20th June 2016 - Heater matrix leak

On our return from the Bullet Run I noticed a few drips of something on the passenger side rubber mat and a finger /sniff test proved it to be coolant. So it could only come from the heater which meant the whole dash would have to come out. Bugger!

Water on the carpet means a heater leak!

Removing the dash assembly and heater from a TR7 is not too difficult but it is just fiddly. There are lots of fixings in places you might not expect but the factory workshop manual took me through it step by step with numbered pictures of where all those hidden screws are located. It also gives you the confidence you haven't forgotten something and without it the job would certainly have taken much longer.  I also took lots of pictures along the way to help me remember where all the wires etc were positioned.

Dash and heater unit removed.

With the heater unit out it was clear to see that it had been leaking from the matrix seals.   These are well known to cause trouble in TR7's, they were fine when it was new but after 40 years its not surprising that they can fail. The problem is that they are one of the few TR7 parts that are no longer available. New old stock ones do appear for sale occasionally at inflated prices but they are also 30/40 years old so I would not trust them anyway. The other issue is the metal pipes that go from the matrix to the engine compartment also go rusty and cause problems. There is an expensive modern stainless steel option to fix this as well and luckily my car already had the stainless pipes so a previous owner had obviously been there before me.

The infamous heater matrix seals.

 I ordered a replacement modified heater matrix from Steve Wilcox at S&S Preparations which has normal outlets and does away with the seals and comes complete with hoses, jubilee clips and even the self adhesive foam to go round the outside.

S&S Preparations heater matrix kit.

The only problem was that I had to shorten my nice shiny stainless pipes to go with the new matrix and hoses which felt a bit like sacrilege. They are also expensive so I didn't want to get it wrong and have to buy some more.

Stainless heater pipes had to be shortened.

 The heater unit itself is mostly held together with lots of pop rivets which have to be drilled out. Again the workshop manual was very helpful with step-by-step instructions to follow because its quite a complicated item with lots of levers and flaps to disconnect. Once it was all apart I also took the chance to renew all of the rubber foam seals on the various flaps, most of which had long since disintegrated.

Old foam rubber debris inside the heater.

 Re-assembly was another case of following the steps in the manual and lots of pop rivets to do.  I had plenty of rivets in stock but they turned out to be mostly too long so I had to buy some more short ones, 3.2mm by 6mm long.   Best deal I could find at short notice was a box for £4.99 - but it had 1000 rivets!  I must have enough left over to fix all the TR7 heaters in the UK.

Before and after matrix replacement

These pictures show the stages in replacing the matrix, 1 original, 2 those troublesome seals, 3 new matrix fitted, 4 completed job.

Following advice from Steve Wilcox I connected up the heater pipes before fitting the dash and ran the engine up to temperature so I could check for leaks. Fingers crossed and it was all good to go. 

Putting it all back was just a reversal of taking it all apart, but I also took the opportunity to fit some wire mesh over the main air intake to prevent that experience of dead leaves etc being drawn into the heater and shot out of the air vents into your face.  I also tidied up some of the wiring harness which appeared to have been left to just float about.

Wire mesh on main air intake.

So after all that work it looked like it did before, but without the wet spots on the mat. I also had a heater that all the flaps worked properly and sent hot or cold air where you asked it to.

Job finished.

12th May 2015, Steering column lower bush

According to various owners replacing the bulkhead steering column bush is one of those TR7 jobs that can be a bit of a swine. Folks have resorted to all kinds of tricks to get it done or to avoid doing it.  Unfortunately the time had come to do mine so I ordered the kit from Robsport.

Robsport Steering Column Bush Kit.

 The new ones tend to be made from polyurethane these days and are pretty durable but the material is quite hard so not easy to install.  One of the suggested tricks is to boil it in hot water but that seemed to make no difference at all to my new one so a mechanical method seemed to be the next option. Before all this however, it was necessary to remove the column to gain access to the bulkhead.  In the BL Workshop Manual it says to take my note of the positions of the two washers at the lower end of the shaft. The problem was that there were no washers at all on my car ! Luckily I had kept the ones from the old car I scrapped recently so I could use those. The top bushes just below the steering wheel had been replaced before and were in excellent condition so I left those alone.
The lower bush has to be inserted from the engine side of the bulkhead and as my car is complete and running, access space to the area is limited by carbs, brake pipes, etc.  I tried the usual ways to insert a grommet like using a flat blade screwdriver or starting one spot and twisting it in like a screw etc. but all these attempts proved fruitless.  It obviously needed a way to hold the bush in position and push it home at the same time.  Enter Special Tool no.2.

Special tool no.2. Steering column bush inserter.

It only took 5 minutes to make the tool shown in the picture. Its just a piece of wood about 6-7" long with the end shaped to go through the bush and hold it in place. The washer is the actual one that goes next to the bush and provides a smooth flat surface when pushing it in.  I just held it in position and used another piece of wood about 2 feet long as a lever against the engine mounting bracket and the bush popped in quite easily.
Obviously this will not work for you guys with a LHD car or a TR8. Sorry.

Special tool no.2 in use. The larger piece of wood
is used as a lever against the engine mounting bracket.

With the new bush in place it has transformed the driving experience, no vibration or rattles from the steering wheel now. Just wish I had done it sooner!
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17th May 2015. GLAVON  May Blossom Run

I belong to the GLAVON group of the TR Register (as well as the TRDC) and they had organised a nice little run out last Sunday 17th May.  It was a "convoy rules" run so no navigation required which meant my other half could enjoy coming along as she gets ill if proper navigation is required. Twelve assorted TR's set off from Tetbury on a lovely day covering a 70 odd mile route around the Cotswold lanes ending up at a fellow members house near Bisley for an excellent outdoor lunch. We had a mixture of TR4's, TR5's, TR6's and two TR7's.  We certainly got a lot of attention as the convoy passed through some of the Cotswold tourist spots like Buscot, Coleshill and Bibury. I think we must be on a hundred pictures taken by the Chinese tourists in Bibury alone!

The new steering bush means the TR7 is pretty civilised now, and I am very impressed by how it rides on some of the bumpy roads we have in this area. According to the receipts I have from the previous owner the springs are uprated ones from S&S and dampers are KYB. It gives a nice combination of handling and ride comfort, just what I would have chosen myself for everyday motoring. It would be too soft for any serious work but that's not what I want the car for.

Some of the GLAVON cars at the lunch halt.

March 2015, old red car is stripped and ready to go!

I have been taking stuff off the old red car for some time but the final big parts like the rear axle and front suspension had to wait until I could free up some working space in the garage. The cold and wet weather around Christmas and the start of 2015 had also caused a lack of motivation but we had a few nice days in early March so I got stuck in.  It was not too difficult and it was all soon on the floor. Taking the doors and window winders apart was interesting so I took a few pictures to remind me how it goes together. This will help because I need to put some new winders in the blue car.
The petrol tank was a bit more difficult and I had to be a bit careful as there was still about a gallon of fuel left in it which would not siphon out.

Old shell ready to go.

Having had no interest in the old car previously I was surprised to find quite a few folks wanted stuff now it was apart.  A guy from Devon who is building a TR7V8 rally car wanted the boot and bonnet but may also take the rest of the shell.  The seats were pretty good so they have gone straight onto Ebay along with the S&S uprated vented disc kit.

2012 Sprint engine update and Oil Pressure gauge

 Running around trying out the Sprint engine was good fun. It is a smooth torquey engine and I just love the way it revs.  The only thing I started to notice when the initial grin started to fade was a few rattles and noises that weren't there before. The exhaust system would knock on the floor sometimes and I had also found a mark on the inside of the bonnet (hood) where the oil filler cap was just touching.

Several attempts to rearrange my cobbled up exhaust system proved useless, and it was too close over the axle area,  so I decided to buy a complete new system that I knew would fit properly.  S&S supplied a very nice complete new stainless system including manifold and mounting rubbers, but at around £500 it was not cheap!
Fitting the system was very easy apart from the manifold.   The new engine has studs in the head instead of bolts which I think is a good idea, but the clearance issue ( see picture ) means there is not enough room to

 Nice new stainless manifold - but close to chassis

get the manifold on/off the studs.  The only way is to undo the engine mounts to tip it over and then it would just go on.  I also used brass nuts on the studs to avoid any sticking problems later.

When I asked S&S about the clearance to the chassis rail they told me that folks tend to use a bit of heat and a hammer to "modify" the manifold.  I thought this was a bit brutal having just paid good money for it but found another way on one of the forums by a small machining job on the right side engine mount - see pictures below.

engine mount before - block side

and after

engine mount before - chassis side

and after

About 5mm is machined off each side of the mounting as shown in the pictures.  The effect of the machining is to make the engine "lean" slightly to the right and away from the chassis rail.




Enquiries about the bonnet clearance revealed that the usual trick is to use TR8 spacers between the subframe and chassis rails.   These are basically just a thick washer (about 10mm) which drops the subframe by the same amount relative to the body. Easy fix and took less than 30mins to do.

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Forgot to mention earlier, somewhere in amongst all these goings on I managed to find time to fit an oil pressure gauge in place of the clock. The car always had a gauge fitted low down by your left knee - a useless place - so I moved it to somewhere you can now see it.. I used a old Smiths classic full scale 0-100 psi capillary. gauge. Quite a simple job, just a bit of fitting/cutting out some plastic in the back of the instrument pod to get it sitting nicely in place..

Oil Pressure now clearly visible.

2012 Sprint engine project begins

So having decided not to spend money repairing the old 8-valve engine I had to find a complete Sprint engine more or less ready to go in.  Some asking around on forums turned up an engine in Chipping Sodbury, only a few miles from me, which sounded suitable.  Speaking to the owner I found out it actually came from a TR7 which had fallen apart around it!

When I went to collect the motor I found out just how heavy these things are - or it may be I am getting old!
My long suffering mate Chris came with me and we only just managed to lift it into the back of my estate car.

I had borrowed an engine stand so we got the engine set up on it to have a good look at it.

First impressions not too bad but a couple of concerns soon arose.
The seller had told me he could never stop it weeping oil around the back of the sump and I quickly found the two bolts into the aluminium crank seal housing would not tighten - the threads were stripped.  Easy to swap the housing but that needed the flywheel taken off and I couldn't do that on the engine stand.  I have since seen a neat trick using a modified engine mount on the side of the block so its possible to get to all parts with it on a stand - next time then.
With the sump off the bottom end all looked good so it went back together and I turned my attention to the water pump.
Taking off the cover I found a 12 vane pump, excellent - but it was a 6 vane cover !!!  Again easy to swap but I started to wonder about what else I would find.

The carbs looked pretty dusty so I decided to give them a good going over with an overhaul kit.

Grimy carbs as received

I also got rid of the old waxstat jets at the same time. It was quite a nice and satisfying job completely stripping and cleaning the old carbs and they ended up almost good as new with their new butterflies, jets, needle valves and gaskets.

One of the fiddly bits to putting the Sprint engine in a TR7 is to sort out the heater pipes. My new engine still had Dolomite heater fittings so the previous owner had obviously bodged the pipes somehow ( yes, another bodge) but I wanted to do it properly. 
One heater connection joins to the water bypass pipe that runs along under the carbs.  I just used a standard TR7 bypass pipe here, only had to swap the olive fitting where it screws into the manifold.


The real factory TR7 Sprints had a special outlet casting fitted on the back of the head but these are super-rare so most folks use a made up version. Rimmers or S&S Preparations will sell you one which is just a standard Dolomite Sprint blanking plate with a standard plumbing outlet screwed and/or welded to it, see picture below. It looks a bit crude but works really well.

The picture shows a standard TR7 heater outlet and the modified Sprint one. You will need to re-use the screwed in outlet from the TR7.  After one failure which came out with all the aluminium thread I found I had to heat it up on a camping stove to avoid stripping the thread of the outlet.
Now all you need are some standard TR7 heater hoses to join it all up - simple.






Looking at the distributor I found it already had a Pirhana electronic ignition fitted so I would need the amplifier module to go with it. I also tested the vacuum unit by the good old sucking method and found it didn't move at all.  Searching around the web I found a Pirhana module on Ebay at a good price but the vacuum units proved to be nil stock at all the usual suppliers.  More searching and I eventually found a new old stock one at Mick Dolphin. Nice genuine bloke and good to deal with.

So finally I had a Sprint engine fully assembled and ready to fit

Please ignore the Speedograph air filters, they were just some new ones I had lying around and put them on whilst the engine was being fitted.  The engine runs on K&N filters now its in the car.

( The Speedographs are new and for sale in case you know anyone wants any for a Spitfire/MG/ etc )

The engine came with a scruffy but OK mild steel exhaust manifold so that went on.





Having experienced how heavy the bare engine is  ( around 140kgs I read somewhere )  I decided to buy myself a decent hoist to install it, especially bearing in mind it would be going in with the gearbox attached to it as well.
I decided to buy a 1 ton folding crane which cost £150, because I think when you have 200kgs of metal swinging in the air above your shiny paintwork you want to trust it to stay there. It also came with one of those adjustable leveller gadgets which are essential to tip the engine to the steep angle you need.
Trusty mate Chris assisted again and it all dropped in pretty easily leaving me to connect up all the fiddly bits over the next couple of days.

IT FITS !!