From time to time in the maintenance and restoration of our British cars, we all must face the need to remove one or both of the tie-rod ends from the steering arms. The occasion may be that the ball joint portions have become severely worn and must be replaced to cure sloppy steering and/or loss…
Last month our British Motor Club of Southern New Jersey club members attended a workshop at Motorcar Garage on the Lucas electrical and wiring systems, famous in British cars. Coincidently, in conversation with other club members, I mentioned that last June I had completed a full restoration and EV conversion of a 1967 Triumph TR4a…
Your car’s suspension probably needs a good restoration and you may not be aware of it. That’s not surprising. Suspension systems wear slowly and evenly. Nothing dramatic happens. Then one day you realize that the old precision and sharpness has disappeared. It’s time to either restore it, or modify and restore it at the same…
Triumph vehicles are so designed that a minimum of attention is required to keep them in satisfactory running order. There are, however, certain maintenance operations which must be undertaken regularly. The object of this instruction book is to assist the owner to understand the various operations required, and so ensure that the vehicle receives regular…
Because servicing them is a dirty job, wire wheels are perhaps the most neglected components on a British car. Many times I’ve bought or worked on a car and found it nearly impossible to remove one of the wheels! This is likely due to very hard, dried-up grease which essentially freezes the wheel on. Before…
Don’t ever just install a new oil pump right out of the box. There are two easy methods of insuring the oil pump will create the seal needed to pull oil in on initial start up. The first method is to pack the oil pump full of Vaseline. Vaseline will create the seal needed for vacuum…
This original Lucas Technical Service Manual discusses the various electrical circuits of the “modern British automobile” and defines the wire colors for each circuit to help in electrical diagnosis. This is a wonderful and thorough reference for Lucas wiring. Click the image below to download the full PDF document. The following is the introduction…
What is going on with those pesky brakes? Let’s take them apart starting at the back. While the front brakes do most of the work, it is important that the rear brakes are operating properly. The hand brake really needs to be able to prevent the car from rolling, and should be able to stop…
After driving my 1963 Austin-Healey for 21 years and putting on about 27,000 miles, I decided to restore it and put the Healey back into what I hope to be mint condition.
While sitting there over the years on jack-stands, all of the brake and clutch fluid drained out (or disappeared somewhere). I know that I would need to rebuild the master cylinders.
I spent most of my working life as owner and operator of a dyno tune-up and diagnostic shop in New Jersey. This started as a service for fellow SCCA racers and sports car owners, but after about 10 years I realized that if I ever wanted to retire I’d have to switch to American cars. Happily,…
