EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Some of you will no doubt know what this is and what happens when it breaks!


This is the result

Just after this........EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK

I'm not sure if I made that noise or if it was the car!

The skidmark showing my ace control, NOT!!! The car took me where it wanted to go, but it has good manners and decided to park safely out of the way of other road users.

And this was the only way to get it home as at the time I did not have the bits to repair it at the roadside.

I had just taken my GT6 out for a road test to check/bed in my brakes after polybushing the front end of the car.Whilst giving the brake pedal some welly, thankfully at not to high a speed. (25-30mph left foot braking and throttle applied)Must have stressed the nearside upright too much and it snapped resulting in a crunchy grinding slide towards a the kerb.

The following day (Monday 18th May). I went to see Max at TotallyTriumph in Cheshire to get the parts to repair the car. I got both front uprights and trunnions + bushes.

I got the broken nearside assembly changed straight away and have now also changed the offside upright and trunnion too as a precaution. Both trunnion bush/bolts were very stiff, the bolts were siezed in the bush sleeves which may also have contributed to the failure of the n\s upright.

Looking at the first picture again it does seem as if the upright has had some old damage, it looks to me as if it was already fractured half way through. This was why I decided to also change the other upright. It looked okay but at least I now know it is not (hopefully) about to let go in the same way as the the other.

Our Tip: SCDB.info - the most up-to-date speed camera database in Europe for your GPS!

The RBRR (Team Shorts)

After having just over a week collect my thoughts and recover from the rigours of long distance driving and sleep deprivation.

I must say that the RBRR is an absolutely fantastic experience and should feature in those lists of top ten things “to do before you die”.

Was it fun.....Oh Yes

Would I do it again.....Definitely

Was it difficult.....I did not find it hard to do the event but then I did take a couple of days off work before hand to relax and get some good sleep, I also ate well to build up some energy reserves.
I did however find the week after completing the RBRR very tough, I kept falling asleep as soon as I got home from work!

It was great for me to meet up with people at the start of the event at the Plough and put faces to names from the CT forum as I suspected you all turned out to be great fun and also slightly mad but I suppose that goes with wanting to drive old Triumph's 2000 miles in 48 hours!

Here's a few of my favourite photo's from the run. (some are not mine and are from CT forum members I hope you do not mind me using them)

Team Shorts ready to go

Team Shorts is ready for the RBRR (we hope)

I went over to Rob's place yesterday (Sunday 28th) to fit his superb leather seats + headrests into the GT6, It only took a few minutes and totally transformed the car! It really does show just how knackerd (technical term) my seat foams really are, we hoovered half of my seat foam out of the footwell for sure!

We also had a play with a power inverter and my laptop with a broadband usb internet adapter.

A few niggles with the cigarette lighter power source means that I will hardwire it to the battery via an inline fuse. We are hoping to use this setup when we are not too tired from driving or just trying to keep up.

We hope to post back onto the Club Triumph website with our progress and thoughts on the RBRR. It is just an experiment as the broadband coverage is patchy at best outside of built up areas, so the updates may be few and far between but we'll do our best to try to share the RBRR with those who are unable to take part this year.

Oh by the way Rob's the good looking guy on the left hand side of the picture.

Looking Forward To The Round Britain Reliability Run Car No.141 (Team Shorts)

Here's a couple of pics of my Spotlights as fitted for the RBRR.They are fitted to the bonnet hinge mounting point behind the chassis end cap.The end cap has a slot cut in it to alow the angle iron to protrude through it, the light bar is then held very firmly on a pivot by two 1/2 inch bolts (you can actually jump up and down on the bar it will not move!!!)To tip the bonnet however I do have to loosen the bolts to tip the lamps down out of the way and then tighten them back up afterwards. I do have plans to fit another small bolt/bracket so they return to the same spot each time
They have had a good test over some very bumpy roads this weekend and light up the way ahead superbly with no trace of any annoying wobble which can be very tireing on your eyes
Also for the purists among you I can remove them in about 10 minutes and now just need to find some new chassis end caps to replace the ones I've butcherd to make the lights fit

The RBRR, personaly I need to thank (blame) Tim Bancroft for my taking part in this event. I mentioned to him that it was a shame that the running list was full (at the CT National) and he said it would be a good idea to get on the reserve list as he expected a few to drop out!!!

To get the car ready for the RBRR the main thing was to change the driveshaft U/J's the nearside was in a very poor condition, I've also fitted an oil cooler and some very powerful driving/spotlamps (150w each) with a high capacity alternator (65amp) to power them.

My First Blog Posting (and first attempt at a blog)

This is a picture of my Triumph GT6 at the Club Triumph National Meet 2008.

I'm new to blogging so I hope this goes well in the future!

(Sorry it's so short, this one was a test to see if it worked)