2021, August. More classic events

 1st August: Valleys & Villages Classic Tour

Weather for the Valleys & Villages was forecast to be showery so the obvious car to take was the FHC and I checked it over in the days before. I also took it out on a couple of local trips and to fill it with fuel. The car drove perfectly.

As we set off to Royal Wootton Bassett on Sunday morning it was raining so the choice was confirmed.  However, after less than 5 miles the wipers suddenly slowed and when I glanced at the voltage meter it was pegged in the red zone at the bottom of the gauge- so no charge from the alternator.  I stopped and checked for any obvious problems like a loose wire or drive belt but nothing seemed to be wrong. I then found I needed the emergency jumper battery to restart the car so there was no point in continuing to the start (about 40 mins away) and we returned home.

Next decision, try to fix it or swap over to the DHC?  With no obvious quick fix we decided to just swap our stuff over and take the DHC instead, arriving a little bit late just as the first car was leaving.  Quick sign-on and just time to grab our breakfast roll and we were flagged away in good weather with the roof down.  The road book showed we were going to the same coffee stop and lunch halt as they used in 2019 but the route between was quite different.

Coffee stop was Helen Brownings Royal Oak at Bishopstone, east of Swindon.  As we enjoyed our coffee and excellent cake the rain started - quite heavily.  There was a sudden rush of folks to put their roof up asap and we just managed to get ours done before we got too wet - and between mouthfulls of cake.  Leaving coffee I noticed another TR7 was taking part, a very late registration car with TR8 badges. Interesting. Turns out it was one of the very rare right hand drive TR8s. There were only 18 of them ever produced by the factory. 

Our route continued across the Wiltshire Downs, via the racehorse country around Lambourne, to lunch at Hungerford when the heavens really opened. The rain became absolutely torrential as we parked. It was so heavy no-one even got out of their cars to go to the Hungerford Club for a sandwich!

Lunch at Hungerford - it rained - a lot!

 

Eventually the rain eased enough for us to get a drink and something to eat but the water dripping from the soft top roof made it a bit uncomfortable. Many cars had various bits of tissue stuck in gaps around their roof and windows.   Ironic as this was why we got the FHC car,  but it was back in the garage.

The route now took us back across the Downs and we saw lots of ancient white horses carvved in the hillsides, many of which we had never seen before.

There is an Audi Quattro in front somewhere.

By the time we got to the finish back in Wootton Bassett the weather had greatly improved and we really enjoyed the curry they provided.

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15th August:   Triumph & MG Weekend, Malvern

The Triumph & MG Weekend is a large three day annual show and this year it was based on the Malvern Showground. There would be a large gathering of TR7s from all over the UK so I wanted to take the FHC along. As part of the show, a friend called Bob Blackstock (who used to rally a TR7 back in the 1970s)  was organising a short road run and we wanted to take part.    

We had a very pleasant drive up to Malvern on Sunday morning and were directed to the TR7 parking area close to the main show ring. I parked next to Christopher Kenneth Smith who owns more TR7s than anyone else in the world. No one knows exactly how many but it is what he describes euphemistically as a "reasonable collection".   He is also an authority on them and has most of the original factory build records in his archive. He specialises in rescuing the rare or unique cars, like the first automatic, first TR8, first RHD convertible etc etc.  They are restored to a very high standard but also get driven regularly, often on his trip back from the UK to Italy where he lives.  Christopher does not keep his cars in a museum, they get driven a lot.

TR7s at the Malvern Show

 

The Malvern showground is big and we didn't have enough time to really look around much before the Three Counties Road Run started. It was a nice gentle run taking cars out around the Malvern area including a stop for lunch/refreshments at Westons Cider Mill in Much Marcle.  We had an excellent sandwich and coffee there before returning to the show.

Groups of cars were being called into the main arena to be presented to the crowd and experts on each model explained more various details about them. We were one of the many TR7s presented and whilst we were in the arena there was a fly-past by a Spitfire who did several circuits. Fantastic stuff to see and hear it flying. 

After the arena parade it was great to meet and be able to talk to Harris Mann who was the chief designer responsible for the TR7.  Apparently he lives quite nearby so just dropped in to the show.  He is very approachable and interesting to talk to about the cars he designed and is very modest about his achievements. We had a good chat about them.

Harris Mann, TR7 Designer.

Many of our local TR Register Glavon Group members were also at the show, many of them for the whole weekend. Some were in local hotels/B&B but some hardy souls were camping on site or like Andy and Jill West, who brought a caravan on the back of their TR4!

Andy & Jill West

 

So it was another nice weekend out in the TR7.

 

2021, July. Covid Cancellations

Axle back in FHC 

The axle with rebuilt brakes went back into the FHC with a new handbrake cable and no problems.  Driving it felt good and the handbrake does actually feel better than before so I will let it all settle down and put a few miles on it before a final judgement if my work was worth it.

This was all done just before we went off to Portugal for our holidays as the government had declared Portugal to on the "Green List" of safe countries visit.  After only being there a few days things changed and it was now suddenly on the "Amber List" and our return flight got cancelled. Two more re-arranged flights were also cancelled. We have a timeshare there so were owed weeks from last year when no-one could travel and were able to use some of those and ended up staying for five weeks in all. We also had to self-isolate for 10 days on our return. Unfortunately this meant that three of our classic tours had to cancelled as well.

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Dursley Rotary Cotswold Tour

A week after we got allowed out of self-isolation we took the DHC out on the Dursley Rotary Cotswold Tour. The start and finish is almost opposite to our house so was a nice way to get back in to driving the cars. 

Weather was absolutely scorching and was the hottest day of the year so far at just over 30 degrees.  The DHC behaved impeccably which was just as well because an old rally friend called Jos Way had also come along in his  TR7 V8.  Jos is new to TR7's and is really enjoying learning about the cars and their  various "issues". His car also behaved perfectly.

TR7's at the finish

Just to prove we made the finish!

 Getting mine ready for the day I had found the common problem with a perished rubber fuel line but was able to replace it easily before it caused any trouble. It's been on the car almost exactly two years so checking will now need be a regular part of my routine programme.

Two year old fuel pipe.

 

2021, 15th May FHC Handbrake

 FHC Axle Brake Rebuild and Swap

In a previous post I mentioned that I have never been happy with the FHC handbrake so have been pondering the best way to deal with it.  Don't think I have ever mentioned that the axle also has a little bit of a whine when cruising at say 60-70mph so I decided a way forward would be to rebuild the spare axle that had originally been in the cat when I got it and swap them over.

First job was to drag it out from the back of the garage and strip off the old brakes.  The drums looked very good and the brake shoes even turned out to be real Lockheed/Don ones.  

Before stripping, looks pretty good

First job after stripping was to re-drill the back plates to take the new TR8 wheel cylinders. These are larger internal diameter than TR7 ones so give more rear braking to match with the uprated front brakes. The TR7 and TR8 cylinders appear identical externally and both have a roll-pin to locate them in the backplate but it is on opposite sides, presumably to prevent the wrong ones being fitted by mistake. 

New Hole Drilled in Backplate

The new cylinders went on first and they are retained by an evil circlip. These can be a real pain to fit and have a habit of flying off into the most distant corner of the garage when you are trying to get them on. I have a special tool which uses a taper to open them up as you tighten a nut. It did work but it turned out the circlips are harder than the tool as you can see from the grooves it left on the taper!

Use a pair of grips to hold cylinder

Special tool to push circlip on

Circlip in position

Circlip has damaged the taper!

With the cylinders in place next job was to make up and fit the new brake pipes which is always a nice little job I enjoy doing but always struggle to get them as neat and straight as I would like.

New brake pipes on.

I had bought a new set of automatic(!) adjusters and levers so these went on as well before fitting the shoes and springs.  Last item is the brake shoe hold back springs with their little top-hat shaped cups that you have to push on and turn at the same time. A pair of pliers or a flat bladed screwdriver is generally used but it turns out there is a proper special tool for putting these on and I had been given one by a fellow 143 Motor Club member who was having a garage clear out.

Girling brake spring tool

and the retaining spring in place.

 

All ready for the brake drum

Last were the rubber boots that seal around the handbrake levers. These are some British made ones that are guaranteed for two years so will hopefully last a bit longer than the usual couple of months previous ones did.

Rubber gaiters - but will they last?

And the axle ready to go into the car.

 

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! 

2021, March. Some interesting SJW888S history revealed

SJW888S was a rally car in earlier times .

Browsing through some old rally pages on Facebook I am always on the look out for any TR7 related stuff and I noticed a familiar registration number on the entry list for the 1985 Port Talbot Novice road rally, 

TR7  SJW888S at start number 5.  

 

Asking around on the page I tracked down the navigator David Collins so I contacted him to ask what he could remember about the car.   He said it had originally been a BL managers car (hence the close registration number to the TR7 Sprint development cars) but had been rolled by the managers son.  The roof was quite badly damaged so it was sold off and rebuilt by his driver Martin Hall as a rally car.   They used it on quite a lot of events in the 1980s and he even sent me some pictures of them in action, see below.

When they rallied it the car ran a tuned version of the standard 8 valve motor and the obvious difference now is the colour was originally yellow.  Apparently it went pretty well and they had enjoyed themselves getting some decent results.

2021, March. Few tidying up jobs on the FHC

 Lower Front Panel 

When I got the car it had the standard plastic front spoiler as fitted to all the TR7s from about 1978. This covered the lower front panel that runs across the car but which had got a bit scruffy under the pastic. With limited time originally it just got some rust treatment and that was all so it was overdue a tidy up and now was a good time and. The car was registered in 1977 so I liked the idea of keeping it to the earlier spec. Looking closely it was actually in very good condition so all that was needed was sanding with wet and dry and some primer before a coat of Pageant Blue from a spray can. 

 

Nicer now with a bit of blue paint on.

 

Rear Panel 

The earlier cars also had the back panel between the rear lights painted Satin Black and as I needed to do some tidying up there as well I decided to paint it black.  There were some scabby bits of paint where the number plate is screwed on and needed cleaning up.   Again it was just a question of sanding with wet and dry before some primerand then a Satin Black spray can. 

Fellow TR7 blogger Beans had also noticed that the number plate was fitted too high on the rear panel.  I had done this deliberately to cover up an area of poor paintwork so I could now put that right as well.

 

Guilty secret, I had covered this up with the number plate!

Ready for some Satin Black paint.

Finished version, but is that plate on straight?

 Seems I need to adjust the number plate now!  Always something to do.

That is better!

2021, February Life begins again!

 FHC Front Suspension Job

When I built the FHC a couple of years back it was in a bit of a rush so there was not time for some little jobs like modifying the front strut tops for the roller bearings. The best way is to machine a recess in the aluminium bells so the bearings fit inside them. There wasn't time for the machining work so I fitted the bearings without the recess anyway which resulted in a slightly increased the ride height by about 5-10mm.   Now I needed to have the struts apart to replace the "rubber" bellows which had split so it was time to do the bearing job properly.  

These gaiters lasted less than 2 years!

The most commonly used bearings used are a standard part from a Ford Escort Mk4 and cheap, part no. 6150276.

Ford Strut Bearings, part no. 6150276

 

 

Background:  The standard TR7 strut top bearing is a plastic/nylon bush running against a greased flat washer. This may have been OK when new but over the years these have often dried out and many owners now find the steering too heavy for comfort. Power steering was fitted to some cars back in the day, mostly the TR8s in the USA market but this has two drawbacks, 1 it is for LHD cars, and 2 it is almost impossible to find nowadays.  Some folks have used a modified Rover SD1 power rack but the modern equivalent is an adapted version of the electrically assisted steering column used in many cars now.  The other easier and cheaper option is to just fit the bearings which do the job perfectly for me. 

 The standard strut top parts look like this:-

 

1. Spring top pan

2. Nylon bush/bearing

3. Rubber seal (runs outside of 2)

4. Flat steel washer (runs on top of 2)

5. Aluminium cone (goes on top of 4)

6. Strut top with rubber insert

7. Cupped washer 

 

The new bearings replace the nylon bush (2) and the flat washer(4).  I retained the rubber seal (3) as well to help preserve the new bearings.

Like I said above, when I built the car I just put the roller bearings in place of the nylon bush but being much thicker they do raise the ride height so I wanted to fix this. 

Thickness of the Ford bearing

 The way this is done is to machine a recess into the aluminium cone to take the bearing with only the running surface being slightly proud of the cone, like this:-

Modified cones to take Ford bearing (photo Beans)

Putting it all back together with the well geased new bearings and new strut gaiters was pretty easy, not forgetting to include the bump stop on the damper shaft.  There are various options with the bump stop, some folks don't use one at all (not a good idea!) and some have the nice expensive polybush version.  I just use a cut down rubber one as suggested by Steve Wilcox of S&S Preparations.  The new standard ones sold now are too long.  All you need is one (yes one) rubber bump stop and cut it in half, so it does for both struts. Result!

Half a rubber bump stop is used

With the car back on its wheels I took it for a quick test drive and the steering feels excellent, light and precise - and back to the proper ride height.