Shynsy

8 hours ago, Tim Bancroft said:

Shynsy's TR6 is a beauty.

Otherwise have a look at carandclassic.co.uk...

Thanks Tim 😊 

PM me.  I have rather special TR6 that I might be interested in selling. 

Hi Danny, 

Needles have arrived. Thank you so much. Well impressed with royal mail delivery! If the salt is not too bad I'll give them a go at the weekend. 

Tim

Thanks Danny,

Clive, If I get the chance I'll run all 4 needle types with the AFR and then put the data up here.. Might be kinda interesting.. Not a rolling road test. but I have a standard run on a set peice of road which is handy for tuning for real world running

Tim

13 minutes ago, Clive said:

They are both between the needles you already have, so I would ask to try both. See what works best? 

I am sure Danny can be bribed.

You are probably right, but was trying not to be too greedy 🙂

ABK looks like it could work. That would be Fab.

Would you be happy for me to try them?

Tim

That would be fab Danny. 

2 hours ago, Clive said:

ABT are std 1500 needles, so somebody may have some they can lend you to try? 

That would be really helpful 😀

Looks like it would work (see below).

I am going to drive the car this weekend to see how it feels and do some logging of some acceleration runs before shelling out cash 🙂

Tim

1 hour ago, Clive said:

http://www.mintylamb.co.uk/suneedle/

ABT maybe? Or take a file to the needles.

The trouble is that the needles move down under acceleration, so you are working with a number of variables. The spring and damper oil will affect mixture under acceleration. 

Thanks have been playing with the minty lamb site. Very helpful.  Will check out ABT. 

Tim

Ok so still not 100% happy with the way the car is running. AFR says it is running too rich at wide open throttle and it feels a bit "fluffy" at full throttle. So decided to change the plugs which were really sooty and are not a make I have come across. New set of NGKs fitted and needles swapped back to AAN. Used the AFR to set idle mixture and went for a drive. Feels much crisper. Mixture at full throttle is now a little lean. I adjusted idle a little richer to help a little. Still not perfect mixture at full throttle. But much better. Going to leave it as is for now. (Famous last words. )  Might see if there is a needle between the 2..

Tim 

Ok good to know. I have bought the Canley classics rebush kit.. people have advised me it is the best. A project for the winter months. Another thing I have uncovered is the main beam warning light not appearing when main beam is on. Deeper investigation showed that the the bulb is working but it is not illuminating the jewel on the speedo. Guess something is in the way in the guage. Anyone had this before?

On 19/11/2023 at 12:42, Tim Bancroft said:

I had a chat with MIke Papworth at the NEC last weekend, he is still making conversion units. I am amazed that there is still a market for them.

Must say, I rather the three rail change, in a Spittie I found the change to be very good. Single rail I used in the 1500 an ex had, always felt clumsy in comparison.

2 supplers are either Mike P or Paul Hughes of 2Spec near Solihul. Dave Pearson may have some core though.

I had a single rail on my first spit and it seems a lot less waggly than my 3 rail. Perhaps it needs new bushes?

Just acquired a new member of my garage. A 72 spit to match my 72 TR6 and 72 Stag. After sorting a fuel mixture issue. Was running weak on AAN needles with a free flow airfilter. Changed to AAQ and mixture looks a lit better. I am thinking of a few gentle upgrades. The aim of the purchase is to get my 20yo son into classics and the dream is for him to do the RBRR sometime in the future. Thinking of some gentle upgrades to help performance a tad. Thinking free flow manifold and suspension rebush. But am also wondering about replacing the 3 rail gearbox with a single rail with overdrive. Good move? Or should I go 3 rail with overdrive? Any other thoughts on gentle upgrades?

Car is very original so nothing outrageous or irreversible. 

Cheers

Tim

On 22/10/2023 at 12:08, Tim Hunt said:

I was impressed by Alan Chatterton's headlights on the 2018 RBRR and he told me the bulbs were 'Nighteyes' (more recently re-branded as 'Novsight') so on returning home I ordered a pair of H4 bulbs on ebay (for only £19.89!!). They were nicely packaged and seemed very nice quality for the astonishingly low price. They did not have integral fans, rather relying on ribbed aluminium heat sinks for cooling. They have tiny LED light sources intended to mimic exactly the positions of dip and main beam filaments in a conventional incandescent bulb. Having heard horror stories about uncontrolled beams from cheap far eastern LED bulbs, before I fitted them I pulled the TR up a few metres from my garage door and carefully marked the cut off of the dipped beam pattern from my existing Philips Racing Vision halogen H4s. I then replaced these by the Novsight bulbs and repeated the exercise. The beam pattern on dip was identical with an excellent, sharp asymmetric cut off. These bulbs illuminate the nearside kerb or verge well ahead with a very impressive spread of light and cause no inconvenience to oncoming drivers. As I am still running a dynamo a big bonus of the LED bulbs is the dramatically reduced power consumption. It is still odd to switch on the headlights and see the ammeter needle hardly deflect! 

I particularly appreciated these LED bulbs on the 2021 RBRR and after nearly five years they continue to impress on any night drive. I see no reason to upgrade to Philips or other more exotic LEDs at £80+ a pair. How much better can they be?

Tim

Tim, that is really interesting.. I had exactly the reverse experience with the same bulbs in my stag. I fitted them and had a very embarrassing 2 hour drive back from Stansted when everyone was flashing me. I then took them to get professionally aligned by my trusted MoT man and he could not get a decent image on his gizmo and advised them to junk them. I did check the beam against a wall before I junked them and it did have a fair amount of stray light on the oncoming vehicle side.  

Now I am wondering if it is my reflectors, although I had no flashes from oncoming traffic through out the rbrr when I refitted osram night breakers. 

Odd

Tim

On 14/10/2023 at 12:31, Andy Flexney said:

I had a similar issue years ago and after changing the battery and still having the problem. I eventually found I had a bad earth. In this particular case it was the negative cable to battery terminal connector. Changed that and everything was fine with both old and new batteries.

After all that rain and the position of the Stag battery it could be that you have corrosion on one or both of the terminals.

Thanks. Have just checked the earths. Cleaned the link to the chassis from the battery. Should sort any problems there.

Tim

On 14/10/2023 at 10:44, Howard said:

Our cars have to be legal for use on the road, so headlights have to already meet the MOT beam requirements. While not a legal requirement, many of us still have a regular MOT inspection, so our lights have already been checked.

I suspect that the main cause of the problem is that when the car is MOT tested it is unloaded, but during events like the RBRR in addition to a crew it also has a boot loaded with tools and spares. After I realised some years ago that my dipped lights were still causing problems for people in front, I leave a representative load in the boot when its MOT checked so my lights don't blind people in front.

Cheers

Howard

 

Couldn't agree more. Rbrr 2021 we ran my TR6 with LEDs. While not as bad as some it was clear they were aimed too high. This was despite getting them set up in an mot the week before. But this was an empty car. I think 2 seaters suffer from thus worse than saloons as you sit close to the back axles. For this rbrr I drove my stag. I played with LEDs and also all 4 headlamps on for dipped beams during the year. In both these configuration despite the aims in theory being good I had oncoming cars flashing. In the end I settled on halogen night breakers on the outer lights running dip and main and a pair of leds on the inner running as mains. No flashes and the main beams were awesome. 

Interestingly my mot station rejected one set of quite expensive leds as there was no beam pattern. 

Tim 

4 hours ago, Tim Bancroft said:

Tim,

Are you sure the alternator is good? Have you put a meter across the battery terminals to check its charging?

Hi Tim, seems to be working ok. Getting up to 14.2V out of the alternator..

tim

Ours was very minor.  Near the end of the run our stag seemed sluggish to start. In fact it would not start at all when we ran the starter but would instead start when the key was moved back to the ignition position and the inertia of the engine rotating allowed the car to start.  After a bit if head scratching we diagnosed a failing battery which meant the volts dropped to low when the starter was running for the electronic ignition to fire. Once the starter was de-energised the volts popped back up and the ignition fired and the car started..

We also noticed this was a lot worse with lights, wipers etc on. Stressing the battery further. So from bude starting was like that scene from apollo 13. Everything drawing current was turned off, even phone chargers and then wang the starter and hope. 
 

annoyingly i had a new battery ready to fit back in the garage

on a previous run we were saved from a broken throttle cable 20 miles from home by a modified bike brake cable  i always carry one..

tim

2 hours ago, Jos said:

Team Arnie (car 137) managed 26.25mpg for the whole run. 327.57 litres at a cost of £572.60. We had a GPS Tripmeter which showed 1892 miles. Not bad for a 3.9l V8 and more than I would normally get (23.81mpg). Worth every penny for a superb event.

We did pretty much the same as you with our 3.9l V8 in our stag. 

Team 8 "aka the flying banana" signing in. Again a wholehearted thank you to all the team that delivered such a stunning event. This was my 5th and my co-driver's third.  Car ran beautifully,  really enjoyed the new 3.9l V8 up front. Only issue was a steadily failing battery making restarts like those in apollo 13 (all circuits off).  Missed our midnight rendezvous at Carter bar dogging spot, but was it me or were there a few "entisiasts" in the lay by? Will probably be doing it all again in 2025.  Thanks again and banana signing off 

Tim

What was the issue?

Really good discussion. It just highlights that everyone has a slightly different RBRR experience in mind. Some always go top down, some love a hard top, some prep the hell out fo their car, some just give it a wipe with a moist rag, some carry and entire car's worth of spares, some carry just an RAC card, some drive the whole route with a map to the nearest meter some use SatNav. It is one of the wonderful parts of the RBRR, the diversity of experience.

The common part is that we all enjoy driving Triumphs like they were intended and in doing so we make some money for a worth cause!

Cheers

Tim

PS: I agree with others on being aware that a pure waypoint approach to satnav means you will inadvertantly miss some of the great roads including Bettyhill to Altnahara and Loch ness to Fort william to Gartcosh (via Glen Coe), the welsh loop and some of the coastal road before Bude. But thems the choice and in some cases the direct route (which will be faster) can give you some time for some well earned shut eye at the stop.

15 hours ago, Buttercup said:

Thanks for that bit of info! Was contemplating getting a satnav just for this!! It even has a 7 day free trial!! 😊

Yes. We've used it on rbrr and 10cr. Seems to work well.