1972 Triumph TR6 looking for a purpose

It's too smooth shiny. You need wrinkle paint on that.

In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :

I had better hope I never have an engine mount let go.  The clearance is a little tighter than I wanted.  But hey, it's just paint.

Apexcarver said:

It's too smooth shiny. You need wrinkle paint on that.

 

That's the idea.  It would be easy in Ed's shop, but now I need to worry about poisoning kids.  How awful is wrinkle paint as it cures in an oven?

I have had good luck with room temperature cure on wrinkle paint, you just have to lay it on thick enough and be patient enough to walk away for 2 days. The oven problem will stink up the whole house. Smells like a burning brake pad. I think the flavor imparted to any food cooked soon after would dissuade any poisoning, unless your kids have no sense of taste.

Hmm.  Time to experiment with the outdoor gas grill.

I did a test spray of some VHT wrinkle paint.  I laid the test piece in the driveway on a sunny morning and it started to texture right away.  After three days, it looks pretty good.  I may go with that and let engine heat harden the finish.

Moving on, I've started working on getting the car out of the garage for a short test drive.  This requires finishing the intake tract and installing the wheel arch liners.  Actually, installing the wheel arch liners is more to clear them off the garage floor as I needed the ceiling rack storage space for something else.  But I digress.

The stock charcoal canister position runs afoul of the new intake tube, so I had to do a little bracket modification.  This moved the charcoal canister about 2 inches down and back.

To finish the intake tract, I need to mount a fuel vapor port, fast idle valve, and intake temperature sender somewhere.  I'm working on a short coupler made from the extra intake material.  A purge valve is mounted on this and will connect to the outlet from the charcoal canister.  I might be able to put the temperature sender in the filter housing to avoid underhood heat soak issues.

The wheel arch liners came from Rimmer Bros.  They fit pretty well after some trimming.  I'm glad I fitted them before painting the car.  They come with a rubber seal that needs to be glued on before installing, and I added some pop rivets on the ends.

This is now in the front passenger fender well.  It should help keep the fender insides from being gravel blasted and prevent rust around the headlight buckets.

So how stupid of an idea is this?  The tachometer is still not hooked up.  I looked into converting the stock tach to electronic, but can't seem to find a suitable donor. 6000 rpm tachs tend to be for boats, and the TR6 stock tach face is not linear to allow for the mechanical drive.  Nisonger offers an electric conversion for $350.

So I'm considering keeping it mechanical.  I have a brand new cable, and am just about finished with this...

That's an old distributor cut down to just the base and tach drive .  I just need to seal up the top.  Worth a shot, right?

Those mechanical tach drives only fail if the instrument or cable seize first. Even then it is only the plastic gear that is bad. I worked on dozens of those cars for several decades and think I sold one......

In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Seems like it's worth a shot, for sure.

I've got to figure out something similar for the TVR.  Mechanical tach, clearly non-mechanical engine.  Very likely may throw money at a conversion, but I've got some other wacky ideas first...

I don't think I've ever commented on it before but just leaving a note to say how much I enjoy this thread/car.

JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

So how stupid of an idea is this?  The tachometer is still not hooked up.  I looked into converting the stock tach to electronic, but can't seem to find a suitable donor. 6000 rpm tachs tend to be for boats, and the TR6 stock tach face is not linear to allow for the mechanical drive.  Nisonger offers a conversion for $350.

So I'm considering keeping it mechanical.  I have a brand new cable, and am just about finished with this...

That's an old distributor cut down to just the base and tach drive .  I just need to seal up the top.  Worth a shot, right?

This is just me but I love those old Chronometric Tachs with thier twitchy needles. ( Think opening scenes of the movie Grand Prix  

TurnerX19 said:

Those mechanical tach drives only fail if the instrument or cable seize first. Even then it is only the plastic gear that is bad. I worked on dozens of those cars for several decades and think I sold one......

That's my experience too.  The gauge only has 24k miles on it if the speedo can be believed, so I should be good for a while.

TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Seems like it's worth a shot, for sure.

I've got to figure out something similar for the TVR.  Mechanical tach, clearly non-mechanical engine.  Very likely may throw money at a conversion, but I've got some other wacky ideas first...

Yeah, you are rowing upriver a bit more than I.  Did TVR use Triumph/Smiths gauges?

AxeHealey said:

I don't think I've ever commented on it before but just leaving a note to say how much I enjoy this thread/car.

Thanks for this.  I was beginning to think I was talking to myself here.  This thread is the only way I'm keeping track of what I've done, and it helps to get feedback on that.  Hopefully somebody is learning something.

frenchyd said:

This is just me but I love those old Chronometric Tachs with thier twitchy needles. ( Think opening scenes of the movie Grand Prix  

Not just you.  As long as it's accurate, I prefer the analog drive and the classic looking gauges.

So I finished this project today.  It turned out well.

And in the car, working.  I haven't checked accuracy yet, but there's no needle bounce and it was reading 1000 RPM at the fast warmup idle.

JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

AxeHealey said:

I don't think I've ever commented on it before but just leaving a note to say how much I enjoy this thread/car.

Thanks for this.  I was beginning to think I was talking to myself here.  This thread is the only way I'm keeping track of what I've done, and it helps to get feedback on that.  Hopefully somebody is learning something.

We all feel a bit like we're talking to ourselves.  Though I feel like I've got a little team who will comment on my stuff, and then I try to comment on your stuff.  And one day we'll be able to all get together and swap some stories and look at cool hardware.

On the gauge front, yes, I do have Smiths mechanical gauges.  I've tested them with a power drill, and they seem to work fine, so now it's just a matter of figuring out what to hook them to.  A nice problem.  Not a problem-problem.

I figured out why the flex fuel sensor faults about 10 seconds after turning the ignition on.  Rather than running it's own power wire, I borrowed from the fuel pump.  But the Megasquirt only runs the fuel pump for a short priming cycle initially.  Once the engine starts, the flex fuel signal is eventually picked up again.  Simple fix, but I was just being lazy when I did this.  Sigh.

JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

AxeHealey said:

I don't think I've ever commented on it before but just leaving a note to say how much I enjoy this thread/car.

Thanks for this.  I was beginning to think I was talking to myself here.  This thread is the only way I'm keeping track of what I've done, and it helps to get feedback on that.  Hopefully somebody is learning something.

I think I've posted the same thing in all my build threads lol. I check back a day after every post I make, hoping someone read it and commented on something, even though I'm mostly also doing it for my own historical reference. Heck,  knowing that I follow like 50 build threads on here and don't comment all that much myself. I've been following along with this one for years (as a former GT6 owner myself), just don't have much to add, as your Triumph knowledge far exceeds what mine ever was :). So, keep up the great work!

In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Finding and fixing those minor bugs is always nice! Keep up the good work...

An epic struggle ensued this morning during a search for a missing external oil feed line.  It was somewhere in here.

There are also boxes in the attic above the garage.  I searched through every plastic bin and larger cardboard box, including some on the ceiling storage racks.  Eventually, I found it in a small box labeled "Brake Pads/U-joints/Ignition" which I had passed over several times because some moron put an oil line in that one.  I blame the move.

Installing the oil line is the only other car thing I did today.  It connects the main oil gallery directly to a port on the back of the head, bypassing the small passage through the block.  Some consider this detrimental to the oil pressure at the bearings, but the valve train on this car seems to be a tad dry.  There was some oil getting to the rockers, but not much.  It already looks wetter in the valve cover after just the leak check.

Another major milestone was reached today.  I pulled the car out of the garage, warmed it up, and drove it around the block.  Only 1/2 of a mile, but it was a success.  I even managed to do some auto-tuning, and boy howdy is my current tune rich.

In less good news, the speedo was reading 50 MPH when I was doing about 20 MPH.  Here's hoping the gearbox doesn't need to come out to change the speedo drive gears.  I'll send the speedo off for recalibration first.

clean looking dash, brings back some memories. 

And in 20 years with multiple speedos, none of them ever worked accurately. Some were high, some were low, some bounced lol..

The dash i designed for mine to get a few more gauges. 

In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :

What about the newly modified tach?  Did it behave as expected?

Congrats on the drive-around!  I can only dream of the day...

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

clean looking dash, brings back some memories. 

And in 20 years with multiple speedos, none of them ever worked accurately. Some were high, some were low, some bounced lol..

The dash i designed for mine to get a few more gauges. 

Both of the Triumphs I've driven much had speedos rebuilt and calibrated by Nisonger, so that probably explains my good experience.  That dashboard looks nice too, BTW.

TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :

What about the newly modified tach?  Did it behave as expected?

Congrats on the drive-around!  I can only dream of the day...

The tach is great, just a constant 150 above the Megasquirt (so it's a needle tweak).  I'm not sure what to think about the speedometer, but plan to check the distance I drove with a known good vehicle to see how far the odometer is off.