Triumph 2500TC

Last week saw the Triumph running properly at last following its session on the rolling road, but no sooner had Classics Monthly’s Iain Wakefield taken the keys than it refused to start one freezing morning.

- Paul Wager

Luckily, it turned out to be a simple fix, when one of the low tension wires to the coil was found to be hanging loose... thought to have been disturbed during a torchlight oil check the previous night.

More pressing was the bottom end rumble which had been identified during the inspection session detailed last week, with a cunning plan being hatched to drop the sump and replace the bearing shells and thrust washers ‘live’ at the NEC Restoration Show.

Since our 2500 is the TC model and comes with no power steering, it’s a relatively simple matter to remove the front cross member and drop the sump, but it seemed prudent to check beforehand whether the bolts could be removed without resorting to hacksaw and grinder.

Thankfully the bolts on our car let go without a struggle, so we fitted new lock nuts to the freed-off bolts and gave all the other fixings in the locality a good dose of penetrating oil.

This was also an ideal time to replace our 2500’s leaking clutch master cylinder. The new cylinder has made a massive difference and it seemed to have cured the terrible clutch judder that made quick getaways a nightmare.

Fast forward a few weeks and with the car up on ramps at the NEC’s Restoration Show, the work was overseen by Triumph guru David Harvey, assisted by Colin Radford and his wife Amanda.

As we didn’t know if the crankshaft had been reground in the past, Dave brought along a selection of oversized big end and main bearing shells, as well as a selection of different sized thrust washers. While the sump was on the bench, Dave was also planning to fit a new oil pump and pressure relief valve.