RiffRAF Racing -- Triumph's finest on a $500 budget!

Will we finish (and win) races, or will we let the magic Lucas smoke out first? Watch the continuing adventures as we try to defy history and create a reliable and fast TR6 on the smallest of budgets!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Flush, Flush, Flush...and then flush some more...



These pictures say it all. After over an hour of flushing the block, including physically breaking open the clogs from the rear block screw-in plug, this is what the residue looked like when the water dried. I won't tell you how it felt when the plug let go in my face...let's just say that when Lacey's incontinent...she's REALLY incontinent.
Jack's take: The Trail of Tears...looks, to the casual observer, like a trail of rust...but this is actually the trail of tears of neglect shed by Lacey's engine block and heater core.




All this time, we thought she was just stubborn - resisting every effort to remove every rusted, neglected fastener - now we can see she actually was crying for help: "my block is clogged with rust and I've got a blown head gasket!" - she is now being much more cooperative - I have removed the intake and exhaust manifolds without encountering a single stubborn fastener - keep your fingers crossed and hope this continues through water pump housing and head removal this week.
"Head removal"? Watch for the next post.

Them's The Brakes!

From a 5/25 email from Jack titled "Them's The Brakes":


What another time sucking nightmare of frustration this was - Lacey's calipers didn't wanna give up their pads, let alone their pistons - got em all out though - only got one piston out of the farm car's calipers so far - will briefly try again this am before i send them off and let a pro try - rebuilding calipers is dead-nuts easy to do - if you can get em apart.
The pads looked almost new - but I'll bet the last time this puppy was driven, the outboard pistons weren't moving at all.

Irony of ironies: right after this struggle, i went in the house for dinner and Caroline handed me a bottle of sparkling wine she couldn't get the plastic cork out of - "sure - I'll take it out to the garage and hit it with a torch and some PB blaster - then maybe an air hammer". She decided to have something else to drink with dinner.

I must say the arrival of this box was yesterday's only real bright spot:

Friday, June 11, 2010

Update

No time to update the blog lately, but here's what's been going on:
  • Lacey has suspension, steering and almost brakes
  • We have another work session scheduled for Saturday
  • Jack has been slaving away on the car
  • We're hoping to have her driveable by the time we leave on Saturday
  • It would be nice to at least be able to have a little time to shake her down
  • Jack wants to run her in an autocross at the end of June...
  • Lots of fabrication work left (metal bulkheads, installing taillights, aux. headlights, cool suit cooler mounting, battery isolation, etc....)
  • The car has acquired a (used) graphic that inspired me to change the blog background today... :-)