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Triumph TR6 - Under the Bonnet
| Next summer I'd like to pretty up the engine bay a tad. Mine is pretty much all stock and albeit clean it's not all that attractive. Would you share what you have done to dress things up? Also, what do you think of the green rad and heater hoses? There seem to be some shiny smooth rubbery looking plastic hoses out there as well as a more original looking matte finish which I think I prefer. Plug wires? Black?, Yellow? Red? Can a bit of pizzazz be added to the LBC engine bay without blowing the budget? It seems that some polish carbs and other parts to a high lustre... yes? Or is that plating? Looking for some idea sharing. Thanks! Ken 76 |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Ken here is a shopping list for your trip this winter to the US. Aluminium valve cover. K&N chrome air cleaners...(the thin ones). I have seen Blue 9mm wire sets. I pollished my carb dash pots and they look pretty good. You will need to put on new decals onto the carbs after you are done. I know one of the supliers has them. The rad hose set. I think you should stick with the green. Stands out a bit better and are not a boring black. A chrome rad shroud with the TR logo on it??? Get some blue electrical tape and rewrap your wire harness. Do you have the emissions plate that is on the left wheel well? That is a good start. Rick |
| Rick Crawford |
| Ken, Disassemble everything to it's essence, powder coat in original color but top coat with brillent clear and put it back with chrome or polished Stainless Steel fasteners!! db |
| Doug Baker |
| Ken, if you want new plug wires, look for Taylor Made. They are a good high perf. 8 mm wire that come in a range of colours and ends. Mine are red, and yes the make blue, and pink and neon green, ect. Rob |
| rw loftus |
| Hi Ken I would agree with Rick's ideas - I went with the chrome K&N air filters, new set of spark plug wires (I went with magnecor red wires which seem to get approving looks from people at shows!), green hoses and a lot of cleaning and painting! I also bought a polished alloy valve cover, but never managed to get it to fit with the alloy water pump housing (let me know if you want an alloy cover for a good price!). I quite like the look of the painted original cover though, so no big problem. I think one of the biggest improvements I made to the look of the engine bay was to remove the air pump and all of the associated hoses and pipework. I did this because it was not working due to rust in the air manifold and I just couldn't justify the cost of replacement, rather than a desire to destroy the environment... I don't have the vacuum line connected to my distributor, and the EGR valve is gone, so a lot less hoses and vacuum lines than there used to be. Removing the engine for a rebuild and cleaning and painting the block, head and all of the chassis etc. exposed by the engine removal helped too! Good luck Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
| This is great guys. Thank you. I'm pumped... I'll take my LBC catalogs to FL with me this winter and buy some stuff on line while there (easier and less costly re shipping) and I'll plan the work to be done when I get back home. I should look through some car show photos too for doable ideas. I'm not ready to pull the engine. That was done in 2006 - too bad the paint job isn't quite as show worthy as described above. I'm up for lesser disassembly, detailing and skinned knuckles though so this gives me goals for 2010. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Rick... when you say the thin ones do you mean the 1.75 (1 3/4") ones. I see Richard Good sells them. Ken Alistair... when you took the EGR off what did you put in its place to block off the hole? Do you have a picture of your engine bay? Rick... we don't compete in the same category since I have those rubber thingies... can I see yours too? |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Hi Ken You know, it's odd, but I don't seem to have taken any pictures of the engine bay after the rebuild - I've attached a picture taken the day I brought the car home though. I remember standing in the garage staring into that engine bay and thinking "what have I done?". If you decide to go with the K&N chrome body air filters, then don't be tempted by the 3 inch thick ones - they will not fit! Ask me how I found out... The 1.75 inch ones are fine though. Oh, and I went with one of those bonnet liners with the Triumph crest, which really spruced the look up when the bonnet is up. Looks very "finished" for want of a better word. Right, off to a car show! Cheers Alistair  |
| A Hewitt |
| Anyone have experience with the Pertronix coil? Is it worth having? It too would look better than my old original coil which still works well. I have replaced the old points and condenser system with Pertonix ignition but not the coil. K Alistair... re that "before" engine compartment. I'm not sure I'd have the spit for starting another project but then again... when one has the car bug... |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Ken Apparently I wasn't too troubled by the state of the engine bay of the TR6 - the Stag I bought last winter is in much worse shape... Forgot to answer your question about plugging the EGR valve ports. I bought a set from a chap on ebay.com. He used to have them listed pretty much all the time, but I don't see them at the moment. A quick look back through my e-mails shows that his ebay name was htcoo7 and his e-mail is msjano AT yahoo DOT com - might be worth an e-mail. They were a perfect fit and I had no problem. I seem to recall that he had not been able to find suitable plugs, so he had a machine shop make up a batch, and then sold the "spare" sets. I found a picture showing the plug in the head - I'll have to look for one of the manifold end. Cheers Alistair  |
| A Hewitt |
| Alistair I took a look too and did not find but did see a bonnet liner with the Triumph crest... $74. Nitrile material. Is that what you bought? This fellow's eBay record is good. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Ken I got my bonnet liner from www.lbcarco.com - I think they are all made by the same company and sold at different prices (as is the case with many other parts!) - I think I paid $50, including the logo (would have been $40 without). A quick look shows that $50 is still the price. Make sure you buy the high temperature adhesive to install it! For K&N filters you can usually find better prices knowing the part number and searching the speed shop type places - I think the K&N part you need is 56-1620 (but check before buying!). www.ajusa.com was the cheapest when I bought mine - about $50 each, but that was a few years ago. Cheers Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
| Ken Alistair is correct on the filter thickness. Do not go for the 3" ones. I must confess, I think it was I who steered Alistair in the wrong direction to get the 3" filters. At the time I was not aware that there was a difference in intake manifolds to early and late TRs. To take full advantage of your Pertronix ignition, you need a higher output coil and better wires. Your age of TR6 has a Ballast(ed) ignition system so you need a different coil than my age of TR6. See CDII under Electrical/ignition system for an explanation. Also a good set of plugs re-gapped to .032". Here is some pics of mine. Alistair, got an "after" pic of your engine bay? Rick  |
| Rick Crawford |
| A couple of things... Thickness of the plug wires. I've seen 8mm, 9mm, is thicker better = less resistance? Rick: No emission plate on top of the left front fender. There are two holes there as though a plate was once there. |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Hi Ken I bought the Magnecor 8.5mm wires from Moss during a sale. Still fairly expensive, but as I recall, the comments on this board at the time pointed to them as the ones to go for. Oh, and they are red, so they match my cylinder head! I think the original wires were green, to match the water hoses, but I could only find cheap sets - the ignition system of a 30 year old British car didn't seem like a good place to save a few dollars to me. Interesting that you have holes for an emissions plate - my '75 just has a sticker, and I thought that only the earlier (and Rick et al will tell you better!) cars had the riveted plate. Oh, and Rick - it might have been your picture that made me go for the thick filters, but it was all my fault that I failed to notice the different manifold, and then bought them months before I could possibly fit them - from a company with a strict 30 day return policy! Cheers Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
| Ken 8.5MM sounds good. Red would look good under the bonnett with Red K&Ns. From what I see at TRF it was all over the map as far as "black on white label" or "black on aluminium plate" is concerend for the LH wheel arch emissions plate/decal. I would hazard a guess it had to do with how much was in the coffers for that years production run. See TRF PLATE FU. Other decals. Ken do you have the decals on the steering column for head lights and the traficators? A nice little touch PLATE EQ). Alistair, now I can sleep tonight:) Rick |
| Rick Crawford |
| Rick - glad I finally eased your conscience! |
| A Hewitt |
| Alistair Re your: "I also bought a polished alloy valve cover, but never managed to get it to fit with the alloy water pump housing (let me know if you want an alloy cover for a good price!" In speaking with TRF today I hear that I can buy an alloy valve cover for $150 (not TriumphTune). Did you sell yours? If not, how much would you like for yours? I assume it will fit my engine - 76. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Alistair... this may be dumb but does your aftermarket alloy rocker cover have a vent? Since I also pulled the emissions system from my car a rubber hose runs from the original cover vent tube over to the original air breather and is just tucked in the opening there. And if yes, what to do with that hose if I switch to the K&N breathers. Hmmm. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Hi Ken Yes, the alloy cover has the breather vent (I don't think you would like the oil leaks if there was no vent!). I think that the vent should tie in to the carbon cannister together with the carb breathers - not sure how yours is set up - when you say you removed the emissions do you mean the carbon cannister too? I have attached a picture of the cover I have sitting here. It is the one you would get from TRF (I assume so anyway - that's where I got it!). I already attached the gasket with blue hylomar and made up a little aluminium breather cover (I think it was Rick's design!). How does $120 plus shipping sound? I think that's a bit less than I paid, even with the TRF investor discount. E-mail me if you want it. ahewitt440 AT msn DOT com Looking at it now I am quite sad I couldn't make it fit. Shiny. Cheers Alistair  |
| A Hewitt |
| Ken Just for reference, here's a picture showing the breather pipes I have ('75 should be the same as your '76). I made these up using a few dollars worth of hose from the local auto parts place. Sharp eyes viewers will note that the hose from the banjo on the manifold to the anti-run-on valve is missing - this is because the connection on the valve was broken when I got the car. Just got a replacement on ebay last week, so maybe I will finally hook it up. Still no picture of the engine bay after the rebuild, but The attached is from a set I took for reference before taking everyhting apart for the rebuild. You can also see the K&N filters, Magnecor wires and green hoses. Apparently I had also bought stock in silver paint! Also, a note of caution to anyone looking at the High temp paint sold by car parts shops (and Walmart, for that matter). The exhaust manifold in this picture was sandblasted, thoroughly dried, primed and painted with the high temp paint a couple of hours of running before this picture was taken. I thought I had a bad exhaust leak, but the smoke turned out to be the paint burning off the manifold! Cheers Alistair  |
| A Hewitt |
| I am interested in the valve cover Alistair so I will email you. And yes, the carbon canister and all related hoses were removed prior to my trip from BC to Ontario to reduce troublesome performance. You'll have show me where to attached the valve cover vent hose once I have replaced my breather with the K&N jobs. I see that yours disappears under the rear breather in that picture... not sure where it goes. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Ken The breather from the valve cover ties in to the line from the carb breathers. The carb breathers are the black connections in the attached picture (just above the temp. compensator on the front side of both carbs). There is also a breather on the rear side of the carbs, towards the air filters, which uses a smaller diameter hose to tie in to the carbon cannister. For the life of me I can't remember why there are two breathers, but there are! Where do those vents go on your car? I am not sure of the logic in taking off the carbon cannister - I guess it would simplify the engine bay, but I don't know what you would do about the various venting requirements in the engine bay and at the tank. As designed, all the fumes go to the tank (I think) - without the cannister and associated pipework, I would imagine the fumes just go into your garage? Must have been okay before the TR6, though - no sign of carbon cannisters on a TR3! The air pump certainly takes power to run, and the air injection pipes in the manifold present a significant restriction to exhaust gas, so I can see a performance gain from removing that system, and the EGR valve seems like a waste of time to me (and hard to imagine any of them are still working after 30 years of carbon deposits - mine was seized up solid with soot), but the carbon cannister doesn't affect performance and provides a useful way to vent the engine and carbs safely. Hope some of this is useful! Alistair  |
| A Hewitt |
| Those black connections on your carbs are covered over on mine with a yellowing plastic cap so they seem to be dead-headed. Front/Back? As I look down on the carbs from the top there's a brass pipe on the left side of each carb, close to the breather, that has been left open ended. I should send you a picture of my set up so you see what I see and I better understand what you are saying. BTW, since the car has been running well I have ignored the removal of the carbon canister and related hoses and worked on other issues. There are several dead-headed or plugged up pipes and I have no concerns regarding putting that stuff back except for the vacuum advance on the distributor. I'm told I do not need it since I have gone Pertronix. I do need to study up since I do not know what goes where and why. Should we take this exchange off-line so to speak so I don't abuse the BBS. You will no doubt see other oddities from the pix. |
| Ken Shaddock |
| The black connections are actually plastic adaptors (available from TRF), but I still can't figure out what that vent is for. When I say front and rear I mean towards the front or rear of the car, by the way. The smaller, brass connections on the rear (of car) side close to the air filter flange (connected to the smaller diameter hose to the carbon cannister in my picture) are to vent the float chamber when the car is not running - I think when it runs the vent to the float chamber is through a hole into the air filter housing on each carb. All of this talk of hoses is contrary to what you originally wanted - to tidy and dress up the engine bay - so I have to suggest that you just ignore me and leave it as it is - if it is running well then what more could you ask for? As long as you don't have emissions testing you should be fine. I don't think the carbon cannister etc. would achieve anything there anyway, only a visual inspection would require them to be present (I think they have something like that in California?). If you want to switch to e-mail with any further discussion then that is fine with me, but I shoudl point out that I am not really an expert, and you may bet better informaiton from others. It is also worth saying that I often search the archives for answers to questions, and it is handy to have the information available rather than a frustrating "let's talk about this offline" type of ending! Cheers Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
Off-line... I agree that many searchable discussions become useful information to others, especially me... there's no end to the learning curve. However, when I get carried away on the BBS I'll get concerned over my ramblings not adding value. Engine Bay Clean-up... Ontario exempts cars/trucks of my vintage regarding emissions testing since the cars are driven so few miles and retro fitting can be complex. Collector car emissions are the least of California's many concerns wouldn't you agree. BTW, I had an all original 56 Chevy BelAir (V8/265) 2-door hard top for many years. I showed it in Toronto and later participated in shows, concours tours, car club events, etc. when we lived in Ottawa. Environment Canada borrowed the car to do emissions testing in their lab... this was during the 1970's... and the car passed all tests except for hydrocarbons on cold start. I think sometimes the car hobby takes unfair knocks re emissions. Thank you for your help. Will catch up later re valve cover. |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Alistair, You mention that you could not make the valve cover fit. I have the same valve cover and found that it would not clear the roller rockers due to the recessed bosses at the stud attach points. Is that the problem you have run into? If so, I have a fix that works. I also did a baffle cover for the breather tube, but took a different approach due to rocker clearance considerations. A thin piece of annealed 3003 aluminum sheet was cut to width such that the roller rockers would clear. It was then bent to shape, lined up and bonded with a high temperature adhesive to the valve cover. After the adhesive cured, two holes were drilled though the valve cover and the baffle. Two solid rivets were "wet installed" with polysulfide sealant and bucked into place. Please see picture.  |
| SteveP1 |
| Hi Steve That's a much more professional looking baffle than I put together! Thanks for the information - maybe I will try again one day. My fitting problem was with the water pump housing - I bought an alloy housing to save weight (like a couple of pounds matters when driving my 4 year old daughter for ice cream...), and it seems that the housing overlapped the area the rocker cover wanter to occupy ever so slightly. I could have filed the cover or the housing, but I was not in the mood. The housing was a huge hassle (as I have mentioned previously, due to many stripped threads due to the soft material), and I was fed up at the time. I shipped the rocker cover off to Ken today, and just arranged by chance the same day I arranged to buy an emissions cannister for my Stag with the proceeds. I hope that I can find someone to tell me how to hook that one up! Cheers Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
| Hey there... With a little help from my friends I've made out and fulfilled my own Christmas list with heater and rad hoses (green), spark plug & coil wires (green), pertronix coil (chrome), valve cover (polished alloy) via Alistair, the SS rad shroud is already in, I'll order the bonnet liner next month, a K&N air filter pkg., and a few other goodies. TRF had a great sale that ended last Thursday as most of you know (25% off) and the bonnet liner will come from Jeff at LBCCo. If I add 50-100 hours of elbow grease I may have a presentable engine bay next summer. Thanks guys... I really like this Triumph BBS thing. It's expensive but inspiring. Ken Next I have to spend some time learning about my carbs and breather / emissions system. If you read the thread I have many carbon canister related hoses missing on my car (that's good), but open ended brass tubes on my carbs, and incorrectly routed but functional rubber hoses that do whatever. Always learning and progressing. |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Ken .... For a little bling bling check out www.paltech1.com ..... I haven't used them but hope to in the near future |
| A Findlay |
| Sweetness... I'm thinking these cars become the 'never ending story' as each beautiful engine bay component makes the part beside it look like heck. Kinda like a new suit with old shirt and shoes. I'm going to look into buying a brush for my high speed drill. Maybe there's a Dremel kit or something. Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| Rick... not engine bay related but I ordered and received in less than one week (from Rimmer Bros) a Moto Lita 13" flat wood trim steering wheel. I recall you saying that you had gone wood and smaller and I think we talked about the comfort improvement for me (long legs). You were right of course and I can get in and out more easily now. Many thanks. The wheel looks good to boot! Ken |
| Ken Shaddock |
| So where is the pic Ken. An English buddy buys all his stuff from Rimmers. Like you, one week delivery. Rick |
| Rick Crawford |
| I don't know what is holding up your Rimmer Bros orders - last order I placed was mid-morning on a Tuesday, so about 3pm there. The parcel was on my doorstep on Wednesday by 10am. Under 24 hours total, and it went via Germany! Faster than parcels from TRF, and they are 1 state over. I went with the leather Moto Lita from Rimmers during their TR6 sale earlier this year - with the favourable exchange rate and no shipping (picked up on a visit to England) the wheel and hub package was considerably cheaper than just the hub from TRF! They have an offer n at the moment for about 15% off - code is EX339D, in case anyone didn't get the flyer. Cheers Alistair |
| A Hewitt |
Holy smokes Alistair... you must be Sir Alistair MBE to receive that kind of service. Here's a pic Rick.
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| Ken Shaddock |
| The interiour and the steering wheel look real good Ken. Alistair gotta admit, Woody does get his stuff faster than a week. Rick |
| Rick Crawford |
| Ken Looks nice! How do you find the steering effort with the 13 inch wheel? Some comment that it becomes unacceptably heavy - maybe you haven't yet driven the car with the new wheel fitted. Barry 75 TR6 |
| BJ Quartermaine |
| Have not driven it BJ... you're right. I just installed it last week - car is in "storage mode" for winter which hurts a bit. Am putting heat in the garage though so my visits to see Dorothy this winter will be more frequent ;). I do expect it to be tougher to steer but Rick says he got used to it so I'm determined to give it a try. If it's a brute I'll buy a 14" next summer and sell the 13. |
| Ken Shaddock |
This thread was discussed between 05/10/2009 and 26/10/2009
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