Adding lightness & light part 1

With my two roadworthy TR7's of the road again for a three month period starting on the first of December, it was again time for another little winter project. This time for 't Kreng, shedding a few kilograms from the front of the car. It was actually one of the jobs meant to be carried out when the bodywork would be tackled. The original plan had been to weld in a steel support in the headlamp holes in the nose panel, and bolt the headlamp pods directly to these. This would not only shed a few kilograms but also make room for a nice big air filter cone in the space were the lift motors used to be. But as that looks like it is still a few years in the future and the lift mechanisms of the headlamps were showing clear signs (and sounds!) of wear, I decided to go for a temporary solution. Remove the lift motors and replace them with some simple supports between the lift-motors' steel mounting brackets and the alloy hinge platform.

But with the headlamps removed and the lifting mechanism dismantled I had a better look at the available space and parts. It was immediate clear that all that was needed to fix the lamp pods in the "up" position were some rather simple supports. But I also noticed there was a lot of steel on the original brackets that would lose its function, and as such could be removed. This not only reduces weight even more, with the bulk of the remaining weight sitting further back (which is always good). It also provides room for a future adaptation to fit the already mentioned air filter.

When I started this little project the plan had been to fabricate a simple support from steel strips, bolted in place using the original mounting holes. But with the temporary fix becoming permanent meant the design for the necessary supports needed to be tidied up a bit. So instead of one, I decided to go for two supports per side, machined from aluminium. Using my AutoCad skills and modern technology to fabricate these ...

Apart from that it only needed drilling a few extra holes and removing some material from the alloy platforms (where the spring is mounted) to get everything together. And to underline their permanent status all parts were powder coated ...

before they were re-assembled ...

To be continued ...