Everyday Modifications for Your Triumph E-Book

Iain Ayre

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The books in the Everyday Modifications series are designed to guide classic car owners through the workshop skills needed to make their vehicles easier to use and enjoy. This book is concerned with improving the 4-cylinder Spitfire and Herald, and the 6-cylinder Vitesse and GT6, with engines ranging in size from 948cc to 1998cc. Classic car author and journalist Iain Ayre gives his hands-on advice on maintaining and modifying the Triumph Herald/Vitesse and Spitfire/GT6, covering both keeping them going and either subtly or dramatically improving them, with additional rescue options offered for Triumphs deemed economically terminal. The advice, based on decades of restoration and racing, covers improvements in power, handling, comfort and safety; period design faults isolated and remedied; electrics demystified, modernizing options discussed; six case studies; radical - as well as mild - modification options discussed. Superbly illustrated with over 250 colour photographs including rare period shots.

Leseprobe

First published in 2016 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

© Iain Ayre 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 176 5

contents

Introduction

1    Buying the Right Triumph: Value for Money

2    Masterclasses

3    Triumph Engines

4    Transmission

5    Suspension and Steering

6    Brakes

7    Wheels and Tyres

8    Structure and Interior

9    Electrics

10  Maintaining Performance

11  Case Studies

Index

introduction

‘Straight from the horse’s mouth’ is an excellent adage suggesting where you would find good advice, and in this book it is fulfilled on three counts: this is because here we have an author who owned a good few Triumphs back when they were still fairly current; a technical consultant who has run a Triumph restoration business for decades; and input from a designer who worked at one of the prime developers of tuning accessories for Triumphs.

Iain Ayre has been driving and writing books and articles about Triumphs, MGs, Jaguars, TVRs and other British classics for longer than he cares to remember: hence the scarf made of event lanyards.

Randy Zoller has been racing, restoring and repairing Triumphs, Healeys, Morgans, TVRs and other British classics for longer than he cares to remember as well. Check him out at www.britishheritagemotorsports.com.

Iain’s default/favourite motor car during the 1970s was the Triumph Vitesse, alternating between convertible and saloon versions. This was one of the better examples.

Many of the Triumphs photographed for this book are left-hand drive. This is because I live in the Pacific Northwest, which was a significant export market for Triumph and MG. Much of the research for the book also took place at a Triumph restoration shop, in San Diego, California. Something like half of all Spitfire production went to North America, and many of them are still there. On the Vancouver Craigslist, a free advertising site, on a random day in June 2015, there were twenty-nine Triumphs for sale.

My Triumphs have comprised an early Herald convertible with a cardboard dash; a Herald estate with crumbling outriggers on which a rear trailing arm came adrift under way, which was even more of a surprise than a previous swing-arm-related rear-wheel jack-up; a Vitesse Six convertible, and a couple of Vitesse saloons; two Spitfires that were bought at December prices, driven through the winter at college to save money, then painted and sold in June to fund long holidays in France; a late-model GT6; and finally a Midge, which is a 1930s-style kit car intended for a Herald or a square-tube replacement Herald chassis, and which in my case was the first 6-cylinder example. This was based on my mother’s crumbling Vitesse, which she crashed, and which was transformed into a Midge and given back to her: she drove it with style and panache until her eighties.