2021, 25th April, National "Drive it Day", FHC Handbrake.

Few little jobs on the DHC

At the start if April I brought the DHC back from its winter storage and did a few little tidy up jobs on it.  The weather the past few weeks has been great for open top motoring and now the Covid restrictions are easing we are being allowed out a little more.  

I had originally planned to move the Brantz tripmeter between my two cars but soon found this to be a bit of a pain so eventually bit the bullet and found second one on Ebay. Only problem was I couldn't find any of the satellite receivers to go with it so had to buy a new one of those from Brantz. Ouch! 

 

The wiring is not diffcult so that was a nice couple of hours tinkering.  I also made up a mounting bracket to carry the Garmin Satnav.  Again I had originally planned to move the mounting bracket between the two cars and had made it easily removeable, but I had some aluminium sheet and plenty of time so made another. Each car now has its own mounting bracket with a power feed so the Garmin just clicks onto the mount in either car.  The only thing I still swap over is the dashcam because I can't find another one as good yet, but that is just a rubber sucker job on the windscreen.

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25th April 2021.  National Drive It Day

 

This is an annual national event intended to encourage classic car owners to get out and drive their cars.

Normally there are various organised events but this year the pandemic restictions prevented all except some small local meetings.  Even then distancing was required but a I managed to meet with a few friends outside Winstones Ice Cream factory and shop on Rodborough Common.  The weather was superb, blue skies but with a bit of a cool breeze. In fact perfect open-top TR weather and the ice cream was excellent.

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FHC Handbrake issues

I have never been happy with the handbrake on the FHC. When I put the car on the road the rear brakes were rebuilt with all new cylinders and a new cable. The self adjusters were all new as well.  Turns out the new cable seems to be from a batch of new old stock cables that were produced and sold by most suppliers but which were made too long. 

The result is that it is impossible to set up the handbrake properly so it has too much travel and not enough "bite".   

 

Washers added to increase adjustment.

My answer to the adjustment part was a bit of a bodge but at least meant it worked after a fashion. I simply moved the locknut to the other side of the handbrake fork and added some washers to take up the slack.  Not pretty but it works.  The best answer will be to get the cable shortened so I am working on find someone who can do that. I spoke to my local machine shop and they have exactly the same problem with some Jaguar cables that are too long as well so they are on the case! 

March 2015, TR7 Handbrake is excellent, Front spolier.

Whilst I was taking all the stuff off the old red car I forgot to mention that in between times I have swapped the axle over into the blue car.  I also popped a new handbrake cable in at the same time because I had it in stock and it seemed daft not to use it. I did the swap because I had already replaced all the rear brake stuff on the old car and I knew it was all good.
In addition I had some handbrake lever extensions already fitted to that axle.  These will not make a bad handbrake into a good one but they do give a properly set up one that bit of extra bite.
 
TR7 handbrakes can often be very poor, especially if they are not maintained. The self-adjusters do not work very well so people try to compensate by tightening up the cables which does not help.
The very simple trick is that it is vital to keep it all in good condition with everything moving freely and properly adjusted. You may have to manually adjust the self-adjusters! 

I was discussing this with a guy called "Stag76" on the TR7/8 Forum and he gave me a pair of the handbrake extensions he made himself.  These are nicely made and really work.  Oh, and I should mention that Stag76 is in Australia and his real name is Bruce (yes really!).  He just sent them to me. What a top bloke!

Handbrake Improvers - Excellent

There are also some nice looking ones often advertised for sale that fit on the Stag, 2000 and other TR models but these DO NOT FIT on TR7's because they foul on the damper bracket. They also cost about £30 so don't waste your money on them. See photo below.

Commercial Triumph 2000/Stag extensions -  They do not fit on the TR7

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I also took the chance to swap the battered front spolier with the slightly better one from the old red car. Very easy job but well worth doing as it tidies up the front quite a bit.  Its still not perfect but looks much less battered than before. The pictures do not show it very well, its looks much better when you see it as the newer one is much less "nibbled".

Before

After

2011, Brakes and Wheels

So its 2011.  There is the new project parked in the garage and my original "everyday" TR7 is parked outside under a nice cover. Not ideal but its only a temporary arrangement isn't it ?
I wasn't quite ready to really start work on the project but had started to strip stuff off and get rid of some of the scrap items like the ruined carpets etc.

In the meantime I regarded the "everyday" car as a kind of test bed for stuff I planned to use on the new one and one of the first things that came along was a set of 4 pot brakes.  They were advertised on Ebay starting at £50 but with no pictures and a vague description..  When I contacted the bloke I found he was not very helpful but said he had taken them off a TR7 rally car and they were complete and ready to bolt straight on.  What to do?
I thought £50 was worth a gamble,  so I placed a bid and was amazed to find out a couple of days later they were mine!
Turns out it was the small Rimmers upgrade kit using Princess 4 pot callipers and vented discs of 244mm diameter and 20mm thick. It would have cost at least £250 to buy so that was a good deal and they went onto the car.

Princess 4-pots fitted

 

The handbrake on my everyday TR7 had always been poor so I decided it was worth having it apart to sort out.   The rear brakes have a self-adjuster mechanism but it hardly ever works properly and that was also going to mess up the handbrake operation.  I had a new kit to replace all the adjuster mechanism in stock (another Ebay purchase) so this was the time to use it.

Standard wheels on a TR7 are 13" diameter and many TR7 brake upgrades need bigger wheels to fit them inside, so when a new set of 14" x 6" Minilite style turned up at a very good price they went into stock as well.  The wheels needed taper fitting nuts so I had to get some of those to match.

New "Minilite" style wheels fitted

 Replacement wheels are a bit of a concern on TR7's.  The standard wheels are hub-centric meaning that they are a close fit on the boss in the centre of the hub to give them their accurate location.  The wheelnuts do not locate the wheels they just hold them on the hub.
Most replacement wheels are located by the studs and can sometimes cause vibration problems if the wheels are not centred accurately.  Time would tell if mine were OK..