[Group Trip to Italy and the Alps 2019]

Great trip and write up John - Thank you.

When did you actually do this trip, what months ? We have done road trips over the years covering most of the places, roads and passes you cover here and they were all as wonderful as you describe. However, there’s a lot more snow in you pics of those passes than when we did them. 

We just completed a 24 night trip across Europe in the 4A covering 6 countries .... I need to get writing I think ...

[Group Trip to Italy and Switzerland.]

Hi,

Sorry, where can I find this report ? Do you have a link to it please ?

[Odd New Noise ..]

1 hour ago, ianc said:

Andy - I am intrigued/puzzled.  Why is your wife equipped with wheels, where are they fitted (ignore if too personal!), and why had you not tightened them sufficiently!

Ian Cornish

Ha ha .... note to self ... proof read prior to posting. 

[Odd New Noise ..]

I believe, although not 100% yet, that my scratching noise has gone. I ‘think’ it was the UJ on the near side rear axle. It was either that or that my wife wheels were not tight enough. Mine came only when turning right though, not left.

One of my other threads (sorry, I appear to have hijacked the forum), was all about having to change this UJ whilst in France. 

I’ll need to do a little more driving around to be certain. 

[What does €600 get you ....]

23 hours ago, Z320 said:

Hi Andy,

at the other post you told us about the bad noise when you drive bendings - after you left the workshop.

But I thought myself I told you insistant enough the caps have to be tight and are NOT self tightening.

The grease is not on the splines to "grease" them but to keep water and rust out to get the wire wheel off the car again.

The wheel must not move on the adaptor, so grease makes no sence on the tapered surfaces.

The noise you had when you drive bendings is because with the slack wheels the tapered surface of the wheels is moving and grinding on the tapered surface of the adaptor.

You did not get it away  by the grease but by tighten them.

If you swap over to octagonal caps I can help you by making a spanner tool.

Ciao, Marco

 

 

Thanks Marco.

I basically had two noises that I had originally thought were linked. One was a loud knocking when applying power to the wheels and a vibration between 50 & 70. That was 100% the destroyed UJ as all of that has instantly gone since the work.

However, you are definitely right about the other noise. This is where initially I had not tightened the wheels enough after removing to look for noise & inspect UJ’s and then again after the garage had removed and replaced them too, not tight. 

The odd squelch noise didn’t go until I put some grease back on the splines.

Once home from this road trip (soon), I will remove all four wheels and give them fresh grease, make sure there’s no grease in the tapered surface (I believe there is currently) and tighten them sufficiently.

I may also consider changing the caps to octagonal ones as currently the ears on mine are starting to look like Rugby player’s ears with so much on / off action recently !

Aj 

[Helping out Fellow Tr'ers.]

21 minutes ago, John Morrison said:

So the lesson here seems to go straight to the UK, either Moss or Rimmers,  who both got the parts to the south of France overnight?

I think thats pretty good, and deserves credit.

John.

Yes, I’ve been quick of late to moan about these suppliers on Facebook Triumph groups as some of the parts I’ve received for my cars have been pretty poor quality.

I will post a positive post on these group pages today as it was an indeed excellent service for the Triumph community. 

[What does €600 get you ....]

Well Roger, it would appear from Paul’s post that the best all round and only spare to carry would be some attractive females .... that’s a spare that I don’t mind having in the back for years and years but fear I could ill afford ! 

[What does €600 get you ....]

4 minutes ago, Z320 said:

He Andy,

very sad to hear that.

Allow we to ask who tighted your rear (wire) wheels when you left the workshop?

Ciao, Marco

The garage fitted the wheels. Once I realised there was an issue with them I took them off and grease them. I fitted them back as tight as possible using the hammer. However, after 100 miles or so of up & down mountain passes & hairpin bends they developed a knocking sound around corners. I managed another half turn on them then with the hammer and that sound has since gone.

It was your previous posts about how tight they should be and the need for good grease that made me even question if that was the issue when the noises started. Thank you !! 

[What does €600 get you ....]

I thought I’d just share our recent experience with other TR owners. This is just a tale of our French garage experience for your entertainment... 

Let’s be more precise ... what would you expect for €600 CASH ... or, as he explained in his rapidly improved English, €800 if you want a receipt ... And, yes I can walk you to the closest cash machine whilst your car is conveniently blocked in my garage.

From my post pleading for help, you may have seen we were rather stuck in France with a seriously damaged UJ. We’re currently on the final legs of a road trip that has taken us from the Isle of Wight to Essex, Holland, Germany, Black Forest, Switzerland, France & Spain. Twelve stops  over 4 weeks. Through the Alps and over the Pyrenees. Every leg bar one on B-roads avoiding tolls and motorways and through some of the most breathtaking areas, views and roads. 

Once we realised what the loud knocking noise that had developed at the rear was, we googled local garages and this one came up as ‘recommended’. By luck, it was no more than 500 yards from our hotel. 

My wife’s French is very good and day to day things like eating out, shopping and all the tourist stuff is a breeze. However, for her to describe the finer issues of the working parts of a car ... that she has absolutely no idea about, well that was a bit of a stretch. Match that with a mechanic who I expect didn’t like the English and had no time for pigeon French, we had quite a language barrier. All said, with a few drawings and photos, I believe we managed to let him know the problem.

This was late on Monday night and we agreed that I would bring the limping 4A around at 8am the next day.

My wife’s not a ‘morning’ person so I dealt with this all by myself .... Armed with a diagram covered with notes in French, I took the car there and in my useless French, I showed him this plan and he nodded a lot and then gave me a ‘thumbs up’ leaving me to think that all was in hand.

What was in my note ??? Well, it clearly showed what UJ was knackered (the one closest to the Diff) and very clearly showing that the two by the hubs were ‘NEW’. Simply enough ... you’d think.

At lunch time that same day my wife and I called in to see how things were going. I was pleased to see the 4A on a four post ramp with wheels off ... but a little concerned to why the bonnet needed to be open. I assumed he was extra vigilant and had disconnected the battery ... despite there being absolutely no reason to. 

It was at this point that we discovered the first issue we had as a result in poor communication. He had the sub axles off and showed us that actually, both UJ’s either side of the diff needed replacing but he was expecting us to turn up with them. I had thought that he could easily source them but apparently not in less than a week.

This is the point where TR reg help was at hand and as that thread concluded, we ended up ordering from the UK for next day delivery. What actually happened was we were both calling and begging at the same time in different  rooms of the apartment and had both managed to secure delivery for the next morning. My wife with Moss and me with Rimmers. Rather than cancel a set, we thought ‘let’s have all 4 delivered as it must improve our chances of having one set by the next day’.

So, a walk back to the garage to explain this to Mr Mechanic... who had gone to lunch ... at 3pm.... so, we were left to speak to what would appear to be the young apprentice. Our conversation was a struggle. He too had no English ... actually, I’m not sure he had French either and what we had to say didn’t warrant him removing his headphones but we thought the main message had got through .... Two deliveries, use the first two that turn up  and the spare two we’ll keep. Car left on the ramp .... we’ll return tomorrow.

With no way of tracking the UJ’s we thought we’d leave it till 1pm to call by and see if they’d arrived. We were greeted by Mr Mechanic and he had a tray load of parts .... way too many for me. Four UJ’s had apparently arrived at 10am. Great news ... however, he clearly never got or understood the message as he thought -  We ordered 4 so ‘clearly’ we wanted him to change four. Yep, he changed two UJ’s that we’re only 6 months old and had done about 1500 miles max.... oh well, no harm.

We were told to rerun at 6pm when the car would be complete. We did & it was. Then the bill...... 

Well, we knew the hourly rate was €55 and that was acceptable .... but 10 hours to change four UJ’s ? Well I’m no mechanic but I’ve done them and I’d say 5 hours max.  It had to be cash and no receipts, etc. At this point there was really nothing else we could do but pay and leave. So once escorted to the bank we came back and paid the €600. We argued a bit more and got a 100Mph explanation in French that my wife understood about 50% of but the one bit I picked up on was the extra €50 ... He had ‘serviced’ the car and that was why it was 10 hours 

This service included adding 2 lites of oil....at €50 ! Now I knew it would have been a little low on oil after the last trip and had planed to check and top up before the next leg. Top up with the 20W/50 oil it likes to run on and I had brought with me. Now we have 2 litres of **** oil that I can smell burning off because it’s too thin. Hmmm thanks for that.

He also said he’d put more air in the tyres and water in the rad. My TR doesn’t loose any water and I keep it just at the right level as taught on this very forum. He overfilled it so when we next stopped, we had a nice puddle ... no harm ... I guess.

Now for the most frightening bit. As we were running very late and our planned route was a 6 hour drive, we opted for the motorway route instead that reduced the mileage to 230 and the time to 4 hours. As soon as we hit the motorway and got to over 50MPH the car was floating across the road. I don’t ever recall bing so terrified driving a car. I didn’t want to slow down to 30 and be a target for the lorries but anything over 50 and it would drift across all the lanes. 

Fortunately, there was a service station only a few miles up the road. I quickly realised the tyres were over inflated. To be precise we now had 45psi in all four ! I let these down to about 32 and the car was good to go.

Once we reached the mid-Pyrenees destination the car was running awful. We had also used a huge amount of fuel. I just parked it up as it was midnight and visited it the next morning. It started, just but with bonnet up I could see fuel going everywhere. Somehow one of the fuel hoses to the carb had mysteriously come off ..... some fuel was going in but most was running down the wheel arch.... I still can’t understand why he even had to open the bonnet !

We decided to head off up the mountain for a hike but as we drove off, there was this really unusual noise out of the back wheels.  It sounded like they were squelching ! So, back to the car park the and wheels had to come off. What I found were two splines completely cleaned off any grease. They used to be well greased but now we had zero. Once grease was added.... the noise was gone. 

So to conclude ... €600 gets you 2 UJ’s you didn’t need, oil you don’t want, water you don’t want and air you don’t want and it removes the fuel you did want and grease you really needed ...

However, It also got us 2 UJ’s fitted that we desperately did need and after inspection they look to have been done correctly and for that, I am grateful. He did squeeze us in and that let us enjoy the rest of the trip with minimal delay and no extra hotel costs. So, although I know we’ve been a bit ripped off and he did try to kill us ... It could have been a lot worse.

Two more legs left and then back in the UK .... where I can drain the oil, replace the filter and replace the oil ...Oh, and wash the car ... greasy hand prints all over it ..

Andy

 

[Helping out Fellow Tr'ers.]

1 hour ago, foster461 said:

I'd like to understand why Moss Motors in France was no help.

 

Well, initially they simply didn’t answer the phone and we called about 15 times over two days. They have never replied to our email.

At 2pm the following day we eventually got through and quoted them their part number that was shown as ‘in stock’ on the French website. They then said it would be 3 to 7 days as it is to come from UK ....

Next call for us at 2:30 pm was to Moss UK.... it arrived 10am next day direct to garage ...

[Helping out Fellow Tr'ers.]

Hi,

I was the chap ‘stuck in France’ and can confirm that both Rimmers & Moss used Fed Ex.The chap we spoke to at Moss, when asked what the chances were of a next day delivery to South of France said “it’s a job for Fed Ex and no else”.

Just to add, a pair of UJ’s delivered overnight (in under 20 hours) to Montpelier was £58 all in. I thought that was very reasonable. Rimmers updated ones were slightly more but still nothing compared to the cost of losing hotel booking and additional costs of staying more nights in Montpelier.

Once we got to our next stop the car wasn’t running great and after further inspection, I noticed the HT lead was destroyed at one end. Our immediate thought was ‘Moss / Rimmers overnight to hotel for tomorrow.. sorted’ ...

What I actually did was cut back the lead a  bit and re-crimp the end and it’s running fine now. However, with such a great service on offer, it takes a considerable amount of stress away from travelling abroad in a classic. 

AJ

[Help needed in France]

Just an Update and thank you for all the posts and advice.

Both sets of UJ’s arrived at 10am next day. Quite an outstanding service from both Moss & Rimmers.

The message we left with the young assistant didn’t get to the mechanic as once he saw 4 UJ’s, he then went and changed all 4 on the axles .... 2 were only 6 months old so a lot of extra pointless work. I had even told him (and written down in French) that they were new ...

Well, all done. He kept the car till late and ripped us off but we got going by 7pm. Our original plan was to do all 12 trips on B-Roads. It as it was late and we had some distance to go so we opted for Toll Roads and arrived in Bagneres du Luchon by midnight, after driving through a massive storm.

The loud clonk and vibrations have gone but I’m still getting the horrible scraping noise when going round a right hand bend. That was the one noise I expected to go by changing the UJ’s. I only heard it twice in 230 miles but I was mainly on Toll Roads so not many tight bends.

Thanks for all advice.

Lessons Learnt:

when changing 2 UJ’s, do all 4 !

when you need parts in France - Call UK 

And ...take a 4 post lift with you .... it would be cheaper to have one of those couriered over and done it myself !

[Help needed in France]

11 hours ago, elclem1 said:

Hi I have the part you are looking for, GUJ116 ? I live in the midi pyrenees but am in the UK at the moment. However a friend has keys to my garage and if he can find the part and send it would you like to try that as a fall back? Cheers Andy

Thanks Andy - all sorted 

[Help needed in France]

3 hours ago, Z320 said:

A glas of french red wine could help to slow down...

Well a dip in The Med and a beer on the beach was just the ticket .... let’s see what tomorrow brings .... which supplier will win ..

 

[Help needed in France]

Despite all efforts, we’ve not been able to source the UJ locally and neither could the garage.

MOSS Paris didn’t answer the phone or reply to emails ... neither did the TR Register France 

However, Moss UK and Rimmers UK are both sending a set out today for delivery direct to Garage tomorrow (they hope). Both very helpful ... let’s see if either one arrives - worse case, were here one more day .... there’s a lot worse places to be !

Aj

[Education please]

Hi Marco,

one side of the UJ has lost its pin bearings completely so the amount of play was unbelievable. It was certainly enough to create the clonk but also the other horrific scraping noise too, where the two metal surfaces were just scraping together.

Once back in the UK I will check the wheels though

thanks for all the help and advice 

[Education please]

Transpires that my clonks are a destroyed UJ on axle and not my wheels .... that I have whacked very hard now ....

Thanks for all the advice 

AJ 

[Help needed in France]

Thanks guys.

I now have enough info / part number to go to the garage tomorrow. Hopefully, he’ll see it’s a common part and it’ll be sourced and completed tomorrow.

I have an address for the local Land Rover dealer too that has a service department.  There’s a good chance I can collect one from there. If not, I’m sure they’ll be able to direct me to a local supplier. 

Fingers are crossed. 

[Help needed in France]

Just now, Z320 said:

Land Rover number is TVC100010GX2

Thanks. 

I had come up with RTC3458G but will look for this one 

[Help needed in France]

Thanks Marcel,

I had already found one those links this evening but thanks for the others. I think I need to work out the Land Rover part number before I can call them.

I have the Moss Part number but that comes up as a triumph part. I assume it’s a different number. I’ll keep on searching ..

AJ

[Help needed in France]

59 minutes ago, RogerH said:

If you contact Moss they may be able to courier a part out.

Look here https://www.moss-europe.co.uk/shop-by-model/triumph/tr2-4a/clutch-transmission-drivetrain/axles-differentials

giver them as much info as possible.

 

Roger

Hi Roger,

I called the uk Moss and they said it would take a few days and suggested I spoke to Paris Moss. They weren’t answering the phone. 

I’ll see what the mechanic thinks once he’s seen it and hopefully realised they’re not such a rare UJ. Hopefully then he can source one locally. I’ll be with him first thing so it’ll give me time to search elsewhere if he can’t find one.

Aj 

[Help needed in France]

2 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:

Is your's a standard drive shaft?

Is it the same as a Land Rover one which may be available in France?

If you can get to Spain I have a spare in the boot assuming you are heading to Pamplona for the European meeting.

Hi

Yes it’s the standard one and a Land Rover unit would be perfect. I’m hoping the mechanic will realise this when he takes a look tomorrow and the drama will be over. He was saying that it would be a triumph one and only available in UK. There was a language issue as we have some French but he had zero English and some terms we struggled with. 

Thanks for the offer but we are heading up the Pyrenees next to Bagneres de Luchon (still France I think), then Zaragoza and on to Victoria. I need to get it repaired before we take on the mountains again.

We’re not attending the European meeting... I hadn’t realised there was one to be honest. 

Thanks

[Help needed in France]

Hi all,

This is a bit of a long stretch to see if there’s anyone out there that can help.

We’re in Montpellier France and my rear axle UJ has just about self destructed. I’ve found a garage that’s happy to do the work changing it but I need the part. It’s the one bolted to the diff. 

Our problem is we are only supposed to be here two days and then have a long drive to Spain as part of an ongoing road trip.

Does anyone have any leads / mates or knowledge of where I could possibly pick up a replacement UJ here ? 

The garage said he’ll look at it tomorrow and ‘might’ be able to get the part but I’m just trying to cover all options in case he says he can’t.

Thanks in anticipation 

Andy

[Education please]

35 minutes ago, Z320 said:

hmmmmm,

octagonal caps or eared caps?

Grease on the tapered part of the wire wheel adaptor? 

 

Eared and certainly greased on the splines. 

Aj 

[Education please]

6 hours ago, Z320 said:

Clonk-clonk?

Still a bit of a clonk but tightening them appeared to improve it. 

Just drove it over The Alps and it’s still running so hopefully nothing too serious .... although I still have another 1500 miles of road trip left ... including over The Pyrénées mountains ...