All,
Time for a TR Story. I've seen so many "help" messages
fly past the screen these past few Wintery weeks, so I thought
a little tale of our Triumph may help brush away those Brit-car
and seasonal blues.
Two weeks prior to Xmas, our daily driver/shopping basket,
a dilapidated 1980 Honda Accord surf mobile, blew a head gasket. We
bought the car 5 years ago for $800, so it was not really worth putting
the money into repairing the old girl. I tried a few of the radiator
repair kits, and the powdered aluminium one did the trick. I cannot
drive it though, because it still has a final 25 mile drive to the
wreckers yard where I can sell it to the State Govt. through their
"Buy Back" program, and get $500 for it. $300 in 5 years and 40,000 miles
is a pretty fair price for a car, I'd say! Rust in Peace.
Enough chatter about the surf mobile. We decided upon replacing
it with a 1988-1991 Honda Civic SI. So the search was on, and the
TR6 ("Rags") became not only the shopping basket, but also the car
to perform the new-car interviews.
It took us 5 weeks before we found the car we liked, and in
that time, Rags drove us everywhere from the Mexican border to
Pasadena. It has been a wee bit wetter here in San Diego
than in other years, so the hood had to come up on more than
a few excursions.
For a couple of months prior to this, Rags had developed
an annoying habit of forming a vapor-lock (so I thought) in the fuel pump
after it had been shut down for less than a few hours after it had been
very warm. No problems on short trips, but only after long trips. It
was getting really old running out of gas and having to pull the pump
off to prime it manually. I have a repro-pump which does not have
the external priming handle. Bad move! I tried wrapping it in
heat-shield stuff, etc, but to no affect. We really did not have the
time to look into the problem deeply, because looking for a car
(especially a very specific model) can be very time consuming.
On one of our trips, Rags stalled out in the parking lot of a car
we were going to look at. Very convenient, thank you Rags! The Honda
was yet another Kids hot-rod that shows well but would be up for some
serious engine work when it hits 120,000 miles. Tried to start Rags, but
to no avail. Even priming the pump did not work. Nothing left to do but
strip the pump. As we toiled in the parking lot, a number of people
had to look over our shoulders and Pam would give them a guided tour
of the problem and the car. Most of the on-lookers did not even
know that Triumph was a car builder. After Pam had explained the
purpose of a fuel pump to one person, she explained that all she thought
she had to do to make a car work was put the key in the ignition!
We had to chuckle on that little gem of innocence. Nearly everyone
who showed interest was very complimentary on the "cute little car",
thinking it was some new retro-design from a Japanese company.
As we carefully dismantled the fuel pump, we found that
the inlet valve had completely fallen away from the housing! That would
explain some of Rag's behavior (duh). I pressed the valve back into the
pump housing, reassembled and primed the pump, and we were off!
Since then, I've no problems with fuel delivery. Nevertheless, I'm
looking for an original fuel pump. In keeping with the thread on British-car
mechanics, the mechanic who looked after the car for me in my first couple
of years of ownership swapped out the pump (rather than rebuild the original
pump), told me "it was bad" and kept it. I was pretty naive in those days,
and I did not know about this list, either!
Two weeks ago we found and bought the Civic. A 1991 SI, it
thrust us into the 1990s with a hefty bout of technology. The newest
car we had owned prior to this was the 1980 Accord. Quit a leap forward.
Impressive little car to boot, too! However, there is something more
homely as I climb into the cramped cockpit of Rags. The TR6 really
is a car that you "wear" rather than "sitting in".
The day we were to finalize the transfer, we had to sign papers
in Glendale, about 100 miles from San Diego. No problems for Rags.
Once all the papers had been signed, Pam was to drive the "Flash"
(it is a really BRIGHT teal green) home, and I in Rags. Started Rags,
and it had blown a baffle in the muffler! I expect that Rags was
protesting! Needless to say, it is a most awful sound, and one that drew
many stares from people as I passed. Time for the new exhaust system!
In 5 weeks, we had put over 1500 miles of winter driving
the Triumph in Southern California. This is one of the nicest times of
the year to drive, I had only to don some gloves to keep my hands warm
for the longer trips. Every time I drove I thought how fortunate I was to
be able to drive a ragtop in Winter.
Thanks for reading!
Shane Ingate in San Diego
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