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Break Down Story Number Nine, The Lost Wheel.

Dolly Break Down Story Number 9.

 

The Lost Wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 2003, after years off the road the Dolly was at last a registered car again. The Dolly had been ready for rego for a long time but the thought of having to deal with the RTA kept making me put it of. It was sort of forced on me as my other car (TR7) had died with terminal engine problems and as this was going to take some time to fix I thought it would be simpler to rego the Dolly. I talked to a few other rally car owners who told me what I would need, all the usual things plus an engineer’s certificate, and a weigh bridge certificate. The engineer’s certificate was a bit of a joke, all he was worried about was silly things, like the back seat, it had to be removed, and the sun visors, they had to be refitted. Much to my total surprise the RTA thing went of without any problems. I found out about a year later why it all went so easily, I was thinking about entering an AMSAG rally (they run rallies outside CAMS) and was reading their regulations and one of the things they required was an engineer’s certificate. I thought that’s alright, I have one of those, but I then read further and the certificate number must be printed on the rego papers, so I checked the Dolly’s rego papers and no certificate number. The rotten RTA had just registered the Dolly on normal rego. Every time I go near the RTA I end up in trouble.

 

I decided to enter the Shannon’s Super Sprint at Eastern Creek as the first event for the Dolly and me in a long time. Even though the Dolly’s engine was about 5 years old (since it was rebuilt) it had only covered about 1500 km so I was only going to take it easy. Got though scrutineering but with the usual new rules I new nothing about. The day went well as did the Dolly, no over heating, no problems at all and the Dolly handled so much better with wider wheels and tyres.

 

We travelled back down the next day for the Shannon’s Display Day, me in the Dolly and the Old Man in one of his MK I’s. As I drove around the roundabout just outside Easter Creek the back of the car seemed to drop, at first I thought I had a flat tyre, that was before I saw the wheel rolling down the road, the wrong side of the road. As I got out of the Dolly I was thinking the worst, damage to the rear guard and underneath, but no, nothing only a small black mark on the guard.

 

Talk about being lucky, if the wheel had come of while competing in the Super Sprint, well I hate to think about what might have been, and there was no on coming traffic for the wayward wheel to hit. I should have bought a lottery ticket. The wheel studs had not come undone or broken, the large nut on the end of the axle had come undone. Much to my total amazement we managed to find the nut, washer and keyway on the road and with not much trouble put it back together. We made for an interesting site as all the entrants in the Shannon’s day were arriving. We ended up being about 45 minutes late getting into Eastern Creek. So ended another Dolly Break Down Adventure.

 

Stay tuned, same Dolly time, same Dolly channel for the next exciting episode of Dolly Break Down Stories, titled, “The Blown Welch Plug/Engine”.

 

Yellow Duck Motorsport

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2005 National Meeting, Eastern Creek. My Father and I had originally planed to do the National Meeting, we had been saving up for it, but then we saw the program, we decided to buy a Falcon Ute (tow vehicle and only non Triumph in the house hold) instead. We were unsure whether we could compete in just the Eastern Creek Super Sprint as nothing had been said about it, but a short phone call discovered that we could enter the Super Sprint.

I would be driving the Dolly and the Old Man would be in his Blue MK I (Humphrey). The Dolly had been having a very busy motor sport year, as I had been competing in motorkhanas and khanacrosses with Westlakes Automobile Club. The Dolly had given very little trouble all year, but that was about to change.

Eastern Creek went well, the Dolly did not miss a beat, until the last run of the day, the Old Man had called it a day so I went out with an old Jag.  I followed the Jag for most of the first lap when he let me past, on the next lap around I heard a “pop” noise and so I backed off for the rest of the run, I did not want to break the Dolly on the last run of the day. It sounded like a back fire through the carby’s so I was not that worried. On an inspection in the pits we could not see any thing out of  place and the car was running perfectly alright, so we packed up and set of for home. (Wyong on the central coast).

About ten or twelve km’s from home the Dolly suddenly slowed, then, rattle, rattle and the engine stopped. I coasted into the break down lane, with the Old Man behind me. It was about 6 o’clock, just getting dark, we were in weekday peak hour traffic on the freeway. When we looked under the bonnet there was oil everywhere and the engine would not turn properly. We thought about going home to get the car trailer and the Ford, but there was no way we could load it on the trailer in this position, so we tied a tow rope to the Dolly and towed it with the Old Mans car.

The tow rope was only about 3mtr long and without the engine the brakes on the Dolly were going to be next to useless, so it was going to be an interesting trip. We took off keeping to the break down lane, which is not very wide and all the time being passed by the peak hour traffic of which there seemed to be a large number of semi trailers, which were coming very close. We were travelling at about 60 km/h but it felt like warp speed, as we came around a bend, there was another car in the break down lane and there was no way the Dolly was going to stop, so we had to go around it, luckily there was a break in the traffic.

We got home in one piece but with another star in the windscreen curtesy of a stone thrown from the Old Mans car. The next week end I decided to clean away all the oil, in doing that I took the sump guard off and sitting on the sump guard was a small Welch plug, now I wonder where that came from I thought to myself. Well I soon found where it come from, in the side of the block just near the water pump. That was the pop noise I had heard on the last run. A lot can be salvaged from the engine, but the block, crank and con rods are all scrap metal. So ended another Dolly Break Down Adventure.

Stay tunned next time for the next exciting story called, “The Broken Diff”, same Triumph time, same Triumph channel.

 

Yellow Duck Motorsport  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Break Down Story Number Ten, The Blown Welch Plug/Engine

Break Down Story Number Eleven, The Broken Diff.

Break Down Story Number Twelve, The Broken Rotor Button.

2000/2500 Break Down Story Number 11

 

The Broken Diff.

 

During 1990/1 I was at home in Grafton (Tucabia), unemployed but the Dolly had broken down, so I borrowed the Old Mans Triumph 2.5 MK II S. I was on my way to Sydney for a job interview when about 35 km’s outside Kempsey there was a large ‘BANG’ from the rear of the car. I pulled over and had a look, but there was nothing overly wrong. I decided to try to get back to Kempsey.

 

Driving slowly in second gear all the way with the car going ‘bang, bang, every few metres, I made it. I parked the car on the side of the road about a block outside the shopping centre, jacked it up and found the tail shaft was just about to fall out as the universal joint was well passed its use by date.

 

I walked down town looking for a spare parts shop and found Repco, where I bought a universal joint and a vice. The vice I reasoned could be a birthday present for the Old Man.

 

The tail shaft came off easily and fitting the universal went well. I felt very confident that I had fixed it so I loaded every thing back into the car and drove off only to discover that the universal was not the problem. I jacked it up again and turned the rear wheel and I could hear the diff, well I thought, I need a new diff.

 

I rang the Old Man and he purchased a diff from a fellow Triumph enthusiast, and would drive up the next day. I would have to stay at a Motel in Kempsey.

 

The next day I hired some axle stands and jacked the car up on a vacant lot near the motel and got as much pulled apart as I could before the Old Man arrived.

 

We changed the diff and left Kempsey at about one o’clock. And I still made the job interview. So ended another 2000/2500 break down story

 

Stay tuned same Triumph time, same Triumph channel for the next exciting episode of Break Down Stories, titled, ‘The Broken Rotor Button’.

 

Yellow Duck Motorsport  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TR7 Break Down Story

 

The Broken Rotor Button.

 

In around 1994 I had sold my home in Grafton having come to the conclusion that I would never get back there, and so I was on the look out to purchase a piece of land. I had seen an add for some land around Cowra and decided to go and have a look. There was some debate around the household about whether to take the Old Mans company car (Toyota Corolla) and my Brother-in-law to be’s, Subaru. I was in favour of taking the Triumphs, My TR7 and the soon to be brother-in-law’s Stag, in the end we decided to take the Triumphs.

 

We left Sydney early, myself and my Father in the TR7 and David and my sister (Jane) in the Stag. All went well till just outside Cowra I saw in the rear mirror David flashing his lights and pulling over. We stopped and David reported a horrible noise coming from under the Stag, around the gear box. I jumped in with David and we drove a few hundred metres down the road to try to work out what the noise was. Looking underneath, without jacking it up, I could see that the fuel line had come adrift and was banging on the tail shaft, so with a piece of string we pulled it away and tied it in place, problem solved!

 

As we tried to set off on our journey, well, the TR7 would not start, so under the bonnet to have a look. I could not really work out what was wrong, but my best guess was the rotor button, so we set off in the Stag for Cowra, leaving my Sister and Father to mind the TR7.

 

We found a spare parts shop just as they were closing the door, but as I would expect, they did not have a rottor button for a TR7, so we looked at what they did have so I purchased two that looked close. One of these worked, well sort of, the engine would run but it missed and coughed and all in all was not very happy.

 

We continued on and looked at the land, but I did not turn the seven off as I did not trust it to start again.

 

I drove it home, all the way coughing and spluttering, and down to second gear up some of the hills, but we made it home. So ended the TR7’s only break down story,  but stay tuned, same Triumph Time, same Triumph channel for; ‘The Case of the Runaway TR7’.

 

Yellow Duck Motorsport  

Break Down Story Number 10. The Blown Welch Plug/Engine