Close but no cigar
The GT6 won't be home for Christmas. It's close - the doors and hatch are back on - but Joe's struggling with panel gaps around the bonnet. The entire front section of a GT6 is a single clamshell-style assembly, and mine needed a lot of dents to be hammered out.
To start with we need to sort out the bonnet hinges. The whole front end pivots on two bolts as part of an adjustable hinge setup. It's a long time since I took the car apart, so I'll need to dig out some parts manuals and diagrams and work out where the bushes and washers go. At the moment it has a couple of centimetres' play! The rear end of the bonnet is located on the bulkhead with rubber cones and latches and again, it's no use trying to get the alignment right until they're fitted.
The doors and hatch fit very well, with no tweaking required. That was one of the positives about this car - it was worn out, dented and roasted by years parked up in the sun, but none of the outer panels had any significant rust. Only portions of the floor needed replacing. The wings, doors and sills are the same ones on the car when it rolled out of the Triumph factory.
At the moment the Mallard Missile's got its bum in the air. It should settle once the glass, interior and fuel tank are fitted, but US-spec GT6s seem to have sat higher than their UK counterparts. It's already got a 1" lowering block under the spring, and if it doesn't settle down enough with some weight in the back, the spring will need to be reset.
The left front wing's gaps are good, but it needs its cones and latches to push the bottom out a bit.
My visit to the GT6 was on the way home from two weeks in the Queensland summer sun. Summer up there is also the wet season, so think 36C and thunderstorms. The photo's not been tweaked - green thunder clouds mean hail!
High altitude ice clouds mean it's going to be a clear, hot day. This photo was taken about 9am, when it was already about 30C!
Meanwhile, the Herald's snoozing in the garage. When I started my new job in Brisbane I used it to commute, a daily twenty-mile round trip (the Herald doesn't think in kilometres). Stop-start driving's different to steady cruising on country roads, and after a couple of weeks the diff pinion seal let go. Of course I didn't notice until the diff started whining, on the last banked bend leading onto the Gateway Bridge. Sigh. Fresh oil quietened it a bit but it's obviously not healthy any more. So a new-old-stock crown wheel and pinion, bearings, gaskets and seals are on their way from the UK, along with an alloy case which increases the oil capacity. I'll get it rebuilt by a specialist, to make sure the new gears mesh smoothly. I want the new diff to be as quiet as the old one was.
To start with we need to sort out the bonnet hinges. The whole front end pivots on two bolts as part of an adjustable hinge setup. It's a long time since I took the car apart, so I'll need to dig out some parts manuals and diagrams and work out where the bushes and washers go. At the moment it has a couple of centimetres' play! The rear end of the bonnet is located on the bulkhead with rubber cones and latches and again, it's no use trying to get the alignment right until they're fitted.
The doors and hatch fit very well, with no tweaking required. That was one of the positives about this car - it was worn out, dented and roasted by years parked up in the sun, but none of the outer panels had any significant rust. Only portions of the floor needed replacing. The wings, doors and sills are the same ones on the car when it rolled out of the Triumph factory.
At the moment the Mallard Missile's got its bum in the air. It should settle once the glass, interior and fuel tank are fitted, but US-spec GT6s seem to have sat higher than their UK counterparts. It's already got a 1" lowering block under the spring, and if it doesn't settle down enough with some weight in the back, the spring will need to be reset.
The left front wing's gaps are good, but it needs its cones and latches to push the bottom out a bit.
The bulkhead gap's fairly regular, but the right hand door gap needs to be reduced. Hopefully it'll close up when the bonnet's better located.
High altitude ice clouds mean it's going to be a clear, hot day. This photo was taken about 9am, when it was already about 30C!
Meanwhile, the Herald's snoozing in the garage. When I started my new job in Brisbane I used it to commute, a daily twenty-mile round trip (the Herald doesn't think in kilometres). Stop-start driving's different to steady cruising on country roads, and after a couple of weeks the diff pinion seal let go. Of course I didn't notice until the diff started whining, on the last banked bend leading onto the Gateway Bridge. Sigh. Fresh oil quietened it a bit but it's obviously not healthy any more. So a new-old-stock crown wheel and pinion, bearings, gaskets and seals are on their way from the UK, along with an alloy case which increases the oil capacity. I'll get it rebuilt by a specialist, to make sure the new gears mesh smoothly. I want the new diff to be as quiet as the old one was.
posted by Nick Moore at 9:48 am
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