Winter Rebuild Triumph TR4

As is often the case at this time of year the amount of servicing, tuning and MoT work coming into the workshop has dropped off considerably and the amount of winter rebuild work has started to ramp up, particularly on engines. We have a fair waiting list for these at the moment with a TR4A power plant and two six cylinder 2500 units on the go. The wet liner engine is almost done and one of the six pots is going back together while the other one is coming apart.

We had special fun with the 4A unit removing the liners which after 50 years in situ really didn’t want to come out at all. After two days spent soaking them with release agent during which a pair of adapted heavy duty spring compressors were left on the first one under tension for the whole period all we had succeeded in doing was knocking a few lumps off the bottom of the liner and bending the compressors slightly!

More drastic measures were called for and an angle grinder used to cut a ‘V’ in one side of the liner before attacking it with a hammer and chisel to crack it and make it ‘relax’ inwards freeing it from the block. That done it did then knock out of the block revealing the shifting sands of time and more rust than I’ve seen in an engine for a very long time. Luckily the seats for the liner seals cleaned up OK, the block was emptied and the new liners fitted – job done!

Will these mods mean your car is no longer a classic?

Things have finally settled into some form of normality back in the workshop with the Club Triumph Ten Countries Run having taken place and Maude having conducted herself perfectly except for getting a piece of crud stuck in the front carb needle valve nearing the summit of the Fluelapass necessitating a quick pit stop to clear the problem – hardly the car’s fault though.

Of more concern is the Department for Transport’s recent announcement that they will be extending the MoT exemption to all 40 year old cars on a rolling basis from May 2018 and the underlying issue which this carries with it, of the definition and possible certification of cars as Vehicles of Historic Interest – or not!

Whether or not your car qualifies for MoT exemption then depends on whether it is a VHI or not and if it is considered to be ‘Significantly Changed’ from the original spec which it left the factory with, then it is not. It seems that DfT are likely to use the ‘8 point rule’ including “has it got a power to weight increase of 15% or more”, to establish if a car is substantially changed and one of the main problems with that is that most cars have now had very sensible upgrades to safety related systems such as brakes, lighting, suspension and sometimes steering to make them easier and safer to drive in modern traffic. This obviously means that by making your car safer to drive you may well stop it from being considered a ‘Classic Car’ – what then?

The ramifications of this are likely to be considerable and rumble on for some time, we can only hope that by the time this comes into action – if it does – that the government have sorted out the mess they have now created, albeit possibly unwittingly.