputation. 
It was a nice sunny day, so I decided to take Gertie2 for a drive over there. The crank is now in their possession so I now just have to wait for their report on what work needs doing. 




 posted Sun 25th Oct 2020
"vitessesteve"
posts: 2378
Website Administrator
Website Moderator
Isle of Wight group
joined on Mon 16th Oct 2006

Brown's Garage (Loughton) Ltd - Triumph car dealers 19B
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Brown's Garage (Loughton) Ltd traded as Brown's of  Loughton, Essex.  In addition to selling Standard Triumph.products they dealt with Austin, Morris and Hilllman cars. Later operated as a Vauxhall dealer and then as body shop.

Browns of Loughton, Essex advert from Autocar23Oct1953
Browns of Loughton, Essex advert from Autocar 23 October 1953

Browns of Loughton, Essex advert from Autocar18Oct1957
Browns of Loughton, Essex advert from Autocar 18 October 1957

Browns Loughton RHS door skin for Herald
Browns Loughton RHS door skin for Herald

 

Browns of Loughton Limited were incorporated as a company 2 December 1950 and were dissolved 9 December 2019.


Triumph dealers in Loughton

In 1955, 1959, 1965 and 1968 dealer directories:
Brown's Garage (Loughton) Ltd, Brown's Corner, High Road, Loughton.


Plea for information

If you have any more information or recollections about this garage, photos of window stickers, dealer badges or sill plates etc please let me know.  I can be contacted via the comments to this post or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/stephen.weblin

Further information and sources

Link to the other articles in this series.

Link to blog post about Patmore Bros Limited, Loughton Essex
 
Link to blog post about Lambs who had a branch business called Lambs (Loughton) Ltd that ran from premises which had previously been operated by another Triumph dealer Patmore Bros Limited.

Link to face book page: Triumph Car Dealers.

Link to my Triumph Car Dealers Flickr group which includes many photos of Standard Triumph garages etc from my collection and many other contributors .

I have a collection of Standard Triumph car dealer directories: http://vitessesteve.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/triumph-car-dealer-directories.html

Picture credits:

A blog post from vitessesteve
 posted Wed 21st Oct 2020
"Beans"
posts: 5728
Netherlands
joined on Sun 5th Mar 2006

FHC resto nr. 112; Another small upgrade
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The advantage (or should I say disadvantage) of having a few later TR7’s, when restoring a pretty  early TR7: I know most of the many detail changes and upgrades done by the factory over the circa 7 years these cars were produced. And as I do have a fair amount of spares from later cars it is always a good thing to apply some of these changes to my ’76 car.



One of these changes was the prop shaft bump stop (UKC8268). In the picture above you can see the later variant, which was retrieved earlier this year from one of my spare shells (a 1980 DHC), before and after cleaning.
In 1976, when this car was produced, this part wasn’t fitted yet. And as a result the mounting studs welded to the transmission tunnel were also missing. Below are a few detail shots of these tiny parts. The first picture was taken from below, from the part’s donor shell. The second picture is taken from the inside of another shell. Clearly visible in this picture is the way the two studs are mounted to the rear of the transmission tunnel.



I should have removed the studs and mounting plate from one of these shells in order to weld them to the ’76 body. But I simply forgot to! And as welding to the still freshly painted shell will not happen, I had to look at an alternative. Turned out to be pretty easy. First I had to collect the necessary fasteners. I went for stainless flat domed Allen headed M6 bolts and nyloc nuts.


Final stage was marking out and drilling the two mountings holes and dropping the bolts in from the top of the transmission tunnel (using plenty of non-conductive grease to prevent contact corrosion). At this stage I had expected I needed an extra pair of hands to keep the bolts in place while putting the bump stop in position from below. I needn’t have worried. The bolts slipped into the holes quite easily. Even fitting the washers and nuts wasn’t a problem. As was tightening the nuts, using an Allen key wedged against the rear bulkhead to prevent the bolts from spinning while they were tightened from below.
And while I was at it I removed the wiring clip I forgot to remove before painting, touched up the damaged area, and replaced it with a nicely refurbished clip.



As fitting the bump stop went smoothly, I had some time left to look through my spare parts in search for some parts needed to finish both the boot area (rear light bulb holders) and the front bumper (side lights). A few hours in the shed well spend!




 posted Sat 17th Oct 2020
"vitessesteve"
posts: 2378
Website Administrator
Website Moderator
Isle of Wight group
joined on Mon 16th Oct 2006

King's Road Garage Co Ltd St Annes-on-Sea - Triumph car dealers 101
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King's Road Garage Co Ltd were a Standard Triumph car dealer based in St Annes-on-Sea in Lancshire and are the subject of this blog post.

Atlas at agricultural show

It was reported in the February 1960 edition of Standard Triumph Review that: 

KlNG'S Road Garage Co. Ltd., St. Annes on Sea, staged this display at the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Show. Containing Atlas Vans, Atlas Pick-ups, Standard Vans and Estate Cars. It attracted much attention from the farming fraternity.

1955 RAC Rally

This photo of the King's Road Garage Co Ltd appeared in Triumph World article.

 

Some old adverts

The Historyworld.co.uk website has a lot of interesting content and is well worth a visit.  This is a series of adverts by the Kings Road Garage that I found on the Historyworld.co.uk website.

Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1957 advert




Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1958 advert


Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1958 advert2


Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1959 advert

Vanguard for George Formby

No more "cleanin winders" for George Formby OBE. He got windscreen washers and wipers on his new Standard Vanguard III. George bought his new car from Kings Road Garage Co Ltd, St Annes-on-Sea.

Show and Service Week promotion

Mr Poslethwaite, Mr Gentle and Mr Fletcher from the Factory Service Department interviewed nearly 200 STANDARD and TRIUMPH owners.

Staff from Standard Triumph HQ visited the business and assisted the firm with week long Show and Service promotions. These were held by the firm at their premises 12 to 17 May 1947.

Loxhams


 
By 1965 the business was operating as Loxhams Garages (St Annes) Ltd.  Loxhams later became a part of the Dutton Forshaw Group.
 


Triumph car dealers in the St Annes area


October 1955, October 1958:
Distributor
Kings Road Garage, Kings Road, St Annes-on-Sea, Lancs - tel 670/1/2


August 1961:
Distributor
Kings Road Garage, Kings Road, St Annes-on-Sea, Lancs - tel 670/1/2
Dealer
Geo Moore & Son (St Annes) Ltd, St Davids Road South, - tel 2060



February 1965, September 1968, March 1970, March 1972:
Distributor

Loxhams Garages (St Annes) Ltd, Kings Road - tel 25111/2/3


March 1974:
Distributor

Dutton Forshaw (St Annes) Ltd, Kings Road, FY8 1NG - tel 25111




Plea for information

If you have any more information or recollections about King's Road Garage Co Ltd of St Annes-on-Sea, photos of window stickers, dealer badges or sill plates etc please let me know. I can be contacted via the comments to this post or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/stephen.weblin


Further information and sources

Link to the other articles in this series.

Link to face book page: Triumph Car Dealers.

Link to my Triumph Car Dealers Flickr group which includes many photos of Standard Triumph garages etc from my collection and many other contributors .

I have a collection of Standard Triumph car dealer directories: http://vitessesteve.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/triumph-car-dealer-directories.html

Picture credits: Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1957 advert + Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1958 advert + Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1958 advert2 + Kings Road Garage, St Annes-on-Sea - 1959 advert

A blog post from vitessesteve
 posted Sun 11th Oct 2020
"Beans"
posts: 5728
Netherlands
joined on Sun 5th Mar 2006

This is where it started!
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A very short post this time! During my past holidays, covering the month of September, I found an important piece of my motoring history again. The advert pages from Dutch car magazine “Autovisie”, dated the 20th of August 1988. And on one of the pages is the advert for an “as new” Triumph TR7 convertible.


It turned out to be a fairly early Dutch registered car (06-06-1980). I purchased it as my first car a few days later and never looked back! I still don’t regret the decision!
 posted Thu 8th Oct 2020
"vitessesteve"
posts: 2378
Website Administrator
Website Moderator
Isle of Wight group
joined on Mon 16th Oct 2006

Dolomite 1500 Workshop manual
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This copy of the Triumph Dolomite 1500 Workshop Manual known as the Repair Operation Manual has been processed so that you can search it by word.  You can view and download it from my box.net account. https://app.box.com/s/uwy8anbmq0schbsr3d6xmuap324for4m

 

A blog post from vitessesteve
 posted Thu 8th Oct 2020
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