Yesterday's daily today - the J69 version

[Seth]

I can't remember what colour your interior is but if a pair of black Herald front seats in good order would be any use let me know. Not the bucket in this pic but like the pass side one.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa65/sethke/Triumph%20Herald/Img_5921.jpg

[Jonny69]

My interior was saved from a selection of non-Super models that were having their standard interiors binned for cages etc, doomed to a life of unfinished projectdom or garage queen status and the interior sent to landfill. I'm not actually sure if the front seats are Anglia or from an early pov-spec Mk1 Escort but it's all red:



It was a much nicer drive in this morning without all the rattles, bangs and squeaks. I should have done something about those pesky bonnet fastenings ages ago.

[Jonny69]

More improvements this weekend, but sadly I won't be able to use the car for a bit. Last week was, quite frankly, bloody freezing without a heater so I decided to stick it back in the car on Saturday ready for my early Sunday morning start for the Grim challenge. Temperatures were expected to be between 1 and 3 degrees so enough was enough. The reason it wasn't in the car in the first place was because I'd made a balls-up when I 'glassed in the standard catch into the flipfront to make opening and closing it a bit more secure. The standard bonnet closes down pretty much vertically, but because the flipfront is hinged a lot further forward it caught the back of the heater box.



This meant I had to cut a chunk out of the back of the box to clear it. Then I found I'd used my heater hoses to fashion up a makeshift rocker breather to stop the deadly quantities of fumes from the knackered 1200 choking me to death, then there were no jubilee clips either... but I managed to patch it on with what I had. And it worked - very well indeed and it was truly toasty in there.

However. (Yes, I needed the full stop there.) On the way to the Grim, the amount of fumes started to get a bit ridiculous. It was bad enough that I warned my passengers when I picked them up at the station (3 girls into extreme running - go me) that it was going to be a bit smoky. Then, on the M3 I started heading towards petrol/oil consumption parity and the light fog you might have noticed on the way into London was in fact me smoking the road out. So I think that's that with the 1200 and next weekend if it's not too cold I'll be sticking in the other spare.

Anyway, if you wondered what your shins would look like after running 9 miles through deep puddles topped with thick ice, check this out:

[Vulgalour]

Ah, you're an extreme runner, that explains why you put up with the grief the Anglebox gives you now

[Leonard Hatred]

That red interior is superb, as is the thread. Are your spare engines rebuilt, or 'known good' engines?

Your extreme ice running shins look like mine after fighting through gorse and brambles.

[Jonny69]

One of them is from KFW - basically unknown but he said it's probably a good one because it was his dad's or something. I can't remember how it felt when I turned it over by hand but it wasn't too snotted up with tarry oil so it might be ok. The other one is my full-on 1700 with race head, Webers etc. I didn't get around to changing it the other week but I'm tempted to do a quick rebuild on the 1200 for peace of mind more than anything else. The 1700 would need a change of insurance because I'm currently on a classic policy which doesn't allow modifications. The bizarre thing is all my modifications are declared and legitimate under the policy but it doesn't allow engine changes, so I'd wait until April if I switch to the 1700. I was thinking about it at the weekend because we used mine to go and pick her car up over the Christmas period when we'd been out the night before and I loved the fact that with the 1200 it just started up no problems and wasn't any hassle.

[Jonny69]

Well today was a miserable drive* into work. I decided that since I'd slipped off my bike last night, I was feeling a bit bruised and it was so damn cold, that I'd drive in this morning. So two hours later, I managed to complete my 10.2 miles and I rolled into work. I have no idea what caused so much traffic, so far away from central London, but there has been a tragic helicopter crash in South London, a closed flyover somewhere on the way and probably trouble on the A3 as a result of the helicopter incident. Essentially, it takes me 40 minutes to cycle to work, about an hour-twenty to run, and I could have walked it in two hours, so I was suitably dischuffed by the time I arrived. To cap it all off, I wasn't actually in my Anglia because Ms 69's car was in the way and, ironically, I didn't want to waste 5 minutes swapping the cars round to get mine out (plus, at the back of my mind, I had the issue of insurance: technically I shouldn't be driving mine to work on my current policy because it's supposed to be a leisure-only classic policy and the underwriters wouldn't look favourably if I had an incident in inclement weather as it would look like I was using it as my daily. Their words. So I'm on limited use until April, when the policy lapses and I'll switch providers to someone who legitimately allows daily use). I felt sad reaching in and peeling my work parking permit off the windscreen and re-applying it in her car.

I've digressed - so what were the key differences in the journey?

1) First up - I don't smell like exhaust fumes.

2) Ms 69's car is auto and I appreciated that in stop-start traffic. That said, the lack of clutch work was offset by the sheer amount of concentration it takes me to operate the brake in a modern car. The weight of my foot resting on the brake pedal is enough to push it down halfway through its travel and this is enough to basically emergency-stop the car - I can't get my head round that and I find feathering a pedal like that incredibly tiring after a while.

3) The seats are much more comfortable in the Anglia. This was a car that was designed for the average British man in the 1960s. I am he, and it fits me like a glove. I have never found any car as comfortable as small 1950s and 1960s British tin.

4) I had a radio to listen to. No radio in the Anglia and two hours of listening to the engine idling would have driven me insane, but I do normally take my iPod and either earphones or my scene old radio converted to iPod dock. And I can tell you the radio was starting to grate after the breakfast shows had finished.

5) Reliability. So there was no doubt that her car would make the journey. The engine in mine is on its last legs and brinking on failure. Horrible knocking when you start it, alternator bearings have gone, oil smoke, and it's only time until it lets go spectacularly. But it still never fails to start and, as much as I keep telling everyone it's about to die, it still gets me from A to B whenever I call on it.

[Jonny69]

Well, arse. I've been trying to drag the life of the 1200 out as long as possible so I can keep the car on the road until the insurance change without doing an engine change. It's still going, but the float in the carburettor is playing up. When I first put the engine in the car I noticed after a while that the needle valve in the carb wasn't shutting off and the excess fuel was just pouring out the vent. The float was leaking and had filled up with petrol, which meant it wasn't floating up to the top and shutting the fuel off. It's a brass float and I actually fixed it properly by drilling a couple of tiny holes, draining the fuel out and then re-soldering the seam with fresh solder, but I obviously missed a bit or there was a pin-hole somewhere. So it's actually a bit of a fiddle to get it all apart and it's absolutely filthy* where the engine is breathing heavily - so I'm not particularly looking forward to standing out there in the cold at some point this week.

Apologies for the lack of pictures. I decided to discontinue my jonny69 website and lost my hosting as a result. I'll stick some pics back up on imgur or something when I've got a spare few minutes.

*free rust protection

[Jonny69]

I fixed the float but I've still got a few issues and it won't idle now. I think the rebuild is pending.

Which is just as well, because I won a big valve head on eBay for sensible money. The best thing about it is it's for the 1200 engine, so I'm going to be able to plough loads of time, split knuckles and money into it for next to bugger all horsepower. Have some pics before I forget:







You're right, I could build the 1700 beast back up and become king of the streets again, but I've done that before and I fancy something a bit different. Something a bit more edgy. Something unreliable with an old style cam grind that won't idle properly and will choke out the guy sitting behind me in the traffic. Something that'll be a proper pain in the ass to drive at low revs. Something with big compression that screams its head off and only has three very soft bearings in the bottom end. That sort of thing.

This is a standard 1500cc engine with my modified 1700 head on top so you can see the difference in port size. Also added to confuse things:



I was going to rebuild the 1200 anyway - it'll just be a bit faster and more expensive this way

[Seth]

I'm all for re-building/tuning the less obvious, smaller version of an engine