Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

[Hooli]

TBH those engines probably had the correct amount of oil in that had also been changed in recent memory.

Aye I did service it properly.

[captain_70s]

A properly serviced OHV will last forever. I'll be dropping the sump every 30k or so to do the bottom end 'cause it's £60 and an afternoon's work to add 100k on to the lifespan of the engine.

Mine got to 138,000 miles without ever having been rebuilt, if I'd dropped the sump and done the big end bearings and thrust washers when I first bought the car in 2013 the engine would probably have been fine and still be going now, but at that point I didn't know jack about engines and my parents were very much of the opinion that if it broke down you should send it to the garage "where people know what they're doing".

The key to the Triumph SC is the thrust washers, if they wear then the crank float increases and causes them to wear faster, the fore-aft movement in the crank also munches the big ends faster every time you use the clutch. The amount of wear you get in a thrust washer is pathetic, a tiny coating of bronze:

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Once the bronze is gone and you're on to the steel backing which eats into the crank surface. Once that wears away the crank is FUBAR because you can no longer take up the crank float. Worst case scenario is that the washers get so thin the can squeeze past the main bearing cap and simply drop into the sump. Now the crank is hitting the engine block and that too will rapidly be FUBAR.

Given that's the most common cause of death for a Triumph SC most of the spare engines that are kicking about feature several/all of the above damage and you'll pay £200-300 for the privilege of finding out whether or not they're salvageable. To be honest half the engines in running cars are probably equally as shagged as they do such low mileage it doesn't matter.

I have four Triumph 1200/1300 lumps and every one features bad wear to the thrust washers and crank journals. Even the newly build engine in the car is technically beyond repair, we've bodged the excessive end float with shims because a genuine small journal crank is a happy £200+ on it's own... Once it's on the road I'll be checking the end float every few thousand miles to make sure it isn't growing...
I did try and enquire at some machine shops about getting oversize shims made out of solid bronze to eliminate the risk of steel-on-steel wear but nowhere could be arsed. I suppose there is no money in it.

We're at an interesting point now whereby the "find a new engine" technique is no longer viable due to cost of second hand units. Every £200 engine on eBay is going to need a £400 rebuild, although when a decent Herald/Spitfire/Dolly/Midget is £4-6k I suppose it's justifiable.

[fried onions]

By now you will have discovered that garage men frequently don't know what they're doing, and to compound the problem their time is money. I was discussing this with someone and we both concluded that most mechanics will have left school with few qualifications, have done things the way they were taught by a previous mechanic (rightly or wrongly), and many won't have read a book in their lives. A good mechanic is well worth looking after - if you can find one. Otherwise you are better off doing things yourself because you can devote the time and effort to doing a thorough job.

[panhard65]

Have you seen some of the shit that some of these home "mechanics" do ?. Yeah there are a few people who can actually look after their own cars but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Just look at some of the shit work that gets applauded on the beige. Most mechanics have to have qualifications of some sort at the start and then tend to undergo annual training as new stuff comes out. The shit ones tend to be the sort that start out looking after their own car and never bother with the qualifications. Then you have the customers who know everything and tell you how to do your job. 10 minutes on google and they have diagnosed it, they then tell you to fit the part and then moan when you haven't fixed it as their guess was wrong.

[Hooli]

It's a mix of both I think. The amount of times I've have to redo jobs a garage has been paid to do because they've utterly fucked it up is highly depressing. I'm sure you see many more horror stories from your side of the toolbox though.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Pro mechanics who will do a job and and not use a torque wrench. I'm a bit anal about that - use good thread lock fluid and torque it correctly.

Fucking Haynes manuals. I was rebuilding a 4 pot BMW engine a month ago. Fitting new big end bolts, angle tighten to 70 degrees it said. Seemed about right. But it's not as it's actually 120 degrees if you read through the official tech info so I had to add an extra 50 degrees. That could have ended well.

Not that I don't make mistakes mind, as I do. Working on some incredibly complex modern heap where 100% concentration is needed for hours on end. It's why I'd like to pack some of it in now. It can be utterly soul destroying sometimes.

[fried onions]

Have you seen some of the shit that some of these home "mechanics" do ?. Yeah there are a few people who can actually look after their own cars but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Just look at some of the shit work that gets applauded on the beige. Most mechanics have to have qualifications of some sort at the start and then tend to undergo annual training as new stuff comes out. The shit ones tend to be the sort that start out looking after their own car and never bother with the qualifications. Then you have the customers who know everything and tell you how to do your job. 10 minutes on google and they have diagnosed it, they then tell you to fit the part and then moan when you haven't fixed it as their guess was wrong.

I agree, especially on the 'little knowledge' point. Countless times I've had to undo, or just give up on, the handiwork of fuckwit previous owners and fuckwit 'professionals'. The difference is you have to pay one of them. As I said, find a good mechanic and keep them sweet.

[captain_70s]

I don't think I've ever come across a repair done to a car by either a former owner or establishment and thought "aye, that'll do", even by my own abysmal standards based on the foundation of my knowledge and skill base being one of dribbling retard.

When I was dailying my 1850HL I don't think my local garage ever actually managed to fix anything on that car. They diagnosed things, and replaced them, but problems very rarely actually went away. My cars always get given to the old boys or Poles as they're the only people in the workshop that have ever seen a carb before.

On the flipside there were many fellas out in the countryside who didn't see how lashing bits of their car together with bailing twine and bits of scrap wood was in any way suboptimal. A glance at The Beige sees a well known member casually posting about wobbing up a hold his BL Econoboxes' sill and then trying to sell it...

[captain_70s]

We're now pretty much up to date on the Dolly project, which is handy as it's on hold while I sort the Acclaim for it's upcoming MOT at the end of the month.

Working from front to back, much as we did on the Dolly. Mostly because FOAD and I have already welded up vast swathes of the arse end of the car...

So the leading edges of the inner wings were rotten, as were the inner panels behind the headlights and the associated splash guard below:

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Rot was cut out and new metal welded in accordingly:

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This was unsalvagable:

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The same clever fellow who had the car painted a few years ago has coated the entire front end with some rubbery stone-chip type stuff. Naturally this has been done directly over rusty metal, which has since corroded away leaving a rubber skin holding together rusty flakes. The U shaped section between the grille and bumper just fell to bits after I gave it stern look, so I'll need to buy some more metal to go in there...

Finally I fitted the NOS wing I bought ages ago. The N/S is crusty but salvageable, the O/S was shagged and held together with filler and said rubber shit.

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This speed hole is the result of the missing U section and it's associated fixings for the plastic trim that sits on top of the bumper...

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Hopefully we can get the front finished and the new wing painted next weekend and possibly make a start on some localised rot in the rear floor.

[CLINT]

My Acclaim failed it's test on rot on the rear inner sill last year. Only had a week to get it ready for the BL show at Gaydon, left it late as usual. Anyway, to do a proper job I had to take the suspension arm off. It gave quite a fight, the captive nut came loose and I had to destroy the bush to get it off.
I did a good solid job of repairing it but bushes could not be found anywhere. My local motor factor let me rummage through their stock and I made some Peugeot bushes fit. Ideally, it could do with some original Honda ones. Was going to contact Honda Japan, the UK dealers don't want to know.