Triumph 2500 TC
Our Triumph’s suspension gets a pre-stripdown checkover.
A recent project car switch resulted with yours truly taking over our Triumph 2500TC Estate from Simon Goldsworthy, editor of CM’s sister title Triumph World. My first impression was that the 2500TC was a bit of a Marmite car – you either love it or loathe it. However, a few miles into my weekly commute home after picking the Triumph up had me totally won over, so you’ll guess what I spread on my toast in the morning.
We’ve been kept busy over the last few weeks, as the Triumph is going to be the star turn on the Triumph 2000 and 2500 Register’s stand at the NEC’s Restoration Show, which runs from Friday March 31 to Sunday April 2. As this show is a hands-on event, club members from the Register under the direction of Triumph 2000/2500 guru David Harvey will be dropping the sump on our car and replacing the worn crankshaft thrust washers. To ensure everything comes apart easily at the NEC, we took the car to David’s Derbyshire workshop so he could check that the bolts securing the track control arms to the front crossmember weren’t seized.
This crossmember has to be removed before the sump comes off and David explained how the large bolts securing the track control arms to the cross member seize in the metal tubes inside their rubber bushes.
The only solution is to saw the bolts off and this wasn’t a job the team wanted to do at the NEC in front of a crowd of onlookers. Thankfully the track control arm bolts on our car all let go without a struggle, so David fitted new lock nuts and gave all the other fixings in the vicinity a good dose of penetrating oil. As the steering rack mounts need replacing on our Triumph, we’ll get these sorted and grease up the rack while the car is at the Restoration Show. While David was under the car, he decided it would be an ideal time to replace our 2500TC’s leaking clutch master cylinder. This was a relatively easy fix and the new cylinder has cured the annoying clutch judder that made quick getaways a nightmare.
Another problem we had was trying to manoeuvre the Triumph with the choke out, as the engine kept stalling. This was because the idling speed had been set too slow and adjusting the screws controlling the fast idle on the twin SUs quickly sorted the problem out. With the fast idle carefully adjusted without messing up the main settings on the carburettors, our Triumph’s straight six now fires up with just the briefest sniff of choke, even on the coldest morning.
The next problem was when the car refused to start one freezing cold morning. This had to be down to an electrical fault, as the engine just kept churning away without firing. Lifting the bonnet immediately revealed the problem – a detached spade connector hanging off the positive side of the coil. Once the wire was reconnected the straight six roared into life. As the oil had been checked by torchlight the previous evening, the errant connector must have been disturbed while the dipstick was being replaced. Other jobs we’ve sorted out include silencing a noisy fan belt and fitting a radio after recovering the panel around the heater controls with black vinyl. This smartened the Triumph’s centre console and a spare radio I had in the shed was slipped in place after sorting out the wiring. Unfortunately more work is required in this department as a dodgy earth on the aerial means the only sound we get out of the temporary speakers is an annoying crackle. All the jobs we’ve done to the Triumph since shuffling the fleet around are as follows...