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Triumph TR6 - Ever do anything dumb to your car?

A few weeks ago I installed a safety release for my engine hood and where I located the new cable and pull handle (through the bulkhead) ended up being close to the turn signal flasher. No biggy.

Today, the turn signal started to act up, there was a ticking sound coming from under the dash on the passenger side, and soon we started to sense a burning smell.

When I pulled over and checked things out the handle for the back-up bonnet release was swinging to and fro like a pendulem and hitting the bare contact on the flasher causing a ticking sound, sparking, heat, the burn smell and a foolish look on my face.

Apparently I can't blame Dr. Lucas for all my electrical woes.

Ken

Ken Shaddock

I decided to switch to a side post battery because the terminals don't corrode nearly as much as the top post ones do. Unfortunately,driving on a rough road caused the hold down bar to loosen and fall against the terminals. The top of the battery was blown off and a small flame erupted that was extinguished with a jug of drinking water. Oddly enough, the Delco alt. survived and we were able to drive the car after being push started. The incident has made me paranoid about keeping the battery blocked in place and the hold bar bolts tight and I got rid of the side post battery.
Berry Price
BTP Price

Ken

Talk about dumb

My hood release cable almost got accidentally welded when it arced across the two battery terminals since the release cable was loose. Sparks and heat.

I had the hood release cable come off while the hood was down and had to release it with a broom handle from underneath the car.

I tried to remove the rear wheel flange with a gear puller and managed to bend the flange. A pretty expensive dumb mistake.

A few days after I finished welding my new rear valence together, I realized I was missing a center punch. Guess where I found it. Welded between the 2 valence pieces. Luckily a magnet was able to draw it out.

And a few more that I am too embarrassed to admit publicly.


Live and learn.

Michael Petryschuk

Mike, Berry... I'm lovin this. Thanks for fessing up so we can all laugh at ourselves. I just know there might be one or two others out there in BBS land with an oops or two in their past.

Ken
Ken Shaddock

I will fess up to two only!!!
1) after I rebuilt my engine, I stared the engine up to find oil spewing from around the oil filter. The engine ran for about 10 seconds untill I shut it down. I forgot to put the O ring on the spin on oil filter conversion.
2)After installing new rear shocks, I was interupted and forgot to finish putting on the studs on 1 wheel. When I took it out for a test, it sure felt funny in the rear. Another 100 feet or so, and the wheel would have left me on the ground!
Yes Ken, I am sure there are some good ones out there!!

Cheers
Pete
Pete Russell

I will never admit to doing a re and re on the metal dash several times or do a reverse install on the wiper boxes.

Rick
Rick Crawford

Pete's oil story reminded me that when I started up the engine for the first time after having put the body back on, I had forgotten to hook up the oil pressure gauge. 2 liters of oil on the garage floor later...

Mike
Michael Petryschuk

I think I may have achieved the 2 litre mark Mike with oil but all in spots on my drive and garage floor. It's kind of a rite of passage thing as I get indoctrinated into the LBC world.

BTW, as many of you know I drove this car home from BC before the restoration was complete... I'm being kind. Hence, in the rain, we had paper towel stuffed along the tops of the windows, rags across the dash, rags stuffed between connvertible top and the windscreen (no rubber seal) and water dripped on our legs / shoes from the bulkhead since the drain pipes that drop into the interior near the kick panels had not been tubed and routed outside. The tranny cover and propeller tunnel cover had not been bolted down so they kinda floated and allowed neat fumes into the cabin... made for red eyes come Miller Time each night. The car may have looked cool on a 70 mph drive by but there was lots of dumb inside.

Ken
Ken Shaddock

After completing my engine rebuild several years ago I took a first spin with the hood still off - just in case. Everything was good mechanically so I went several miles to the beer store for a celebratory 6-pack.

I had very smartly used silicone grease to make the radiator hoses slip on easily. What slips on easily also slips off easily... As I pulled out of the store a top hose came off and with no hood sprayed me pretty good. Ouch. I'm sure that looked nice. Shut it down quick enough so that all the liquid didn't get pumped out and was able to get home ok. Needless to say the silicone grease was then removed.
Brent B

Actually, my faux pas with the side terminal bat. and the hold down bar was a replay of an earlier mis-adventue. I pulled the same stunt on a TR3 and the hold down bar hit the temp gauge capillary tube. The first clue to the problem was a pegged ammeter and the aroma of ether.
It reminds of a patheic soul that made the local paper. He had a pistol go off in his pocket and remarked "That he had just shot himself in the nuts- again." Maybe it is something in the water here.
Berry
BTP Price

Mike,
Lake Castrol was in my garage once, too. We were priming the oil pump, before the newly rebuilt (and doomed) motor was started. Machinist didn't put the plugs back in the oil galleys, and 50 lbs on the gauge harvested a couple of quarts on the floor in a big hurry!
As I was spinning the electric drill, I looked at a friend that was helping, and joked about the oil that was dumping on the floor! He looked, and the horrified look on his face was enough.
I shoulda stopped right there and checked all the machine shops work.....some of you know I didn't, and the car had to be towed home (400 miles) from the Oregon coast 3 months later with a rod knock.
As Rick C sez: "DOH!"
Rod
Rod Nichols

Rod,

Your experience certainly shows that some errors are a foreshadowing of over all poor quality work. Sorry to hear about your Oregon adventure. But let's admit it- these cars give us plenty to reminisce about.

Mike
Michael Petryschuk

I had a 1962 Spit back in the late 70s. My first Truimph. Trany went out so I bought one at the local Wrecking yard (in the days when Triumphs could be found in wrecking yards.) The new one had a OD. First I had ever seen. The end of the selenoid was broken off and I did not under stand the workings of what was inside there. I was a young Airman and broke as usual and $90 at the time was a king's ransome, so I just wired it up and it worked. Since it did not have the wiring I jurry rigged a little box on the end of some wires with a with a toggle switch and ran it inside the cockpit over the tranny tunnel. One day I'm driving along the Central California coast on a beautiful sunny day grinning and thinking "Here's the young WWII Spitfire pilot flying patrol over the French coast..." when PUUFF. The whole cockpit filled with yellowish smoke. I couldn't even see out the windshield and the top was down! I was about to "go over the side." The smoke cleared about the time I got it stopped but I was shaking. What I learned was there are two coils inside the selenoid, a high current pull in and a low current hold in coil and the missing cap had a switch to switch out the pull in coil. I hooked up the pull in coil and it finally over heated and shorted out the the jurry rigged switch and like four feet of wire vaporized in a instant taking an equal length of carpet with it. I got a new selenoid and wired it in right.
CAK Kirchhoff

This thread was discussed between 06/07/2009 and 27/07/2009

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