what the barn's full of

Why we take batteries out before storing

This is what happens if you take a 1971 Stag, drive it until 1978 when the engine gives up, and then store it until 2007. You will of course remember to carefully drain and replace all the fluids, seal the interior, and cover the car correctly. What you will forget is to remove the original British Leyland battery, which over the next 29 years will disintegrate, filling your front valance with battery acid.. which in turn will disintegrate, taking the entire battery box, half the radiator, the fan, and most of the front bumper with it.

By tedlit, ago

The world of Right Hand Drive

See how flat that back tyre is? This car last moved in 2002.

This is a 1970 Triumph Stag. It was owned by a stupid person in the Bay Area. It’s now sitting in my driveway, close enough to be mine but far enough away that it won’t start (another) fire when I start it.

It’s got a Rover v8 mated to the original 4-speed o/d box, and has a hole in the gas tank big enough to put your arm through. It also uses more oil than fuel, but it’s right hand drive, yellow, and mine.

Also, notice how the doors don’t fit right? They’re original – as proved by the reams of photos and receipts that came with it – but they are composed almost entirely of rust and filler. That’s OK, because the car came with four new doors (yes, it’s a two door with six doors), but I have one honeysuckle door, one french blue door, one mallard blue door, and one green door now. Aren’t I lucky?

By admin, ago

It’s SO UNFAIR!

I have a 1986 Jaguar XJ-S. I dragged it out of a hedge in Seattle in late 2008, where it had sat for a good few years. Someone had attempted to “upgrade” the headlights (to modern H4 lights) and had burnt out most of the front electrics… and inevitably lost interest in the poor car.

It’s only got 65k miles on it.. and drivetrain-wise, it’s all original.. which means a 5.3 v12 mated to a GM TH400 transmission.

It didn’t take too much to get it running – a new ignition amplifier, new rotor arm, and a good fuel system flush. It did, however, take *months* to track down a persistent misfire (note: a v11 doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as a v12), and a good bit longer to get the electrics working well enough that the headlamps work.

Unfortunately, after all this work, it turns out that the transmission’s toast – it reverses just fine, but slips horribly in any forward gear now. I managed to put about 500 miles on it before this manifested itself, so I’m guessing one of the clutch packs has just had enough. This is a colossal shame, and is hugely unfair.. but I guess I can’t really complain… or can I?

By tedlit, ago

If I wasn’t sure before…

…I think 50% of Oregon’s Sterlings now live in my barn. I found this little beauty on CL a couple of weeks ago:

Given the “rippling” around the driver’s door panel, there’s obviously a story behind this one.. and a story it is. It was hit in the side several years ago, and given the value of the average Sterling in the US, it wasn’t worth fixing – so a minor panel-beating with a hammer and it was back on the road. Last month, that came to an abrupt end when the radiator sprang a leak, emptying coolant all over Clackamas County by all accounts. Given that a replacement radiator costs upwards of $400, the car sat where it was, radiatorless and full of hay (yes, really).

It’s a 1990 827SL in Steel Grey with a grey leather interior. It’s *never* had any sort of dash lift, and the electrics all actually seem to work.. which is a minor miracle.. as is the complete lack of any evidence of leaks. It took a little coaxing to get it going.. but it does seem to run pretty nice, and yes – the radiator is toast.

I wanted it for the wheels – my 827SLi should have those wheels – but if I can round up a cheap door and front wing from somewhere, I’ll fix it up and keep another cheap Sterling on the road for a while longer. It’s only got 130k on it; it’s barely run-in!

By tedlit, ago

The Land Rover Freelander… done right.

This is a 1998 Freelander. It’s red, and was ours for about three years. It’s a 2.0 diesel, and is still on the road twelve years later. It had criminally poor A/C, but got 40mpg consistently and never broke down. It would pull just about anything, and was superb both on and off road.

This is also a Freelander. It’s a 2002 2.5 v6, and we’ve owned it since 2006. It’s currently got 87k on it.

Despite these cars look pretty much identical, the difference between them is like night and day. The 1998 was a joy to own, and the 2002 has been an absolute nightmare from start to finish. Just search on any Craigslist or eBay for v6 Freelanders, and you will find hundreds described as “mechanics special” or “for repair”.. largely because the problems these things have are so chronic the cheapest thing to do normally is to sell it to some poor unsuspecting Internet buyer who sees the Land Rover badge and thinks the worst they’re in for is some finest British electrical problems.

Oh no. Not even close. Head gasket failure, timing belt failure, thermostat housings that crack leading to either of the above, slipped cylinder liners, rattly manifolds, broken VIS motors, wobbly differential mounts, seized viscous couplings, dodgy ABS.. and all of that before you even hear the magic words “Lucas Electronics”.

A truly rewarding vehicle if you maintain it meticulously (by which I mean throw the factory schedule out of the window and at *least* double the amount of servicing work you do). If you ignore it for a *second*, it will spew all of its coolant all over Highway 30 and leave you stranded in a foul-smelling cloud of coolant and oil fumes.

Shame on you, Land Rover.

By tedlit, ago

Q: What goes “rrrrrrrrCLUNKrrrrrrrrCLUNK”?

A: A 1993 Range Rover with two disintegrated plug leads.

…and a leaky steering box, a broken steering coupling, no bonnet catch, an alarm that unlocks and locks randomly, an air filter from 1993, and no heater.

Yes, I’ve got a new toy. It’s a 1993 Range Rover County LWB, and (aside from the heater) I’ve now fixed all of the above. So I’m just waiting for it to warm up a bit before I actually drive it. It’s got a 2″ OME lift kit, a spring conversion, and about three grand’s worth of stereo in it… which doesn’t *sound* $2950 better than the $50 stereo in the Sterling.. but there you go.

It’s a choice between this or a pickup of some kind – I need something *proper* for towing with.. and it was only after bringing this baby home I realised it doesn’t have a towing hitch. Whoops.

By tedlit, ago

Which yellow?

I was trying to explain the drawbacks of 1970’s automotive paint selections the other day.. your basic beige, brown, tan, chestnut and puke green.. when m’colleague quoth “surely they must’ve got *one* colour right? It wasn’t all tartan interiors and giant shirt collars, was it?”

I thought for a moment.. and came up with this:

It’s a Dolomite.. and the colour is Inca Yellow. This is also the colour my Stag is going to be when I’m done with it. Triumph had a bit of a yellow “thing” going on for most of the 1970s.. Inca, Mimosa, Saffron, Honeysuckle..  all with varying degrees of badness.

Except for Inca.

Obviously.

By tedlit, ago

Things that go CLUNK in the night

It’s amazingly hard to find a reliable Stag with a reliable Stag engine. Because the cooling system is marginal at best and the timing setup isn’t “fire and forget” like your average small block Chevy, most of them have long since died here in the sunny US.

My Stag-engined Stag ran just fine, but with criminally low oil pressure and some very ominous rumbling sounds. Last June, I stopped the (slow) restoration process to figure out what was wrong with the bottom end. Seven months later, I finally got the sump off and found both the thrust washers floating around in the oil. Obviously this wasn’t good.

Oily Goodness, yes? Note the new #3 bearing cap.. straight out of a TR7 as it happens. The actual main bearings were already +0.010″ over, and are hardly worn. The crank was (fortunately) just fine, so it was just a case of meticulously putting everything back together and crossing lots of fingers.

So today, at about 4pm, it finally coughed back into life.. only for me to see that the seven-month lay-up had dried the float chamber seals on one carb, so it spewed neat fuel into a) the engine, and b) the bonnet. Whoops. I’ll be fixing that before I take this any further, I think.

By tedlit, ago

Proof that it’s not just me.

This is what we caught my dad doing a few years ago:

That’s right, it’s a Morris Minor.. after a fairly thorough restoration job. He’s  still got one sitting in that garage somewhere.. and that’s to say nothing of the procession of BMW 1800’s, 2002’s, 2500’s, Triumph Dolomites, Minis, Vitesses and a Vauxhall Cavalier (yes, really) that have passed through the hands over the years. The Dolomites in particular were a favourite of mine.. even though he preferred the BMW 2002 (a TII, don’t you know). The Mini was the most hair-raising (J-reg, with a hole in the floor large enough to qualify it as a Flintstones Car replica).

Fun times.

By tedlit, ago

The Triumph Stag. What did it ever do?

So I have a bit of a thing for Triumph Stags. When I was but a small boy, cars I drew looked like one of two things.. a Mini, or a Stag. This is unfortunate, because a Stag is just about the least reliable British car it’s possible to own. Granted, most of the problems are now well-known and can be sorted.. but this has its consequences.

Firstly, Triumph only sold 2500 Stags in the US between 1970 and 1973. In my estimation, maybe half of these are left.. and of those, maybe half have had the engine switched because the original melted/combusted/exploded. As it left the factory, the Stag has eight of the most fragile cylinders ever put under a bonnet.

The other side-effect of the Stag’s well-known reliability problems is this:

I currently have three Stags. The above two came from a guy who also had three.. but he restored one, decided it was too much effort, and sold the other two to me. The one on the left has been Frankensteined with a 283 Chevy engine, and obviously has been outside for long time.. even though there’s no rust whatsoever *inside*. It also – after some coaxing – runs and drives (unfortunately it doesn’t stop yet).

The one on the trailer is a very early 1970 – in fact, it’s about ten cars earlier than the earliest US-spec “normal production” Stags known to the registry. Unfortunately, despite good bodywork, most of this car is in bits in my garage.  It did come with two engines though – a Capri v6, and the Stag v8 (suspiciously missing one timing cover).

Hmm.

By tedlit, ago