> Back when I was a mechanic at MG/Triumph dealerships ('79-'80,
> uh-oh, I'm giving away my age) there was as joke that asked:
> 'What's the only car that has a worse engine than a TR7?'
> Answer: 'The Triumph Stag.' 'How much worse?' 'Twice as bad.'
> The Stag V8 is two TR7 slant 4's put together and you've heard
> about those! Not to mention that the distributor is under the
> intake manifold and the timing belt pulleys wear flat.
>
> Denise
Denise, the joke is wrong though... the TR7 engine is "half as bad" as the
Stag V8 ;-) That would be the historically correct way to put it...
I will concur that the engine layout is highly irritating. On top of what
Denise mentioned, I'll add that the water pump is located beneath the intake
manifold and takes a good 4-5 hours to change properly! This includes,
removing the 12? bolts holding the intake manifold on (two of which are an
absolute pain to remove), then withdrawing the water pump. Not that bad,
until you have to get the stupid O-Ring to steal around the water passages
in the head again, and for some reason Moss stocks a slightly oversize
O-Ring!!! Then getting the correct combination of three water pump gaskets
to meet a specific height requirement.
On the TR7, it is a similar situation, but did I mention they only supply
rebuilt 6 vane pumps now, and that early TR7 engines have 12 vane pumps...
and they aren't interchangeable!!! The solution is ridiculously labour
intensive, and includes using later model water pump cover, which then needs
to be ground down quite a bit so the intake manifold can be flush with the
two cylinder heads.
I prefer working on Stags to TR7s, at least the Stag's engine bay is a bit
more spacious and the engine isn't slanted over making access even more
difficult. They're just both very labour intensive cars to maintain.
Kai
///
/// mgs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///
|