What... the Diff?

(post from Jack)

The diff is out - you'll have to take my word for it since i forgot the camera today.

But first - this morning, Joe let me in his rented garage to collect the wheels and trailing arms from "the farm car" that we recently dragged out of a field. This is when I first really missed the camera - Joe removing the front wheels in his lawyer shirt and tie would have been a great shot. Loaded with 8 wheels - 4 from the farm car and 4 from Lacey - I went to see Jon Cannup - he dismounted all 8 dry-rotted Michelins - all 8 had tubes - which is surely the only reason any of them held air more than 5 minutes.

Anyway - we spun all 8 wheels on Jon's balancer - on a TR6 lug pattern adapter - I'm gonna call 5 of them pretty good and 3 of them good enough to use...

On to Concord - Lacey let go the diff with little resistance today - all 4 bolts on the front flange broke loose - then I managed to borrow a vise grip small enough to grab the pin inside the broken mount and keep it from spinning. Unfortunately the broken mount is worse than I thought - I had thought (by feel) that the front edge of the mount had just separated from the frame - turns out the whole front half of the mount is missing - along with a bit of the frame to which it was attached.

Todd - our welder / cage fabricator - looked at the car today on the lift - before I got there - I should let Joe report on that as he talked to Todd and I haven't - but I gather he saw nothing un-repairable and gave the thing a really good look as he spotted something I had not - the part of the body shell to which the front right corner of the driver side floor pan is attached is ...ah...not really attached to anything anymore - but it sounds like Todd can fix everything - and weld the diff - and still be cheaper than anybody else.

Cheers,

Jack Mc

well, THIS isn't going well...

(post from Jack)

Lacey gave up the rear part of her exhaust pretty easy - but won't let go of her diff - and the front right diff mount is broken - that's the hardest one to see with the exhaust in place - and the break had been effectively hidden by a rather half-baked repair - which I will try to explain once i get the diff out. Right now the pin in the right front mount threatens to spin in place forever - and after wasting a lot of time with PB Blaster, Sili-Kroil and a torch, I wound up cutting all 8 bolts holding the axle flanges to the diff and tomorrow will probably cut 2 of the 4 bolts holding the driveshaft flange to the front of the diff.

You may have noticed I have loaned Lacey 4 other wheels to wear while I get the tires off her old ones - which I will then evaluate before I blast them.

watch for another update tomorrow.

Cheers,

Jack Mc

PS. Will Taylor (owner and co-driver of last year's One-Lap of America winning Nissan GTR) stopped by today, pointed to a part on the car and said "What's that - part of the brake bias system?" He'd never seen or heard of a lever-arm shock - geez... kids these days...

I had a disagreement with Lacey today....

(Post from Jack)

- she didn't want to let go of her windshield frame.

things got messy...and ugly.

But, in the end, Lacey let go the windshield frame and survived just fine - same cannot be said for the windshield and frame - both of which died an ugly death.

I especially like the trail of dislodged rust dust under the sill.

Cheers,

Jack Mc

HoleyFramenCruciform!!

(Photo from Jack in Charlotte)
Picture says it all. Welding will commence shortly.

eBay auctions begin...

So, the great sell-off has entered Phase II; if you need TR6 parts, please check out our auctions at:

eBay Auction Link

and bid, bid, BID!!! :-) Just remember, you're supporting a grassroots Triumph race team looking to show everyone that a Triumph can still win races...

Update from Charlotte!

From Joe:
"Lacey arrived safely. After some "Triumph Shuffling" she is resting comfortably at a shop (Jack's rented space) in Concord N.C. We have names of several cage builders in the area and plan to move forward ASAP."

"On another front, Jack was kind enough to spend several hours (even though he had an autocross to prepare for!) to help me move a '76 TR6 parts car out of the woods where it had been for 10+ years into a rented garage that I have. We removed the gas tank, which Jack will inspect for integrity. If it is in good shape, we have our gas tank! There could be additional parts that we can use. A good couple of days!"

Hooray for the Charlotte guys!

Lacey moves to Charlotte

On Friday, four of our six team members met up at Wayne's Alignment in Siler City to talk about Lacey and transfer her to Charlotte to the custody of Jack and Joe for cage installation. We also resolved to enter the August 21-22 ChumpCar race at Roebling Road as our first event. That seems awfully soon as I type it.

Joe took this picture of me "driving" the car as we winched it on to Jack's trailer...seat is just placed into position...actually, it's not even in position yet...we decided we have to take 2" out of the middle of the seat, so we need to find a friendly TIG welder...

On the bright side, the eBay auctions for the remaining parts will start shortly... :-)