2-door Toledo in Finland

[Jake]

Nice one Jake. I took the mudflaps off my car, I got sick of hearing them scrape on the road when I went around corners.

These ones are British Leyland branded, so I expect them all to fall off on their own quite soon

[yorkshire_spam]

Nice one Jake. I took the mudflaps off my car, I got sick of hearing them scrape on the road when I went around corners.

These ones are British Leyland branded, so I expect them all to fall off on their own quite soon

Lol. Fall off, or simply disintegrate when any mud or water hits them

[Jake]

Finally some news as the parts I ordered on payday start to filter through the Finnish postal service.


I spent quite a lot on this wheel (including nearly €70 import tax) but I always have the opinion that as the wheel is the main contact point between you and the car, it’s important. Moto-Lita are based at Thruxton which was my local race circuit as a boy, we would go there twice a year to watch the Touring Car races. They are hand made and beautifully done.

Before:


And After:


The cockpit is ready for summer!


Just to show that despite my absence, I haven’t been lazy, I’ve been replacing the vulcanized rubber loom wrap I used when I built the bike with fabric tape, as the rubber just hasn’t lasted. The bike has also had a toothbrush and earbud level clean to get it ready for the national show next month.

[Jake]

A few updates from this week, not too much as I’ve been focused on getting the bike ready for the bike show, which sadly got canceled yesterday. Well at least I’ll start the summer with a very clean bike.



So this week I received a notice saying my carb rebuild kit had cleared customs so in preparation I started breaking down the twin carbs I had on the shelf. Our powder coating line is spraying black right now so I started off with the filter box in the hope I could drop it off the next day for paint.



As you can see it’s pretty grotty and rusted so I took a wire wheel to it



And some rust killer to future proof it.



Finally I left the carbs in engine cleaner to soak some of the grot away overnight.
And that’s this weeks updates dudes!

[Jake]

Got the air box back from powder coating. Been feeling a bit rough this week after my booster so I haven’t done much on the fleet. Got the riveter out to reattach the BL plate


And while it was out also refitted the build plate on the BMW. In this picture you can also see the new black coloured brake lines and the new fabric loom tape. Looking smart.


Other than this I’ve just been toothbrushing the daylights out of the exterior of the carbs before I break them down and see how gacky they are inside.
Peace

[Jake]

A new week, some more progress:
Throttle and choke linkages before:



And after some love with the wire wheel and a lick’o paint:



Then onto stripping down the carbs, lost one float bowl screw to rust but managed to get the stub out.



The plan is to rebuild one before stripping the other so I can use it for reference as to where all the little doohickeys go. The plan is also to buy a ultrasonic parts cleaner today but that will contravene The Kitchen Rennovation so Don’t Buy More Tools act of 2022.

Also finished the bike by painting the last two engine panels and baking them in the oven while the wife was out. Hence the kitchen renovation. At least doggo approves.

[yorkshire_spam]

The plan is also to buy a ultrasonic parts cleaner today but that will contravene The Kitchen Rennovation so Don’t Buy More Tools act of 2022.

Hey! I thought that was just a UK law, I didn't know it was international law!

[Jake]

The plan is also to buy a ultrasonic parts cleaner today but that will contravene The Kitchen Rennovation so Don’t Buy More Tools act of 2022.

Hey! I thought that was just a UK law, I didn't know it was international law!

I fought the law, and the law was surprisingly reasonable. So now I have a parts cleaner. The law also permitted a fire extinguisher for the passenger footwell, and some nice Vans grips for the motorcycle.
WIN.

[Jake]

An amendment to the Kitchen Renovation Act was passed and I was permitted to purchase my ultrasonic cleaner yesterday. Running home from work with my shorts and satchel through the snow, I got some time to set it up and clean up the first carburetor. It’s a lot less vigorous than I expected and needs a bit of time but seems to have done the job ok.



I rinsed everything off with clean water then hairdryer’d everything dry. Tomorrow after work I will start reassembly of carb number one. Additionally I painted the intake manifold and a few other parts in silver high temp.



All smiles here as the carb swap slowly goes forward. In other news, there is a small local motorcycle show organized not this coming weekend but the weekend after so while it’s not quite “the largest show in the Nordics” it’s at least something and I have not cleaned the bike so carefully for nothing. I even treated it to new grips to celebrate.



More riveting action to come this week.

[yorkshire_spam]

I'm interested to see how good/bad ultrasonic cleaning is - I've been thinking about getting a cleaner for a while.

[Jake]

Well hello ladies and gents, this is long overdue an update, despite the fact that very little with the Triumph has actually progressed. Priority was given to the BMW and getting it ready for its first show, a local event here in my city after the big national show got canx because of Covid. So at least all that scrubbing wasn’t in vain.
Fitted her new Vans grips and sorted out a few little flaws in the electrics, balanced the carbs so she is running well and may even get her first run today after work now the roads are almost dry from snowmelt.



Opposite my bike is the show winner, a drag bike powered by two Harley twins. Some engineering.

Then the fan on my daily, my Audi S3 has started making a hellish racket so I stripped out some of the dash and found where the fan sits, cleaned/lubed/greased it and it’s a bit better, and if that ain’t good enough at least I have the part number and I know how to replace it. Modern cars are terrifyingly complex aren’t they? There’s more tech under here than in the rest of my fleet combined.



Bathroom and Kitchen Rennovation Ltd. then took priority, as we agreed to help out some of our Canadian friends extended family who live in Zaporizhzhia, east Ukraine. Of course they can come and stay, but not with our house the state it’s in, broken old sink in the kitchen, no hot water or toilet in the main house… best get rennovatin’ as these dearies are arriving in four days!

So all work on cars and bikes halts as we switch to 16hr days on the house.

Bathroom before:


Three days later:



and in the kitchen:



Also three days later:



All with hot water and poop going where it should.

Also of course rearranged the house so that they could have some privacy, including moving my hifi
and a handful of records into the bedroom. Having my speakers in such a terrible position is the greatest sacrifice I’ve ever made for anyone



Well, with the help of dear friends, we got the work done in time and our guests arrived on Sunday. Monday I was able to roll the Triumph out through the snow still on our drive and take our new friends for a ride.



I took them along when I went to the university to give a lecture. Now something about me: I flatly refuse to pay to park. Fortunately with some creative thinking, a complete disregard for law and order and the native love for rally cars I just left it here for four hours without any problems!



It’s not MUCH bigger than a bicycle, right?

And a final shot of the car at work on the way home



The twin carb conversion will continue, as will the ARB install, I think we just need to see how much the cost of living goes up with a couple of extra family members. But it’s been an awesome month, perhaps not much progress on the Triumph, but some great progress in life!

A few weeks back we also managed a quick work trip to Lapland, so we will leave you with a family shot testing the new dogsleds I designed.
Love, peace and hair grease!

[Jake]

Well winter has set in so, it’s time to crack on with the Triumph.
Antiroll bar has been stripped and powder coated, I’m just waiting on the subframe mounts before I can fit that. The twin carbs are in but I’m having hell getting the car to run right.
It’s hard to get the car to run at all, it starts on choke and runs but dies off choke.
I’ve done my best to balance the carbs, gone with kinda what everyone says are standard settings.
That is: idle set by hose pipe hiss with loose linkage then tightened.
Jets set at level with the bridge then two full turns down.

Absolutely way off, runs like a dog. I probably need to adjust the ignition advance now, the car doesn’t have a plate with the retard/advance indexes on, it just has a single pointer. At idle the mark is a touch advanced, like looking at the front of the engine, it’s slightly to the right, shall we say two minutes past 12, and under revs is about 2 minutes to 12. I hadn’t touched this and the car ran fine on the single carb.

Now I can’t seem to figure how to adjust the advance because no matter what I loosen I can’t get the distributor to turn at all and I don’t wanna lean on it too hard. I’ve discovered there’s an accuspark fitted which I don’t know anything about. Does that mean it’s self adjusting?

There’s a clamp below the distributer that has a bolt on two sides, the rear is super tight against the engine and I can’t get in to loosen it, and the front has a bolt that was finger tight and runs through the casting below the distributer so I’m not sure even how it would turn.

On the back of the vacuum on the distributer there is a finger tightening adjuster. What does that do?

Sorry for all the questions but I’m kind of at a loss.
Desperate to get her running so I can move on with my life

[Jake]

Figured out how to get the dizzy loose and read a lot on the subject last night so I'll have a play this evening, high hopes!

[jackharper]

Hi Jake, progress looks good. I just wanted to say those look like waxstat carbs. At the bottom of the jet there is a little waxy container which in theory tries to adjust the mixture as the engine gets hot but in reality doesn't really work that well. I had a pair of carbs which I deleted the waxstat component with a pair of 2 pence coins - might be food for thought just to simplify things a bit.

I believe SU themselves sell conversion kits (may even be included in your rebuild kit?), but I think there is a cheaper way to convert them - not sure if you've got any finnish coins which might be suitable