2024, February. Headlights

 2024, February.  Noisy headlight

I had noticed the drivers side headlight on the FHC had become a bit slow raising and lowering, it was also a bit noisy operating sometimes.  Closer investigation required taking the whole motor and light assembly off the car so I had been putting the job off.

Ready for testing

 With the whole thing off the car and on a workbench I could run the motor for testing and sure enough it was jerky and noisy. When I disconnected the link to the motor the motor itself ran smoothly, so the problem was in the linkage.  The manuals say to keep the linkage lubricated but mine looked very dry and unloved.  I tried copious lubrication but that didn't inprove it much so it needed to come apart.

Why did they make it like this?

The turnbuckle link needed to come off but to remove it you have to take the actual light pod off the aluminium bracket because the screw head is hidden - see picture above - and that means you lose all the settings!  Obvious mod is to make a notch in the steel light unit carrier so it will be accessible in the future without removing the pod. 

After all this I found the bush where the turnbuckle link fixes to motor crank bush was seized. Again lots of lubrication didn't improve it well enough for my liking but mysteriously just turning it over made it work perfectly! Weird because it looks the same both ways, but I will accept the win.

The culprit

With it all apart I took the oportunity to check the motor and gears as well. It all looked in remarkably good comdition so I could just clean and regrease it.

Nice and clean

Electrics all look good

So it all went back together for a bench run before putting it back in the car and the mechanism ran nice and smoothly.  Excellent.

Just needs a tidy before the light unit goes back in here.

Took a bit of fiddling around to get the assembled unit back in so that the light pod sits nicely in the car but it all works perfectly now.

1st March 2016, Slow Headlight Motor & DRL's

The drivers side headlight has always been a bit slower to rise than the other one, and sometimes needed a tweak of the manual knob to get it started, so I thought it was time I fixed it.  I knew all the wiring and connections were good from when I fitted the auxiliary relays back in May 2014 so the problem was obviously with the headlight motor or the lift mechanism.  I had also noticed a little bit of "flutter" from that headlight on bumpy road surfaces so that needed investigation as well.

First thing was to take the whole assembly out of the car, but before doing that I tried shaking the headlight and could feel some definite movement even though it was locked in the up position.  With the assembly out of the car you could actually see some movement in the mechanism where the turnbuckle link joins the crank.When I took it apart there is a bronze bush which had developed a small amount of wear allowing the light pod to vibrate slightly when raised.

Worn bronze bush here.

Luckily I have a small collection of headlight assemblies that I have acquired during several years of TR7 ownership - just in case - as they say,  so I was able to find a much better bush in my stock. I was also able to find a better motor as well. Some of them felt a bit stiff or rough to turn but again I found a better one so that went on as well.

The whole lot was then put back into the car and I now have a pair of headlights that rise and fall in unison!

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Next little job was to fit some Daytime Running Lights.  This has been on my list of jobs for a while and I consider it a good idea in modern traffic. The TR7 has a low profile front end and as mine is dark blue I think it might be hard to see coming in shady places - hence the DRL's.

I bought a set of Ring Ursa LED lights which come complete with all the wiring and a neat little relay switch to turn them off when your main lights are switched on which is a legal requirement in the UK apparently. They are normally about £40 but I found a new set someone had bought and not used on Ebay for £19.95.  There are lots of very cheap LED lights for sale but I wanted something that didn't look like temporary fix and one of the guys on the Triumph TR7 Owners Page recommended them. 

They mounted neatly in the "hockey stick" trim just below the headlights and the little relay switch fitted on the hidden side of the radiator side filler panel so nothing is visible in the engine bay.

Spot the DRL's

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