Ralph Whitaker
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Posts posted by Ralph Whitaker
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23 minutes ago, stuart said:
Then the operator made an error when scanning.
Stuart.
Probably so, it was an 18 month old Vauxhall van that had been caught on a gatepost on rear n/s panel, and we called it Kermit as it was that vivid pea green that they used about 6 years ago. It was done twice by the paintshop, and on the third attempt they took it somewhere else as they were convinced that their scanner was duff. Gave up in the end as they wanted to blow in the whole side of the van.
Ralph
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I assume that the uptake was not that good when originally made as 6s were plentiful and relatively cheap, but now the prices of TR6s has increased do you think they will ever re make the shells.
Ralph
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On 3/13/2024 at 7:14 PM, Jase said:
Thanks everyone, well I now have a choice of Primrose yellow or the very dark Jag BRG which we have made even darker.
Looking forward to eventually putting this on my bonnet:
I would stay away from colours that you have tinted to make darker or lighter. Should you need to buy more in the future it is hard enough with standard colours without adding more difficulty to the equation. And you cannot rely on paint scanners for the correct match either, a friend had his van scanned 3 times and each time the paint was different and none matched the original colour . In the end he gave up and had to live with one panel a different shade to the rest of the van.
Ralph
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12 hours ago, james christie said:
Although I use my 3A throughout the year, thanks to an early spring here, I have been out with my 3A quite a lot this week with the tonneau cover closed on the passenger side and sidescreens in situ (they will be replaced by the wind wings in a few weeks)
Even after some 54 years of sidescreen cars, I’ve not yet figured out how to reconcile driving with sidescreens and tonneau cover. In my case I just let it hang down unsecured inside the door and hope for the best, which doesn’t stop the drips and doesn’t help the state of the tonneau either.
How do you folks fix the tonneau around the top of the door?
james
In the early part of the year when still a bit chilly on a morning I like to run with the sidescreens on and the tonneau over the passenger side, so I just let the tonneau flap hang down inside the door. I find then that with the heater on blowing to the passenger side so as not to cook my leg, the warm air gets drawn up around me on it`s way out of the car and it is really quite cosy.
The main problem I have with the tonneau is that the open edge where the zip runs flaps quite alarmingly and puts a lot of strain on the centre peg on the dash board. I think TR4s had a strap to the tunnel to stop the flapping and I am thinking of doing something similar.
Ralph
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Thanks for the explanation Malcolm, hopefully it will be sorted before long.
Ralph
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After last year when we all had trouble using the World Pay system I thought it was all sorted. With time on my hands this morning I thought I would do my renewal through the club shop. All went well until I reached the final page of the checkout procedure when I was informed that I had chosen to pay by phone and I would need to phone the office before I could finish.
I tried to purchase a wing protector and got the same message with no apparent way of circumventing and paying online.
I never opted to pay by phone ever, in fact the office called me to take my renewal payment last year as I had made it known on here that there were difficulties.
Is it too much to ask that in this day and age I just want to pay my membership using my debit card. I can buy just about anything online from almost anywhere in the world, but I cannot buy a baseball cap from the TR Register without hassle.
Ralph.
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I have been using RH for a number of years, my "modern" is with them too and I have been happy so far. No charges for mid term adjustments, and breakdown cover included though not had to use it yet . Renews in June and I will be interested to see what the renewal price is because so far this year my work van insurance went from £400 to over £700, and my AA Gold membership jumped by £68 to £228 while at the same time included a note saying vehicles used for commercial purposes were no longer covered. As my modern was already covered by RH`s breakdown cover I only needed the AA for the van, so moved to their business dept and got the van covered for £148 and cancelled the Gold membership.
As for the van insurance, I used a comparison site and found comparable fully comp cover for £340.
It seems like you have to look around each year to avoid existing customer price hikes, and I never let them use auto-renew.
Ralph
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18 hours ago, PXC said:
I’m not clear what you are saying about prices in the UK James. Are you saying sidescreen cars ARE reducing in price, or that they SHOULD be reducing because there is more supply than demand?
I’m not seeing a reduction in asking price in UK.Regards
Paul
I think many are overpriced, based on owners wanting to get back what they paid a few years ago, or dealers wanting large mark ups. This causes a glut on the market and rumours that no one wants to buy sidescreen cars any more. I have my TR3a insured for £20k, but if I was to sell I would be happy at around £15k. Classics are the same as any motor, you buy it, you use and enjoy it, you sell at a loss, even if you spent a fortune restoring it. It is true that the age demographic shows that most owners, myself included at 68 yrs young, means there are going to be fewer buyers around and plenty of cars to choose from so unfortunately prices will have to be realistic to sell. It seems that you need to own a Golf, or any 70s Ford to make money at the moment.
Ralph
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5 hours ago, bigmalcy said:
I thought that the flow through the bypass hose was from the thermostat housing back down to the pump, not from the pump to the housing... am I wrong? As above, the heater issues was likely caused by a blocked pipe downstream of the cylinder head valve.
I think you are right, so the water from the heater gets sent around the engine again . I suppose this helps the heater warm up quicker (assuming no blockages).
Ralph
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Most charging systems put out around 14v to charge a 12v battery. A fully charged battery would be at best 13.5v. I don`t think it would be possible to get a 15v reading from a 12v battery, so I too suspect your multimeter is lying.
Ralph
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As the by pass hose exists to allow water to circulate through the engine until the thermostat opens to allow the water through into the radiator, the heater circuit returns it`s water to the back of the pump, which would then send it through the by pass hose to circulate again, so a blocked by pass would certainly have a detrimental effect on the heater.
Ian has beaten me to it, I was about to say also that it sounds like a good flushing is in order.
Ralph
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Sounds to me that if your final price in the UK is going to be around £17,000 you would be better off looking for a finished car here in the UK which is already RHD, especially after reading the list of items to be rectified/finished on the car,
Ralph
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21 hours ago, TR Rob said:
Hi Ralph, are these the ones you fitted to your TR3A, were they a good fit ?
Yes Rob, those are the ones, and even cheaper, although mine were postage free. The use of the thick cork gasket is necessary because the centre bolt fouls the dash pot without it which dismayed me a bit to start with, but I now know that the K&N are exactly the same and also come with the thick cork gasket. Incidentally I don`t know where one could obtain said gasket should it need replacing in the future unless it is available through K&N agents.
It seems they all sell them as fitting the HS6 carbs with no mention of the H6 type, but they will fit these too.
Ralph
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I have just fitted a pair of K&N copy cone shaped filters, they were £25 each from Bull Motif. They look exactly like K&N but without the logo stamped in. I had a good look at the filter element and it looks well made and no visible difference to the K&N filter I had on my Austin. Time will tell. I am hoping they can be cleaned and re oiled like the K&N but there were no instructions, guess I will find out in another 5,000 miles.
I removed a pair of TR4 type oval filters, the front one I previously had to squash at the lower front edge to get clearance to the inner wing. Before binning them I removed the outer perforated paper layer to look at how dirty they were and was surprised that the previously light yellow elements were black all over after about 5,000 miles use, and the muck had evenly coated the elements right down in to the folds. They obviously do a good job and they are good budget alternative to the original TR3 type wire mesh filters, if you can even call them a filter, more an intake silencer I think.
Ralph
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On 2/9/2024 at 5:46 PM, John Bracher said:
Finally today, I saw a news article on this topic mention something I had commented on before, when bemoaning this issue.
Half the issue is the physical height of these lights.
As so many modern 'cars' are SUV/4x4 type, and so many cars have high level rear pillar lights, they are directly in our (TR) eyeline......
Vans have headlights much higher than cars, including SUVs, even going back as far as the Mk1 Transit of the `60s. Pondering this I came to the conclusion that the higher mounted headlamps are angled more steeply down when on dip than cars. The lower the light is mounted means the lamps need to be more horizontal to the road, so more likely to be inadvertently dazzling. Still think the problem is with intensity of light output from modern bulbs even on dip. I have also noticed recently there are a number of cars now that have 4 dipped headlights in addition to daylight running lights, and of course a lot of folk like to have the fog lamps on too just for good measure despite it being illegal (unless foggy).
Ralph
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On 2/12/2024 at 9:12 PM, Trumpy said:
I fitted an oil cooler a while back (Tr5) and after the car has been stood a while I noticed the oil pressure just takes a second to register on start up . Anyone know if there anything can be fitted to prevent oil syphoning from the system. I have a spin on filter fitted , no external leaks visible. The cooler system was bought as a kit from Rimmer , neither Rimmer or Moss appear to offer a filter with an anti return valve !
Or maybe it’s nothing to worry about !
DaveCould it be to do with the pipe runs?. Just thinking that if the pipes loop up to the oil cooler, maybe the oil drains back out of the pipes when standing, especially with no in line thermostat.
Ralph
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14 hours ago, Lebro said:
Also the upper wishbones need to be from a late TR4, & are the same as fitted to 4A,5, & 6's
I think they are the ones I got. They take an upper ball joint held with two bolts, similar to a Herald or Spitfire ?
Ralph
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Rob, Unusual for the fan boss to be that close. Do the engine mounts look distorted, or the front plate bent? The 4 synchro boxes are about 10mm longer, and when I fitted mine I slotted the holes in the gearbox crossmember to allow the box to fit. That may not have been done in your case and might be forcing the engine 10mm forward. That may also be why the PO had to fit an electric fan.
Ralph
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Although I have a set of tr4 upper wishbones ready for this conversion, I have held off doing the job because, to be quite honest, I don`t know if the juice is worth the squeeze as they say. I understand it improves self centering of the steering. While this may be desirable on a car with a steering box, my rack conversion gives light steering anyway and I cannot say it presents any problems. I can see future work on the suspension would be easier because of the removable bolt through the bottom trunnion, but does the conversion offer other benefits I am not aware of?
Ralph
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Moved to TR2/3 page.
Ralph
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15 hours ago, BlueTR3A-5EKT said:
…and will they also review the brightness of the blue flashing beacons on emergency response vehicles?
+1. And the yellow ones too. One flashing light bar is surely enough, but some have them all over the vehicle.
Ralph
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18 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:
I guess the issue with filtering out the blue end of the spectrum to avoid glare/dazzle is that it may well mean we see less of what we need to when not being dazzled.
I don`t think it makes any difference, I suggest that I can see further not dazzled than I can after having just been dazzled by a zillion candlepower. Even if the pedestrian is dressed all in blue I don`t think they would become invisible, just turn a nice shade of green
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18 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:The problem is some headlights now are simply too bright and mounted (legally) too high to limit dazzle.
+1. I own up to having a car with HID lights, and all such lights have to be self levelling, but there are limits to the reaction time of self levelling units, and cars cresting a bridge or a rise in the road still dazzle. But even well adjusted lights can still be a nuisance due simply to the intensity. There was a reason why the wattage of headlamps used to be limited, and it was to reduce dazzle to oncoming vehicles, but it seems now that with LED and HID lamps that can put out 200% or more light with less wattage the old rules are not fit for purpose, and it is too late now to bring in new rules limiting the amount of Lumens
Anyway, I for one will continue to wear my sunglasses when it is sunny, and my anti dazzle glasses when driving at night.
Ralph
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For what it is worth, I got my night driving glasses from Amazon with next day delivery and have used them. I find no difference in general vision or ability to see at night apart from there is a definite reduction in glare from LED headlights. There must be truth in that it is to do with the blue spectrum, because now oncoming cars with "normal" headlights just appear to have a yellow tinge, but you can spot the moderns coming towards you as now their headlights are pale green in colour and intensity is reduced. Felt strange when I first used them, which was on a 150 mile journey back from the lake district the day after all the snow, but after a few miles forgot I was wearing them . Definite thumbs up from me.
Ralph
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Brand new LHD rack from Mini Spares is only £80.
Ralph
A rare species lurking at Rimmer's
in TR6 Forum
Posted
That was careless of them.
Ralph