April 23rd - Enjoy your Triumph!

April 23rd has been declared Drive It Day by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs, the organisation which exists to uphold our freedom to drive our classics.
April 23rd is also the date of the STAB event - Standard Triumph At Brooklands. As a Triumph Forum event, this should be an excellent gathering for Triumphs of all types. I'll be going along, sadly without a Triumph, but with a Transit Van full of bits for them instead. Never mind, my wife Karen will be coming, probably in her 2000, so at least one of the Rarebits fleet will be flying the flag!
See you there,
Bill.

I've thought about putting a blog together for some time, there's always been something more pressing to do though. The last week has seen me grounded with a rather nasty illness. I won't go into the gory details, but I've ended up with time on my hands, but little chance of escaping the house to work on any of my cars. Ho-hum.
So what am I up to? Just before getting ill, I acquired a Triumph Acclaim HLS. I've thought about getting one of these for a while now, so the sudden need for a replacement "modern" car (well, everything's relative!) saw this one join the fleet. It's in the traditional Acclaim colour of "Hearing-aid Beige". It coped well with the journey back from Birmingham and is actually quite nice to drive. It will certainly be more economical than the Mk1 Triumph 2000 which otherwise serves as daily transport!
So a quick learning curve on Honda & Triumph's finest. First thing to deal with is a reluctant starter, the engine turns hesitantly but will start easily. It's not the battery, intially cleaning up the feed and ground cables hasn't sorted the problem. Those wires look really flimsy compared to the older Triumphs I'm used to, so I will make some new ones of slightly heavier gauge. I wonder if there's a market for these?
Other issues to deal with are a blowing exhaust downpipe gasket, complicated by some studs already having been broken and replaced with bolts by a previous owner. Not rocket science, but I will be methodical as the manifiold will inevitably need to come off for re-studding. I wonder what else will break when that comes off? There's also the broken headlight switch to replace, I currently have only dipped beam.
All good fun, but very frustrating that I can't get on with it.....