OT: Epiphany

[Larry Blanchard]

Oops! I forgot Triumph built cars too :-).

[Lew Hodgett]

Not being a car junkie, must say I have had the best of all worlds.

1) Living in SoCal where the car is king and a rag top makes sense to own and operate. 2) A SO who owned a nice shiny bright red Toyota convertible and let me drive it with the top down on special occasions, like almost every time I got to drive it.

Lew

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip

That's why it had two -- you at least had a chance that one of them would actually work.

[Luigi Zanasi]

I am buying a Fiat Ram 2006 2500 SLT (3/4 ton) 4X4 with a Cummings diesel. Some of us never learn. :-)

Luigi

[Lew Hodgett]

diesel. Some of us never learn. :-)

I assume the above is a typo.

Think you mean Cummins, based in Columbus, IN; however, based on the size, it's probably coming out of Rocky Mount, NC, a joint venture to produce small diesels between Cummins and Case (J I Case) to compete with Deere and the off shore stuff in the construction equipment market.

Lew

[Dave in Houston]

"dadiOH" wrote in message news:bZlcm.63112$ [e-mail]...

Like I'd want to have to live with Lucas electrics again! I learned my [very expensive] lesson when at the tender [and naive] age of

19 I bought a 5-year old '64 TR4A, complete with wire wheels and 65k miles or so. The very first day I discovered there were loose teeth floating around in the rear end. When one would catch in the ring and pinion it would lock up the rear end which would invite the right rear wire wheel to spin itself off the drum. I watched it go rolling through a shallow roadside ditch and jump the barbed wire fence. Probably rolled another hundred yards or so. I was able to put it back on the car and I did make it home w/o further incident. That was the first trip to the salvage yard and the seller agreed to cut and move the axle saddles to fit. The rear axle continued to "rock" some for the remainder of it's life with me. Down the road I managed to break the crank it that POS - right over the front main. It continued to run but sounded like a tank. Another trip to the salvage yard. IIRC the junkyard crank cost me $65 which seemed like a lot in 1970. That rebuild also required a salvaged block ("Gee, I've never seen a block warp like this.") and a J.C.Whitney catalogue. I also learned that the mid-main would bolt on either way you placed it but that the crank it would only spin if it was on the correct way. Who would have guessed? Before I unloaded it towards the end of 1971 I managed to burn it up, cracking the head in the process. The temp gauge had long since quit and when the thermostat gasket gave way . . . well, I WAS late for work that morning. When I pulled into the parking lot after five or six miles on I-10 at 70+ mph the blue smoke poured up through the transmission tunnel. All that was after the broken crankshaft rebuild. I learned the hard way what polarizing (?) the voltage regulator meant - it meant buying one twice. Took $150 for it but still owed the credit union several hundreds of dollars for the repair loans. Good riddance. Took me more than year to finish off the loans. In early 1972 I bought my first new car, a '72 Celica and moved on. No more British cars for me. Did I mention the body rust on The Triumph?

Dave in Houston

[Dave in Houston]

9.0 !

Dave in Houston

[dadiOH]

100/6...I never again want to deal with side curtains, stow in the trunk tops or wire spoke wheels. I liked the electric overdrive though.

[dadiOH]

I had very few mechanical problems with the car and it was my sole mode of transportation for almost 30 years.

I did have considerable trouble with so-called professional mechanics screwing stuff up, no idea why, it is a very simple car mechanically. For example...

I was on a trip, long (150 mile) detour in Georgia, heavy traffic and slow going, car stopped running. The local mechanic decided the mechanical fuel pump needed to be replaced with an electrical one. That didn't fix it - the distributor was the problem - but I still wound up with the new fuel pump.

Months later I was driving along, top closed, and the compartment fills with smoke. Turns out the fuel pump "mechanic" had routed the wire to the fuel pump so that it wasn't secured and ultimately fell onto the manifold where the insulation immediately burned off shorting the wire and burning out most of the rest of the wiring. Cost 100s to rewire. The Georgia mechanic screwed up the distributor repair too.

[Lew Hodgett]

There was a young man from Boston, Who bought himself a new Austin, Had room for his ass and a gallon of gas, The rest hung out and he lost them.

Lew

[Gerald Ross]

My TR3 had electric overdrive too. It was like having a 7 speed transmission. After replacing the solenoid which engaged it twice, I just punched a hole in the hump and attached a piece of haywire with a loop on the end. It worked fine but was not the same as having a toggle switch.

[J. Clarke]

The stow in the trunk top on my Corvette wasn't too bad, except for having to pull four bolts to remove it.

[Dave in Houston]

Then there was, "Ass, gas, or grass; nobody rides for free."

Dave in Houston

[Mark & Juanita]

I'm wit' ya there. 1988 Sterling, bought new. When I sold it 4 years later, it had a stack of repair orders over 1" thick.

[PDQ]

That sound about like your basic Jag from that time.

I had a 64 AH with wires and side curtains. Liked it so much I got a =

1. Should have kept them. Just saw a late 65 go for some 60k. P D Q

[Doug Miller]

SWMBO and I nearly bought an '86 Sterling -- but after some of the things I've read, man oh man oh man am I ever glad the dealer was holding out for list price and wouldn't negotiate....

[Mark & Juanita]

Pretty much guaranteed you dodged a bullet.

When we bought ours, the deal was exactly the opposite, the dealer was offering what appeared to be a great deal on them. Should have known we were in for trouble when I had to take the car back the following Monday because one of the turn indicators wasn't working (missing bulb) and a couple other nitnoid things were wrong with a brand new car.

[Ed Pawlowski]

List price for a Sterling? He may still have it on the lot.

[Doug Miller]

Since we were shopping in mid/late '86, it might have been an '87 model we were looking at -- in any event, I'm almost sure that it was the first year they were sold in the U.S., so the dealer apparently thought he could get list price for it. Perhaps he could; perhaps he did -- but not from me. :-)