FI Spyder's weblog

It was the year of the inconvenient rains. The saftey check necessary for US imported vehicles was passed with no problems. The first car meet and first outing for Spidey was Father’s Day Picnic at Beacon Hill Park. The day started with heavy dark clouds but forecast was for a lessening threat and sure enough by late morning the sun broke through and it was quite sunny and warm. Unfortunately the batteries in my camera were dead so no pictures.

A drive around Maple Bay to flush the cooling system and do maintenance like oil and filter change, then on to diassembling LH door to clean and lube door latches and window lift and paint quarter window frame.

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Our Brits on the Beach club show in Ladysmith on July 21st didn’t look promising as it rained Saturday and was cloudy that Sunday morning. The weather forcast was for improvement so I attached the LH door card and a few other parts and got there at noon, a little late. This year there were more TR7’s and 8’s than ever before and we all seemed to be in one spot which is unusual as the cars line up as they come into the park. It sprinkled for 10 minutes but other wise was dry but cloudy until it came down on the way home after the barbecue. We had about 115 cars, down from previous years but not bad considering the weather. It was the first bad day in five or six years.

Then it was time to take the air pleum off and clean up the engine bay to get it ready for the All Triumph Drive In at Steveston, a two State and Province assembly of Triumphs. I painted the air plenum, valve cover, oil filter canister, heater pipes, RH side of engine block, injector inlet jubilee clips, RH side of engine bay in their original colours all with out removing the engine. Lots of taping and masking off so there was no over spray. It worked out well. I cleaned and polished all other parts. I had metal bushing inserted in the lower alternator bracket mounting point as the aluminum had worn. Although the air intake hoses weren’t leaking I covered over them with black duct tape and restrung them with white cord which made them look like new.

I went over to Vancouver for a week for the ATDI. I went to see were my nephew works at a PC gaming company and drove into downtown Vancouver as the day was nice, sunny and warm. Heading back out to Richmond I got caught in the beginnings of rush hour. It was hot, stop and go, up the long steep Granville Street hill but the temp gage didn’t go past half way. (It’s usually a little below.) A testiment to how well the cooling system was working.

The day of the ATDI I decided to go to the awards banquet. The day was cloudy but it didn’t rain. The TR7’s were lumped into the TR8 category for the first year to the chagrin of the TR7 owners as the TR8’s being worth twice the price of the TR7s are usually in especially good nick. We had cars from as far away as Califorinia (one Californian Stag by way of Pennsylvania and a father/son team flying out from New York city to drive a friends collection of TR6’s in from Oregon or CA.) After the show it was a trip to local wineries or a private car collection. I chose the later. That evening was the banquet and guess what I won second place in the TR7-TR8 category. What a surprise as the car is original and not nearly done the rolling restoration. Probably the originality part and the rarity of a Californian FI Spider in these parts didn’t hurt.

After driving it around on any nice day after the ATDI (not that many this year) in late September the starter refused to work so it’s time for the winter projects to start to get it ready for 2008. Have a Merry Christmas everyone and see you next year.