THE STAGNATOR, 1971 Triumph Stag

Afternoon Stagnator Fans, I'm hoping that I can post to the blog now, don't know whats changed but yesterday the pictures were all up loaded in computer speak and I couldn't anotate them. We'll see what happens today. Today I decided I had better get a rough alignment done on the front so I got my super duper alignment jig out and did a preliminary set on the toe in. Will need to drive it a bit to see if it's close and the steering wheel is straight. Then I noticed that the back of the transmission has a leak at the spedometer drive, I suspect that the seal has gone south and it should be pretty easy to replace if Bill can get it for me. Aside from that I decided the missing undercoating needed repair so I sprayed the damaged areas with rubberized undercoat, not as thick as the stuff thats there but will give some protection to the areas in question. Well, that's interesting. Now I can't upload pictures. I may have to look for another blogging site ...

Some of the parts have come in and I've been able to get going on the rear brakes only to find that they were not assembled correctly the last time they were worked on and that the drivers side rear wheel cylinder was frozen and leaky.  Bill bought new wheel cylinders and brake shoes but now I'm waiting on a replacement spring (The drivers side rear wheel was lacking a spring on the auto adjust mechanism).   I also fixed a couple of other things while I was waiting for the parts to come, the clutch reservoir container was hanging loose in the engine compartment and the turn signal would not turn off consistently.  The clutch reservoir needed a way to attach it to the clutch master cylinder mount and the turn signal was off because the steering wheel was mounted with the tab at the 6 O'Clock  position rather than 9 o'clock  where it's half way between the two release levers. This is just a picture of the new brake flex lines we installed for each wheel This ...

 I think that every Blog I have done has this title somewhere in it!  It seems that all old cars will have something that will just stop you in your tracks and make you wonder about your own sanity when you could be doing something else that's actually productive!   The day started off great with a 6 mile hike with my Buddy Harry but rapidly deteriorated quickly when I started on the Stagnator.  I decided that the air filter housing needed some corrosion protection so I coated it with 'Endrust' and will put a couple more coats on it in the next couple of days.  Then I thought I'd take off the rear wheels since Bill wanted to pick them up to get the new tires on them, see the last blog for the details of this debacle.  No sweat, get the car up in the air and pull them off, started on the drivers side and quickly had it off and on the floor-'piece of cake'  (there was a PBS mini series called Piece of Cake a few years back that was about a British S...

Well, the god was that the carburetors are installed and the car started and ran well. The bad?  Take a look at this picture of the rear wheel. The ugly? installing the tires is a son of a gun, took me a couple of hours to get the tire and tube on only to have the tube blow out when I inflated it.  I was careful to use talc and avoid pinching the tube but something happened as I don't think it should have blown at 36-38 psi?  I guess it's better to have it blow now than when it's on the road to Colorado.  That being said I think we'd (Bill) better find a competent shop to install these tires/tubes. Three broken spokes in a row Looked pretty good after cleaning them up. Well, that's all folks!   Wish someone could have caught a picture of my expression when the GD tube blew.   Cheers, Lynn  

 Evening Folks, Didn't have time to do a post yesterday so will combine todays and yesterdays.  Ran into a few issues with them but was able to make some gaskets and fix a few things along the way.  All of the 'O' rings in the carbs have been hard and brittle so was definitely worth the effort to rebuild them.  ZS  carbs have an 'O' ring in the bottom of the float bowl that fits a plastic plug, when these get old the carbs leak fuel. Included this picture to show the adjustable needle valve. The 'O' ring was beyond doing what it was intended to do and broke as I removed it.  The Carburetor should not have to be topped up with oil as frequently now. The carbs mounted to the intake manifold, it has a two piece manifold which made installing the carbs almost pleasant compared to removal This is one of the "ball and socket" linkages that had been held in place with tape, the socket was obviously intended for a larger ball and would slip right off.  I c...