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Pride Before A Fall
In October 2020 I celebrated 200000 miles and 47 years of ownership of my 1970 Triumph 2000, seeing 32050 on the odometer for the third time.
In December, just before our posh picnic run, an annoying rattle developed somewhere in the dashboard assembly. It occurred only on coarse-chip sealed roads (and there are plenty of those around Rotorua.) I thought it was coming from the left hand side, Gloria thought the right and a mechanic friend said somewhere in the centre.
I commenced trying to track it down by removing all the junk accumulated in the glovebox and parcel shelves, then one part at a time: glovebox lid, glovebox, left parcel shelf, centre vent and clock panel, instrument panel (just pulled out free of its mountings), centre console panels and radio, and right parcel shelf and trying the car out on the road, with no luck - the rattle persisted.
In the end I decided to take the car to my friendly WoF garage to see if the lads there could identify the problem On the way I noticed the rear vision mirror had a slight vibration. I touched the dipping mechanism handle, which felt a little loose, and the rattle stopped! A replacement mirror from my spares shed cured the fault.
Sounds can travel strange courses in cars! The hardest part was refitting all the glovebox, parcel shelves and radio, which took some time, and I still have the odd screw and washer left over. After all that I was undecided whether to give the car a damned good thrashing (as did Basil Fawlty when his 1300 would not start) or pat it on its bonnet and take it for an enjoyable drive. I chose the latter.
John Peters’ photo of an International Harvester Titan 20Hp tractor at the “Farming Like Grandad” show in Kawerau, January
