After five years my 1970
Triumph Vitesse is restored.
Lovingly called the Yellow Peril it now has an agent and is ready for work.
In the rebuild I had the bodywork welded together and resprayed.
Converted to unleaded.
The rest I did:-
Rewired all electrics
Rebuilt all internal trim – took dashboard to pieces and had woodwork veneered – in walnut what else.
Put dampening panels all over the place. It still rattles but not quite as much.
Converted power source to alternator and then changed all the lights to QI. Much brighter especially for such a vintage car.
Converted radiator fan to electric and associated controls, upgraded the electronic ignition system.
Servo on brakes now make it almost possible to stop the car.
Modified screen washer to electric source to replace pump push button.
Modified bodywork and hubs to take wire wheels. In the first run one fell off (at 20 mph) – you can’t have it all.
Caused a bit of a family rift as the whole saga of the wheel bouncing across the road was being observed from the support team in the following car.
After alerting the police, whose basic view was- are you dead, hurt anyone, is the car a danger to others – no? Silly bugger get it off the road when you can. Bye.
The breakdown vehicle to get me home and then a bigger mallet and more grease sorted that out.
Added extra driver warning lights – not really as spec. These included electric radiator active light – also has an override switch (replaced cigar lighter). Overdrive on light.
The new DAB stereo has the speakers hidden in rear panels and also behind the door trim. The door trim was peppered with holes to make a speaker grill. A bespoke panel for the stereo was made with a port for charging a phone and the cigar lighter,
It was suggested at one time the stereo was worth more than the rest of the car.
I beg to differ.
Did other stuff but that’s even more nerdy and technical.
To be clear I’m not that interested in cars, just the engineering challenge and fixing stuff.
gettingstufftowork 