DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Great, really pleased that's worked out O.K. Hopefully see you on sunday then (unless monsoon / volcanic / blizzard conditions occur ).

Time for an update I think.

When going to the last Goodwood breakfast club the car, once again, jumped out of third. Enough's enough I thought: used it once more to take it to it's first TR meeting (drove very nicely, had a great evening), put it in the stealth shed.

Couple of days later Ian and I got the gearbox out (not pleasant with 14ins or so down the side of the car to work in). Anyway it went off to the gearbox people. Few days later I got a call: it was the engagment dogs in the synchro hubs: no great surprise, and only £175 plus vat all in, including a couple of bearings. Brilliant.

But ( ), slight problem: when taking the overdrive (that worked perfectly) off the back of the gearbox, a thrust washer fell out. Oh poo. They then (quite rightly) stripped the overdrive, and reported back to me that it needed an additional £475 of work (plus vat). Bit frustrating as it had been working fine, but they are very trustworthy so their word can be taken as good. I gave the go-ahead for the gearbox, but hang fire on the O/D.

As it happened, there was a Triumph Stag gearbox on E-bay with the same type of overdrive attracting no bids. I'm hoping to get the car back on the road ready for the bank holiday weekend, so went for this Stag box, thinking I could just swap the O/Ds across. Bid, won it for £120: fantastic. Kept trying to get hold of the guy, who eventually mailed to say he was going on holiday, and would send it on his return: poo, poo, poo, poo .

Anyway, today I thought I would try to regain control of the situation: went to the gearbox place, and left the gearbox for them to do, and nabbed the O/D back here. Found that two of the planetary gears had run their bearings, and although the actual gears were fine, the gearbox people had quoted to replace every gear in the overdrive ( ). Got hold of a company in Sheffield who can supply a planetary bearing kit, with new pins etc etc for £30 to do all gears ( ) and some other bits and bobs: total bill: £45.

Got back form the gearbox place, to find apology from very nice E-bayer saying he had already refunded my account, but would also hold the gearbox just in case I needed it upon his return form holiday: brilliant!

So now waiting for shiny O/D parts, and still a chance the car could be ready for the weekend .

Started to rebuild the seats yesterday: as soon as they're done, I'll pop a pic up. Oh yes, also have sent my 72 spoke wire wheels off for blasting and powder caoting, and have ordered a set of tyres. Hopefully we're getting near to the end now. Might see if I can get a ticket for the revival after all to celebrate .

Great news Barry - I still haven't seen the car in the flesh yet.

I should have contacted you to see if you were around yesterday afternoon as I was down at Jim Avis' place but didn't think of it till I was on my way back (& didn't have your number with me).

well done Barry, hope it all comes together now.
What finish have you decided on for the wire wheels?

24ct gold plated would look nice against the green.

Damn, how did you guess?

No, I chickened out in the end, and just went for silver: not very exciting, but nobody's going to walk away from the car because its got silver wheels. Hopefully it'll look fine.

Andy: hopefully the car will be at this and other Fairmiles, so I expect you'll be able to see it soon . Is Jim down this way, BTW ?

With fresh apologies to the non-brit classic fraternity, I thought I would save this thread from auto-deletion as it had not been resolved.

As I left it, the gearbox was heading back in, and the wire wheels were due back. In the end, the gearbox and overdrive went back together again fine, and work just as they should.

The newly power coated wire wheels were shod with a pretty authentic-looking set of Firestones. Normally I wouldn't touch them, but on this sort of car, and particulary running wire wheels, I figured that looks were probably as important as ultimate grip.

Most of the interior was put in by late Autumn. Currently the car is in it's stealth garage awaiting a brief workshop space. All it needs now is the door side glass, door trim panels and the boot carpet. One other job is that I've now got a slightly breathed-on cylinder head for it, along with a matching (mild) cam. Since this head came with only 2k mikes on it and has been modified for unleaded it seems to make sense to fit it.

Hopefully be the end of the winter I can polish it off, polish it up, and sent it on it's way. Anyway, pictures will be posted of the finished car. I'll take it to the previous owner before I sell it, as he'd owned it for thirty years plus, and was reluctant to see it go. I'd imagine he'd quite like to see it ....

Good to hear of the progress with the TR - will you be sad to see it go?

By the way, I've changed my avatar as suggested!

Regards
Roger

Oh yes.

Will I be sad to see it go? Sort of, I suppose. The thing is that I rather rushed into buying at as a result of the stinky nature of my local PCGB group. When I took the Gulf blue 911 to the local TR group, they were so welcoming and friendly I thought '.od it, I'll sell the 911 and get another TR'.

This all really happened before I'd really got into DDK, and since for me half of having a classic is the social scene, the TR at the time seemed to be the answer. Of course then I got into DDK a bit more, met plenty of DDK'ers and bought another 911 to do (still in the barn waiting for it slot in the workshop ). Also it's now turned out that the local TR group would be happy to have the 911 as a honourary TR anyway, so one way or another I'm fairly happy for the TR to go, knowing there will be a 911 to replace it.

Of course it would be nice to keep the TR as well, especially as it fits in with the vintage crowd very well, but there's a limit on space (as ever) so needs must. I'll look to sell it in the early spring, which is when I should be onto my 911.

Barry wrote: Oh yes.

Will I be sad to see it go? Sort of, I suppose. The thing is that I rather rushed into buying at as a result of the stinky nature of my local PCGB group. When I took the Gulf blue 911 to the local TR group, they were so welcoming and friendly I thought '.od it, I'll sell the 911 and get another TR'.

This all really happened before I'd really got into DDK, and since for me half of having a classic is the social scene, the TR at the time seemed to be the answer. Of course then I got into DDK a bit more, met plenty of DDK'ers and bought another 911 to do (still in the barn waiting for it slot in the workshop ). Also it's now turned out that the local TR group would be happy to have the 911 as a honourary TR anyway, so one way or another I'm fairly happy for the TR to go, knowing there will be a 911 to replace it.

Of course it would be nice to keep the TR as well, especially as it fits in with the vintage crowd very well, but there's a limit on space (as ever) so needs must. I'll look to sell it in the early spring, which is when I should be onto my 911.

So we can look forward to seeing the 911 at the end of April then Barry??

You may laugh, but the plan is to be in Scotland in it at the end of May . Might be pushing it a bit, given I've not even looked at it, but we'll see .... Mind you ,it may be as a rat-look though.

Barry wrote:Mind you ,it may be as a rat-look though.

Happy to keep you company there Barry

Thought I'd better get the TR out of the stealth garage over the weekend: I think it's fair to say, it had got a bit dusty . Probably didn't help that I had the chop-saw running near it during some alterations to the workshop in the winter.

As it happens, it was all well preserved with plenty of WD40, Waxoyl and Zymol in all of the right places, so no harm done.

Currently the car is still awaiting the side windows (passenger one just about in), but otherwise the interior is all in, Surrey top on, wire wheels on, and mechanically all fine. Took it for a run on sunday, and it was pretty good. Hopefully get it to a point in the next week or two where I can take some final shots of it ...

looks abit lumpy down that wing Barry! Is it just a trick of the light