Nachtrit 2007, now with the views!

As it was mother’s day and Whitsuntide today and the weather was rather sunny we decided to take out the road books from last year’s “Nachtrit’ and drive it by daylight. The idea behind it is, of course to enjoy the scenery that you won’t see in the dark. Originally we had planned to do this in the Easter weekend, but the weather didn’t cooperate then, so it was postponed till today. And as we are a rather environmental friendly bunch Rob and I teamed up, to do a spot of car pooling in his Mk1 Escort RS2000.

So no Triumph stories for me today, but they were a majority nevertheless (GT6, TR6 and Stag). And we were hardly across the border into Belgium when we encountered our biggest setback for the day. Due to a local Moto cross our route was closed, so we had to find an alternative to get back on the route behind the closure. Another problem that arose at the same time was some coolant trying desperately to escape from Roger’s GT6. Luckily it turned out to be caused by the slow start of our little tour (read loads of tourist clogging the roads) robbing his cooling system from the all important air flow. After topping up no more problems were encountered.

But as a result we lost quite a lot of time so after a late lunch and an even later beer at the midway halt in Büllingen we decided to head home from there. As we didn’t fancy driving all the way back over the motorway this turned out to be probably the best bit of the day.

As Ron (TR6) and Leon (Stag) decided on the larger through roads, the GT6 and Escort were left behind to play. As Roger was leading the way now, I was relieved from my navigating duties, enabling me to take a few snap shots;

In the forests of the Hautes Fagnes.

Rob concentrating on the driving (or in full attack mode).

Escort chasing GT6 on a typical country lane near La Clouse.

More GT6 chasing on the hill climb near Teuven.

Oh, completely forgot about the views, we went out to enjoy the scenery.

Well Rob and Roger look like they did enjoy the driving!

All in all it was a rather enjoyable motoring day!

Found a water pump today ...

Somewhere early this year I started on reconditioning the water pump that I took out of ‘t Kreng in late summer last year. After I had the impeller’s seal mating face machined on a lathe I put the impeller in an oil filled tin to get rid of the last bits of rust. After that I forgot all about it until early this week.

In a fit of spring fever I decided it a good idea to clean up a bit. That’s when I found all the bits back. I decided to put the pump back together so I could store it in the attic with the rest of the TR7’s spare parts. So after everything was cleaned thoroughly, it was just a matter of putting everything back in place in the correct order;

For the anoraks; the water thrower and oil seal have changed places in this picture 😉

First thing to go back on the pumps shaft was the oil thrower and bearing. As I don’t have the special tools required to do this job I used the drill column’s platform and a copper hammer instead;

If you have the correct tools putting the circlip in place is rather easy. Just make sure you don’t open up the circlip to far, otherwise it may lose its strength;

After that it was easy to put the oil seal and water thrower on the shaft. I only forget that it would be a far better idea to first put the brass “cage” over the bearing. Luckily the water thrower came off without problems!

The brass cage proved to be quite a challenge to put back on without damaging anything. Problem was that I couldn’t find anything to support it properly. In the end I put it in the vice and, with a drift on the bearing's outer ring, tapped the bearing gently into the cage. With that job done, putting the rest of the pump together was easy;

Have made a mental note to make a special tool in the near future to dismantle and reassemble these pumps. Should make life quite a bit easier.