14th April 2016, Corinium Run

I asked my old mate Chris Riley to come along again on the Corinium Run again this year. I have know Chris since the 1970's and we have competed and serviced on rallies together ever since. He also helps me with the two man jobs on the TR7 so a very useful bloke to have around.

The Corinium Run is a classic tour of about 125 miles using "Tulip" navigation. For those who don't know this is a system named after the Tulip Rally in Holland who developed it in the 1950's. It uses a series of diagrams of the road junctions and features found along the route and the distances between them. Most serious crews have a special trip meter fitted in their cars to give a very accurate distances but we used an app on a mobile phone which worked pretty well. I will have to invest in a trip meter if we do many more runs.

Tulip navigation explained

2016 Roadbook, our actual route

 It was a nice day, but cold and even a slight frost early on. Leaving home we soon discovered that the heater blower was not working, not a disaster, but we had to rely on the air coming through the heater as we went along which turned out to be OK. It was my own fault because I had been working on the centre console and had not tested that everything was OK afterwards, beginners mistake.

This year they had allocated us the same start number as last year - 42 - how neat is that.

Start was at the Cirencester Town Football Club premises where they gave a us a nice bacon roll and a hot drink before the first car left at 9:30am.  The route then took us through Daglingworth, the Duntisbournes, North Cerney and Rendcombe before our first stop at Chedworth Farm Shop for a tea and one of their excellent cakes.

Duntisbourne Leer.   Sorry, but I can't resist a watersplash.

After refreshments our route took us further north along the lanes via Yanworth, Compton Abdale, Hawling, Hailes and Greet before the lunch halt at the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway in Toddington.   This suited us fine because both Chris and myself are steam enthusiasts. Turns out he has bought himself a day out there soon and will be actually driving one of the engines so I am very envious.

Wonderful stuff

The afternoon run then took us though Stanway and another ford to Guiting Power, Bourton on the Water and Turkdean before our tea stop at the Cotswold Lion Cafe. This is actually the old Northleach Prison and again they do very good cakes. Do you detect a pattern here - lots of stops for tea and cakes!

I tried to get the photographer wet

The tea and cakes are excellent here!

 We got back to the finish in Cirencester to be greeted with a choice of curries, chili or sweet & sour whilst the organisers worked out our fuel consumption.  This turned out to be 25.99mpg so not bad for a lot of twisty and hilly lanes.

Another great day out in the TR7, which is exactly what I bought it for in the first place. The car had behaved itself perfectly and we had really enjoyed ourselves.

6th April 2016, Indicator buzzers changed

I originally fitted indicator buzzers in the old red car because I found it was too easy to leave the indicators on by mistake, especially with the top down.  I moved them with all the other good stuff over to the blue car but they have started to sound a bit poorly so I decided it was time they were replaced. Very easy job to do and they are cheap to buy, so I sourced a couple of different types off Ebay to see which sounded best.

Choice of different buzzer types

Testing them I found the round ones were a bit too strident and decided the rectangular ones would be better and more gentle on the ear. Only took a few minutes to make them up with some connectors ready to plug into the wiring adapter in the indicator stalk tail (see picture March 2015).

Buzzers ready to plug in

 Most difficult part of the job was reaching up under the dash to plug them in!

30th March 2016, Radio fix and console change.

The radio has been playing up a bit, working sometimes and not others so I needed to find out why. I had only stuffed an old Panasonic stereo/cassette in there as a temporary one anyway so it was time to do something more permanent.  The radio location in a TR7 does not have enough depth behind it to take most standard head units without sticking out but I had a modern Radiomobile unit which is much smaller that I kept from the old red car. There is no cassette player but it has facility for an SD card, a USB stick and an Aux input instead.

Tracing the intermittent fault was the first priority and with the console removed I soon found that moving the wiring about caused the fault to come and go. The problem was to narrow it down to which wires. Trial and error revealed it was in the two standard connectors just below the heater that supply live and earth to the radio. Attempts at cleaning the connectors didn't work so I ended up replacing them with modern crimp connections. Not as neat but the fault was fixed. Looking at the old connectors I took off revealed some corrosion in the wires so they obviously got wet at sometime in the past - maybe from a heater leak judging by the location.

New crimps connectors fixed the radio fault

Whilst the console was out I took the chance to replace the old cigarette lighter with a modern 12v socket and add a USB output socket as well. This will be useful for a phone charger or sat nav later.

Console with USB, 12v and driving lamps switch

  

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!

 ................................ 

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

Top view

February 2016, Door mirrors

The original door mirrors on the TR7's had a solid cast aluminium mounting where they fix onto the door and were a common type on many of the British Leyland range.  Many of these have been replaced over the years with nice shiny new ones but the problem is that on these new ones that nice solid cast mounting has been replaced with a lightweight plastic one which is not up to the job. Also the new ones are fixed with self tappers instead of being bolted through the door skin.
The mirrors on the blue car were the new type and have always been a little bit shaky so I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade them to the old style mountings. I had kept the mirrors from the old red car I scrapped last year so decided it would be a easy enough to use them but of course you always run into a problem.

New style one-piece plastic mount broken

 My intended replacement was not the newest type but an in-between one with a cast base and a plastic bit where the mirror clamps on, but that broke when I did the fixing screw up!

Intermediate type cast base but broken plastic fixing 

This left me with what I think is an original type which has the same cast base and a separate cast metal piece which the mirror clamps to.  The problem with this was that had a broken end as well.

Original type but with a broken end

 My solution was a bodge using a small strip of metal added to extend where the broken piece was missing.

Out of focus but you can see my added piece where the end was missing

Now the mirror can be fixed to the door properly using bolts which go though the door skin into captive nuts on a retaining plate inside the door.

Door mirror mounting plate which fits inside the door.

Final result is door mirrors which are fixed firmly and do not vibrate.

##############################

Update:  Speaking to folks on the Triumph TR7 Owners Forum the suggestion is that the mountings have been redesigned to make them break off deliberately in an accident. This is all very well, but a bit of a pain in my opinion, but I also found out that the Wedge Shop in the USA run by Woody Cooper sell some modified mountings which get over this problem so I ordered some.

Wedge Shop modified mountings, Nice.

Picture above shows the modified mounts I received and have already fitted to the car.  They are simply a section of 1/4" by 1/2" steel strip with the chamfered ends and countersunk holes. They screw straight on to an original cast base and give a lovely stable mirror. 

I actually met Woody Cooper and his son Clint at the NEC Classic Car show and they are a couple of really interesting guys to talk to. Their Wedge Shop business sells parts and modifies TR7's and TR8's to a high standard. They own and run TR8's themselves so know what the cars require to keep them running and performing well.

January 2016, stuck clutch etc

Nice day a couple of weeks back so thought I would give the TR7 a run and found the clutch plate was stuck to the flywheel. I couldn't get any gears with the engine running. This has happened to me before and is quite common on cars parked up so I just went though my usual routine.

1. warm the engine up.
2. switch off and re-start the engine with the car in first gear. You are now hopping down the road like a kangaroo.
3. with the clutch pedal held down go ON-OFF-ON-OFF the accelerator (gas) and it will suddenly free itself.
4. drive a couple of miles to warm it all through and slip the clutch a few times to clean it off.

I went out again two days ago with the same excuse to make sure the clutch was not seized and drove a few miles round my usual "test" route. All was well and I cycled the headlights a few times to make sure they OK. Then as I got home for lunch I found the headlights stuck in the UP position with the switch off and refused to go down. They were not lit but just stayed UP.  No time now so will investigate after lunch.

After lunch I returned to the car to find the lights had gone down all by themselves!  Tested them several times and they worked perfectly.  I will need to keep an eye on them.

December 2015 - TWOA Calender, Fame at Last

Fame at Last.

The 2016 Triumph Wedge Owners of America calender just arrived and my car features on the April page!  Its the picture I posted here back in October and it seems the publishers liked it.