Craig's GT6 MK3 in Aus.

[jimes]

MY LORD

[GT6Steve]

Yeah, that single rail layshaft looks very familiar. I've got lots of those.

 

Ifn fact, when I saw the toyota I thought "It's Triumph ready...."

[Nick Jones]

I had a diff looked like that once, but never a gearbox. I have seen a 'box that came out of an 1850 Dolomite that had almost no teeth left on anything - that was one I managed to avoid buying!

 

Nick

[jimes]

How do these gearboxes get wrecked in such a way?

Is it through fault of the driver? or something else?

[GT6Steve]

In my case it's putting a lot of HP thru a gearbox designed for less than a third of that, solid clutch and solid rear suspension where the third gear becomes the compliance in the system. On a road car??????

[Nick Jones]

I think it's because something smaller gets graunched of something else (reverse gear probably) and then gets picked up and caught between two gears and snaps off a bigger piece - and once you have a few decent size chunks flying round in there in all goes downhill quite quickly. Magnetic drain plugs are good thing.

 

Nick

[GT6Steve]

I think it's because something smaller gets graunched of something else (reverse gear probably) and then gets picked up and caught between two gears and snaps off a bigger piece - and once you have a few decent size chunks flying round in there in all goes downhill quite quickly. Magnetic drain plugs are good thing. Nick

 

Nick, I can assure you it's hitting third gear and flat shearing off the teeth. Over and over again until I ran out of parts and built the Saloon box....

[Nick Jones]

Most of us don't have your HP Steve, so we have to rely on more indirect means to cause such destruction

 

Damn sure it wasn't the HP that ate my diff - was in a Herald 1200!

 

Nick

[GT6MK3]

I suspect that when Dave aimed his laser beam at Chris recently http://sideways-tech...dpost__p__81355 he should have aimed it at me.

 

I read what he wrote mentally ticking off the "Yep, that's me points".

 

For some reason I've spent a year buying or building bits, but never getting the car of the stands I put it on in May last year.

 

My buying, building, collecting spree also had the garage in a state that I couldn'e even walk through it.

 

February 2011 I moved Julz's corolla out of the garage for an afternoon of work. shortly after it looked like this.

 

 

 

And it got worse. I needed a circuit breaker. Bad.

 

'Bout six weeks ago, Julz and I were driving to the local coffee shop. We stopped at a stop sign after the guy in the large 4wd had done a right turn through it, and were still sitting there when he decided to stop, put the 4wd in reverse, and back into Julz's much loved corolla, writing it off.

 

So there's a new 8 month old Corolla in the family, replacing the 15 year old one.

 

Apparently it won't survive parked on the street. Enter the circuit breaker.

 

 

 

 

Room to move

 

Or...

 

Park what seem to be an incredibly large Corolla!

 

Happy wife, happy life. And I'm finally more organised.

 

C.

[Nick Jones]

Wah.... that's huge! By comparison........ It's a myth you know, modern cars get claustrophobic and are much happier outside But at least you can move it outside when you need a bit of extra space and will be forced to tidy up afterwards so you can get it back in! I have a similar arrangement in that I only have enough parking if one car is in the garage (it's a one car garage, but a big one). Current problem is that only the smallest one (Vitesse) actually fits in there due to the over abundance of other treasures crap......

 

Nick

[James]

Please do not complain about having a garage some of us don't even have one to start with

[sorbs]

I always seem to end up with cars which completely fill my garage, with the car in place there's no room for anything else.

[Nick Jones]

Please do not complain about having a garage some of us don't even have one to start with

 

Saves you the anguish of having a garage full of junk that should be chucked out, but you are sure (based on previous experience) will become useful (even priceless) as soon as you do chuck it out.....

 

Which leads on to the question I should have asked before - where did all your treasures go Craig.....?

 

Nick

[GT6MK3]

The treasures all got put away, thrown away, or hidden. It's nice to have a garage again, so I've been getting some work done.

 

Spent many hours this week trying to get the rear water plug out of the head of the current donk.

 

Stripped the head down, tried all sorts of tools, and gallons of penetrant (or so it seemed).

 

Bought myself a wrecking bar longer than the engine,

 

 

that just let me twist the top off the plug.

 

Eventually ground the head off it, and drilled it out stepping my way through 6 bits up to 13mm.

 

 

which meant cutting the end off a large screw extractor to fit, but it got results.

 

 

 

Extracter 1, plug zero. Now I need to get rid of the remaining swarf.

 

Spent a few hours with Alan this week and today.

 

Nick B has bought the SU HS6's I got with the 2.5, I'll never use them 'cos I'm heading down the MegaSquirt route (ever so slowly...), and I promised him I'd throw in the adapter plates and intake if I could find them. No matter where I search, they're hiding, and I was going to suggest he pick up some plates from Moss instead, till I saw they wanted 99 quid each! I'd measured them up last year, so I pulled out my notes and headed to the mill.

 

They turned out pretty nice, total of 210 grams for the pair, the originals were 340 grams of steel each!

 

 

The countersink tool chattered a but, but it's only a cosmetic defect, wont affect them in practice, so they're off to Denmark.

 

Spent a good few hours again in Alan's shop today with this as the result. Lots of measuring, head-scratching, programming, milling, drilling and tapping to make these:

 

 

Hoping for a successful test fit tomorrow. Anyone able to guess their purpose?

 

C.

[Nick Jones]

I like your breaker bar........ I did without for years and then a kind person bought me one. Now it's my second favourite tool after my hammer .

 

Those plugs can be stubborn - but you know that (now).

 

I have no idea what those nicely machined aluminium things are - sorry! They don't look like any part of a Triumph I've owned - but I've never had a GT6......

 

Your missing HS6 adaptors will now turn up while you are looking for something else - but the alu ones will cost less to post!

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[GT6MK3]

If you like the breaker bar, you really oughta splash out on a rattle gun.

 

Test fit went well.

 

 

For once, the careful measuring and planning meant it squeezed into place perfectly.

 

Make more sense now Nick?

 

C.

[Millstone10]

Battery in the boot? Nice!

 

What is attached underneath it? Project 139?

[Nick Jones]

Battery in bulkhead..... interesting!

 

No wonder I was puzzled........

 

Nick

[GT6Steve]

So where is the actual battery? Boot? Or is it some weid kind of battery to fit in that shallow space. Do you have pillars or bent clips to secure the lid?

 

I used that space for my oil breater tank before the Webers went on. Made a alloy lid much like yours.

[GT6MK3]

Got the idea for the flange and plate when I noticed that the battery box was riveted in. Drilled out the rivets and tapped out the box, leaving me with a 12mm lip.

 

 

The flange is drilled and tapped for M4 8mm hex's where the rivets were. I need to pull it back out and relieve the rivet holes a smudge, but it's a lovely interference fit, I'll just run a bead of silicone round it when I do the final fit.

 

I'm not certain yet how I'll use the real estate it gives, I know I'll probably hang the MegaSquirt smarts underneath, but I also need space for the planned relays/fuses for my re-wire. I'm still getting my head around what needs to be fused first, relayed, first, what should be inside the firewall, and what should be outside. Lots of options whirling round my brain whenever my face is in screen save mode!

 

Battery wise, I'll be running a Fullriver HC-28, in a Extreme Batteries hold down.

 

I was originally thinking of putting it in the boot, but I'm unsure of whether whacking the weight behind the back axle is really smart. It also means loosing the spare tyre, which while it's heavy, is also pretty structurally sound, and (to my tiny mind at least) seems to be well placed to give the fuel tank some support and help in the case of a rear ender.

 

So I'm currently leaning toward doing what Andre has, and shelving in the space behind the seats.

 

 

I think that if I do it right, I can work it so I can mount the battery and accusump neatly back there, keeping the weight to the rear, but between the axles.

 

Happy to be corrected if thats a silly idea.

 

Would have worked on the car today, but my old team mate Rob needed to change out the front struts on his Forby. So we did that instead. His Nissan kinda dwarfs the GT6.

 

 

Rob and I used to travel the world doing silly things. I was his cameraman for these shenannigans:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMsPhVotio

 

We got the struts changed, shot the breeze, barbed some snags, and solved most of the problems of the world over mugs of tea while working, and beers when finished. Another old skydiving mate (Terry) dropped in ate the end of the day, and we killed a couple of beers.

 

All in all, a pretty good day. Tomorrow I'm going skydiving 200 km's up the road with Terry, we're going to see what his new turbo diesel bimmer coupe is like on some quiet country roads...

 

 

 

C.

[DaveNotSoSideways]

Boot for sure.

[GT6MK3]

Couple of hours at Alan's last night, firstly, proof that a sand-blast cabinet is worth working at, despite the lungs full of dust. I was originally going to chuck this out as rusted beyond worth caring for.

 

 

That needs about another hour at the cabinet, then a toxic old part will be like new. (Suffer for your art Craig, suffer for your art...)

 

We were then working on Project 20(ish) for me, and also cutting, lathing, drilling and facing some round bar stock to make spacers for the Sideways Aussie Chapter's torque plate, when the power went out. So we went home. Alan's on the road next week, so that'll be a project for late June/early July.

 

Long day in the garage today, a 2 steps forward one step back kind of day. Was there alone, but made good use of the portable barbie Rob left behind last week.

 

 

Fair chance I'm not going to fit behind the wheel next time I drive it if I keep scoffing 8 sausages in bread for every garage session!

 

Had to find a way to suck the metal filings and swarf out of the waterway plug I ripped out last week. So taped some hosepipe into my shop vac.

 

 

And it did the biz.

 

 

When I undid the Rad cap, I ended up with half a litre of coolant in the shop vac.

 

Next I ripped the cast iron water pump housing off, and set up the new alloy one. Added the new gauge's sender, and a temp fan controller (more on that below).

 

 

I was going to instal my shiny and quite pretty CC alloy water pump, but I'm still a little suss that I may not have lined up the new alternator perfectly, so I'd rather send the old WP to jump on that potential grenade. Despite my best efforts, there may be some filings still in the waterways after the plug removal too. I hope he's a brave soldier...

 

My MS plan means losing the hot pipe over/through the manifold, and replacing the three way.banjo bolt arrangement. The plan is to replace the normal coolant sender with the one for the new gauge, and have a MS sensor in the hole normally used for the coolant output on the other side. Coolant will flow through the head TR6 style, and back through a TR6 style pipe.

 

Short term, before I get the MS working, I've installed a NC style thermo sensor, I'll be wiring that in shortly. I think I've figured out how to wire it.

 

For the heater valve, I needed to be able to jump into the plugged hole at the back of the head. Apparently there's an angled plug for just this reason for TR5's and T250's. I missed that fact, an purchased one for a straight 95mm long one for a TR6.

 

Since I like my bonnet dint free, I had it cut down, and threaded the end as 3/8 BSPT. Add high temp thread sealant, and hope for the best....

 

 

I'm waiting to find out if the damage I did to the threads getting the plug out will come back and haunt me.

 

For the radiator switch, I wanted to make sure it comes on if the switch fails, so I went with a normally closed one. This means having a slightly more complex wiring plan.

 

 

I'll probable put an NC switch in as well so there's an override for hot summer days.

 

Nice to spend a day pottering.

[James]

Craig — why aren't you using the MS for the fan?

 

EDIT — ignore that

 

EDIT 2 — you may find the two sensors won't fit together in the housing as they'll be too long and hit each other — in which case you need a spacer — I got one from minispares

Edited June 17, 2012 by James

[GT6MK3]

If I could just get off my arse and finish the MS I'd go straight to it. But I want so much just to go for a drive...

 

The gauge sensor is actually spaced out with an adapter already - had to swap them around when I hooked it all up, 'cos the gauge plus fouled on both the rad hose and the alt/water housing bolt. I think I'll be ok with the MS coolant sensor, but I might need to space the thermostat hoisting up a few mill, with all the clearance issues that could entail.

 

Alan (who's plans are always pretty fluid) turned out to be in town this afternoon, so I dropped in for another session at the lathe and mill. The round bar we were working with last friday was pretty crappy steel, so I picked up a meter or so of 30mm bright mild round bar steel stock. I'm trusted with the power hacksaw, but Alan's lathe is sized for ripping off hands, not just digs, so I rough cut the 14 spacers, then he faced them and sized them to 50mm (the torque plate is 39mm, the 2 heads we had in the factory were both 89mm near as dammit), and centre drilled them ready for final drilling.

 

While he did that I set up the mill ready for the last bit of work on the body of Project 20, then got him to come over, correct my programming errors and setup mistakes and hit the run button.

 

We got cut short 'cos he's taking Mrs Alan away for a few days up the country for a holiday, and didn't want to start by being late home. Wise man is Alan!

 

Hopefully we'll finish the spacers on Friday afternoon.

 

Here's the 14 spacers as they stand, and the body of Project 20 ready to go.

 

 

Feeling really old today, the time spent hunched over the engine bay is reminding me that at 46, I'm not as young as I once was!

 

C.

[GT6MK3]

Work's been busy and stressful for the last few weeks, my biggest customer have been selecting the software platform they'll be living with for the next 5-8 years, and have had me hopping from meeting to meeting running the evaluations and pinning down an answer. Interesting work, I often just get told "this is what we've decided on, install it.", but they've had the onus on me this time to make the selection process work. Stressful but interesting times.

 

Freezing bloody cold here (in warm blooded Antipodal terms), so while I've been avoiding the garage recently, I've been searching for solutions to some of my wiring plans. Between Megasquirt and a few other bespoke changes, the wiring is getting seriously away from standard.

 

Pretty much whenever my face has gone into screen-save mode lately (and I haven't been wondering how best to spend customers money), I've been mentally re-wiring the GT6 from bumper to bumper.

 

Step one has been to avail myself of some compact and reliable relay gangs.

 

Not an easy task. 12 volt relay boards were easy enough to find, but not with robust relays.

 

Eventually I found a firm in Bulgaria that supplied a 12 volt relay board, in 4, 8,12, and 16's. They had the most promising relays I'd found so far, Sun-Hold RAS-1215's

 

.

 

The 1215 is nice enough, it's a 12 volt 15 amp relay, so probably can carry 10-12 amps all day/night long. It's problem, like most of it's alternatives, is that it's not built for the vibratory world of the auto environment, and it's under spec'd for some auto loads. It's big benefit for me though, is it's big brother

 

 

Enter the RAS-1220M. 12 volt 20 amps (so probably 13-16 amps all night or day), and the M stands for Motor. It's specifically designed for Auto applications, with a bigger magnet, and correspondingly larger gap between the contacts to allow for the vibratory environment.

 

Unlike every other upgraded relay I'd found for pre-populated boards, the RAS-1220M has the same footprint and pinouts as the RAS-1215. Happy days. Finding one to do that only took about 20 hours os "waiting for the Server(s) to restart" downtime.

 

The factory in Bulgaria couldn't supply 1220M populated boards at a price point or timeline to make it worthwhile trying. Nor would they ship boards sans relays. So I ordered a few 8 gang boards, and scoured the net for RAS-1220M's, which I found in only two places, Romania and Kansas. I ended up going with Kansas, 'cos the language barrier was slightly shorter...

 

So, having waited patiently(not by any means my strong suit), the bits arrived this week, and tonight I hunched over a hot soldering iron, a magnifying light, a solder sucker, a solder wick, and a stiff drink.

 

I started with a couple of these

 

 

After a ridiculous amount of work I had a couple of these

 

 

Then re-populated them to build these

 

 

I've got enough to build 2 more, but my back and eye's hurt after a few hours hunched over and squinting. 16 relays should be more than enough, so I have a heap of spares.

 

 

There's much to figure out with what fused, what doesn't and what get relayed, and when and how. My aim is to have all the switches relay so thet simply pull to ground, which will relieve them all from elecro stress and mean that they should last till the mechanics wear out. We'll see if I'm smart enough to figure it out...

 

 

Spent a couple of hours at Alan's late this afternoon, we cut the cap for Project 20 and measured up the shaft and bearings. The body and cap are off to the anodisers this week, along with the standoff for the new engines crank tooth wheel.

 

While I faffed about programming the Project 20 cap, Allan finished the Aussie Chapter's 14 30mmx50mm B.M.S. spacers for the torque plate. He can't help but do good work, and I reckon he donated 2 ours of his valuable time before he was happy with the result.

 

 

Have a good weekend all.

 

C.