1972 Triumph GT6 MkIII PI, for sale

[stevea]

Over the weekend I decided to change the front wheel bearings, it should have been a fairly quick job to do but I ended up spending more time than I would have liked checking the condition of the stub shaft. The stub shafts and uprights were replaced about three years ago, so I was a little surprised to see different colouration where the bearings were sat on the shaft, perhaps suggesting they had been spinning.




To reassure myself, I setup a spare hub and measured the vertical and horizontal slack to see if there was any difference, which might suggest uneven ware on the stub. Fortunately it was quite equal, so I went on to reassemble the complete hub, taking some time to set the right tension on the bearings.




I have managed to find someone fairly local to me who can do TIG welding with a quick turn around, so having decided how I want to run the inlet pipes into the airbox, they have now welded the the pipes in position.




About an hour was spent last night smoothing out the internal welds on the pipes as much as I dare. Due to the angles of the pipes onto the box it was not possible to weld all the way around them externally.
It has been suggested to me that the airbox should have more holes in it to allow air to pass through it and back to atmosphere. The idea being that a free flow of air through it prevents the air stalling.

The next job will be to modify and fit the air filter assembly, which will sit below the radiator. To give me enough room to do this I will have to re-route one of the coolant pipes and replace it with an alloy pipe instead of rubber hose.

One of the problems I have is that I am too easily distracted by other jobs I would like to do on the car, so I have to keep on reminding myself what I really need to do next. In no particular order, I would like to:
make a restrictor to go in the swirl pot outlet
have more front castor
reduce front track width
fit the extra door seals around the bottom edges of the doors
fit a rear fog lamp and switch rescued from my old Dolomite
wire in a cigarette lighter socket
re-veneer the dash
fabricate or find another windscreen wash bottle
replace overdrive rear oil seal

[MrSpeedy]

This is looking superb!

[stevea]

Last weekend was the Standard Triumph Marque Day at Prescott, so I popped over for the day and managed a couple of goes at the hill climb circuit. I have found a couple of pictures of the GT6 from the day and took some video of each run.

[stevea]

It's been a while since I've updated this, but I have mainly just been out and about enjoying the drive, though I have done a bit of tinkering and preparation for other work on the car.
A problem I have had for a while was getting a good seal on the bottom hose to the water pump housing. Despite using Mikalor clamps, I still couldn't get a full seal, probably not helped by the lack of a bead on the pump housing connection. I put feelers out for another pump housing, while at the same time looking at the alloy housings sold by Chris Witor and just as I was about to give-up and chance of finding a second-hand one at a good cost, James came up with an alloy housing.
A few days later I had the alloy housing and the cast one removed from the car as I went to transfer it over.




Things were going OK until I went to fit the connector on the back of the housing for the bypass tube, the original fitting and housing had a NPT thread, but the alloy housing had a UNF thread. The UNF thread was ony 40thou (1mm) smaller, but it was enough to prevent the fitting going in, so in the end I had that fitting re-tapped to UNF and now it fits togther like it should.

Just as I was waiting for the pump housing to be delivered, the water pump decided to fail, it's done 30 months this time, better than the 6 months of the last one, still not very good. This time I have gone for one from Fitchetts, in the hope it would be better than the usual County stuff that most other people sell.

The water pipe work around the front of the car has been tidied-up a bit also, as it was before;




In that picture you can see a black pipe between the radiator and engine, some of that has now been replaced by an alloy pipe, running below the radiator at the same time, the bottom hose to the water pump has been replaced with a 45deg piece. These two changes tidy it up quite a bit and should give more space for the air filter box and hoses, which will sit beneath the radiator.

[MK2VR6]

Your GT6 sounds fappin' ace in the clip above - makes me want one bad!

[MrSpeedy]

What radiator are you using there? I fitted one from a diesel vw caddy in my old Sprintfire but both hose connections were on the right hand side.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

That'S some realy beautifull noises coming from your beautifull car

[stevea]

GSi2000 & DieselWeasel - Thanks, for me it's just the right amount of noise, quiet enough for normal driving, but it lets you know when it comes on song.

Here's a couple more short vids from the day




This was an aborted run because a TVR ahead of me had fallen off the track somewhere.




MrSpeedy - That's a Pug 205 radiator, it seem to be a fairly common mod for Spitfires, but you do have to do away with the original bonnet strut when you fit it because it is a fair bit wider, no problem with gas struts though.

[ChasR]

I was wondering why the radiator seemed familar .

As a word of warning whilst Fitchetts sell less County stuff, they still sell some of it. I am with you on that comment (on the Dolly Sprint, a Country brake cylinder barely lasted a year before leaking, on the Stag's coil, barely a month before it was popping at the exhausts at 3,000rpm and not revving beyond that point either).

[stevea]

The workshop I sometimes use is free for the next week, so I have set about making a start on the dash. Previously it looked like this;




The left and right panels are from different Spitfires and there was a redundant hole for the hazard warning light on the middle panel. The panels were removed from the car and all the switches moved as required, on this centre panel you can see where the hazard light was.




Last night I cut a piece of wood to fit in the redundant hole and left it overnight with glue and a clamp on it, which meant this morning I could remove the thick varnish and previous layer of veneer.
The veneer came off quite easily, using a mix of sharp chisels and various grades of sandpaper discs on the angle grinder.




I'd bought some American walnut iron-on veneer last week, as apparently that was what they used originally. I'm no originality freak, but I'm just not all that keen on the burr or dark finishes you can see in some Triumphs.
Anyway, I followed the instructions which came with the veneer, leaving an edge all around the pieces, so the veneer is stuck onto the dash panels. As suggested, they will be left for 24 hours for the adhesive to cure before I trim them to shape and give them their first coat of varnish.

[MK2VR6]

Cool, be interested to see the finished outcome.

[stevea]

Once cured, I could trim the veneer, this could be done using a very sharp knife, but it still took over an hour as any mistakes would be hard to hide.




Then I could start building up the layers of satin varnish, it had a total of five coats. In between varnishing, work started on modifying the wiring loom again, adding in wires for the rear fog light and wiring in the 12v lighter socket, map light and radio.
With the loom exposed I could also work out why the light for the ignition barrel was not working, it turned out that the original loom had two wires each from the fuse box for the roof and ignition barrel light and I had split them. This had the effect that the ignition barrel light would only come on when the ignition was on, not what you need really when it should come on as you open a door or switch them on on the dash.




The cured veneered and varnished dash pieces could then be fitted back into the car, followed by the gauges, steering column and gloveboxes. You can see in the picture below that a radio has been fitted also, originally I was not going to bother installing a radio, but as this is my only car I was starting to miss having one. I'm loathed to drill a hole in the bodywork for an aerial, but fortunately I noticed that my mobile phone has a FM radio built into it, which means I can connect it to the car radio instead.




All this work had to be completed by last Saturday at the latest as on the following day I was booked in for a Autosolo at Bovingdon, near Hemel Hempstead. Scrutineering ended at 8.45, so it meant I was on the road at 5.30 to get there in good time, but having travelled a few miles down the road I noticed that the indicators were not working, damn.
The next half an hour or so was spent checking fuses, switches and relays, trying to work out what was wrong. After a while I worked out that the flasher unit was not getting any power, despite the fuse being OK, so I found a piece of wire in my tool box to make a temporary connection, it worked so I could get on my way again.

It was my first attempt at a Autosolo, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the early start and impromptu road-side repair. In my class I came 10th out of 15, though it probably would have been 12th if one car hadn't retired due to gearbox problems, but for a first try I can't complain at that.

The following day back home I could take another look at the indicators and with the wiring diagram at hand I managed to diagnose the problem fairly quickly. The power for the indicators passes through the hazard light switch, so they can be disconnected when the hazard lights are switched on, but the hazard light switch was not returning to the correct 'off' position, preventing a connection through for the indicators.
It was a quick fix to get everything working again by making an adjustment on the hazard light switch and a relief that I hadn't messed-up anything while working on the loom earlier in the week.

[mdh]

Sweet dash!!

[Deleted]

Nice job on the Dash, some good progress on this rapid motor.

You can get an aerial that sticks to the inside of the glass, saves having to drill hole

[stevea]

I've been trying to have a tidy-up of parts in the shed and I realised one of the best ways of tidying up parts is to get them fitted on the car, so a bit of time has been spent this weekend getting the air filter box mounted.
I'm using a filter box from a Mondeo, which will be modified to have a second outlet and the inlet opened up wide.

It'll sit between the engine and radiator like so:



Underneath you can see how the box has been opened out and the first bit of ducting:



A plate then goes over the bottom to reduce the chance of the filter getting soaked, still needs to be finished off:



I will drill some holes in the back of the ducting to allow any water caught to escape.

In other news, I've booked into the all Triumph Track Day at Goodwood on 17th November. It's organised by Club Triumph and is open to anyone with a Triumph or Standard. An entrant can belong to any Triumph, or automobile club, or may not belong to a club, just as long as you have a Triumph or Standard based car. If you are interested in doing this track day, you can find more information here, All Triumph Track Day @ Goodwood-17th November

[stevea]

I've not had a lot to report on this as I've just been out and about using the GT6 as my primary vehicle, however a couple of weeks ago I rounded a corner to find a modern Transit van coming towards me on the wrong side of the road, brakes were applied but there was damage.




It's in the hands of the insurance companies at the moment, so we'll see if they will pay out for repairs or want to write it off, in which case I will have to buy back the salvage and get it repaired.
The GT6 replacement/repairlist stands at;
Bonnet assembly,
a new headlight and surround for one side.
Both front plastic overriders are broken,
the bonnet hinge boxes and ends of the front chassis member have been distorted.
Bumper is probably scrap.
Both front 1/4 valances are slightly distorted on the top rear edge where they have impacted with the wheel, but may straighten out.
The drivers door has been knocked as the bonnet has hit it.
There are small paint chips on the bulkhead from the impacting bonnet and a slight dent on the drivers side bulkhead below the windscreen on the corner where the bonnet has hit it with more force.
Radiator and the coolant swirl pot is mangled.

[ChasR]

No, no, no no!

This has to be one of the better GT6s I have seen as well, especially with the work you have put into it! Fingers crossed it can be resurrected after all of the work you have put into this .

[les509]

Horrible to see...

[79cord]

Sad too see but glad it isn't worse. Hope "insurance" proves an asset rather than liability.

[brocky]

oh hell, I know how much those bonnets too, and that's before any paint etc. fingers are crossed and Good luck with this!