Glass, loom and dash in

Between taking the Bank holiday weekend off to play engines at the Cambridge Museum of Technology and preparation for the external audit, I have been able to get a bit more done on the GT6. Both the front and rear screens are now in, making it almost waterproof. In the end I decided to have my (relatively new) clear windscreen moved over from the old body and fitted in the new body, as none of the windscreen fitters I contacted could supply the tinted glass.

The wiring loom was carefully removed from the old body an transferred over with minimal fuss, which meant I could also fit the dash and steering column.

The loom has been altered again slightly to tidy it up and to allow the EDIS unit for the megajolt ignition system to stay within the car, behind the passenger glove box.

Getting brave, I decided to confirm the position of the header tank and coil pack on the bulkhead, drilling into the fresh paint. Extra length fasteners will be used here, so the EDIS unit and megajolt unit can be mounted on a plate underneath. Now I've fixed the position of the coil pack I can measure-up the length of the plug leads and consider getting a set of Magnecore ordered.

I had to move the car out of the workshop for a couple of day, so it gave me a good chance to get a shot of the rear, with the refurbed lights and new number plate. It really does look quite funny to me with the skinny tyres and the rear wheels hiding far within those arches.

In other news, the BMW E21 has passed it's MOT again first time, with only a couple of advisories, which I shall see to in the next week or so.

GT6 rebuild continues

Over the last week I've been able to crack on with the GT6 rebuild fairly well, getting the driveshaft assemblies put back together and fitted on the car, the adjustable rear radius arms serviced and fitted. This means the car could go back down on it's wheels to make it easier to move around.

The rear bumper was removed from the old body, mounting threads cleaned up and re-fitted to the new body and the number plate light serviced.

The number plate light was a case in point of how a simple job can take quite a while if you are trying to do thing right. The hole where the number plate light wires go into the body is smaller in the new body, so I needed to fit a smaller grommet, simple eh? It should be, but someone had put some nasty replacement bullet connects on the light fitting, which did not mate well with the rest of the loom. So I ended up carefully removing the wires from another light fitting to make one good part, which all of course took time.

Armed with a tin of strong adhesive I made a start on the headligning, with the strips of sound deadening going in first, followed by the headligning. There are a few ripples in the fabric, but not much worse than it was before I removed it.

Meanwhile, the bonnet was refitted, along with the door glass, fuel filler, door handles and some smaller fittings.

I'd like to get the windscreen fitted soon, so I can start moving over the dash and wiring loom, but at the moment I'm having a bit of a job trying to find someone to supply and fit a Sundym (green tinted) windscreen. I know they are available as I have seen them listed by three Triumph parts suppliers, but none of the fitters seem able to find one.

Start of the rebuild

Last week after the paint had cured on the chassis, I made a start re-assembling the GT6. The front suspension has been removed as complete units, so ten bolts later and both sides were back on the chassis, closely followed by the steering rack and differential.

In-between work on the chassis, the main body of the gearbox was swapped out for one I had rebuilt some years ago and fitted with a new old stock AP Borg-Beck clutch and then re-united with the engine before being refitted to the chassis as one unit.

Next up was the body, as before, it was carefully moved into place using trolley jacks, axle stands and lumps of wood until it was in position. Thankfully it all lined-up and all the bulkhead modifications were in the right place, giving the appropriate amount of space all around.

Then last weekend I started fitting some of the smaller parts back on the front end of the car, such as the front quarter valances, bumper, spoiler and inlet manifolds.

When I removed the driveshafts, upright and lower wishbone from the rear of the car I noticed the wishbones seemed a bit tight against the uprights, not letting them rotate very easily, so I wanted to check these over before fitted them back on the car. An hour later and one side was separated, but I had destroyed the bushes and cut the bolt in order to do so. The problem here was that the metal bush had seized onto the long trunnion bolt.

After getting psyched up ready to tackle the other side, it came apart quite easily, just as it should have, though I will replace the bushes for good measure.

It was suggested to me that for awkward parts like this, which have a habit of seizing up, there is something better that the usual Copaslip type anti-seize compounds, which is Chesterton 785. I have ordered a can of this, though I probably won't know for some time now how effective it really is as I don't plan on stripping these parts down again for quite some time.

While they were out, the rear uprights, wishbones and brake back plates were all given a couple of coats of Rust Bullet Black shell and the CV joints were cleaned out and re-packed with molybdenum grease for good measure.

Chassis time

A couple of weeks ago I made a start on the chassis by chopping off the outriggers, there was plenty of strong metal in them, but they were somewhat home-made looking and they would not have lined-up properly with the replacement body.

Cutting them off revealed the remain of the previous ones and a couple of holes in the chassis to be delt with.

The old and thinned metal was cut out and replaced with fresh 2mm plate, butt welded in. It's a shame I had to grind the welds back so much, but as the outriggers fit over this, it needs to be quite flat.

The replacement outriggers went on quite easily, with only a couple of milimeters needing to be removed from each outriger for them to fit in the right position on the chassis rail. Because I was fitting the outriggers without the body in place, quite some time was taken to make sure they were to be welded in the correct position, mainly by taking lots of measurements from the chassis I had borrowed to move the body to the paint shop.

I'd spent quite a bit of time stripping off the old paint, but I realised I could not get into all of the area to clean it as well as I wanted, so I decided to get it shot blasted. Luckily for me, I'd found someone fairly local, who could do the job while I waited.

With the chassis back, there was a little more welding to be done, the shot basting having revealed some thin metal in the bonnet mounts and the front crossmember. The chassis was then painted using Rust Bullet Black shell for added protection.

Start of the strip down

It was the Wye Dean Triumph meet near Coleford last week and on the way back I decided it was time to make a start on the body swap. Work started on Saturday with only as much interiour removed as required, so it can be stored in the body for now, fuel and brake lines disconnected and the inlet manifolds removed to give enough space fot the body to be lifted pass the engine. A set of steel wheels were also fitted to keep the alloy wheels in good condition and make the car easier to roll around.

My method was to lift the body up and roll the chassis from underneath it, complete with the bonnet and running gear. Doing it this way means it is easier to disconnect the running gear as you hae much better access to it.

By the end of Sunday the body was completely free and the chassis almost stripped bare.

The plan is to replace the outriggers on the chassis that the front of the body mounts on as they look somewhat home made and then repaint the complete chassis with something a bit better than last time as it has not faired so well. While I have the good access, the gearbox will be changed for one I had re-built a few years ago, which has a large tip mainshaft and better synchro rings. Then it's just a matter of re-assembly, easy eh?

Keeping the rust at bay

Having put so much effort into the replacement bodytub, I really wanted to make sure I was not going to have any bodywork issues for some time. Waxoyl is a commonly know make of cavity wax, but while looking around for the costs of it, I found things have moved on and there are other products, which perform much better. Based on cost, availability, and reviews, I went for Dynax S50 from Bilt Hamber. Along with a five litre can I ordered a injection lance, which is a length of tube with a diffuser on the end to make sure the 'wax' is thrown out 360degrees to coat all surfaces.

I didn't take any pictures while using the Dynax S50 as there isn't a lot to see really, but all the usual areas, such as around the wheel arches, in the sills and in the windscreen surround (especially over the top where GT6's like to rot out) were suitably coated.

With the inside and top side of the body all protected, there was just the underside to do, the job I was least looking forward to. As before, I wanted to coat the underside in something which would last, but all of the products I considered using required a clean and preferably bare metal surface. The headache I had here was that the underside had been coated with some form black Schultz underseal, which has a nasty habit of trapping water underneath it, but remains sticky, making it a pain to remove.

The process of stripping the underside took me quite a few evenings and weekends, it can be hard to motivate yourself to go and lie on a concrete floor to scrape off underseal and paint. The process I found most effective in the end was to scrape as much off by hand as possible, then use a bevel twisted knot wire brush on a angle grinder to get into the nooks and crannies to remove any last underseal. After that, it was a mix of strip & clean discs and flap discs to get the underside stripped.

After a bit more research, I had whittled it down to POR15 and Rust Bullet for the new underbody paint. I chose Rust Bullet this time as the overcoating did not need a primer, this paint is also UV resistant, unlike POR15, but I wanted to paint the underside in body colour anyway.

Rust Bullet needs two coats within four hours of each other, so the whole area I wanted to paint had to be accessible at once, this meant supporting the body from the extremities, not something I would recommend if you have any doubts about the strength of your body.

Screwfix sell single use paint brushes, which were just the job as I doubt it would have been worth using good quality brushes when there was little chance of cleaning them properly again. Eye protection and rubber gloves were also used, I did get a bit of paint on me and that took ages to remove, so I just hope it sticks to the car just as well.

24 hours after the second coat of Rust Bullet was applied I gave it a coat of green so it stands out less. The body has now been put aside while I prepare the car to remove the old body and carry out a few changes.

Back to the GT6, more paint

With the replacement GT6 body safely back on it's stand in the barn, I set about painting the interior. I've done this to of course protect the steel, but also to put all of the interior in one solid colour, to make any modifications and previous less obvious. It's been painted using sythetic paint as it was readily available and could be brush painted, I really did not want to have to mask-up the car to spray paint or risk over-spray on the good paintwork.

While working on the body, I've been servicing some of the smaller parts and I turned my attention to the rear lights. Compared to modern vehicles, Triumph lights can look a little dull, not helped by the condition of the reflectors. Mine were looking particully dull as the majority of the relective coating had fallen off over the past 40 years or so, so the reflectors were carefully pushed out of their holders and first given a coat of primer.

And then 'Chrome' paint, which doesn't seem to have the same shine as the stuff I have used before, but should be a vast improvement of what was there.

Once the paint was cured, the reflectors were fitted back into the light unit and I set about re-assembly, with a new gasket between the unit and the lenses. Unfortunately, the curretly available gaskets from one supplier are too small in both length and height, it seems as if it has shrunk.

I'll try a few more parts suppliers to see if anyone has lamp gaskets that fit, but I fear they are all being made in the same place, so I may have to find some suitable material and cut some out myself.

Ecurie Cymraeg Historic Rally

Yesterday Ecurie Cymraeg's Historic rally passed by our front gate, so I thought I'd go and have a look. There were quite a few interesting cars, including three TR4's, a Vitesse and a MkI 2000, though I only managed to get pictures of a few of them.

New '43' Camshaft

While the bonnet was at the bodyshop, GT delivered and fitted one of his '43' profile camshafts. We went through a few duplex camwheels to time it in best, including a re-pro one, which was completely useless, but ended up using the same one as before. Once re-assembled, using the old ignition map it had lost in the bottom end a bit, but after some tweaks of the ignition map it have really come to life, with it coming on cam at around 4k rpm. As the was bonnet at the bodyshop we not been able to take it out onto the main road, but it does seem to pull quite cleanly upto atleast 7k rpm.

While doing the camshaft change I was able to change the engine front plate again, back to a GT6 one, which should give me more space to fit the hoses between the airbox on the engine and the filter box (below the radiator)

Once the parts were back from the bodyshop I was able to take it back over to the rolling road at Maynards to fine tune the ignition map, see what it is doing now and work out what needs to be done next. What we quickly worked out was that the standard silenced I had fitted, 51mm outlet, was only now restricting the engine to about 150bhp. The silencer was soon removed and the remainder of the runs done with out it, this was not a surprise to me as it had always been the plan to go for a larger silencer. So onto the results from the runs;

Power

Torque

The top line of each is the current setup less silencer and the one below with silencer. This makes the best figures so far of 175bhp at 6409rpm and 149lb ft at 5653rpm.
After the silencer there should be more power to be found with a bit more valve lift and a higher compression ratio, but I really need to look at the suspension setup and brakes first.

Fresh paint

I'm a bit out of date again, sorry. A few weeks ago I had a message to tell me the parts I took over a few weeks ago were painted, finished and ready for collection. A few days later I went over with the trailer again to make the collection.

The following day the body, bonnet and chassis was lifted from the trailer, with the bonnet going back onto the car it came from. To make it easier to work around in the workshop, the body was then taken from the chassis and put back onto a wooden frame and to prevent the doors getting damaged, they were also re-hung on the body.
The next job on this body will be to stone chip the wheel arches and fill it up with cavity wax, probably Bilt Hamber's Dynax S50. Not 100% sure what to do with the underside, at the moment it is undersealed, but I'm not keen on the stiff personally. I'd like to paint the inside the new colour before the wax goes in, so there is a bit of paint prep to be done first.

Stripping and welding

Since getting the bodytub back a few weeks ago, I've been working fairly hard to get it ready to go back over to the bodyshop for paint by the end of the month.
Paint stripping has been a bit laborious at times, making sure the old paint is out of every nook and cranny. This has mainly be done using Nitromoors to release the top layers, which can then be scraped off, just leaving the base coats, which were removed using a strip and clean disc on the angle grinder.

It was just as well that I decided to check every joint I could find on the body as it turned out that the majority of the welds along the bottom of the outer sills where not attached to anything else. This meant I could slip a scraper between the outer and inner sills, not good. I have now carefully seam welded the sills together.

Both sides of the windscreen frame needed repairs the the rear, the left hand side being easy, just needing a small patch at the bottom. However, the drivers side had rusted through the rain channel and the back of the pillar. Having removed the remains of the rain channel, I drilled and cut out part of the pillar as there was a lot of pitting by the angle.

Up front, the remains of cover strip over the roof lip was carefully cut at each end and peeled off. There was not much holding it on, so it came off without any further cutting. The surface below is a bit pitted in places and had gone through it a couple of places, but that was soon remedied with a bit of weld and ground back again. I'd already bought a replacement for this lip, which was over length, not a problem, but also the wrong 'U' profile, so I had to carefully cut a couple of milimeters off the entire length to allow it to sit back over the lip correctly. I'll ask the bodyshop to seal and spot-weld this in place when it goes back for paint.

One of the last jobs I did before sending it off to the bodyshop was repairs to the heelboards, both sides needed repairs around the outer mounting points. Rather than trying to make small patches, I decided to replace larger sections, which gave me a chance to check and paint the condition of the panel beneath.

The stripped body is now is now at the bodyshop, along with the bonnet, for preparation and paint, I hope to be able to collect it in the next month or so. Once back home I can start thinking about the re-fit, though it may be delayed a bit as I want to paint the inside and the weather is not really suitable for that at the moment.

Back home again

I'd hoped to collect the body before Christmas, but with the bit of snow we had, we decided it could wait until the new year. So earlier this week I trailered it back to the workshop. 

I'm aiming to get it back to the bodyshop in the second half of February, but before that there will be quite a bit of finishing to be done. The original plan was to try and get it seam sealed and painted internally before it went for paint, but considering the amount of other welding I need to do and how cold the weather is at the moment, it may have to wait until afterwards.
Think I'll resume by finishing off the radius arm brackets then work my way forward from the rear light panel, checking every joint and seam I can find. 
In the meantime I am looking for a chassis to borrow, as I could do with finding an easy and safe way to transport both the body and bonnet back to the bodyshop for paint.