Tag: tr6

What I’ve Been Doing

Last I left off, I was going to put an extra manifold gasket on my Triumph. I did that, and it definitely fixed the sucking noise issue, but I still didn’t have any luck with the idle problem. More expensive and pressing car problems came up, so that’s where things are still sitting. I haven’t driven the car in a few weeks. Before the summer is over, I’m going to get new diaphragms for the bypass valves and a new ground wire for the distributor. I have a friend with a shop that will soon be able to do state inspections, so I’ll have him inspect it when he’s able, and maybe I’ll borrow his compression tester while I’m there to see how the engine is doing inside. But after that, I’m done spending money on the car for the season. I have other things that need my money and time, and an annoying car can be put on the back burner.

In tech news, my Ceton TV tuner died about a month ago. Just overnight, poof, it didn’t work. There was no obvious damage to the hardware or software, and I spent two hours with Verizon support diagnosing the problem. I initially ordered another used Ceton tuner from eBay, then decided to return it and get a new HDHomerun Prime for about the same price. The HDHomerun is a sort of re-run of a tuner that originally came out like 10 years ago, so it only has three tuners to the Ceton’s six, which is a disappointment. On the bright side, it actually works, has a warranty, and the company still exists. Plus, it works with whatever software, so I don’t need to run a whole Windows VM just for CetonProxy anymore. Which brings me to my next item:

I finally plugged my server into a Kill-a-Watt, and (probably unsurprisingly) it uses a ton of power at idle, which is most of the time. Right now it only runs a couple of fairly light VMs, so processor utilization is almost always in the low single digits, but it uses 200 watts of power. I explored a few options to get rid of the whole server, including hosting Jellyfin on a Raspberry Pi, but it’s just impossible to beat the cost per terabyte on the big server. My six 3TB hard drives in a ZFS array give me 12TB of usable storage, and a failure tolerance of up to three disks (or two, I can’t remember now). Anyways, even getting just 6TB of total storage (two 6TB drives with RAID 1) would cost about $300 for new ones, and I’m still left with only half the storage space that I have now. And while that Raspberry Pi runs Jellyfin very nicely (thanks to the hardware accelerated video playback), NextPVR can’t take advantage of that same acceleration, so web browser viewing of live TV is impossible. So I’d have to purchase new hardware. Prices for crap office desktops are seemingly up from last year, which bites. Factoring in selling the server components, I’d probably come out about even switching to lower power consumer hardware. So rather than do all that stuff, I bought some different processors, a pair of Xeon E5-2450Ls, the 65 watt version of my current 95 watt 2450s. This should give some decent power savings I think, plus I’m going to take out the graphics card that I never could get working for transcoding. The processors should be in by early next week, so I’ll make an update when I get them installed.

More on the Triumph

Since my last update, I got the Triumph registered and on the road. After the first test drive I knew I had some more work to do. While the car would idle like a champ, when the engine was subjected to even a mild load, it would ping (detonation or pre-ignition) like crazy. I tried enriching the fuel mixture and retarding the timing, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I realized my timing reading of 20°-28° BTDC was probably correct. I retarded the timing as far as I could, but the engine would stall out, even with the timing set nearer to 20°. I decided to try replacing my Pertronix electronic ignition with the old points and condenser. To my surprise, this actually made a small but noticeable difference. The engine started much easier and the pinging was slightly better. Not good enough to be usable, but better. I replaced the old points and condenser with new parts for good measure, but that didn’t magically solve my problem.

It was looking like I’d have to dive into the valve timing. Several years ago, I replaced the original camshaft with an aftermarket performance cam that came with the car. I didn’t fully understand the procedure for synchronizing the cam and crankshaft in the workshop manual, so I made my own timing marks on the sprockets and lined it up as best I could. This turned out to be a mistake. With a newfound comprehension of the “on the rock” method of setting up cam/crank timing, I discovered I set up the camshaft about 20° ahead of where it should have been. I’d been dreading this, even though from the start I knew it was almost inevitable. Adjusting cam timing on this car is a big job, and I was really hoping to avoid it.

I decided to get started in the evening, and I was able to get everything apart, set the correct timing and then start with the reassembly before dark. I finished up by about noon the next day. This test drive was much, much better. I was still getting some pinging, but it was vastly improved. The timing light showed a much more sane 8°-10° BTDC, which is an oft-recommended setting on the forums. However, I couldn’t really get the car to idle, plus there was still the pining I mentioned. The valve cover gasket was wrecked, so I decided to put the car away and do some research.

After a little reading, today I decided to remove the bypass valves and temperature compensators from the carbs and cap their holes to see if they were at fault. I think it may have made a small improvement, but the car still wouldn’t idle nicely. I was able to get the idle down for long enough to hear a loud sucking noise though. I discovered the manifold (the intake and exhaust manifolds share a gasket on this car) gasket was leaking. I never noticed the sucking noise before, and previous attempts at spraying the area with carb cleaner and starting fluid revealed nothing either. Luckily, I have an extra gasket that’s been hanging around for a while. I’m going to try to get it installed tomorrow, and I think I’ll double up my gaskets. Some people on the forums recommend that. I figure it can’t hurt. I’m hoping fixing this gasket issue should finally get the car into a driveable state.

Finally an Update on the Triumph

I promised to post an update on my Triumph (named Nigel) just about a month ago. I’ve made some great progress, and this time I remembered to take some pictures.

In the last update, I managed to get the car running, but only with the choke on. This seemed to point towards a vacuum leak, but I couldn’t find a strong one. Using the ol’ spray some carb cleaner all over the place method, I learned the spacers between the carburetors and intake manifold weren’t making an airtight seal. I ordered new spacers and gaskets, and that actually made a big difference. Along the way I also removed the EGR system, disconnected the vacuum retard on the distributor and the bypass valves on the carburetors. I may reinstate the bypass valves after some driving.

If you know what to look for, you’ll notice the absence of an EGR system and the addition of an oil catch can. The heater valve is new, replacing an old leaky one. The stock air filters are on, but I’d like to replace them with something aftermarket. I know this car came with some oval shaped foam ones, but I have to find them, if I didn’t throw them away.

At the same time, I discovered the vent port on the rocker cover was spewing smoke into the carburetors, upsetting the airflow and causing difficulty with keeping the engine running. I rerouted the engine fumes into an oil catch can, but I may try to put this system back to stock in the future. The catch can doesn’t catch everything, and smoke still comes out of it. I think this is probably a sign that the piston rings could use replacement, but we’ll see how it goes. I’d like to kick that can as far down the road as I can. I’ve read that filling the engine oil to the top mark on the dipstick may in fact overfill the engine, so I’m going to try putting somewhat less oil in when I change it.

I also advanced the ignition timing quite a bit, enough to be off the scale on the crank pulley, and that made the biggest difference in the engine’s ability to run normally. Whether the timing is actually about 26° BTDC, I don’t know. The crank pulley may not be correct anymore. I’m hoping the timing works on the road, because the engine has never run this well or been this easy to start before. Reports on the TR6 forums suggest that this timing will probably be fine, but it varies car to car.

Moving to the other side of the engine, you can see the new wiring for the electric fan.

The wires could use a little organization, but they get the job done. The rocker cover leaks of course, but I’m going to leave it and see how bad it is. I may add a bead of RTV silicone under the gasket if it’s too leaky.

The bundle of wires below the radiator are for the fan controller, which works wonderfully. Part (or maybe all) of the reason it wasn’t working was because I had it wired wrong. I may not have needed the new temperature sensor, but it’s a lot more elegant than shoving a probe into the radiator fins. The only problem with it is the fan uses a lot of electrical power. With the engine idling, there’s barely enough power to run the ignition system and the fan, so the engine comes close to stalling. I just had the original alternator (a 40 amp unit I think) rebuilt, so I don’t want to replace it now, but I might next season. There are plenty of higher output options for the TR6.

Today I decided I’d see if a polish and wax would wake up the paint at all. I had mixed results, but no parts are worse than before.

The right front portion and the hood is slightly better, but not great. The right rear is actually not terrible. The trunk has a couple spots I need to grind down and hit with primer soon.

The vertical surfaces of the left side however, came back pretty nicely.

Just like the engine could probably use a rebuild, the body needs a repaint. A good paint job will be out of my budget for the foreseeable future though. Plus I don’t know what color I’d paint it.

The interior isn’t in amazing shape either, but it stays put together. I need to get carpet some day and replace the trim near the center control knobs.

The car just needs a tail light socket and it’ll be ready for inspection. That and an a few other parts should be in tomorrow. I have new engine mounts already that need to be installed in the next couple weeks. My latest order includes new front shocks and wheel bearings, plus parts to help replace the half shaft universal joints. I’ve had the joints themselves for a while now. I need to replace the rear shocks and springs too (especially with the new exhaust, the mufflers hang really low), but they’ll have to wait a little while.

I Got the Triumph Running

It’s time for an update, and it’s a good one. After a surprisingly short amount of work, I got the Triumph running, and running somewhat better than I expected. I regret not taking any pictures during the process, but it wasn’t really that exciting. I have a few things to address before the car is road-ready, but they shouldn’t present much trouble.

The first thing I did was remove the alternator and take it to a local place for a rebuild. Last time I was working on the car, I hooked up a jump pack backwards and smoke came out of the alternator. After taking it off and spinning it, I found the bearings a little stiff, so it was probably time for a refreshing anyways.

Next, I replaced the head gasket. I figured the gasket needed replacing due to a compression test from the last time I worked on the car. All the cylinders had compression, but it was low and very inconsistent. I expected to need most of the day to prep the head for removal; in fact, it took barely over an hour. I was ready to remove the head at around 11:30am, but no one was around to help me (with both manifolds attached it probably weighs 70-100 pounds). So I decided to work on something else I’ve been meaning to get to.

I’ve wanted to remove the engine-powered cooling fan and replace it with an electric fan for quite a while. I’ve had a fan and a controller kit, plus an engine fan eliminator kit ready to go for a few years. While waiting for my wife to get home to help with the head, I went ahead with the electric fan installation. The fan I bought was too thick to use as a puller behind the radiator, but luckily it was reversible, and thus easily mountable on the front of the radiator. I used the supplied zip ties to mount the fan to the radiator, and then connected the controller. After getting the car running, I discovered two problems with the controller: one, connecting it to the ignition coil doesn’t provide enough power, so I’ll probably connect it straight to the battery; two, the included push-in probe that sticks in the radiator fins sucks and doesn’t with with my radiator. I ordered a screw in replacement that I’ll put in a metal tee in the upper radiator hose.

I still had some time leftover, so I gave the carburetors a quick clean up and refresh and bought some supplies like coolant and a battery.

Once my wife got home, we took the head off, and to my surprise the gasket appeared to be in fine shape. I was expecting a missing chunk or something like last time. The block appeared in good shape also, and so did the head and all the valves. I don’t have a straight edge, so I didn’t check flatness, but I don’t think it’s an issue; I’ve never had coolant and oil mixing. I put the new gasket on and we set the head down on it. The next day I took maybe two hours or so to button it up.

Once everything was bolted together and filled up and plugged in, it was time to fire up the car. It took maybe half an hour of trying to get the car started, and when it did finally get going, it would only stay running with my foot holding the throttle open slightly. Yesterday, I mostly fixed the hard starting problem by adjusting the choke, which wasn’t doing anything at all. Now the car will run unattended, but only with the choke on. That seems to point to some kind of vacuum leak. I tried to track one down last time, but to no avail. Currently, my top potential culprits are the EGR valve, which I plan on eliminating, or the rocker cover, which is kind of out of shape. I plan to address that with a bit of RTV silicone. Hopefully that will take care of things and I can get the car registered and on the road in a week or two. I’ll be sure to add some pictures to the next post.

Getting the Triumph Back on the Road

After five years of sitting, I’ve decided it’s finally time to get my 1974 Triumph TR6 running and back on the road. In 2016 (I think), I had it running after repairing a damaged head gasket. That fix only lasted a handful of miles. I did a compression test at the time, and determined another failed head gasket is likely the problem. I think they keep blowing because the engine overheats. The radiator is full and the water pump is good, so I think the ignition timing is the culprit. To cover all the bases, I have a 160° thermostat to put in to keep things cooler.

It took so long because I haven’t had the right combination of money and time until now. About a year ago, with pandemic benefits coming in, I bought almost everything I needed to get the car going. I couldn’t get rocker shaft studs though, so the project was put on hold again. I rounded up the remaining parts today and ordered them. Hopefully they’ll be in by next week. In the meantime, I need to get the alternator rebuilt, which a local company can probably handle. I’ll be dropping it off tomorrow.

Once the parts are in, the whole thing should probably only take a few hours, potentially spread over two or three days. I have a vacuum gauge to accurately set the ignition timing now, so hopefully I can avoid overheating this time.