Triumph 2500 TC
With the expert assistance of Colin Radford from the ever-enthusiastic 2000/2500/2.5PI Register, we examine our new project 2500TC estate closely and compile a list of jobs to be done.
An expert assessment lists all the jobs we need to do to our load lugger.
W hen I went to collect the 2500TC from the Kelsey office, I was not expecting to be bowled over by a great car in super condition. That’s partly because if we’d bought a perfect car then there would be little to write about in the magazine, but other factors also came into play in the lowering of my expectations. Not least among these is the fact that company cars which get passed from one staffer to another tend to suffer from a distinct lack of love, with any problems that can be ignored long enough for somebody else to pick up the keys and so take responsibility for them invariably getting the cold-shoulder treatment.
On first sight of the big estate, I was not disappointed in my expectations. The Triumph was buried at the back of the office car park behind several more modern and less interesting hacks, covered in dust from the building works next door. The icing on the cake was to be told: “It’s not been used for a couple of weeks, so let’s hope it starts...” Oh joy.
A pathway to the Triumph was duly cleared, and I sat behind the wheel. This did not lift my spirits. The seat itself was torn and saggy, there was an old four-pint milk bottle now full of water in the passenger footwell which suggested to me that the coolant was leaking, and the gearstick gaiter was a sticky mess that stopped several inches short of the centre console. Oh, and the nearside door mirror was in the warm and dry of the parcel shelf, only it was not all that dry because the car was not watertight and the inside of the screen was wetter than the outside. It’s a glamorous life being a classic car journalist!
My first pleasant surprise was when the six-cylinder engine sprang quickly to life. If my glass was half empty, I’d say its easy start after such a long rest and the happy idle despite the cold suggested worn carburettors and a seriously rich fuel mixture. Let’s not jump to conclusions though, as it certainly seemed to pull smoothly through the revs and cruised quite happily on the 20-mile run back to base. It handled nicely– I’d checked the tyres before setting off and they were a matching set of 2016 rubber, so that will have played its part – and the overdrive slipped smoothly in and out as required, while the brakes pulled it up confidently in a straight line too. In fact, by the time I parked it on my drive, I was feeling considerably more positive about the whole thing.
I then spent a day going over the car and correcting any obvious faults. These included putting anti-freeze into the coolant, repairing the plastic fixing block for the nearside door mirror and taping the overdrive switch to the top of the gearstick to stop this from coming adrift. Because the temperature gauge seemed slow to move, I checked that a thermostat was fitted – there was an 88° stat in place, and this worked fine when I boiled it up in a saucepan of water.
I also checked the tracking using a Gunson Trakrite because I didn’t think the steering felt as smooth as it should. The wheels were spot-on, so I finally felt ready to tackle the 150-mile round trip to Doncaster where I had arranged to meet Colin Radford of the 2000/2500/2.5 Register. Colin had very kindly agreed to inspect the car with me and share his vast knowledge of the model. This was something of a revelation, and I learnt more about the model in three hours with Colin than I’ve so far managed to accumulate in 50+ years!
I know from past experience that the Register are a great bunch, and I would seriously recommend talking with them via www.triumph2000register.co.uk if you were thinking of getting one of these big saloons yourself.
Much of what Colin imparted comprised fascinating tidbits about the various models in the range, for which there is sadly not room in this assessment. Instead I have distilled his wisdom to the bare bones concerning this car and the jobs to be done, all divided into three sections according to their level of urgency.
Urgent
The most urgent job to do concerns the steering, which exhibited a lack of selfcentreing and excessive free play at the wheel. There is a grease nipple at the bottom of the steering column on the rack itself, or rather a blanking bolt where a grease nipple should go, and Colin suggested that a few squirts in there might help with the self centreing. Of more concern was that we
discovered the steering rack was moving from side to side as you turned the wheel. That would account for the free play, so clearly the rack mounts needed replacing too, ideally with solid mounts to eliminate all movement.
Regarding the bottom end wear that was highlighted last month, the oil light was quite slow to go out, but there was no knocking. It didn’t sound entirely smooth under load though, so the main bearings could probably do with replacement. Of more immediate concern was the fact there was too much crank endfloat – a rough-and-ready measurement of the crankshaft pulley against the timing cover showed about 24 thou’ of endfloat, whereas the factory-recommended tolerance is 6-14 thou’, and even this is generous. The next step here will be to drop the front suspension and remove the sump so that a detailed inspection of the crank and all bearings can be made.
Not all the urgent jobs are quite so drastic, though. For example the wiper blades need replacing, and the speedo cable needs re-routing above the gearbox crossmember and having some damage taped up – at the moment it is resting against the exhaust and the plastic sleeve has burnt away, potentially allowing water to get inside. Another problem is that the fluid in the clutch master cylinder was low, and there appeared to be a leak from the slave. Also promising to be an easy fix, the check strap is missing from the driver’s door so a replacement needs to be sourced. Hardly urgent but certainly worth doing while working on the door, the wooden trim on the driver’s door is too high and stopping the quarterlight from opening, and the window rocks in its groove so perhaps the runner needs adjusting.
Talking of windows, stopping water leaks into the car should fall into the urgent category. We may get away with applying some sealant around the front screen, but the rubber seals on the tailgate glass and the rear side windows all need replacing; fortunately 2000/2500/2.5 specialist Chris Witor has all of these in stock.
Finally in this section, the driver’s seat needs to be fixed. We could live with the torn cover, but there is a very definite list to port that becomes very uncomfortable on a long run. The rubber diaphragm underneath is in good order, so either the foam has broken up or the frame is broken. We suspect the foam has gone, but if a better secondhand seat can’t be found, then it will be interesting to see how a trimmer tackles
this repair as new Chestnut Brown bri-nylon covers are simply not available.
Not so urgent
Moving on to jobs that are less urgent but which should still be addressed promptly, we’ll start this section by returning to the engine bay. Colin felt the 2500 motor was misfiring slightly, adding: “It can be difficult to tell with these engines because they are inherently so smooth – you can take a plug out and it will still feel good. It could just be that I am not used to the sound this particular exhaust makes, but to me there is a kind of fluffing, wobbly sound that makes me think of a misfire. Nothing serious though as it idles and pulls well. Maybe it just needs a proper tune up, or perhaps even just a new set of plugs would help.”
Curiously, if we rocked the car with the engine idling, this fluffiness (it may sound a strange description, but is the best word to convey the sound!) from the exhaust got noticeably worse. We wondered if perhaps this was all down to worn carburettors, with over-fuelling as a result. That would certainly chime with my initial impressions, and we felt the next step should be to put the car on a rolling road for a tune-up. Not only would this highlight any fuelling issues, but also point towards any other mechanical problems before we wade in with the spanners to tackle that bottom end. Before all of this though, the carburettor breather pipes need replacing because the one to the rear carb has collapsed, and this in itself could be contributing to the unbalanced feel of the engine.
Next up, we found some bodywork issues to be addressed. The most obvious of these is around the offside rear wheelarch where a combination of previous repairs and some fresh rust needs sorting, and the NSF door that fits poorly but which might respond to some careful tweaking. However, Colin also spotted a couple of other areas that the bodyshop should investigate, including a localised bit of rust on the NS chassis near the drag strut, perhaps where sealant has caused water to be trapped and the seam to swell. This section sounded solid when we knocked it so doesn’t look to have caused any permanent damage, but should be cleaned and protected before it does.
A little further back, the drop tubes on the gearbox crossmember looked new, but those on the nearside were angled backwards rather than vertical and the crossmember
itself was visibly twisted. Colin speculated that perhaps this point had been used to jack the car up and this had pushed the floor out of position. Similarly, the mounts where the antivibration straps and the rear subframe are secured to the body look angled rather than vertical. Again these may have been used as jacking points or to support the car on a four-post lift, and bent the floorpan slightly out of place.
Finally while under the car, Colin spotted where corrosion had started around one of the drain plugs in the boot floor, and that one UJ on the propshaft has a hole for a grease nipple, but neither a nipple nor a blanking plug in place. He also pointed out that the handbrake rubber boot had come off and was rubbing on the propshaft, saying: “That’s a pain to secure over the flange, so good luck with that!”
Other improvements...
With any project you have to know where to draw the line, so we will conclude this assessment with a whirlwind tour of other areas where improvements can be made if time and enthusiasm permit, but without touching on some cosmetic improvements such as refinishing the wood trim or polishing the paint.
Starting at the back, if you secure the boot floor into place using its latch, then the tailgate will not shut. Either the boot floor needs reshaping around the catch, or more likely the catch itself needs adjusting. At the other end of the car, we would change the radiator top and bottom hoses, fitting them with Jubilee clips rather than the wire ones currently in place. While doing this job, Colin also recommended removing the drain tap on the block above the starter motor to see if the waterways there are silted up and need cleaning out.
There are also some missing bits of trim. There should be some stainless steel finishers along the bottom of each sill – again Chris Witor is the man to see as he has had them remanufactured. Other items that have gone AWOL include the curved metal pieces on either side of the footwell heater outlet to direct warm air forwards to your toes, and a chrome ring around the hazard-warning switch. That wayward OD switch needs securing more elegantly to the gear knob too, and somebody has made an MDF surround to the radio, similar in style to the original but with an aperture to fit a modern DIN-sized radio. This needs finishing with vinyl.
Finally, there is a question over the ride height at the rear. The car does not feel saggy and it rides very well, but we are not sure whether it is too low to cope with a full complement of passengers and their luggage.
It would be worth removing a spring and measuring its free length. This is not a difficult job, and once again Chris Witor can supply new springs if needed for a very modest £39 each.