July/August 2016. MOT, shows and tinkering.

I was well pleased with myself after the heater job last month until I discovered that the top steering column clamp bolt had damaged some wiring again. My own fault as I should have remembered and been more careful placing the wiring when the dash all went back in.  My solution (after repairing the wiring) was to add a shield around the column to prevent it happening again. Its just a cut down hand cleaner bottle but it stops any chance of wires and bolt tangling up again.

Shield added over column clamp bolt prevents wiring damage.

Sunday 10th July: we took the TR7 down to the Forest of Dean for my old 143 Motor Club summer barbeque and discovered a problem.  When you buy a pay and display car park ticket, where do you leave it on an open top car?  Think I will have to fix it on the screen next time with a piece of tape. Very nice afternoon out though.

Sunday 17th July:  Cotswold Classic Car Club have a little annual show at their HQ on the cricket ground by the Frogmill Inn on the A40 near Andoversford.  It was a lovely day and a good selection of interesting cars turned up.  Its a free entry, turn up and leave when you like show and the organisers had laid on some excellent home made cakes to help raising money for charity. Fellow TRDC member Guy Brinton also came along in his very nice original Pharoh Gold TR7.

Good selection of cars

This lovely Vauxhall won best in show.

Guy Brinton's original TR7

Bonnet open to display the Sprint engine.

Saturday 6th August:  Gloucestershire Vintage & Country Extravaganza. This is a huge three day show based on South Cerney Airfield near Cirencester that our TR Register group attend every year. Because of the size it is a much more organised event with designated display areas and a main arena. The programme is 68 pages thick with almost no adverts so that gives you some idea.  There were 70 different steam powered vehicles (traction engines, road rollers etc), 17 ex-emergency vehicles (fire engines, ambulances), 55 old buses and coaches, about 500 classic/vintage cars,  250 motorcycles, almost 250 old commercial vehicles, 50 light industrial trucks, 100 military vehicles and about 200 old tractors. Not to mention all the old fairground rides and trade stands.  Like I said its a big show.  We spent most of the day wandering about and only saw a fraction of it.  Excellent.

Our Glavon Group, TR Register stand

Some of the engines are quite big.

Some are quite small.

Traction engine powered sawbench working hard.

Beautiful showman's engine providing power

Fairground rides powered by the traction engines.

Sunday 14th August:  Our Glavon group joined up with the Gloucester TSSC for the Severn & Wye Bridges Run. About 20 cars took part on this nice little day out took us on a tour over many of the bridges across the rivers Severn and Wye in our area from Tewkesbury in the north down to the original Severn Bridge in the south.  I think we crossed the Severn about nine times and the Wye at least twice but I did lose count. Morning coffee stop was at the old Tintern Railway Station which does sell excellent cakes.

Some of the Severn & Wye runners

Wednesday 17th August:  I heard about a little evening gathering at the Sharpness Dockers Club. This is open to most older/interesting vehicles where you just turn up and park for a couple of hours to mingle with enthusiasts. Quite a few trucks and buses and about 50 classic cars. It was a jolly nice evening.

Quite few folks turned up at Sharpness Dockers Club.

A good variety of cars at Sharpness.

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On the Severn & Wye Run another driver who had been following us mentioned that my brake lights didn't show up very well in bright sunlight.  This confirmed what I had suspected since I fitted some LED bulbs. They appear to be good but many of the LED bulbs you see for sale are just not bright enough.  A bit of searching around and I found some much better ones, not cheap at £17.99 pair but well worth the money if it prevents an accident!

These LED stop/tail bulbs are excellent.

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Sunday 21st August: Tewkesbury Classic Vehicle Festival 

The weather stayed kind so we popped up to Tewkesbury for the Classic Vehicle Festival organised by the Rotary Club to raise money for the Air Ambulance - a worthy cause. This is another show held on a school playing field and was very well attended. The organisers reckoned 550-600 cars were on display and very large numbers of visitors attended as well.  The Air Ambulance itself also managed to drop in for a visit after an earlier call out.

Lots of kids got to sit in the helicopter

Us arriving at the show

Nice Morgan three wheeler

Beautiful MG SA saloon

Rare Lea Francis

Lovely Austin A40 convertible

3rd July 2016 - Devils Bridge Run

The car got a good test a few days after fitting the new heater matrix on a club run up to Devils Bridge in mid-Wales. This had been organised by the Wyedean group of the TR Register and they invited the Glavon group which I belong to come along as well.

Several of us Glavon members met up at the old Severn Bridge services and drove up through the lovely Wye valley on a beautiful Sunday morning with hardly any traffic. We joined up with everyone else just outside Hereford and headed up to a refreshment stop at Crossgates near Llandrindod Wells. We were rather surprised as we arrived to find the large car park virtually full of motorbikes. There must have been well over 100 bikes but luckily there was some parking space in front of some business units at the top of the car park so we lined all our TR's up there.

Lined up at Crossgates Cafe.

 Everyone was in good spirits and luckily the bikers didn't seem to mind us car drivers in their midst. It appeared to be some kind of charity event with quite a lot of them wearing the Blood Transfusion Service tabards. They also seemed to mostly as old as us!  The cafe staff were working at full speed so we didn't have to wait too long to get served.

The drive from Crossgates to Devils Bridge took us up past the Elan Valley and over the mountain road which is a super drive with great views.

Heading up the Elan Valley

We had some local company as well.

I have driven through Devils Bridge many times on rallies over the years but there was never time to stop and explore.  Turns out it is actually three bridges, each built on top of the other. The legend tells how the first one was built by the Devil himself but I suspect that is unlikely. It is well worth a visit and you can pay £1 to go down into the gorge below the bridges.

Three bridges at Devils Bridge.

Not many of these left.

We got a cuppa and an ice cream from the Woodlands Cafe and then our return route took us south to Llandovery for another stop, this time at the Castle Car Park. This is another place I have been to so many times on rallies because it was very often used as a service area. We parked in front of the sculpture of  Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, the first Prince of Wales.

Llewelyn ap Gruffydd sculpture at Landovery

 Many of us sat outside the Castle Hotel for one of their excellent cream teas before we all split up for our various journeys home.  The first few miles along the A40 towards Brecon are another lovely piece of driving road, fast sweeping bends and lovely scenery so I was really able to have some more fun.

Arriving home we had clocked up 276 fun miles, it had been an excellent day out with good company and great cars. 

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.

17th June 2016, Bullet Run

The TRDC decided it would be a good idea to mark the 40th anniversary of the TR7 launch in the UK and also the recent death of Tony Lee who was the Triumph Chief Development Engineer.  The result was the Bullet Run which followed the old factory test route up to Bwlch-y-Groes in North Wales.  Bullet was the factory code name for the TR7 when it was still in the design and testing stage.

Day 1.  About 40 TR7/8's of various types came, with some being driven by members of Tony Lee's family who had been invited to take part.  Some of us started from the base hotel near Stratford-on-Avon with others joining us at a rest stop in Oswestry. From here the roads became much more interesting as we drove up to the next stop at Lake Vyrnwy.

Some of the cars at the hotel start.

Our lunch halt location, Lake Vyrnwy dam.

Leaving Lake Vyrnwy the route follows a narrow mountain road up to Bwlch-y-Groes which is the highest mountain pass in North Wales. During the 1960's and 1970's this road was used regularly by several car makers to test their new vehicles. The modern road is all single track tarmac but back in those days much of it was still a gravel surface.

TR7 traffic jam on the road to Bwlch-y-Groes

Photo opportunity.

Nearing the top of the pass.

Having stopped to admire the views and take a couple of pictures we arrived at the summit car park to find it full of TR7's. Many of the first wave were just moving off as we got there but it was soon full again. Lots more pictures followed before we set off down the other side to Bala. As you can see the weather was perfect for everyone to enjoy the great views.

TR7's only allowed!

 From Bala many crews decided to take the quickest way back to the hotel via the motorways but we chose to take a much nicer cross country route.  This took us across the B4391 to Llangynog which is a superb road to drive. It is a fast sweeping mountain road with no traffic so I was able to push the car quite hard and it handled perfectly.  Exactly the kind of road the TR7 was built for.  The fast corners and sudden changes of direction suited it perfectly with no dramas at all. Great fun.

Back at the hotel they had prepared an excellent buffet for us followed by a talk from Gordon Birtwistle who was the Triumph High Speed Development driver and has an endless supply of amusing stories from those days. Very interesting chap.

Day 2.  The organisers had arranged for us to visit the Midlands Air Museum at Coventry Airport where we were able to park the cars amongst some of their 70 or so historical aircraft.  They have all sorts of planes from a Fairey Gannet to a Vulcan  and even a more modern Russian attack helicopter.  We especially liked to be able to climb up into the Vulcan bomber cockpit to see where a crew of five worked to fly with our nuclear deterrent. We were also able to sit in a Gloster Meteor and an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy cockpit.

Another photo opportunity.

My partner Jo in the Vulcan cockpit

Driving home after lunch we came across lots of old motor cycles on their own tour and talked to some guys in a 1914 AC Sociable which had stalled. Never seen one of those before.

1914 AC Sociable

 We arrived home having done almost 500 miles in the TR7 which had behaved itself perfectly.

8th May 2016, Glavon Vale of Evesham Run

After hopefully fixing the carburettors, I was interested to find out how the car actually drove so our Glavon TR Register group day out on 8th May was ideal.  Turns out it was the hottest day of the year so far and a proper test. We had a mixed group of 14 cars with TR3,4,5&6 but mine was the only TR7. During the day three of the TR5/6 broke down due to the heat but the TR7 didn't miss a beat.

It was raining at the start!

Driving to the start we had some light rain but the forecast was good so the roof stayed down. This turned out to be the right decision because by 10:00am it was a glorious sunny day.

The route took us from the start at Coombe Hill near Cheltenham across the River Severn at Tirley, to a coffee stop at Clive's Fruit Farm near Upton on Severn. They specialise in pick-your-own fruit, juices and cider, and I can highly recommend their home made cakes.

Coffee stop at Clive's Fruit Farm

Leaving the farm we met quite a lot of traffic at Upton on Severn which seemed to be heading for a Spring show at nearby Malvern. Several of us have CB radios so we were able to keep our small convoy together in the traffic and they came in useful when a couple of the TR5/6 broke down apparently due to the heat. It was now about 25 degrees and I actually decided to put a little sunscreen on my face whilst the cars were restarted.

Lunch was at the Fleece Inn at Bretforton. This is a lovely old 15th century pub owned by the National Trust where they do really nice food.  It is in the middle of a small village but we had arranged to park our cars in their gardens which provided a perfect location for a couple of pictures as well.

Lunch stop at the Fleece Inn, Bretforton

The afternoon run took us up onto the hills and a stop at Broadway Tower before dropping down via Snowshill, Temple Guiting and Kineton to Naunton where we all separated to make our way home.

The TR7 ran perfectly and drove better than it ever has. The engine was smooth with a good spread of power from low revs all through the range.
All in all, a grand day out.

May, 2016. Carburettors

Since I fitted the alloy carb mounts last year I have never been happy with the idling speed.  It never wanted to go much below about 1000 or even 1100 rpm and because there has been stuff going on I have not bothered about it.  The engine runs perfectly, apart from the idle, with good power and reasonable economy so I decided it was time to investigate properly.

All the linkages etc were free and lubricated with no signs of sticking. There was no signs of any air leaks and all the breather hoses are connected and in good condition. Next thing was to put a flow meter on the carbs, and sure enough the front carb was drawing much more air than the rear one. The next thing was to loosen all the links between the carbs and set the idle on each one but even with the throttle stop completely undone the front carb was still drawing way too much air.

Synchrometer, air flow meter I use.

Something was obviously going on with the front carb so I decided the only thing to do was take them both off and have a proper look. First thing I noticed was that the fuel level in the jet of the front carb seemed much higher than the rear one, not an answer to the main problem but something else to sort out as well.  With the carbs off I found that the throttle butterfly on the front one was not closing fully. Holding it up to the light I could see the butterfly was clearly not centered properly in the spindle because light was still visible with it "closed". I was able to slacken off the two screws holding it and get it adjusted so no daylight showed. The butterfly must have been like since the engine went in the car and I think the old suspect rubber mounts had masked the problem.

Next thing to look at was the float levels. The newer types of SU carbs have a one piece plastic float which is non adjustable. Some folks put washers under the needle valve to alter it but I decided I might as well fit the best new ones from Burlen Fuel Systems. These are called StayUp Floats and come complete with a new needle valve and gaskets as well so should be an answer to the fuel level problem. They also have a metal lever so are adjustable as well if needed.

Burlen SU StayUp float kit

Well the new float kits came and are fitted in the car. It was a really easy job to fit them and adjust the floats to the correct setting.

The engine now runs much smoother and I can actually adjust the tickover to a nice 750/800rpm. It also drives nicer and pulls strongly from low revs. I popped into my local garage and checked it on their emissions tester.  CO2 levels were a little high so I set them down to a comfortable 4.5% .

We are out on a little Sunday tour with our GLAVON TR Register group tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how it goes in normal driving.

17th April 2016, Clutch master cylinder

Checking the lights before our journey home after the Corinium Run we noticed that the brake lights had stopped working.  A brief investigation showed it was the switch which was faulty so that needed doing as a priority. Its not a difficult job, just a bit awkward working up under the dash, but when I was replacing the faulty brake light switch I spotted signs of something dripping on the mat

That wet spot means trouble

 

and this is where the drips come from

The clutch master cylinder needed to be replaced soon before it let me down and I already happened to have a new one "in stock" so that was good.

I had been considering fitting one of those nice shiny Aeroquip type stainless hoses instead of the standard plastic one so now was my chance and I ordered one from Robsport. It arrived next day so that was great service.   Swapping the master cylinder and hose was pretty straightforward and only took an hour or so, but like the brake switch involved mostly working upside down under the dash. Why is that so much more difficult than it used to be when I was 20 years younger?

New master cylinder and hose

New hose at the slave cylinder end

After bleeding I now have a really smooth clutch pedal which feels better than it has ever been.