gibbon

here's the underside of my gt6. the seams where the sills and floor have large corroded away, as they come from the factory with a nice chrome capping that traps all the rain and lets it fester Both sides are the same. The thing is, it's ONLY the exposed part of the seam that's gone. The floors are fine otherwise, and I've borescoped the inner sills and they're fine too. and obviously I've hoisted the whole car and aside from the rusted seams folding at the hoist points, the body is still strong. Because the seams are combination of the floor panels, the inner and outer sill, and an internal stiffener, renewing it would mean replacing all of those parts, even though it's only the exposed lower inch that's rusted So would it be totally unreasonable to just grind the remainder of the seam off, fold up a long T section of approximate gauge, and weld it in it's place? Or is that too much of a bodge up?

hey @cletus just to save me asking the same question in the certs thread, what do you think about this, do aftermarket half shafts require a cert? Mine are "professionally manufactured" (according to the UK seller, who don't supply any kind of engineering declarations with the parts), and dmulally's are locally built

that's a good point too, I'll ask CDC if their off-the-shelf axles come balanced. The LLVTA lists "axle modifications" as requiring a cert but reading into it, it looks like they might be talking about live rear ends more than anything

google says the cappuccino diff is rock solid up to 64 hp. jokes on us, it's probably based on a spitfire diff

lol im just looking at that too, it actually looks pretty close, comes in an LSD too two on trademe

I was looking at rear diffs for fwd-orientated 4wd cars (mazda CX-7 looked sort of ballparky) as they're generally not very beefy. at first glance I thought axles would be impossible as simply nothing is as narrow in track as the little triumphs, but plenty of cars have offset diffs and "short side" axles, of the thousands out there, one might be close enough.... but, I'm leaning towards just buying the bespoke bits as they guarantee hours of not fucking around

what's involved with chopping and changing CV axles? can different CVs be swapped around on axles easily enough or do you have to cut and weld the axles?

I refuse to believe the best option is still a fifty year old datsun diff which doesnt really "bolt in" in any way, shape or form. by the sheer weight of statistical inevitability, i assure you all that some korean designer in the last twenty years has unwittingly penned a diff for some unassuming van that fits up better, we just gotta find it meanwhile in one of the most recent threads I've seen, some guy pops up and is like "I think I've found a solution using a 1974 alfetta hub" NO

its more than my gt6 is end of life IMHO and really will need an "all out project" to bring it back. the motor and gearbox are buggered, the sills are rotten, I think the front of the chassis is bent as the bonnet gaps are irredeemable.... the body's going to have to come off it anyway to address that, so yes it's going to be a giant can of worms. so I thought I might as well rethink everything. Honestly I think the MX5 part of it will be one of the less time consuming aspects of it. Fortunately I have a big workshop with a hoist, and several employees who also enjoy working on cars who I can bend to my will. will it ever get finished? maybe not. but it's not going to be driven again in it's current state either

for context I have avoided brakes, diffs and suspension almost my entire life because they are so, so shit to work on and the way those yanks build their cars, looks like they could have started with just about any vehicle as it's all hot rod butchery by the end. seems to be a culture that never stops to think "surely there's an easier way of doing this"

I feel like I should be more concerned about this than anything... I thought the mx5 setup was considered as close as anything is going to get, as far as fitting in without major butchery? I would also be interested in your axle drawings, although they will probably have to be in crayon for me to make sense of them. I keep running into this circular argument where I want to use the blackline centre to avoid having to mess with fitting up an r160, but then I want to eliminate the rotoflex, which means custom axles which means I dont need to keep the triumph diff, so I could run a datsun diff, but wouldn't I like an LSD? well in that case just get the blackline centre for the stock diff, oh but the axles.... maybe I get an lsd subaru r160 and build custom axles for that? As for this ominous word "machining" - I have a lathe, a welder and a drill press, how much more technical do I need to get?

on the triumph experience site a guy has just shared his project of fitting a complete mx5 rear end which he concludes was way too much work, I can only assume he fitted the entire rear end because just fitting the diff and axles was even more difficult

if you don't mind giving up trade secrets, was there much involved in putting your kits together? There's a couple of MGFs for bits on trademe and Volvo CVs are still available..

thanks for the reply, I'm pretty confident that the Blackline would end up miles cheaper than building adapters and getting half shafts etc machined for the R160, as you say the other half of the equation is getting in there and replacing the oil, i guess welding a drain plug boss in at the same time etc My car is a rotoflex (probably needs new donuts come to think of it). Plan is a supercharged mx5 engine and box. (although the bridgeported 12a and starion box languishing in the garage got a long hard look too) I doubt it'd be anywhere near 200hp but I'm playing it safe. Likewise I'm a placid driver, but I don't really want to leave an obvious weak link in the system, especially if it's fifty years old. If the LSD unit replaces the traditional first points of failure then that's what I was hoping to hear

yeah I did notice most of the threads petered out around the time axles were discussed. thanks for weighing in, I saw your post on the brit car pics thread and figured you were an old hand at triumphs and the like

like with all things gt6, I think there's significant clearance problems that prevent fitting just about anything else. even the driver is an interference fit

my understanding is that the diff was originally designed to go behind a 35hp Herald engine and the poms are the actual worst offenders for "if it ain't broke don't fix it" or rather "make sure it breaks, to help out the lads down at the Union"

going to give the gt6 a birthday and part of it was going to be addressing the crappy diff. I went quite far down the r160 rabbit hole when someone mentioned they'd given up faffing with axles and "just bought a quaife instead". Sure enough the quaife unit and it's Chinese knockoff is still available and probably cost way less than hours of fucking around But my question is, what part of the notoriously shitty triumph diff actually fails? would an aftermarket lsd unit address the weakness or would it just fail somewhere else? I just need something that's good for around 200hp and 150ft-lb

not going back to work on a Saturday to take photos of electrical hardware you foamer

sorry, should add it's a round pin

what's the style/brand name of this kind of crimp pin connector? 3mm OD

wouldnt the wear on one edge of the belt only suggest an alignment issue?

his claims to fame were more based around crashing various bikes at improbable speed and walking away, but yeah I got the feeling he was a weaver of dodgy yarns

talking to an old boy about my rx7 and mentioned the roll cage in it and that I had considered removing it at one stage He said 'oh you probably don't want to do that' - he reckoned when the side impact rules came in in the 90s, importers found it cheaper to import a car "for race use only" to circumvent the side impact requirements, then fit a cheap half cage, THEN recertify for the road where the cage trumped the lack of side bars True or BS?

I'm not sure about the dash, the car seems to have a lot of added extras so it might've been a factory option, but statistically, it's probably just aftermarket crap lol. TBH I've never liked carbon fiber effect, it just screams "kit car" to me. I'd swap for factory if someone offered, wouldn't go paying to change back though. The prices really really are coming down though (more that they were hopelessly inflated in the first place). a couple of years ago you wouldn't even get a running one for 50k, not surprising the prices weren't sustainable