Blog 17

Things are pretty hectic at present trying to get various customer’s cars (and our own) ready for the Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run. What with pre-event checks, servicing, MoT testing and upgrades to electrical systems, seats, seat belts and the like, not to mention suspension, steering, engine and transmission repairs and conversions it’s been really busy and we haven’t finished yet.

One regular customer who hadn’t used his car much this year needed the rear brakes completely overhauling with cylinders, shoes, cables, springs and a fluid change throughout plus front pads and flexible hoses! Another one didn’t realise that of the five mounts on his Sports twin exhaust system only one was still actually connected – the others had all broken – luckily the exhaust hadn’t quite dropped off at that point although it certainly would have very soon after.

There have been quite a few conversions to higher output alternators, brighter headlamp bulbs/better units, mostly with relays, and a number of people have had additional charge points for SatNavs, phones and other in car navigation devices fitted. We have also fitted a few electric engine cooling fans and/or additional switches/overrides to control them.

Seats are always a ‘sore point’ if they aren’t in good condition or if you have a small chassis car then the standard seats aren’t very good for long trips in the first place. There are many ways around this but the easiest and cheapest way is often to find an alternative seat from a more modern car which can be bought cheaply in reasonable condition secondhand, make up some sturdy brackets to adapt the donor seat’s runners to the Triumph floorpan and swap them. I have just fitted some Alfa 156 red leather seats in my Mk1 2000 and despite the time it took I’m very happy with the end result and the colour is really close to the original Triumph Matador Red interior too.