It make me chuckle!

Mondays are usually the worst, closely followed by Friday afternoons, and generally all lunchtimes? What am I on about now? Why phone activity of course?
Mondays are bad for obvious reasons, obvious? Easy it's generally one of a couple of reasons, either a bloke has spent all weekend in the company of women (wife) and now just needs to talk to a chap (any chap) about mota's (or any bloke thing) to to get his head right again! Or another bloke has been fiddling with his mota where he should have left well alone (or got someone with the right sized spanner,screwdriver,hammer to have a go) and has now to ring someone like us to admit as such and ask for the bits to put it right!
Lunchtimes are bad because everyone and his dog wants to call us in their lunchbreak on the 'work's' phonebill and chat for 59 minutes while their boss is out wineing and dining the secretary.
Friday afternoons are bad because everyone is this slack country finishes early on a Friday bar us poor retailers and suddenly decides they need a spark plug, a 1/4 bolt, and a thermostat gasket for their Herald for the weekend (when it's clearly to late!).
Another thing that brings a smile to us here is how large an organisation people percieve us as being?
'Can I speak to someone in accounts?' that'll be Eve and she's only in on Mondays/Fridays.
'Can I speak to someone in your technical department?' that'll be David and he's close to escaping in his crusty old Herald on some made up local collection/delivery, because its Monday/lunchtime/Friday afternoon and there's a curious vague expression come over him all of a sudden!
'Can I speak to someone in good's in, or despatch, or surcharge return, or, or?' that'll be Phill and he's busy fielding call's for our 'technical department'!
In other words we are not some large multi national, there's generally only about 5 of us here at any one time, not 50 like others! Things are not helped by certain large Triumph clubs, and certain other traders directing punters with anything that hints at a technical enquiry with no percieved sale at the end of it to us! We always seem to be at the end of the line for the poor waifes and straifes with a half difficult technical conundrum who have been sold something by somebody else that dosn't fit/work. Not that I'm moaning, much!

PS We are thinking of closing earlier on a Friday!

32 Valve Stag!

I have always harboured a desire to build a 32 valve Stag motor, it just needs to be done! To that end I have a couple of Stag V8's sitting in the engine shop awaiting the glorious day.They are placed in such a manner so that I catch my shin on them every now and again to remind me why they are there!
It's not an idle dream either, I know it existed as a paperwork exercise in Triumph experimental early on in the seventies, but did it progress further? A school mate of mine's Dad ran a small engineering shop locally specialising in amongst other things construction of race winning motorcycle combination outfits, but what he was really known for throughout the Midlands was his ace ability in the black art of aluminium welding. At least it was in those days, I remember his tig plant being virtually the size of the end wall of his industrial unit, nowadays they are much more manageable. Anyway as I recall said mate and I popped into his Dad's unit on the way home from school one day in the mid seventies to check out the latest motorcycle combi, only to be confronted with his Dad 'doing a late one' for some lucrative hush hush British Leyland contract. Obviously oblivious to my even then unatural interest in all things Triumph he didn't make any attempt to cover up what he was doing. Mounted on a comprehensive alighnment jig was what looked like a Sprint head with a Stag chain box being carefully welded on the wrong end? I remember asking my Dad at the time if he knew anything about it (Dad worked near to experimental at Triumph and in the course of his job regularly found excuse to have a nose, and take the odd picture in there!) only to be met with a blank expression? So is that as far as it got? I must remember to ask my mate Pete Clarke (former experimental), he was one of the team on the mini 'production line' building the Stag engine saloons/estates in experimental, maybe he might recall how far things progressed?

The end is nigh!

I think my 13/60 estate is finally in its death throws. I had a very interesting trip into work this morning on appoximately 3 1/2 cylinders. It was never very powerful on 4 cylinders to be honest, so anything less is a bit of a joke! Got to make the decision now, slap another engine in or walk away? It's MOT is due so it could get more complicated than the engine, and there are so many more tempting projects waiting in the wings here that the decision will be a tough one. Trouble is Iv'e grown quite attached to the old shed, I wonder if I could squeeze another year out of it?

Hart Racing finished?

Based on my rather gloomy Blogs of late lamenting the passing of several Triumph traders someone pointed out to me that Tony Hart of Stag Hart Racing fame had also ceased trading, is this true? Iv'e always harboured a passion for the Snag, indeed my second car was a French blue example bought off a garage forcourt on or about my 18 birthday, and a real pup it was to! We have had several since culminating in the Mallard blue MK1 1/2 that I restored 10 years ago (really should put it on the road this summer me thinks). Anyhow back to the point, if Tony has finished then the Stag parts supply market really is narrowing?
Perhaps one day someone will write a book about defunct Triumph traders, I'll start the list off, in no particular order;

Andrew Stone Triumph (incorporated into John Kipping Triumph Spares)
SNG Barrat (were Stag specialists, now Jag only, Rimmers took over the Stag bit)
Six Spares (incorporated into Rimmers)
John Hills
Cardinal Triumph (incorporated into Rimmers?)
British Sports Car Spares
Classic Components
John Kipping (now part of Canleys)

There are probably a few more that have come and gone, can you think of any?

Another Triumph Trader finishes!

Hot on the heals of the demise of Six Spares a couple of months ago comes news that Triumph traders British Sports Car Spares are also to cease trading. I spoke to Theo from BSCS at Stoneleigh and he hinted then that they were close to shutting up shop. Well it's confirmed, after dropping some Herald sills off here Saturday (watch out for future special offer on Herald/Vitesse sills!) en route to the Jaguar show at Stoneleigh, Theo told me they had effectively finished as of that weekend. Sad news another stalwart trader from the South East has closed the doors for good, bit of a trend developing? We seem to be losing traders on a regular, and accelerating basis, not good for competition (as far as you the customer is concerned), and dosn't bode well for the future spares supply for the marque? It seems that the support isn't there from customers for the smaller to mid size Triumph specialists, and that the larger concerns are the only ones benefiting? Shades of my Blog from the 31 January this year '2005 Market Survey'? I suppose my pessamistic predictions of the Triumph spares supply business being collared by one or two of the largest traders might be coming rather sooner than I envisaged?

Not long now!

Just a small matter of getting it heat treated, setting the machining programmes up, machining it, and resin sealing it. Then it's going to be bolted to the engine of the car who's bonnet it's sitting on. Hmm alloy cylinder head, with an alloy water pump housing, and an all alloy up-rated water pump bolted to it, nice! A period of testing follows before the first prototype production heads are filtered out to a few selected willing fellow guinea pigs worldwide.

It's to light to dent the bonnet!

Lovely morning!

Pretty outside isn't it? Just snapped a couple of pictures to catch this mornings frosty start.

Sad day!

To some of you this may come as a surprise, those of you who know me better will know that this has been coming for a long time.
After sixteen years as a TSSC member, nearly seven of them spent looking after the Herald 948, 1200 & 12/50 Register, today is my last day as a paid up member of the club. My membership is about to lapse and I do not intend to renew.
I will of course no longer be able to contribute to this messageboard, I will maintain my online presence through the Triumph Herald Yahoo group:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/triumph_herald...
through other open club forums and the website of Rarebits4classics.
I would like to thank all of you who have contributed material for my articles over the past seven years. I would also like to thank Bernard Robinson for his work, in making my work look good! Bernie does more than most of you will realise, I have really appreciated his continued interest in his work, and in Triumphs in general.
Though I am no longer a TSSC member, I remain a dedicated enthusiast. If anyone needs advice, or simply an opinion, you all know where to find me,
All the best,
Bill.

TSSC Messageboard 28.2.06

Like Bill says no surprise to those of us who know him but still a bit of a shock. Bill and myself had a long chat last Saturday here (the Davis family were here on mass), and previously at Stoneleigh. Nice guy Bill and a real loss to the TSSC, but like he says you can still find him elsewhere if you look. We shall continue to support Bill and the family, and of course Rarebits. Keep up the good work Bill!