Break Down Story Number 11

The Case of the Runaway TR7.

A tail of one TR7’s determination to never stay where it was parked.

As I am sure all Triumph owners know, owning a Triumph comes with a certain amount of, “good natured banter”, from non Triumph owners. You know the sort of thing, “when are you going to get a proper car”, or “when did it last break down”, etc.

It was a normal summer’s day, I was at work and the TR7 was parked in the staff parking area and all seemed good in the world. On my return from lunch my co-workers, with great mirth, started telling me that my car had driven itself about two car lengths across the car park. I of course knew it was a wind up, but I played along. The TR7 was in the middle of the car park and my co- workers were going into great lengths to tell my how it just took of all by itself and then just stopped. Well of course it did, but I knew that they must have jacked it up with a trolley jack and pushed it out into the middle of the car park. I started the Seven up and returned it to its parking spot, but the “good natured banter” continued for weeks.

About a month later it happened again, the seven was about a car length out of its parking spot. My co-workers were insistent that it just took off all by itself, but again I was sure that this was attempt to keep the story going, so I just went along with it. I listened to all the theories about what the problem might be but did nothing as this was a practical joke.

A few weeks later and it was just before Christmas, most of my co-workers had already gone on holidays and things were pretty quite at work, but there was a few contract electricians working in the building. The TR7 was parked in the work shop out of the hot sun and I had been called away to work in another building. On my return I found the TR7 parked in a different location, about three car lengths away from where I had left it, and it had blocks of timber under all four wheels.

As soon as the electricians saw me they started telling me that my car had driven itself half way down the work shop. I started to think that this was not a wind up after all and that just may be there was some thing wrong with the TR7. The next day with the TR7 parked again in the work shop I saw it happen, the seven did just take off all by its self. I started leaving it in neutral when ever I parked it and had a look at it the next week end.

I could not see any thing out of the ordinary but the main battery lead did seem a bit close to the other wires on the starter motor so I loosed the battery lead and turned it around a bit. The TR7 has never taken off all by itself since so I can only conclude that some how, maybe because of the heat, the battery lead was shorting and engaging the starter motor and with the car in gear, it would ‘take off all by itself’.

So ended the strange tail of “The Run away TR7”.

Jim Pope