2019, October. Lombard Rally Bath 2019

We had very much enjoyed the Lombard Rally Bath 2018 so were keen to do it all again in 2019. The idea was the same with cars using some of the classic stages for the 1970s-80s and some new ones. This years start was moved out of the city up to Bath Racecourse to give better access and reduce the traffic problems.  The proposed route took us up through Gloucestershire and then across the Severn Bridge into South Wales, with an overnight stop at the Celtic Manor Golf Resort. The entry was about 120 cars of all shapes and sizes with five TR7's taking part. The other four were serious rally cars and had V8 engines.

After a short run fron the racecourse our first stage was through the Badminton Estate, more famous as the location of the Badminton Three Day Event for horses.  This was a short section on nixed surfaces but was good fun and an excellent start to warm us up.

Badminton Estate stage (photo Noel Jones)

 You can see the Badminton in-car dashcam footage here:-
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA7NSg6yqsc


From Badminton we headed up to Cirencester Park. The stage here was to be run twice and was the same as used on the original Lombard RAC Rallies in the 1970s and 1980s. It was also the main spectator venue for the day. Queues to get in extended for a couple of miles so it was certainly popular!   The stage was again a mixture of tarmac and loose surfaces but under trees with spectators lining the track.  We had a bit of a go here and this seemed to be popular with those watching.  We were parked next to the Stig (the real one!) in his ex-works Audi Quattro and he queued up behing us on the start line for our second run - no pressure then. He didn't catch us up, but was doing charity runs with paying passengers so was obviously taking it a bit easy.

Cirencester Park Stage with crowds

Cirencester Park, spectators lined the stage

The stage was very enjoyable and there was a little more grip than might be expected, see our run in Cirencester Park here:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsYQSQrzByY&t=

From Cirencester we headed down across the Severn Bridge into Wales via a couple of passage controls and then lunch at the Celtic Manor Gold Resort.

Next offering was at Parc Bryn Glas which is a country park near Tredegar. As we arrived here the roads around were lined with parked cars on every available space so there was obviously going to be a few folks watching and there was a little delay whilst the organisers tried to get the spectators to stand in safe (ish) places. There was a tight hairpin in the middle of the stage that I had to do a reverse at because the handbrake is not good enough on dry tarmac - that will have to be improved for the future.  The road here was tarmac all the way so there was plenty of grip and we could have a bit of an attack again.  This was confirmed by the brakes starting to go off towards the end. Excellent!

See the run through Parc Bryn Glas here:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbOBCC7tIB4

Next stage was quite close by at a place called Trefil Quarry. This was a short tarmac road leading to a dead end at the quarry so the plan was to run about ten cars in who would then wait at the far end and come back out in convoy so the next ten could have a go.  The marshalls told us there were some potholes but they had been filled but this truned out to be not quite true. We hit a couple of water filled holes very hard which punctured a rear tyre. As we were changing the wheel a marshall brought us an electric fan which he said was ours, so we opened the bonnet and turns out it was! 

There should be an electric fan here!

So with no spare tyre and no cooling fan we proceeded carefully to a second run at Parc Bryn Glas keeping a close watch on the temperature gauge. Thankfully it stayed well in the normal range and the run was fine.

Last stage of the day was at the Caerwent Military Training area.  This was originally a Royal Navy propellant manufacturing factory site from WW2 where they made explosives for shells.  Naturally the buildings there had to be kept well spaced out for safety so there is a large network of service roads between them. These days it is used for training troops and we were told the SAS were there observing - but we would never see them. The site is regularly used for modern single-venue rallies but we had never been there before.  Most of the roads are lined with kerbstones and it has a reputation for breaking wheels and suspension if you hit any.  I managed to have a slight brush with one on our second run, when I dropped a front wheel off the edge of a concrete road as you can see from the picture, but we escaped with minor rim damage.

Typical Caerwent scar on this rim.

You can see our run through Caerwent here:-
 https://youtu.be/TT8oHSh73MY

 To sum up the Lombard Rally Bath 2019 I would say it was a victim of its own success. Large numbers of people came out to watch - probably many more than was expected - but spectator control was almost nil which created a potentially very dangerous situation. Luckily there were no incidents this time but the organisation needs to be very much better if future events are to take place.

2019 Calendar. Busy Year

2019 is shaping up to be a busy year.  We have ten classic runs so far with another couple of possibles and a couple of shows thrown in. The calendar so far looks like this:-

23rd March,  Daffodil Run
7th April,  Taith Cymru
14th April,  Corinium Run
28th April,  Drive It Day
5th May,  Wheelnuts Classic Car Show
11th May,  Bluebell Run
19th May,  Hills & Valley Tour
30th June,  Black Mountains Classic Tour
7th July, Aquae Sulis Classic Tour
3rd August, Gloucestershire Extravaganza, South Cerney
4th August,  Valleys & Villages Classic Tour
1st September,  Cotswold Classic Run
19th-20th October,  Lombard Rally Bath

 Daffodil Run 2019

September 2018, FHC build begins

I had already put in an entry for the Lombard Rally Bath 2018 to take place on 19th-20th October. A guy called Tim Nash had called me earlier in the year to ask about classic runs and told me about his new idea. This was to be a classic tour type event but using some of the iconic venues from the old Lombard RAC Rallies of the 1970s and 1980s. It would start from Pultney Street in Bath and visit Longleat House, Cricket St Thomas, Wiscombe Park Hillclimb, Porlock Toll Road and Cheddar Gorge with lots of nice countryside in between.  The FHC would be the perfect car to use so with it just back from the bodyshop it was time to start putting it all together.

Engine Bay:

The bodyshop  jobs had been to repair the bad places on the outside but there was still the engine bay to tidy up. The only way to do this properly was with the engine out so trusty mate Chris Riley was brought in as usual to assist lifting the engine and gearbox out.

The result was plenty of working space now.

So I proceded to remove the rest of the stuff in the engine bay and got to this

Few more hours work and it looked like this

First things to go back were the new uprated brake servo/master cylinder  and new brake pipes.

I always make a point of "priming" a new master cylinder before fitting as they can be difficult to bleed from dry, so I do it like this with a couple of pipes to recirculate the fluid until I am sure its cleared out all of the air:-

 Sometimes it helps to get closer to the job........

Driving the car back from the bodyshop I thought the gear change felt a bit stiff so rather than mess about we swapped the gearbox to a good spare I know is OK. Whilst doing this we noticed the clutch plate seemed wrong so whipped the cover off to find there was a broken section so a new one went in.  

Arrow shows a broken off section

Before putting the engine back I did a couple more little jobs. I replaced the bushes on the gearbox remote extension and fitted a Volvo gearbox mounting.  This is because the modern replacement mountings are of poor quality and much too hard so they transmit a lot noise and vibration. Helpfully there is a Volvo 740 one which is readily available and almost a direct swap!  These are still made with good rubber and work well.

You can read more about it on MyDrive here:-   TR7 Volvo 740 Gearbox Mount

Its only necessary to slightly elongate the two bolt holes but I also had some washers welded on mine to replace the strength, just to be sure.

Another little job was to repair the cap that hold the gearlever in place. These have a small tab that holds them onto the top of the gearbox extension but the tab frequently breaks off. Solution is to weld on a small washer to repair and strengthen it.

They often come with the mounting tab broken off.

Repaired with a washer welded on.

Fuel Tank:

When I put fuel in the car I had noticed a whiff of petrol fumes in the boot area. Investigations soon revealed that the small vent pipe from the top of the tank to the filler neck was perished and needed to be replaced.

That vent pipe certainly needs to be replaced ! 

According to the workshop manual this job can be done through the access panel in the boot but I found this to be pretty much impossible, so I decided it would be best to take the tank out. Then there was also the common problem of the small filler neck screws being seized so they had to be drilled out. I still had a good spare filler neck from breaking my old red DHC so would use that - more about that later.

The tank mountings all came undone quite easily and it was obvious that it had been replaced at some time because it still had the part number stickers on but needed tidying and painting before I put it back.

With the tank out I also found evidence of repairs to the rear wheel arches on both sides where someone had cut out rusty areas and patched over them. Fine but they never finished the job on the other side!

This wheel arch patch needs finishing on the inside as well.

I treated the tank and surrounding areas with Hydrate 80 Rust Converter and painted it with Tetrosyl sealer so that should be good for many more years. 

After putting it all back together I discovered that the DHC filler neck is NOT the same as a FHC one as you can see from this picture. Apparently the different rear deck of the FHC needs a slightly taller

Filler cap sits lower than usual.

filler neck so mine is now about 5mm too low but it works fine so will stay like that until I have a reason to have the tank out again.

Rear Suspension:

The rebuilt axle went in with a couple of replacement lower arms because the old ones were rotten. They seemed OK at first glance with polybushes and having been powder coated, but a closer look showed they were rotten near the bump stop pad at the rear end. I am guessing water got under the powder coating and worked its magic there.  I had a couple of replacements in stock but made a point of drilling a water drain hole before painting and fitting them.

Water drain hole drilled in lower link

 Next little issue was with the new springs. The top end had not been finished very well so the open end of the coil stuck out and made contact with the chassis rail. Not good.

The spring should not touch the chassis rail socket!

A little bit of work with the grinder took the corner off so it now clears OK.

........................................................................................................

I also took the opportunity to move the radiator header tank from the right to the left side of the engine bay. This was because I think it makes for less congestion on the right side which already has the carbs and allows better access to the alternator.  I also want to move the coil to the inner wing (as on the later cars) from its strange location inside the tunnel next to the gearbox but this could wait till later.

Why would they put the coil here?

So the engine went back in and I could get on with all those other little jobs that take a lot of time.

Almost ready to go.

One interesting little thing came up when I took the radiator to a local specialist to be rebuilt. His invoice gives the name of the car as "TR7 Bullet", how neat is that?