The Artful Bodger And The Life Lessons Of Motoring DIY

The Artful Bodger And The Life Lessons Of Motoring DIY

Topics: Triumph Herald

The Artful Bodger And The Life Lessons Of Motoring DIY

Stan Potter
DriveWrite
November 17, 2013

Stan Potter writes: My friends call me the ‘Artfullbodger’ because, although I have been playing with cars since I was 15 years old, my methods do not necessarily follow the normal rules. In fact I normally work by the principle “if all else fails read the instructions”. All cars and other machines work to the same rules so as long as you know these rules you can normally work out what is wrong and how to fix it. This only applies to “Classic Cars”. The more modern cars with high-tech electronics and computers do not play by the same rules. So often it is only mechanical faults than can be fixed by traditional methods such as look, listen and smell. I have owned and driven many classic cars. Only when I was driving them they were known as old bangers.

Back in the late eighties I owned a 1966 Triumph Herald (similar to the one above). My wife and I used it for daily transport and when we decided to go on a camping holiday to France the Herald was our obvious choice. We crossed from Dover to Calais in the Triumph with four large adults inside and towing a box trailer behind containing our camping gear and luggage. We set off to our destination, Camping Grande Metairie at Carnac, Southern Brittany. We arrived safely and decided to explore the locality. We went to one of the many beaches in the area, drove into the car park and pulled off the handbrake. Pulled off the floor that is! Not having packed my arc welder we searched for someone to effect the repair. We tried several garages to no avail, so thinking laterally, I went to an agricultural engineering company and asked (in French) if they did any welding. I was told that as it was August all the staff had gone on their annual holiday. But the owner’s son who was a welder with the French nuclear industry was staying with mum and dad on his holiday and could probably help. Within the hour I had the most perfectly welded handbrake ever fitted to a Triumph Herald.

We hoped this would be the end of our problems, but no! On the way back to the campsite one of the universal joints on the propeller shaft started to rattle and vibrate. The only thing to do was to change it. We had taken the precaution of taking out AA 5 star cover so I phoned them to request that they dispatch a new joint to the campsite for me to replace. They said because of the Bank Holiday on the next Monday they could not guarantee to deliver a replacement for a least a week. As we were booked on a boat 5 days later this was not much help.

We hired a car (a Renault 4) and drove to Vannes where Pages Jaune (French Yellow Pages) said there was a British Leyland dealer. I went into the spares counter and said in my best French, “Have you a prop shaft universal for a 1966 Triumph Herald please?” “Oui”, he said and reached behind him and took off the shelf exactly the component I required. Stunned I went back to my car past a Triumph Courier (The van version of the Herald) they used for deliveries. The Courier was a rarity in England; I would guess the number in

France could be counted on the fingers of one hand. We went back to the camp site and I started to replace the damaged item. Normally you would use a press or a vice to accomplish this but I had failed to pack either so I sat down with a large rock, a hammer and a couple of ½” sockets and completed the repair on my knee. The AA part arrived on the day we departed for home. We drove back home via Calais with no further mishaps.