2021, September/October. More Tours and More Ignition Trouble

 5th September:  Glavon Tulip Run

Noel Jones and his wife Ange had arranged another of their excellent Tulip runs for our TR Register Glavon Group members so it would be a good test for the now repaired ignition on TR7 FHC.   

Their run started down at Whitehall Garden Centre near Lacock and covered about 75 miles across Wiltshire and Gloucestershire before finishing at the Royal Oak in Wotton under Edge for a Sunday roast. 

In the lanes near Cirencester

Glavon cars in the Royal Oak car park

 

The car behaved perfectly and had now done over 150 miles since the ignition repair so I considered it fixed and we went off on holiday with no concerns about it.

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23-24th October: Autumn Leaves Classic Tour

Like many other events the Autumn Leaves had been cancelled in 2020 but was re-arranged for 2021 as a two day tour based at the Metropole Hotel in Llandrindod Wells.  The Metropole is a famous rally venue, being the start, finish or passage control on hundreds of rallies since the 1960s. It is also an excellent four star hotel.  I had never stayed there before but had slept on their floor few times at the finish of all-night navigational rallies.  This time it would be a proper two night stay with meals included.  

I asked my old navigator Oliver Tomlins along for this one as it would be a tough two days covering over 250 miles.  Again being cooler weather the FHC was the car to use and we drove up to the scutineering on Friday afternoon looking forward to some nice roads.

Cars arriving at the Metropole Hotel

 

We had a nice 100 mile run up to Llandrindod Wells and an excellent hotel meal on Friday afternoon/evening. After a big breakfast Saturday morning started quite wet so we were glad of the FHC roof as we got ready to leave.  Weather forecast was for the day to improve. 

Car no.1 getting ready to start

The route was defined by a Tulip road book but Oliver is old school and prefers to work from a map so had spent an hour or so transferring the route onto new 50,000 scale OS maps.   This gives a better overall view of where you are and the surrounding areas.  It also allows you to make any detours if necessary without losing your place on the route.

We headed south and across the Epynt military ranges, the scene of many of our serious rally exploits in the 1980s. On those rallies we had a full set of pace-notes so knew every feature and could attack at maximum speed.  Some locations brought back many great memories, like the time in 1985 when it snowed and we borrowed a set of Uniband remould "knobbly" tyres from a marshall to keep going. That turned out to be one of our best results of the year finishing 7th overall. Oliver pointed out a couple of places he remembered taking flat out, so 100mph plus, but which looked pretty scary to us now at 50mph on a sunny day!  How times change.

1985 Zenith Virgo Stages Rally. 7th Overall

Epynt Military Ranges - no snow.

 After Epynt they sent us north and across the wonderful Abergwesyn Mountain Road to Tregaron and on to Devils Bridge for a coffee stop at the railway station.

Devils Bridge station.

 

From Devils Bridge we headed down the Elan Valley passing the reservoirs and up to the viewpoint at the Claerwen Reservoir.  Coming down from here we had a sudden left rear puncture just after this picture was taken. 

Seems we ran over something because there was no warning, just suddenly flat tyre noises.  It's only a narrow single track road here so by the time we were able to pull in at the Dol-y-Mynach waterworks entrance to change it the tyre was wrecked.

Oliver is still smiling after changing the tyre.

 Back at the Metropole we had clocked up 167 miles so were looking forward to our evening meal and were not disappointed.  It was jolly good again and we retired to bed well stuffed. 
 

Day 2 weather was much nicer and this time we headed off northwards, soon passing many more of our old forest rally locations at Abbeycwmhir and Bwlch-y-Sarnau. Then through Llanidloes, up past the Clywedog Reservoir and over the mountain top at the old Dylife lead mines before dropping down into Machynlleth for a lunch stop.  And this is where it all went wrong.

Idling in the queue to check out after lunch the engine suddenly stopped without warning and would not restart.  We tried all the usual checks but the ignition was dead. Bit like before but this time nothing worked to get it restarted.  We swapped the coil and Lumenition amplifier but no joy. A passer-by even gave me a completely new TR7 ignition switch (!) to try but that didn't help either.  

No choice but to call the breakdown again.  Turns out Machynlleth is not known to the AA breakdown call centre and even spelling it to them did not help. Finally they accepted the job and an hour or so later the mechanic called us to ask where we were!  Even more weird, it was the same young guy who had come out to us before at Lampeter Rugby Club!  He arrived in his Transit sized van again and then called for a recovery truck.  However no trucks were available on a Sunday evening due to a driver shortage so we were offered a taxi home, with the car to follow next day. I don't know how much the AA paid for the taxi but 150 miles on a Sunday evening would not have been cheap and the car arrived safely on a truck the next afternoon.

Time for a big re-think on the ignition.  Two similar failures in less than 500 miles is not accetable.

2021, August. Taith Cymru and Ignition Trouble

 22nd August:  Taith Cymru, DNF

The Taith Cymru is one of the top classic tours in Wales but had been cancelled in 2020 and delayed by the various fluctuations of the Covid restrictions.  They had finally managed to rearrange a date for 22nd August so we were really looking forward to it. The weather was again changeable so we decided the FHC would be the best choice to use for this one. Starting from the Old Railway Line Garden Centre at Three Cocks just north of Brecon, the 140 mile route used many the classic night rally roads in mid-Wales.

However, after about 40 miles it was on one of these classic roads , the Abergwesyn Mountain Road, that the first hint of a problem began.  The engine would occasionaly mis-fire then clear again.  As the symptoms got worse I noticed that each time it happened the rev-counter dropped to zero, indicating ignition failure.  It would then run normally for a while before doing it again.  We stopped and I checked for anything obvious like loose connections but couldn't find anything wrong.

Approaching the Devils Staircase on Abergwesyn Mountain Road

 By the time we reached the lunch halt at Lampeter Rugby Club the intermittent misfire had got quite bad so I decided to have  more serious look but couldn't find anything.  Best option was to try some of the spares we carry.  First and easiest thing was to try a new coil. The engine started and ran fine so it seemed to have cured the problem, but a few miles down the road the mis-fire came back. This time I changed the Lumenition amplifier module and again it seemed to have cured the problem, only for it to come back again. It was fine for a few more miles and then mis-fired badly only to clear again.

To me this meant the only other possible culprit must be the Lumenition optical switch inside the distributor. This is a fiddly job so I decided to struggle back to the Lampeter Rugby Club car park where we could work on it safely, rather than at the side of the road. Some of the club members were still there and very kindly gave us coffee and cakes while we worked on the car.

I finally decided to call it a day and called the breakdown, so we adjourned to the club until help arrived.  I expected a recovery truck but a young guy in a Transit sized van arrived and it turned out he had never even worked on a car with a distributor!

After I explained how it worked we tried all the connections and various voltage tests and even tried mounting the coil vertically instead of horizontally because his boss told him that was how they should be(!).   The car started ok and appeared to be fine so we set off for home with him following behind just to be safe.  We went about 10 miles and all seemed well so he turned back and we headed on home.

You may have guessed the next part, because it was not long before the problem came back.  By now we had passed Llandovery and were on the A40 nearing Brecon.  A few good miles and then the mis-firing. We struggled past Brecon but it was now getting quite bad and with evening approaching I did not want to be stranded at the side of a busy main road. As we reached Abergavenny it was becoming difficult to maintain any progress so I parked up in the main bus station car park and called the breakdown again. There always used to be a nice cafe here open all hours but in these strange Covid times on a Sunday evening it was closed, but at least the toilets were open! 

When the breakdown truck finally arrived it was nearing 10pm. The driver had already called me and said he could only take one passenger in his cab so could I call anyone for a lift or get a taxi. Unbelievable, but apparently it was due to the Covid regulations in Wales so I called  my old navigator Oliver Tomlins who agreed to turn out and drive the 60 miles to pick us up and we all arrived home just before midnight. Not our best day out.

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Lumenition Repairs

After the tribulations detailed above I went through the ignition system to see if there was anything I had missed but couldn't find anything obvious.  The only item of the system not replaced was the optical switch inside the distributor so I needed to replace that.   I did have one in the car but it requires the wires to be taken out of the connector plug so they can be threaded through the distributor body and the plug re-fitted.  I swapped the optical switch out and adjusted the ignition timing which had moved because the switch was very slightly different.

I drove the car for about 50 miles and the mis-fire was cured.

Brillant!

 

 

 

2021, August. More classic events

 1st August: Valleys & Villages Classic Tour

Weather for the Valleys & Villages was forecast to be showery so the obvious car to take was the FHC and I checked it over in the days before. I also took it out on a couple of local trips and to fill it with fuel. The car drove perfectly.

As we set off to Royal Wootton Bassett on Sunday morning it was raining so the choice was confirmed.  However, after less than 5 miles the wipers suddenly slowed and when I glanced at the voltage meter it was pegged in the red zone at the bottom of the gauge- so no charge from the alternator.  I stopped and checked for any obvious problems like a loose wire or drive belt but nothing seemed to be wrong. I then found I needed the emergency jumper battery to restart the car so there was no point in continuing to the start (about 40 mins away) and we returned home.

Next decision, try to fix it or swap over to the DHC?  With no obvious quick fix we decided to just swap our stuff over and take the DHC instead, arriving a little bit late just as the first car was leaving.  Quick sign-on and just time to grab our breakfast roll and we were flagged away in good weather with the roof down.  The road book showed we were going to the same coffee stop and lunch halt as they used in 2019 but the route between was quite different.

Coffee stop was Helen Brownings Royal Oak at Bishopstone, east of Swindon.  As we enjoyed our coffee and excellent cake the rain started - quite heavily.  There was a sudden rush of folks to put their roof up asap and we just managed to get ours done before we got too wet - and between mouthfulls of cake.  Leaving coffee I noticed another TR7 was taking part, a very late registration car with TR8 badges. Interesting. Turns out it was one of the very rare right hand drive TR8s. There were only 18 of them ever produced by the factory. 

Our route continued across the Wiltshire Downs, via the racehorse country around Lambourne, to lunch at Hungerford when the heavens really opened. The rain became absolutely torrential as we parked. It was so heavy no-one even got out of their cars to go to the Hungerford Club for a sandwich!

Lunch at Hungerford - it rained - a lot!

 

Eventually the rain eased enough for us to get a drink and something to eat but the water dripping from the soft top roof made it a bit uncomfortable. Many cars had various bits of tissue stuck in gaps around their roof and windows.   Ironic as this was why we got the FHC car,  but it was back in the garage.

The route now took us back across the Downs and we saw lots of ancient white horses carvved in the hillsides, many of which we had never seen before.

There is an Audi Quattro in front somewhere.

By the time we got to the finish back in Wootton Bassett the weather had greatly improved and we really enjoyed the curry they provided.

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15th August:   Triumph & MG Weekend, Malvern

The Triumph & MG Weekend is a large three day annual show and this year it was based on the Malvern Showground. There would be a large gathering of TR7s from all over the UK so I wanted to take the FHC along. As part of the show, a friend called Bob Blackstock (who used to rally a TR7 back in the 1970s)  was organising a short road run and we wanted to take part.    

We had a very pleasant drive up to Malvern on Sunday morning and were directed to the TR7 parking area close to the main show ring. I parked next to Christopher Kenneth Smith who owns more TR7s than anyone else in the world. No one knows exactly how many but it is what he describes euphemistically as a "reasonable collection".   He is also an authority on them and has most of the original factory build records in his archive. He specialises in rescuing the rare or unique cars, like the first automatic, first TR8, first RHD convertible etc etc.  They are restored to a very high standard but also get driven regularly, often on his trip back from the UK to Italy where he lives.  Christopher does not keep his cars in a museum, they get driven a lot.

TR7s at the Malvern Show

 

The Malvern showground is big and we didn't have enough time to really look around much before the Three Counties Road Run started. It was a nice gentle run taking cars out around the Malvern area including a stop for lunch/refreshments at Westons Cider Mill in Much Marcle.  We had an excellent sandwich and coffee there before returning to the show.

Groups of cars were being called into the main arena to be presented to the crowd and experts on each model explained more various details about them. We were one of the many TR7s presented and whilst we were in the arena there was a fly-past by a Spitfire who did several circuits. Fantastic stuff to see and hear it flying. 

After the arena parade it was great to meet and be able to talk to Harris Mann who was the chief designer responsible for the TR7.  Apparently he lives quite nearby so just dropped in to the show.  He is very approachable and interesting to talk to about the cars he designed and is very modest about his achievements. We had a good chat about them.

Harris Mann, TR7 Designer.

Many of our local TR Register Glavon Group members were also at the show, many of them for the whole weekend. Some were in local hotels/B&B but some hardy souls were camping on site or like Andy and Jill West, who brought a caravan on the back of their TR4!

Andy & Jill West

 

So it was another nice weekend out in the TR7.