A couple of weeks ago we headed out in our 70 TR6 on a Friday night from San
Diego headed for Seattle. On Saturday about 20 miles north of Fresno on
Hwy99, with the temperature approaching 100 degrees, major gremlins set-in.
The overdrive unit had been acting up, not engaging properly and slipping,
when a couple of pushrods popped out from under the rocker arms and we had
major power loss. Upon pulling in to a little mini-mart, I found the hood
latch cable was not operable.
I did not know anyone in the area, so I tried , via calls parts stores and
tow truck drivers, to find a LBC shop with no success. After an hour or so
had passed I called Moss Motors parts line and explained my predicament and
asked if they could point me to a local Triumph source. They said they
would get right on it and call me back. In about 15 or 20 minutes John
called and said he had contacted Joe Babba(not exactly sure of the last
name, the cell phone connections wasn't the best) and Joe would be sure to
help me out.
Joe was every bit as helpful as John had said. He has retired recently and
closed his shop, Original Duplicates. However, he called another LBC shop
which as it turned out couldn't fit us in. So he made an excellent
recommendation for storage until we could come back and drag it home. He
also followed up with another call later in the day to make sure we had
everything handled.
When I had told me wife I was going to call Moss she didn't believe they
would go out of their way to help us. I told her that Triumph and LBC
owners are stand up folks and these guys proved me right. THANKS.
Now, lets talk about the gearbox problem. When I let the clutch out in
first gear it feels like the clutch is slipping, except for a ratchet like
sound coming from the gearbox area. If I ride/feather the clutch, I can get
some momentum and move thru the gears up to cruising speed in fourth. It
will not shift into overdrive, and if you mash the gas in fourth the engine
increases rpm with no power increase to the wheels.
I checked the gearbox oil level before leaving San Diego and it was almost a
pint low, so I topped it off.
Any ideas as to the problem and solution??
We finished a full rebuild of this engine in January, including complete new
valve train, except the pushrods.
We readjusted the valve lash at 500 miles and now have about 4000 miles on
the rebuild. No problems with pushrods running around the San Diego area,
and I have pushed it hard a few times (high revs, second gear scratch,
etc.). So why did they pop off twice in 600 miles??
Dave Barrans
Poway, CA
70 TR6
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