Having got the engine mounted properly I was able to finish making the mounting plate for the back of the gearbox. This is just a flat piece of 4mm steel drilled to mount onto the original chassis holes for the Triumph gearbox and then also drilled to accept the new gearbox mounting which is the same as a Ford type 9. A relatively easy job apart from having to dodge the rain showers whilst trying to apply paint.
I've also made up some proper mountings for the fuel tank. Previously it has always been mounted securely enough but I've never been entirely happy with the arrangement. A bit of fabrication with some aluminium box and angle has sorted that out.
Yes, there are a lot of blanking grommets in the boot floor! This car has seen a number of different tank mounting and plumbing arrangements over the years, plus all the holes that Triumph put there in the first place.
At some point I decided to fit two fuel pumps to the car. I don't entirely remember the reasoning behind this decision but it probably had something to do with protecting against pump failure during a race.
In any case, I fitted all the plumbing and finished the wiring for the pumps. The result now resembles a refinery but at least I shouldn't have a problem with fuel flow to the carbs!
There's just the last length of pipe to fit from the fuel filter out through the boot floor but I ran out of fuel hose at that point.
I've also finished building up the wiring harness for the engine bay and tested it. I'm happy to report that everything works except the horn and that's the fault of the horn itself (bought second hand "tested and working"!) rather than my wiring.
I think that the only electrical circuits I've not been able to test now are the radiator fan, water pump, water temperature sender and reversing lights. The first three because I don't have them on the car yet. The reversing lights because I broke a terminal off the switch whilst fitting it. A replacement is on order.
In between the bigger jobs I fitted a few external parts to the engine. When I came to fit the distributor I realised it still had a cheap "temporary fix" rotor arm in it. I have some good quality ones on the shelf so I fitted one of those but whilst doing that I noticed that the shaft didn't rotate smoothly.
That seemed odd, especially as the problem seemed to come and go at random as I spun the shaft. It seemed further investigation was in order. Stripping the distributor revealed that it was full of aluminium dust. It also revealed the reason why.
That screw, washer and spring washer were under the bottom plate that carries the advance weights and were gradually being thrown around and grinding away at the body. Part of the bottom plate was also bent.
I've no idea how long they've been in there. Obviously the engine has been running like that judging by the amount of swarf.
Once everything was cleaned and reassembled there was a screw missing from the baseplate at the top so presumably that's where the errant one came from.
Whilst reassembling I realised I'd failed to take note of which way round the drive dog was supposed to fit so I've no idea whether I've refitted it correctly or 180 degrees out. I'll have to check before fitting the unit to the engine.
The distributor cap also broke when I put that back so I'll have to try and track down a source of good quality replacements. The spare I have on the shelf is made of really thin and nasty plastic.
Next job is to borrow an extra pair of hands to complete the wrapping of the front sections of the wiring loom. After that there are a couple of light bulbs and a replacement horn to fit but I don't think there are many more big jobs to do before I stop work on this car in order to start on the other one.
That's not to say I won't have thought of a few more by next week mind you!
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