Beans' TR7 Blog

Another year over

2011-12-31T12:01:00.004+01:00

As stated in my last post 2011 wasn’t a good year for my TR7’s. I thought it couldn’t get any worse. But when I wanted to take ‘t Kreng out for a short blast, over some nice deserted country lanes a few days ago, I was met by an ominous click from the glove box. A quick check with the multimeter showed the battery had still 12,47V left.

Which normally should be enough to spin the starter motor. But when I switched on the headlights only one came up (and rather reluctant at that) and the light it gave off was rather feeble too. So it looks like it that (after 15 years of faithful service) I’ll have to renew the battery ...

As for the DHC, she’s still waiting patiently in the shed for the repairs. But the longest part of the wait is over. This Monday she will be brought to the paint shop at last.

Also very slow progress on the gear box. Mainly because I have been busy with other (none Triumph related) jobs. Managed to clean the various casings though, which was rather rewarding ...

Also inspected all parts from the second ‘box I dismantled. Again some pronounced wear on the mesh teeth and a little wear on the main shaft. Especially the part where 1st and 2nd gear are situated ...

So I decided it would be best to order a new mainshaft and some new gears, just to be on the safe side.
Ohh ... and still waiting for my clutch kits to arrive. Seems there are some problems with the supplier!? Parts are now promised for mid January (2012)

Remains to wish everyone all the best for 2012.

Not all going to plan

2011-12-04T18:00:00.004+01:00

2011 certainly won’t go into the books as a good Triumph year! After the 10CR related break down and transport damage to the DHC there were still more things to go wrong. As a result of which I lost a bit of motivation to work on the cars. But luckily there were some positive things too;

Nice toy;
Early last month I went over to a friend to collect a very nice alloy FI fuel tank for ‘t Kreng. As we both had plans for building a rally replica and both love longer distance events, we thought it a good idea to order two tanks from Andy Wiltshire. These are more or less made to order with baffles, swirl pot etc. and have a capacity of a little over 70 litres. Which should gave a nice amount of extra range.
But when I walked into his workshop I was pleasantly surprised to see his newly acquired toy ...

A rather nice car and a very good starting point for a proper drivers car, as a result of which the restoration of his old car will be postponed a bit. And while inspecting the car I almost completely forgot the reason why I was there ...

Sadly no decent pictures as I left mine in its protective wrapping. But the craftsmanship of the work is very nice indeed. It’s a real shame to hide it away underneath the car ...

23th edition of the Nachtrit;
As usually the plan was to do a last reconnaissance run on the day of the event. But I had to park ‘t Kreng on the hard shoulder of the motorway 23 kilometres short of the start in Slenaken. On a motorway junction, while transferring from the A2 to the A76, I heard something bouncing underneath the car. A quick look in the rear view mirrors didn’t reveal anything, but a few kilometres further down the motorway the first few drops appeared on the lower left-hand corner of the windscreen. First thought was that I lost the radiator cap from the header tank. But the temperature remained as it had been since the engine got to its working temperature. As the oil pressure also was as it should be I decided to carry on for a few more kilometres till the heard shoulder was a bit wider.

But even before I opened the bonnet it was clear that it wasn’t coolant that was leaking through the left hand side louvers of the bonnet. The left hand side of the car was covered in engine oil. After opening the bonnet, the reason became all too clear, I’d lost the oil filler cap.

Although the oil level was still well above the minimum level (I guess I lost about ¼ litre of oil) I decided to call the guy who would be on standby with his recovery truck during the Nachtrit, and see if he wanted some practice. 25 minutes later ‘t Kreng was loaded and we were on our way to a friend’s workshop to clean of the oil a bit. In the meantime my co-driver who was following in his own car, went to my house to pick up a spare oil filler cap. And after a few hours of cleaning oil from the car, drinking coffee and watch how JM was preparing his TR7V8 for the Nachtrit, we headed for the start. And as the weather was still rather fine for the time of year we decided to make ourselves comfortable in the sun and enjoy the views and a few pints of beer.
The event itself went rather smoothly for all who entered. No one broke down or got lost. And just after midnight all teams had arrived back at the hotel. Time for another beer or two ...

New gearbox DHC;
Next set back I encountered was with the gearbox which I wanted to rebuilt. After the Nachtrit I took some more time to inspect the gears properly. Turned out that first and second gears are too far gone to be re-used. The small mesh teeth are all badly damaged on these two gears ...

So I collected another ‘box from my spares hoard and started to dismantle it. Thought it would be easy to dismantle but the layshaft fifth gear put up a bit of a fight. But after a struggle with the extractor tool, lasting almost half an hour, it came off.
Removing the bearings turned out pretty easy, using the proper tools. But the last bearing (the small one between mainshaft and inputshaft) wasn’t impressed by the hydraulic press. Especially the inner race refused point blank to move. At the first attempt we managed to chip a piece out of it. For the second attempt we welded a sturdy washer on top of the race to get more leverage. We managed to pull the ring and part of the bearing’s race of, but most of it remained stubbornly in place. There were now two options left, the first of which was to weld an even larger washer to the bearing race. And this option certainly made an impression, as it came off with a rather loud bang ...

With everything in pieces I could inspect all the bits in detail. Clearly should have chosen this ‘box earlier, as everything looks in pretty good condition. But it makes me wonder why I had to replace this box last summer. Either I have overlooked something or there was something wrong with the clutch already, when I changed the gearbox then. Time and an extra inspection of all ‘box parts will tell.

Also found some strange markings (SK) on the mounting plate and the casing ...

Only explanation I can come up with is that these are marks from a rebuilder? Which might explain why the bearing and 5th gear where so tight, maybe they used Loctite to fix them?

Damage repairs DHC;
And to end on a more positive note, I had a chat with the guy who still will be doing the paint repairs. And he gave me some rather good news, he should be able to start work again within the next few weeks. So we agreed that he car will go over to him around Christmas.
But most importantly the news has encouraged me to start working on the car again. Have to admit that my motivation had dropped considerably in the last month.

Also still waiting for the new clutch to arrive from Britain, certainly to be continued.

Damage assessment

2011-10-30T22:45:00.004+01:00

The DHC is ready to be moved to the paint shop, which is scheduled somewhere in this week. Last bits that needed removal for the paint repairs were the mud flaps, central bumper pivot, sill trim and nose badge. And of course I had to remove a fair bit of (seam) sealant (between nose panel and front wings and underneath the ends of the sill trim). At least I know now that my choice of sealant has been a good one, very adhesive stuff and a bugger to remove.

And I used the opportunity to have a better look at the damage to the front spoiler. Actual damage is worse than a first glance might tell. But it is still much easier to repair than to prepare a new one.

Also been busy sourcing the parts for the gear box. As I have a healthy amount of distrust in British Leyland’s numbering systems I decided not to go by the (parts) book, but dismantle everything first and measure all serial number related parts. The typical LT77 parts were sourced through S&S preparations ...

Whereas the bearings were carefully measured and, using SKF’s main catalogue, numbered. After which it was pretty easy to order them through a friend’s work shop ...

For one bearing I opted for a slightly different approach. The rear end bearing (the only ball and metric bearing in the ‘box) will be replaced by a fully sealed (for life) version. This has two advantages. First it is sealed from any debris wandering about inside the gearbox. But most important, as it sits against the rear oil seal it will act as an extra seal itself.

Also I spent some time cleaning up the garage. Main reason for that was that I wanted to find a little tool I had made a few years ago when I rebuilt the current gearbox in ‘t Kreng. Indeed a dummy for the main shaft bearing, to enable measuring first gear’s end float.

And last but not least, I received a notice from my insurer last week that they agree with the damage valuation. They even managed to transfer the money to my bank account.

Edit: serious setback for the damage repairs. Just got a phone call from the guy who is going to do the paint preparations etc. He has a serious arm injury, as a result of which he will be out for at least 6 weeks ...

Here we go again

2011-10-16T19:19:00.009+02:00

Got a message from the damage valuator last week, and we agreed on the cost for the damage repairs. He also agreed with the fact that I want to do the repairs myself or under my own supervision. So in preparation for the body repairs I started dismantling the DHC again. Brought back memories from almost three years ago ...

As all bolts and screws were liberally coated with anti seize paste when I assembled them, everything came of pretty easily. Only the first part that I had to remove, the front bumper, put up a bit of a fight. Which was to be expected, as the central pivot point is a pretty tight fit. But after 15 minutes of careful wriggling it came off.

Also the rubber headlamp surrounds decided it was again time to shed some of the steel washers that are vulcanised to the back of the surround. This was caused by the kit I used to glue the steel washers to the surrounds. It looks like the kit became soft (due to high temperatures???) over the past year or so, and after that it set again and glued itself to the steel frame inside the head lamp pods. Hopefully they can be glued back in place with a few blobs of kit.
With the surrounds of, the rest of the headlamp pods was rather straightforward. Only the connector blocks for the headlamp bulbs needed removing as they wouldn’t slip through the holes of the headlamp bowl and the bottom of the pod.

Luckily I had a few very fine/slim screw drivers with me to help with removing the three connectors from the block. With the connector blocks out of the way removing the headlamp bowls and pods was straightforward.

Finished work for this weekend with removing the screen washers and disconnecting the bonnet stay in preparation for the removal of the bonnet. But the actual removal won't be done until she's in the repair shop.

So almost ready to transport her to the body repair shop, which is scheduled within the next two weeks. Only items that I have to remove, before she is off for paint repairs, are the sill strips, the front mud flaps and the nose badge. But for the sill strips I need a few special tools to prevent (too much) damage to the sills, see where I can borrow these.

DHC back home at last

2011-09-26T22:12:00.007+02:00

Since this afternoon the DHC is back home again from the 10CR, so time to invest the damage caused by the little rock that crossed our path on the Friday evening of the event ...

Overall impression is that the damage is not too bad. All damage is to parts that can easily be removed from the car for repairs or a new coating. And the damage to the front spoiler looks as if it can be repaired fairly easily. Not visible is the damage to the wheel rim, that'll need a fair amount of attention.

Sadly somewhere between Austria and home (but probably in the workshop in Austria that inspected the car before it could be sent home) they managed to chip the paint on the front quite badly. On both front panel and bonnet all layers of coating are completely gone. Looks like they closed the bonnet with something wedged in between bonnet and nose panel ...

Needles to say this one will be continued. Glad that my insurer has promised they will pay for the extra damage and then will try to get their money back one way or another. But the repair will be very difficult/expensive to get done properly. So not very happy at the moment.

Preparations for the return of the DHC

2011-09-24T17:21:00.004+02:00

At the moment the DHC is still not back home, estimate is that she’ll be back home early next week. But I haven’t been completely idle. As I don’t want to take of the gear box for the next ten years or so, I have decided to go for a rebuild gear box. So last week I went through my spare gearboxes in search for the most suitable ‘box for a rebuild. In the end I decided on the original ‘box that was fitted to GB-16-YP at Canley early in 1980. A bit in doubt as to its serial number though ...

And although this ‘box has covered over 200.000 kilometres, it felt to be in fairly good condition, with hardly any play on the bearings.

First thing to do was dismantle the ‘box, to get a clear picture of the internals. I started with an inspection of the oil that came out if it. Was good to see that is was fairly clear and didn’t contain any brass contamination ...

With the oil drained, it was time to start dismantling it in earnest. First part of the ‘box to remove was the rear extension containing fifth gear and the oil pump, which was fairly easy once the rear flange was removed (easy thanks to a proper air powered wrench)

Was good to see that (again) the internals of the oil pump were in fairly good condition, especially regarding its high mileage. And the first gears (fifth) to come into view also looked in good condition. Only some slight play of the gear on the main shaft, so some new needle bearings needed here.

After everything from the fifth gear was removed, it was time to separate the main casing from the mounting plate. Again no hidden horrors. All gears look in good condition with no noticeable play on the main shaft.

Only real sign of any wear was visible on the selector forks. Will see if I can get pair of proper (original) new ones, otherwise these will be reused as they aren’t that badly worn.

All in all this ‘box looks like a good choice for the rebuild. The only parts showing real signs of wear are the main bearings. Although there was no noticeable play, they all have visible signs of wear on the outer races

10CR2011

2011-09-16T00:10:00.029+02:00

Last Thursday, the 8th of September, saw the start of the 5th edition of Club Triumphs 10 Countries Run. As four years ago I chose the DHC to do the event, although I did have some doubts when I was preparing the car for the event. As in earlier editions we started from Steenvoorde in the north-west of France. This again being the continental start for the event. We arrived there fairly early, so we had a few hours to relax and have a coffee or two, while we waited for the rest of the pack. After an hour and a half the serene quite of the place was shattered when the rest of the entrants arrived from Calais.

After saying hello to some of the more familiar faces, and collecting the starters pack from Ellis, we also hit the road. First bit of the route through northern France wasn’t to interesting with mainly motorways to get a decent amount of miles under the wheels quickly. The ”official” route would take us from Steenvoorde via Lille, Valenciennes and Hirson to our first control stop at Charleville-Mézières. Turned out to be rather crowded with Triumphs there. In the end we managed to find a parking space just outside the centre, in front of a Turkish kebab shop. Needles to say we didn’t bother to walk back into the city centre to collect a signature for the road book! And the meal was good.

After the meal we headed further east towards Sedan and Carignan, but after that we decided to take a “shortcut”. So instead of heading into Belgium (which we had done already) and Luxembourg at Thonelle, we headed south-east towards Montmédy, following the D643 through Longuyon and Briey towards Metz, were we would pick up the official route again. It turned out to be a very nice and relaxing road to drive with little traffic. And during this stretch I again was reminded of the wonderful world of Lucas - Prince Of Darkness. The dashboard lights were working perfectly, great! Not so great was the fact that by this time the clutch had developed a tendency to stick rather randomly. This meant that quick gear changes were out of order, which definitely hampered progress on the rest of the run. A sign of things to come !?

But after some 100 kilometres we rejoined the official route just south of Metz, taking the A31 towards Nancy. This gave us also the opportunity to fill up the fuel tank just south of Pont-à-Mousson. Was again a pleasant surprise to see that the car easily managed well over 10 km/litre. (±30 mpg) on the Route Nationals.

With both fuel tank and ourselves replenished we hit the road again, following the A31 motorway till Nancy, where we joined the A33 towards Lunéville and after that the N59 towards Baccarat. We actually followed the N59 all the way to Sainte-Dié-des-Vosges, where we left it to enter the Vosges Mountains This turned out to be (again) a great and challenging drive over passes with interesting names like the Col du Calvaire, Col du Wettstein or Col du Platzerwasel. But the most challenging of them all was the Collet du Linge which was covered in dense fog. At some places visibility was less than 10 metres. Needles to say that our average speed suffered a bit more here. And to add to the fun the wipers decided to go on strike. Luckily it happened just when we came out of the mist. With the weather turning dry at that moment, I decided to keep going for a while till we’d find a parking space with a street lantern in one of the villages we’d pass through. This we found in Sondernach in deepest darkest France.

My initial thought was either a blown fuse, which would be easy to get sorted, or a knackered motor, which wouldn’t. I checked all the fuses, but they all turned out to be OK, bugger! As I couldn’t find any loose connection and don’t carry spare windscreen wiper motors around Europe, there was not much else to do than carry on and hope for the best. But while setting of again there was some doubt in the back of my mind, so I stopped again to check something else. The wiper motor was still hot, but it hadn’t been working for more than half an hour, weird. I switched them on again, nothing happened, but when I gave them a little push, they moved to their parking position under their own steam, the joys of Lucas. Clearly the motor is to gutless to move the wipers over an (almost) dry windscreen! But we could carry on enjoying the roads till we hit the N66 just west of Cernay. From there it was a short trip through Mulhouse towards the next control stop.

When we arrived at the 4th control stop in Bartenheim at around 03:20 hrs we were reminded of the fact that our chosen route might have been shorter in distance, but clearly not in time. The parking lot was filled with Triumphs, and after switching of the engine the only sounds that could be heard was some light spannering going on and lots of snoring!
We tried to get some sleep here, but that was a rather futile exercise, so in the end we left just over an hour after we arrived, heading for Switzerland. Aim was to be on top of one of the first passes at sun rise.

The First stretch through Switzerland was fairly easy so my navigator decided it was now time to sleep a bit. Needles to say I promptly missed the exit for the A8 towards the Brünigpass. As I only found out my error when we were halfway the southern shore of the Vierwaldstätter See, we decided to carry on from there straight to the St. Gotthard Pass. Needles to say that there was still no one there to sign the road book! Added bonus was that we reached one of the, in my opinion, most beautiful passes in the Alps just before sunrise.

Especially the old Tremolo road with its small cobblestones is an absolute brilliant drive. And because it was so gorgeous and completely free of traffic at that early hour, we did it twice just for the fun of it!

And with the sun coming up, it was time to put down the roof and start enjoying the roads, the scenery and the weather. Some pictures taken near or on top of the San Bernardino Pass ...

The last really enjoyable pass was the Splügen Pass, an old border crossing between the Swiss Rheinwald and the Italian San Giacomo Valley. This still is a very nice pass, but sadly here (as many other passes in the area) time didn’t stand still and the best bits, the narrow tunnels and very sharp hairpins, have been widened to accommodate the ever larger mouse grey Euro boxes …

After the Splügen Pass traffic slowly but surely became more and more dense. Especially the Passo del Maloja, between Chiavenna and Sankt Moritz was a bit of a disappointment, with long traffic cues due to roadworks, lorries and Ultra slow Camper vans (mostly “Grey Wave”).
Luckily the Bernina again was much quieter, giving me a chance to have little fun with an Aston Martin Vantage (the modern one). It won’t come as a surprise that as soon as the road was wide enough and with no oncoming traffic, the Aston whooshed past and quickly vanished out of sight. Wished I had ‘t Kreng with me.
After that everything seemed to go very quickly, and after lunch on top of the Ofen Pass we were over the gorgeous, and partially unsurfaced, Umbrail Pass and on top of the Stilfserjoch before we knew it. Even got caught by one of the webcams on top ...

Although the views from the top of this pass are still as impressive as ever ...

it has lost much of its old time charm. Only one reason for that, it’s much too crowded with stupid people who don’t know how to drive properly. Nicely illustrated by this mouse grey Euro box on the descent of the northern slope ...

But in the end we managed to get off the mountain at around half past three, time for a, by now rather traditional stop in Sponding, and a well deserved beer ...

So far so good with no real problems, although the clutch still had a tendency to stick a little so now and then. But on the positive side the engines’ temperature remained rock steady irrelevant of the load and the conditions. Clearly the new viscous coupling I fitted two weeks ago is paying off. Even the fuel consumption remained very good, still averaging at around 10 km/lt or just over 30 mpg..
And not unimportant, the brakes, although pretty hot on some occasions, remained very effective so far.
We also used the stop to make some plans for the rest of the day. My GPS calculated an estimated time of arrival at our hotel near Sankt Ulrich of 18:20 hrs. And that was via the quickest route. As it had been a long day, we decided to go for this option.

Sadly just before we reached our hotel I managed to misjudge the last corner of the day, clipping it too tight. As a result I got into the grass verge, were a hefty piece of rock had been waiting just for that to happen ...

The damage; one shredded tyre, a bent wheel, a damaged front spoiler and some minor damage to the RH front suspension. Nothing I could do than walk to the hotel to get some transport for the luggage and navigator, and start phoning around for some emergency repairs and a new tyre (yes, I don’t carry a spare wheel). Didn’t go to plan, so I went for a few beers and a good meal.
Luckily next morning turned out much better, the tow truck that had been promised for the previous evening turned up nice and early. The damage to the suspension was negligible (some parts need to be re-coated) and the bearing seemed OK. Only the rim was bent a bit, but nothing a few well aimed blows with a hefty hammer couldn’t sorted. Not good for the coating, but that was damaged already by the rock. Biggest problem was the tyre, 185/70x13” isn’t what you call a current size. In the end I had to go for a compromise (165/70x13”) just to get us home half decently, but the car was road worthy again.

And just before 10 o’clock I was back at the hotel, to have a cup of coffee and to say goodbye to the friends. So by the time the first Triumphs appeared in the Val Gardena, we set off for the second day. But instead of taking the main road to the west and the A22 Brenner Motorway, we took the old road which was more north ward bound. Turned out as an advantage as it gave us some views off the A22 before joining it. It was jammed with traffic. So instead of taking the A22 we took the old road again, the SS12 heading parallel to the motorway. Glad we did it, as the traffic jam stretched as far as Sterzing, where we should have left the A22 for the Jauffenpass.

By the time we reached the foot of the Jauffenpass the tourists and day-trippers were starting to emerge, so the run up the pass was at a fairly sedate pace. We decided to have lunch at the Alpenrose, in Walten, just because we passed it around lunch time. They have a lovely nice balcony overlooking the pass road, so while having lunch we could enjoy the sight of the first few Triumphs coming past, heading for the last proper pass of the day, the Timmelsjoch.
With our lunch finished we also headed in that direction. Despite the very fine weather the road wasn’t too crowded, and we could maintain a nice pace. The car was still behaving quite nicely, although just under the top of the Timmesjoch it developed a slight rumbling noise from the left hand rear when turning sharp to the right. But as we came over the top of the pass at around 3 o’clock, while changing down a gear, to drive into the parking area, there was a dull crack from somewhere and all drive was lost. With the ‘box still in gear I stopped the car and released the clutch, nothing happened. Could either be a broken clutch, gearbox or snapped half shaft. But when I looked underneath the car the prop shaft wasn’t spinning. So definitely the problem must be in the transmission. Exit 10CR finish.

And in between several phone calls for a recovery truck, there was not much else we could do but wait and enjoy the views and the other cars, most of whom still had to pass the Timmelsjoch by that time...

By half past five I had another phone call, just to check what was keeping the recovery truck from showing up. They told me someone had been up there over an hour ago and that there had been no one there. As I had been outside all the time, with a sharp eye on the road from the Austrian side I couldn’t agree with them. The long wait went on. Luckily out of the fog the last Triumphs to come over the top of the Timmesljoch that day, appeared to keep us a little company and to liven up the wait ...

But at a quarter past seven in the evening we were all on our own on top of an ever foggier and darker Timmelsjoch ...

Half an hour later the recovery truck emerged from the foggy darkness at last ...

After that it was down the mountain to the nearest larger village, Sölden, and find ourselves a hotel for the night which we did, thanks to the driver of the recovery truck. And after a very nice meal I spent the rest of the evening on the phone to get us home, all very frustrating. Always nice to see that in such cases no one from the insurance companies gives a damn. They screw up the first recovery, leaving us for 5 hours on top of a mountain and then refuse point blank to get things sorted properly (“sorry we can’t reach any one this late”). In the end I managed to find a hire car through the driver from the recovery truck the next morning. And at 10 o’clock on the Sunday morning we were in a taxi and heading for Innsbruck, to pick up a nice Ford Focus estate. We left Innsbruck and headed north towards Rolduc by 11:30 hr.
The drive was rather eventful too, with lots of traffic jams due to just too much traffic on the Fernpass, a broken down car in the fast lane near Ulm, and a burning car on the hard shoulder near Frankfurt. The fact that the last holidays ended in Germany that day didn’t help either, as did the downpour on the A61. In between the Focus managed a very decent pace though. We even managed to overtake some 5 teams in the last few hours before the finish.
And at around half past eight in the evening, we turned onto the drive of the Rolduc monastery. Time for a few well deserved beers ...

At the moment (Saturday evening 17th of September) the car’s still not back, but I have started on the repairs already.
Ordered a new (now uprated) clutch kit from AP Racing. I also sourced a useable gearbox from my spare parts collection and started dismantling it in preparation for a rebuild.

New Sprint engine (part 3)

2011-09-12T19:37:00.004+02:00

On returning home from the 10CR’s finish at Rolduc earlier in the day, I was met by a courier (call it timing!) who handed me a medium sized box containing this ...

Hopefully I’ll be able to drop of two bare cylinder heads and the manifold at a local engine builder soon, to get them ported and polished. Also the manifold will be aligned/matched and doweled to the head. After which I can slowly start on the new Sprint engine. But I have another more urgent job on one of my cars to complete first ...

10CR Preparations Day 2 ...

2011-09-04T22:07:00.009+02:00

A fairly early start this morning, as the car’s preparations continued. First thing to tackle were the front brakes. As an inspection some four weeks ago had shown, the pads needed replacing, So that’s what I did. As I haven’t had time to pay a visit to nearby brake specialist C&C Parts, I took the pads from the attic that came with this brake set when I purchased it many years ago from S&S. Hopefully they are up to the job, will know next week.
But more interesting were the pads that came of the car. They definitely were past their prime, showing clear signs of some excessive heat ...

With the pads changed, it was time to check and clean the front suspension ...

And the rear brakes and suspension. Brakes at the rear were fine, but I am a little undecided on the condition of the left hand half shaft bearing. It has a bit of lateral movement, which isn’t to worrying. What worries me more though is the fact that there was a fair amount of grease, which had escaped from the bearing. A discussion point for tomorrow afternoon, when a friend comes over to assist with flushing/bleeding the brakes and clutch.

After lunch I busied myself with a job that wasn’t really necessary from a reliability point of view. But as I had to take of the original starter motor to sort a rattling heat shield, I took the opportunity to change the rather heavy original starter for a modern light weight one ...

On the left 3.5 kg and on the right 7.5 kg!
Took slightly longer than planned as I had to adapt the wiring a little to get a proper fit. But the end result looks rather nice, with much more clearance from the exhaust on all sides ...

While in the Alps earlier this summer, I found that the temperature was wandering up and down more than what I am used to with my TR7's. Having checked various possible problem areas, in the end I decided it was time to fit a new viscous coupling. Turned out that the old unit had a fair amount of play on the centre part. Also there was hardly any difference in its resistance when cool or hot.
Removing the viscous coupling from the pulley assembly wasn’t too difficult using the proper tools (clearly visible in the picture is the old (and flattened) tolerance ring) ...

This could also be said of the fitting the new viscous coupling (using a new tolerance ring of course), very straightforward.

Turning the viscous coupling showed that the new item has much more resistance compared to the old one, so hopefully problem solved. With the new coupling fitted to the pulley, I thought it a good idea to clean the fan a bit, as it had collected quite a lot of dirt over the past year. But it had also acquired something else, a few cracks ...

As I don’t like the idea of fan blades attacking my bonnet I picked another one without cracks ...

So remain the following items on the to do list before Thursday;
• Second opinion on LH rear bearing;
• Change brake and clutch fluid;
• Sort dashboard lights;
• Finish general check over.

So it begins ...

2011-09-03T21:40:00.005+02:00

With the start of a three week holiday, I started the preparation of the DHC today, for next week’s 10 Countries Run. But before starting with the actual work on the car I thought it a good idea to enjoy the lovely weather first. All under the pretence that the gearbox I fitted last month needed flushing a bit more, and of course hot oil flows better from engine and gear box. Was a nice run around the country side here in the area, but it nearly ended in tears. An oncoming driver clearly wasn’t paying any attention and completely wandered to the wrong side of the road. With my room to manoeuvre rapidly growing smaller I hit the horns to warn him. That clearly woke him up, almost just in time. While driving of the road in between two large trees he “only” clipped my door mirror, which shattered. If I hadn’t reacted the way I did it would have been a head on collision ...

On closer inspection it turned out that only the mirror’s glass was shattered, there was no other visible damage, top marks for powder coating! The guy was rather apologetic and promised to pay for the damage, will see if he keeps his word.

And luckily I do have a few original spare mirrors, so rectifying the damage didn’t take much longer than half an hour, with most of that time spent removing the small glass splinters from the interior. Have to admit that it was a rather unpleasant experience driving without a driver’s side door mirror.

Of course, immediately after returning home I removed the drain plugs from engine and gearbox and headed for a late lunch. After which it didn’t all go to plan. While removing the oil filter the adaptor plate thought it a good idea to stick to the filter. Shouldn’t be much of a problem, only I didn’t have a spanner or socket that fitted to the mounting bolt. Wonder how I fitted it a few years ago? But after an hour’s hassle, mainly caused by the fact I didn’t have my axle stands at hand, I managed to properly tighten up the adaptor plate.
My lesson learned, I went over to the shed to get my axle stands, before refilling the gearbox. Here I learned another lesson, when I rebuilt ‘t Kreng in the near future I’ll make an inspection hatch in the transmission tunnel to make this job easier. And to end the first service day I removed the wheels so I can immediate start on the suspension and brakes tomorrow morning.

List of things to do that’s left now;
• Fit new hi-torque starter motor;
• New front pads;
• Change brake and clutch fluid, as both look rather murky;
• Sort dashboard lights, speedometer side doesn’t work;
• Check condition of thermostat gasket probably renew;
• Check condition of viscous coupling, as the temperature is wandering a little;
• General check over.

More work before the 10CR

2011-08-09T21:01:00.004+02:00

With the car on the lift in the workshop I had a quick glance at the front pads to see how they had survived two Alpine trips. Didn’t look to promising but as the wheels were obstructing a proper view I took them of tonight. Although the pads (Mintex M1144) behaved very well, with very good braking and absolutely no fade they clearly have one big flaw. This is how they looked just over a year ago ...

And this is how they look now after a little over 8000 kilometres ...

Clearly longevity isn’t one of their strongest points. They need replacing before the 10CR, as they won’t survive another Alpine trip. Not yet decided what I’ll do. I have a brand new “stock” set of pads in my garage. But maybe I’ll go for a set of Ferodo DS2500’s as they used to be very good in the past and see how they compare with the M1144’s. Still a few weeks left to decide on that.
On the plus, the pads are quite evenly worn.

Changing gearbox

2011-08-08T21:44:00.005+02:00

During my recent trip to the Alps the gearbox in the DHC developed some nasty noises. Especially when in neutral and/or hot it rattled away quite happily, indicating something with the bearings wasn’t as it should be. As the car will be used for Club Triumphs 10 Countries Run in a month’s time, a gear box swap seemed like a good idea. And while going through my spare parts in search of a better ‘box, I remembered that when I prepared the car for the 2007 edition of the 10CR I made a mental note to swap the gearbox in the not too distant future. Clearly forgot that when I restored the car ! And I found a reasonable box to use. As it hasn’t done more than 100.000 kilometres and has no noticeable play on the input shaft it should be OK.
So last Friday evening I parked the car in the workshop and started the preparations for the gearbox swap. This meant removal of the prop shaft, exhaust system, starter motor and clutch slave cylinder, and disconnecting the speedo cable ...

Also drained the oil from the ”old” gearbox. I had expected some grindings in the oil or on the drain plug, but there was absolutely none.

And on Saturday I returned with some extra hands to take the ‘box from the car, which went very smoothly. But the removal of the heat shield from the starter motor should have been a warning, it just didn’t want to come of the starter motor ...

With the old ‘box from the car it was time to inspect it. And indeed the input shaft had a fair amount of play. So we carried on and swapped the gear change extension over to the “new” box ...

and clutch release mechanism. I had a few reservations about fitting the last one, as it can sometimes be a real pain to put it back inside the bell housing. But I needn’t have worried it slipped in quite nicely at the first attempt ...

After that it was just a matter of putting the gearbox back under the car. But we needed three attempts before the gearbox slipped in place. Seems like they get heavier every year!
After lunch we returned to the car to bolt everything back in place. All went pretty smooth till we reached the exhaust, the manifold slipped in place quite nicely, only had to remove the strut brace for that. But when fitting the bolts Murphy paid us a visit. The least accessible one (lower rear) refused point blank to go in. Took me a very frustrating half hour to get it in place.

After that the rest of the exhaust system and the prop shaft went in without a problem. I should have gone home at that stage but I promised Robbie that I only needed his workshop for one day.
On the other hand I only had the gear lever to put back. Sadly Murphy hadn’t gone home, so the lever, or more precise the anti rattle spring inside it put up quite a fight. But half an hour and lots of swearing later it slipped in as it should. Time to put the car back in the shed and head for home and enjoy a well deserved beer. Driving the very short stretch from the workshop to the shed revealed that the gear change was rather crappy, much worse than the old box. But at that moment I couldn’t care much!

So on Sunday I took ‘t Kreng for a short spin just for fun, after which she swapped places in the shed with the DHC. When setting of in the DHC the gear change indeed wasn’t very good, but not as bad as it had seemed the previous day. What should you expect from a box that has been lying in the corner of a shed for 5 years?
While driving along it gradually improved. Still not brilliant, but at least as good as the old ‘box, and with better bearings, so it should be OK for the 10CR.
Plan is to drive the car as much as possible in the next few weeks to flush the box and renew the oil shortly before the 10CR. See how it all develops.

Another MOT certificate

2011-07-22T17:44:00.008+02:00

Dropped of ‘t Kreng for her (still) annual visit at the MOT workshop this morning. Contrary to last year I decided to give the car a more thorough check in preparation and it paid off, she passed without comments. But there were a few issues that needed sorting before she could get her certificate;

With last year’s MOT failure still fresh in my mind, all bearings got a thorough check. But I needn’t have worried, they were all fine; The same could be said of all the brake parts; But the right hand track rod is on the way out. When I checked it yesterday I also found out that the mounting of the track rod to the steering rack was a little loose. Easily sorted with a 38mm spanner. Will need new track rods sooner rather than later, but first I’ll check if I have some lying around somewhere. And the upper UJ from the steering column had a bit of free play, but that was fairly easy to rectify;

Another part that needed some attention was the bearing from the fan pulley and the bearing from the viscous coupling. They decided it was time to retire together. Which meant I had to fit the last pulley assembly I had in stock. Time to invest in some news parts to replenish my stock.

And the last Item that needs some more attention is the RH headlight. The headlamp itself sits rather loose in its pod. No idea how this can happen as all the screws are still tight. Also this lamp's pivot point has developed a fair amount of play. But that’s no MOT failure.

So with the MOT for 't Kreng sorted I can first switch my attention to the DHC, and the final preparations for the 10CR. Plan is to start looking, which of my spare gear boxes can be used for the DHC. I have two pretty low mileage ‘boxes in mind at the moment, will give that some attention this weekend.

Into the Mountains again

2011-07-20T23:40:00.032+02:00

As last year’s Alpine tour was hampered a bit by an oil leak from the water pump, I decided to give the DHC a second chance to prove herself in the mountains of Austria and Süd-Tirol. First day in the area we spent going up the Kaunertaler Gletscher Strasse in Austria, literally a road to nowhere, but a nice road. And with traffic conditions being very light it was very good fun going up (and down), with lots of sideways action (actually caused by salt on the road to prevent icing at the higher altitudes).

Also the roads to and from the valley were good fun, with very fine views as an added bonus.

Next day we carried on to our final destination, which meant crossing the Timmelsjoch into Süd Tirol. On the top of this pass it again was very foggy so no reason to stop. But it was good fun chasing bikers down the southern slopes. Safe for a Belgian asshole with a racing bicycle on the back of his wide arsed Renault that is. He really thought he was alone in the world. Needless to say he was dealt with quite satisfyingly!

On arrival at our hotel we first settled down for lunch and a good pint of locally brewed beer ...

And we enjoyed some nice Italian machinery at the local fuel station in front of the hotel. Much nicer than the modern Italian exotica (Ferrari/Lamborghini) that crowded there a few days later...

From past experience we knew that it was better to leave the car locked up during the weekends, as the roads tend to be swarming with bikers and mouse grey Euro boxes. So we put on the walking boots and headed for the mountains instead.

But early on the Sunday morning we went for a quick blast up the southern slope of the Timmelsjoch just for fun and to enjoy the views.

The rest of our time in the area was spent either driving around over as much passes as possible or some walking up the Passeier Valley’s slopes. With the weekend over we started with driving over several very nice mountain passes, like the Grödner Joch ...

the Passo Pordoi...

and the Penserjoch to name a few ...

But as the area has much more to offer than just drive along, the car got some well deserved rest from time to time. And it gave us the opportunity to explore the area in more detail;
The parish church of the little village of Sankt Martin in Passeier...

A typical pasture high up the Passeier valley’s slope ...

Very local lunch at the Pfandler Alm Hütte

Views of the Passeier Valley ...

Very rural guesthouse in Christl ...

As we were in the area, we of course had to pay a visit to the Stilfser Joch (maybe better known as the Stelvio). As this pass usually is quite crowded we decided to use the back door to get up to the top, the Umbrail Pass. As part of this pass is still unsurfaced it is much quieter than the Stilfser itself. Reason enough to go up there twice so I could enjoy the Stilfser Joch in both directions.
Views from the southern slopes of the Silfser Joch ...

Another highlight is the rather interesting mountain “pass” and border crossing between Italy and Switzerland, the 4 kilometre long one way tunnel of the Pass Dal Gall ...

The Ofen Pass in Switzerland ...

And back to the Stilfser Joch, which was as crowded as ever ...

The last two days were again spent exploring the area on foot ...

While driving the various passes I of course had to annoy some bikers and drivers of some expensive machinery, by chasing and/or overtaking them. But even I met my match in the shape of a local guy, driving a Subaru Impreza over the Ofen Pass ...

And the car managed to attract quite a lot of attention wherever I parked her ...

But the highlight was a biker who literarily fell for her. Being gallant (as ever) I stopped at a pedestrian crossing in a village at the foot of the Stilfser Joch, to allow someone to cross the road. Sadly the biker behind me noticed it a bit late, resulting in a biker slowly disappearing sideways from my rear view mirror. Luckily the only damage was to his bike (some scratches) and his ego (...).

But all to soon it was time to head for home. Our original plan was to take some scenic routes through Switzerland and Germany. But the weather forecast wasn’t to promising for open top motoring, so we took the direct route home. This meant we again had to cross the Timmelsjoch, this time in the snow ...

For those of you interested in the Süd Tirol area, have a look at this site http://suedtirol3d.it

As for the car, she behaved quite well over the 2812 km I drove over the past two weeks, including 19 mountain passes, with a total ascent of 37580 meters. Only issues were a very slight coolant leak from the thermostat housing gasket (temporarily sorted by tightening the bolts a bit) and a very irritant leak from the fuel filler cap. And due to the steel wheels’ new powder coating, the wheel nuts needed to be retightened slightly a few times, especially the front ones.
Also found out that the shock absorbers need to be set a little firmer. And a check of the front pads might also prove rather worthwhile as they got quite a beating, especially in the downhill sections. But the biggest worry for the 10CR in September is the gear box. This has developed a bit of a rattle when hot, so I’ll probably change that next month as a precaution.

The International AutoEcosse

2011-06-19T22:20:00.008+02:00

It’s been a while since my last update, so some old news. Took part in the AutoEcosse two weeks ago. Again was a top event, with some very fine roads. And as it is a shame to come over for only two days of driving we extended our stay in Britain a bit. Before the event we spent two days in the Yorkshire Dales where we got some great weather, well a bit too hot maybe ...

With the walking done late on the Friday afternoon we headed for the Old Stone Trough. After some socializing at the Old Stone Trough on the Friday night, we headed for Gretna Green and the start of the International AutoEcosse. Luckily the temperatures in Scotland dropped quite a bit, and it even remained dry during most of the event!
The first day took us from Gretna Green over some great driving roads to the Kames Circuit near Muirkirk, for lunch and some tests ...

From there we headed north for the next (non timed) test, the Forestburn Hill Climb. Shame that the weather was rather windy, as a result of which watching the action wasn’t much fun. So after going up the hill once we did what most teams did, head for the finish at shores of Loch Lomond. On this stretch we managed to get lost several times. So in the end I programmed the satnav and headed straight for our B&B just outside Balloch to sign in ...

After which we left the car were she was and walked into town for some action involving cars and cones, and some food and a few drinks ...

The second day started the way the first one had ended, with more cones, which I didn’t do. I just made sure there were a fair few cars on their way before setting off to the Rest-And-Be-Thankful hill climb so I wouldn’t arrive there first. From Balloch the route took us toward the shores of Loch Long and from there to the foot of the Rest-And-Be-Thankful hill climb. Although I waited a bit before setting of we managed to get there first. As we were rather early at the Rest-And-Be-Thankful hill climb we were slightly hampered by some moving chicanes ...

But some drivers had other problems, looking like they lost their way ...

Must say the this venue deserves to be restored to its former glory. Hopefully they can raise enough funds to carry out this work...

After the Rest-And-Be-Thankful hill climb we headed slowly but surely further west until we reached the Bute ferry at Colintraive. After a tour of the island the finish was at the promenade in Rothesay, which we didn’t reach. Less than half a mile before the finish we passed our B&B so we just dropped the car there and walked to the promenade to find out that most of the action was over ...

That evening was spent socializing in one of the not too many pubs in Rothesay . And it started to rain. Sadly for the winners of the “Spirit of the Event” award it rained quite heavily that night, as a result of which their Lomax was rather reluctant to fire up, and needed a lot of assistance to get going again ...

As the weather forecast was rather hopeful (for Scotland that is) we decided to stay on the Isle of Bute for a few more days to do some more walking ...

But all to soon we were back on the ferry to mainland Britain and home...

Preparations for the IAE

2011-05-29T16:44:00.005+02:00

Been busy with all sorts of smaller jobs on ‘t Kreng since fitting the coil over’s two weeks ago. As she’ll be used for next week’s International Auto Ecosse it was time for a full service. First thing to tackle was to change the original spark plug tubes for some proper engineered ones ...

Took slightly longer to fit them, as I had to remove quite a lot of old sealant from the cylinder head, which was needed to keep the oil away from the spark plugs. But after an hour and a half all of the old sealant was removed from the spark plug holes. So time to fit the spark plug tubes, needless to say that they fit perfectly ...

As I found a set of brand new NGK BP6EFS spark plugs which I had completely forgotten, these were also fitted. The old ones had covered almost 20.000 kilometres, so they had seen more than enough action. The same could be said of the hydraulic fluids, I usually flush them every one or two years, depending on the car’s use. This is to get rid of any moisture and rubber particles from the seals that gets trapped in the fluid. Flushing the clutch system clearly was necessary, the fluid that came out was very murky indeed. The old brake fluid looked much cleaner, but that only tells something about lack of rubber contamination, nothing about trapped moisture.

Next on the to do list was changing the left hand front wheel bearings. When I fitted the front struts in 2009 I over tightened these bearings. As a result of which it was an MOT failure one year later. I fitted new bearings to that side from a front wheel bearing kit supplied by one of the TR7 specialists. But it turned out that the quality of the supplied bearings wasn’t very good. Till date I had to retighten the left hand bearing every 500 kilometres, which isn’t as it should be (other side still hasn’t been touched and still is OK). So it was time to contact a friend to find me some proper quality bearings ...

While removing the old bearings I found something strange. The spring of the hub’s oil seal was badly damaged, while the rest of the seal was in good condition. Luckily I found an old seal with a good spring ...

The bearings that came out didn’t look to bad, but the overall impression of these wasn’t very impressive. Although not very clear in the pictures, there were already clear signs of wear on the bearing’s outer races. And they have covered less than 3000 kilometres so far! ...

With the front sorted I changed my attention to the rear suspension. When driving the car last weekend under certain conditions, there was a very light but clear knock from one of the rear upper links (felt like the right hand one). So just to be sure I removed all of the bolts on the body side of the rear suspension, fitted new (and thicker) washers and re-torqued them. Have a test drive planned for early Monday morning to see how she behaves. And to end a weekends work on the car I checked all fluid levels, as expected no surprises there.

Will check ignition timing and carburettors balance after the test run tomorrow. And re-check the right hand front wheel bearing of course.

Time for a little test-drive

2011-05-22T20:35:00.006+02:00

Took slightly longer to tidy up everything after fitting the rear coil over’s last Saturday. This was caused mainly by other commitments and work. But early this morning I found a few spare hours to go for a little test drive. As it had just stopped raining, and there were still some showers around, it was rather slippery. At least this kept most of the Sunday morning cyclists and walkers at home, so I had most of the country lanes to myself.

To be honest I didn’t really know what to expect from this first drive. First thing which was a bit of an unknown was the fact that the springs are now situated behind the rear axle. This results in an effective spring rate of ±34 kg/cm (190 lbf/in). So they have the same effective spring rate as 43kg/cm (241lbf/in) springs mounted in the original location. But sitting behind the axle also means that the upper links will be loaded differently. I needn’t have worried.

Although the improvement wasn’t as pronounced as when I fitted the front, the overall behaviour of the car has clearly improved. First thing I noticed was the fact that the ride was smoother over bumps. This can be explained by the fact that I have the shock absorbers at their softest setting. The AVO’s I had on the rear of the car needed to be set pretty hard to prevent them from bottoming out. But most important improvement was the balance. With the old set up the car’s handling was biased towards understeer, but it’s more neutral now.

To sum it up, it was rather good fun steering it on the throttle, helped quite a lot by the slippery road surface left by the rain showers. But most important it feels much more balanced and thus more confidence inspiring.

Everything fine? No! Will have to experiment with the shock absorber settings a bit, as under certain conditions the outgoing stroke is slightly under damped at the softest setting. Also the fact that the springs sit just behind the axle now has highlighted the fact that I need to re-torque the rear upper links. But those are minor points.

Looking forward to see how she behaves in Scotland in two weeks time, but before that I need to sort a few other small issues ...

Suspension upgrade 't Kreng (part 5)

2011-05-14T21:49:00.008+02:00

With the International Auto Ecosse only a few weeks away, it was about time to get the rear suspension from ‘t Kreng sorted at last, as I want to use that car for the event (I have already scheduled two long trips to the Alps with the DHC ...)
For those who have been following my ramblings, know that I had a complete coil over set made for ‘t Kreng by AST a few years ago. I fitted the front coil over’s early in 2009, but due to other commitments (including a makeover of my DHC) I didn’t get round to fitting the rear coil over’s. Until today that is ...

But before I could fit them I first had to (re)drill a few holes in the rear suspension turrets, this to accommodate the new top mountings. I wanted the coil over’s mounted as much in the centre line of the turrets as possible. But as British Leyland thought it a good idea to mount the rear shock absorbers of centre in the turrets (slightly leaning backwards) it wasn’t simply a matter of enlarging the current hole and drill a few smaller new ones for the mounting studs. Initial plan was to weld a plate in the original hole and drill a centre hole in there, but in the end I opted for a drilling template made from a piece of 3mm steel plate I had lying around ....

This template was first used it to drill the mounting holes for the top mounts. After which it was cut up and fitted to the top of the rear turrets to act as guide for the hole saw centre drill. Was all a bit fiddly in the rather cramped spade in the boot underneath the rear deck, but with the assistance of Robbie that wasn’t a big problem. And with the template in place it was time to attack the holes (I really have to invest in a better drill). Luckily the hole saw was of good quality, so soon we had two nice large holes through which the top bearing can poke out ...

And after that it was only a matter of removing the rear springs from their original location and fit the coil over’s.

Only need to refit the rear parcel shelf and the seats tomorrow ( these were removed to help access to the rear suspension turrets tops). Hopefully I will have some time left afterwards for a test drive ...

New Sprint engine (part 2)

2011-04-28T21:42:00.006+02:00

Collected my two spare Sprint heads recently and took them to a friend’s workshop to get them cleaned a bit in preparation for flowing, polishing and rebuilding the best of the two. All in preparation for the rejuvenation of ‘t Kreng.

After cleaning, it was time to remove the valve gear from the second head.
With the proper tools that wasn’t too difficult. The exhaust valves were removed rather quickly ...

Sadly though the valve spring compressor tool couldn’t be used on the inlet valves. So I had to revert to a slightly more robust approach, a correct size socket and a hammer! Worked pretty good and was even quicker than with the valve spring compressor!

With the valves removed it was time to inspect both heads. Overall they are both in fairly good condition, but it looks that both have been skimmed somewhere in the past. There are also some minor dents in the edge of a few chambers. These need to be filled in with some welding ...

Also one of the valve guides is damaged, which means all need to be renewed, but that gives me the chance to look for some slimmer lightweight valves ...

More can be gained by opening up and polishing the ports ...

And to finish, I at last got round to find someone who could machine some nice and shiny alloy spark plug tubes. First sample (to double check the measurements) looks really good, can’t wait to get them fitted to ‘t Kreng’s engine, as the (still original) spark plug tubes are starting to leak a little oil ...

Spring’s in the air

2011-04-03T20:39:00.002+02:00

With the temperatures rising and the days becoming longer, it’s been time to start on the TR7’s again. With the DHC more or less finished it is time to start with some long postponed work on ‘t Kreng. Over the past months I have done a bit of reading on what to do with the rear suspension ones the coil overs are fitted. Original plan was to adapt two sets of upper linkages arm, fitting rose joints on the axle side and poly bushes on the body shell end. So I took two sets out of the spares stock and after removing the original bushes ...

I got the angle grinder out and cut of one end ...

As you can see they are fairly thick walled. Compared to this the weld looks a bit suspect to me, so that will get a bit of extra metal added for extra peace of mind.

At this stage it was time to decide whether to stick to the TR7’s original four link rear set up, or adapt it into a parallel four link plus a Panhard or Watts linkage. I have decided to go for the latter one as the roll centre for this set up lies much lower so should improve handling. But that also means I’ll have to fabricate the necessary box sections to change the upper pick up points on the body and brackets for the axle and lateral linkages. Or find one of the so called “Increased lateral location kit” (STN 0104) which ST manufactured for theTR7 rally program, in order to comply with homologation requirements. The third option, and probably the easiest, is to go shopping at some Ford escort specialists to source parts which can then be adapted to fit. To be continued.

As the weather was rather fine last weekend I thought it a good idea to take the DHC out of hibernation. My only worry when I drove to the shed was that something might be wrong (I hadn’t seen the car since October last year). But after the most basic of checks all looked OK and she fired up fairly quickly. For the rest I can be pretty short, it was a rather enjoyable afternoon. Actually so enjoyable that I forgot to stop so now and then to take some pictures.

Another thing on the to do list for last weekend was removing the starter motor from ‘t Kreng. Over the past few weeks this had developed a problem. With the engine cold it was rather reluctant to work properly. So time to get it out and put one of the second hand spares in. Should have been no more than an hour’s work. But one way or another the old starter motor refused to be taken from the car. But after an hour and a half’s struggle and lots of swearing it came out ...

Needless to say I wasn’t in a mood to put the spare one in, so I left that till yesterday. Again took much longer than it should, not helped by a knee injury which started to play up after less than 15 minutes and a fluorescent tube that fell from its aperture when I went in search of some wire to hold the steering column out of harm’s way. Got it all sorted in the end and in time to take the car for a spin to a neighbouring village to visit an old school engine builder. Was as if the engine felt I went for its replacement. It was rather reluctant to run properly, sometimes backfiring heavily both under load or with the throttle closed. First guess is that I drowned the engine whilst starting, which has been a problem a few times in the past. At least by the time I got home she behaved quite normal again. Will check all likely culprits in the next few weeks just to be sure.

Out and about

2011-03-12T21:26:00.012+01:00

Over the past few weeks I have had a few opportunities to take ‘t Kreng out for a blast. First we had the second edition of our own very informal “Early Bird” run. In this case a lovely tour with like minded local classic car fans ...

... through the northern part of our Province ...

It also was a trip to get my co-driver for this year’s International Auto Ecosse and 10CR, acquainted with my driving style and with the car. I needn’t have worried, the navigating was perfect.
As last year Roger and Robbie managed to come up with a very nice route, compromising all sorts of interesting roads, ranging from very narrow and “low-slung-licence-plate-on-an-Elise-shattering” (sorry Robbie) country lanes to nice smooth and wide roads with long flowing corners ...

After a short stretch through Germany I overtook one of the Mini’s, and the driver thought it a good idea to stick to my rear bumper. Which of course was easy as long as the roads were fairly smooth, but as soon as the roads became twisty and the tarmac worse he started struggling and in the end I shook him of.
But probably the most interesting bit was a nearly 7,5 kilometre stretch of almost ruler straight road alongside an old disused canal near Griendtsveen. How it looks from the air ...

... and from the ground ...

Due to the very soft and soggy soil in the area (peat), this road had some rather severe damage, in places the tarmac had sagged more than 0,25m¹. Luckily the holes were “smooth” and not pot holes. Turned out to be quite a challenge to maintain a speed of 80 km/h, but I managed it. Have to admit that the front of the car behaved very well indeed, but I used the full extent of the suspensions stroke (with 336 lbs springs). The rear was a completely different story. Halfway through the stretch the rear dampers started to make all sorts of funny noises. I think they are knackered now, so time to fit the coil over’s I have lying around.
After the “canal stretch” it was plain sailing to the finish over some very nice roads and past a few hallmarks for the region, like this castle/abbey dating back to the 12th century ...

An old road along the western bank of the River Maas ....

A typical Dutch river crossing ...

A for our area even more typical small field chapel ...

And the rather new but already famous dragon on a roundabout in the village of Beesel ...

Was good fun to be driving in my own backyard again and, due to the early time of the year and the early hours of the day, it was fairly quiet on the roads. Oh, and did I mention that the breakfast before and the lunch after the tour, at Tom’s farmyard pub, were excellent?

Next outing was last weekend’s “Nacht van het Oosten”, which used to be the traditional start of the driving season. As last year the start was in Beckum. And again there was a very nice selection of cars present ...

Only downside was that this time the event coincided with Stoneleigh which meant only 2 British CT entrants. It was also the carnival weekend, which again kept quite a few teams away, especially from the Southern parts of our country. But with over 70 teams there was no reason to complain for the organizers.

After the by now traditional Chinese buffet we were flagged of at around 18:25. As ever we managed a decent pace, helped by the fact that we are not interested in the rankings. This enabled us to overtake quite a few teams in the first part of the first stage. So after less than an hour we were driving all on our own. But just before the end of the first stage René made another little mistake, which turned out quite nicely in the end. He pointed me to the right instead of left. When we found out the mistake and returned to the previous situation an MGB GT-V8 thought it wise to hurl itself onto the road in front of us! And although he hampered me quite a lot, it was good fun to see him trying (sometimes desperately) to keep in front of me. Was a good chase to the half-way stop, he even managed to misjudge a (I have to say tricky) corner rather badly, locking up his brakes and selecting reverse gear all in one! He wasn’t happy when I told him he’d better not get in front of ‘t Kreng next time! Turned out that despite a few small mistakes we had done very well, as there were only 4 or 5 cars in front of us (we had start number 43).

As I don’t like drivers who are slower but try to stay in front of me at all cost, we decided to keep the stop short. So around 9 o’clock we started on the second stage. As my other pet hate is people who try desperately to stick to my rear bumper, we made sure no one had a chance to do so. And as we wanted to be back at the hotel well before the bar closed, we set a brisk pace. But only after a few minutes we were tempted to retire out of the event, as we drove past our hotel! As it was only just after 9 o’clock we decided not to. But it was a stimulant to keep up a steady pace.
Second stage also was a great drive and as we didn’t make any mistakes, thanks to René’s perfect navigating, we reached the finish just after 10 o’clock in the evening. Covering the 74 kilometres in just over an hour ...

The few beers back at the hotel tasted rather well. Was again a top event from Rutger, only downside being that there was no hotel at the finish.

A little bit of maintenance

2011-03-03T21:11:00.003+01:00

Last weekend we took the cars out for the first tour of the year. During that tour I found out that the screen washer pump was by now completely dead at last. It had been steadily become weaker over the past year, so I ordered a new one and took the afternoon of from work to fit it. But when I returned home and opened the bonnet, I was reminded of the rather awkward position of the current pump. As the old pump was clearly working I decided to check the hoses from the washer first. Turned out that the previous screen washer liquid I used doesn’t mix with the one I am currently using, resulting in a slimy substance which blocked the filter. After cleaning the filter gauze ...

... and flushing the reservoir twice the screen washer again was fully functional. At least I have a spare pump now!

With the screen washer sorted I thought it a good idea to check the (front) bearings for play. I fitted a new bearing set to the left-hand front last summer and I hadn’t checked it since last year’s Nachtrit. And during last Saturdays tour the suspension again had to endure quite a beating. Wasn’t really surprising that one of the bearings needed to be adjusted slightly.

After that I tried to localize a light screeching sound under acceleration but didn’t succeed. It isn’t the fan pulley or the alternator, so I presume it isn’t very bad. Will see, next event "De Nacht van het Oosten" this Saturday.

New Sprint engine (part 1)

2011-02-12T23:31:00.006+01:00

As I will be visiting an old school engine builder shortly to see what flowing and porting can be done to a Sprint head, I decided to start the engine rebuild in earnest. Although I do have a bare spare head lying around I thought it a good idea to dismantle the complete Sprint engine that has been lying around for quite some time now. This engine actually is my part of a complete Dolly Sprint René and I bought a few years ago for a few hundred Euros ...

After we got that car back home it was completely dismantled and everything that was useful was stored, the rest was binned. The engine went into a large crate, where it lingered till today. After a bit of struggle (involving recovering a Nissan from a soggy lawn with the little Landy) we managed to get the crate out of the shed and the engine out of the crate ...

A quick inspection learned that, although rather oil stained, the engine looked remarkable original and unmolested, a promising start. First thing to do was put some containers underneath the engine and get rid of the oil and remaining coolant. While these were draining of, I first looked for the engine number which I found were it should be ...

After that I removed the sparkplugs. Turned out that the previous owner had over tightened them. Took quite some persuasion to get them out, not helped by the fact that my normal Sprint spark plug socket has only a rather short cross bar. Luckily I found a slightly longer bar that fitted, and this gave just enough extra leverage to get the plugs out. With the plugs removed looks like this engine had been running a bit rich, but nothing alarming ...

The score so far being 4 over tightened sparkplugs, incorrect carburettor set up. and did I mention the fact that the sparkplugs were completely drowned in engine oil?
After that I started with removing everything on the outside of the engine, like manifolds, oil pump (one bolt missing), cam cover, clutch and flywheel, water pump (with a lump of lead wedge inside the block), sump (without hidden treasures) etcetera. Of course Murphy had to prove a point again. The most inaccessible bolt from the inlet manifold put up a fight ...

which it lost in the end! I ignored the thermostat housing bolt that sheared of as I won’t need the manifold anyway.
And while removing the cam cover I was reminded of the fact that I removed the rockers a few years ago when I had a slight problem with the cam shaft of ‘t Kreng. Plan was to have them refaced, but I never got round to that, wonder where I stored them!? The rest underneath the cam cover looked quite reasonable indeed ...

Which could also be said of the bottom end. Which was revealed after removing the sump, also no obvious faults ...

With the sump and oil pick up removed it was time to put the engine on the workbench and have a go at the head. I did have some worries here, because the ”normal” 8 valve variant of Triumph’s Slant Four engine has a bit a reputation for seized head studs. But contrary to the 8 valve engine, were the head bolts and studs sit out in the open, on the Sprint the bolts and studs sit inside the head under the cam cover, where they are constantly sprayed with oil. As a result of which removing the head was very straightforward. One stud could even be removed with a screw driver ...

The rest came out very easily after I locked two nuts together ...

With all the bolts and studs removed, all that was needed was a modest blow with a rubber mallet to free the cylinder head from the block. As you can see the internals of the head look pretty much OK, with no visible pitting or oxidation anywhere, which is very good news indeed ...

Next came the distribution, although the hydraulic tensioner was out a bit, there was hardly any wear on the tensioner’s face or in the chain itself. The same could be said of the two chain guides. The only signs of wear if you can call it that was an imprint of the chain on the guides surfaces were the chain had rested for an unknown amount of years ...

Remained the bottom end and the pistons. This job also went pretty smoothly, but the most pleasing was the fact that the internals of the engine are in pretty good condition. All bearings look like they are new ...

The pistons are original specification Mahle ...

and the cylinder walls still have clear traces of honing. All in all it looks a promising base to use as new engine for the new Kreng. But the engine block and crankshaft will be a matter of comparing it to the other TR7 engines I have lying around. One of which is a low mileage, low compression FI engine ...

To be continued ...

New engine for ‘t Kreng

2011-02-06T16:25:00.007+01:00

Been very quiet with my Triumphs for a while. Although ‘t Kreng has seen a bit of action lately, the DHC has been in storage since early October. At the moment I am waiting for Robbie’s workshop to be available so I can at last fit the rear coil-overs to the car. Will probably be somewhere in March.

To kill a bit of the spare time left, I have been planning on a new engine for ‘t Kreng. Over the past few years I have been considering various engine options, ranging from Rover K and T series through Ford Duratec to all sorts of V8’s. But I have decided to stick to the 16V Triumph Slant Four. It is more than powerful enough to make for a rather quick road car. Only problem so far is that the engine lacks a fair bit of torque at the lower end of the rev range. It is also very thirsty when you use the loud pedal a bit to enthusiastically.

So the challenge I have set myself is a Sprint engine that produces 200 BHP with good pick up from lower revs and better fuel economy. So things to do or get sorted;
• Flowed and ported cylinder head;
• Fully balanced bottom end with lightened flywheel;
• A brace to keep the bottom end together;
• High compression pistons;
• Fully programmable injection and ignition;
• New inlet and exhaust manifolds.
To get some inside information I recently visited an old racing driver in Belgium, who used to drive a Dolly Sprint in the 70’s. The good thing is he still owns and drives the car.

Was an interesting afternoon in his workshop. The only downside was that he didn’t do any work for third parties anymore.

But luckily, and quite by chance, I already found someone, with quite a good reputation, who is willing to have a look at a Sprint head to see what he can do to it. Balancing and lightening the flywheel wasn’t a problem at all. He stressed that he was very busy though.

To be continued ...

Dreaming of a white Christmas ...

2010-12-23T19:39:00.004+01:00

Looks like this year we will have a white Christmas at last over here on the “high” ground of The Low Countries! It has been quite a while since we had the last one over here. Actually can’t remember it myself, but the signs are good. Even ‘t Kreng is in a white mood already ...

Hopefully my next post on here will be about fitting the rear coil overs to ‘t Kreng. They have been lying around for far too long already ...

Moustache Classic

2010-12-13T22:24:00.007+01:00

I haven’t done much with my TR7’s since the Nachtrit early in November. After having spent the best part of two years on the restoration of the DHC, it was time to spent some time on other things. But when I received an invitation for a classic car rally just across the border in Belgium the decision wasn’t difficult. So last Saturday morning we headed for the start of the Moustache Classic, in the church square in Bocholt, opposite the local brewery, and main sponsor for the event! Only this time I would be in the navigator’s seat, with René doing the driving in his Dolomite 1850 ...

There was a rather interesting variety of cars ranging from a lovely Renault 4CV ...

to this rather nice Mustang ...

And lots of other interesting cars ...

As it was the first time we did this event, we opted for the easiest option, a 150 kilometre tour in three stages, using a tulip diagram road book. Turned out to be very good fun indeed, both for me and René. Due to the still slightly wintery conditions, a fair bit of rain and lots of mud and leaves on the roads, conditions were rather entertaining to say the least. Very good fun indeed. Sadly the navigating took up most of the time, guiding Rene through the traffic and the twisty bits, so no action pictures. But the cars looked well used at the finish ...

After we finished I managed to get a road book from the competitive event. Doesn’t look too difficult.
Certainly one which will go onto the calendar for next year. As for the route, the three stages were fairly typical for this area, lots of short straights and sharp turns. Although from above it looks much easier then it is ...

Stage 1, 44,96km;

Stage 2, 61,64km;

Stage 3, 40,15km;

22nd Nachtrit

2010-11-08T21:18:00.006+01:00

Last Saturday it was again time for our traditional blast through the country. Being one of the organizers meant I wouldn’t drive during the event itself. Our (Jos & me) task was to do a final check, for last minute road works, festivities etc. So we left pretty early on the Saturday morning in lovely autumn weather, it was again pouring with rain. The good thing about that was that much of the soil the farmers had left on the road was washed away, but the leaves weren’t, as the driver from a little Ford Fiesta found out. Car was well and truly hidden in the undergrowth in one of the tighter bends. Luckily no one got hurt, only the car. But despite the rather wet conditions we reached the mid way halt in just 2:15 hours, not bad indeed.

While we were enjoying our lunch, the weather cleared a bit, and the second stage turned out to be very good fun indeed. Road conditions were pretty good, with most of the slippery stretches easy to spot. Only real problems were some festivities in Theux, turned out they cleared the road by the time the cars past through. But before we got there we first had to negotiate a stretch of road going up a steep hill, a stage from the Boucles de Spa. Very good fun indeed with the car fish tailing its way up through the very slippery leaves. So with not much to report for the briefing, we got back to the start in time to see all the cars of ...

Turned out that most of the teams had a good time. And the route itself, well that was 90% the same as last year, but driven in the opposite direction. For next year we will be going into another part of the Ardennes ...

The day after the RBRR 2010

2010-10-25T22:39:00.005+02:00

On the Monday after we finished the RBRR, we returned home to Howard’s place. After unloading all the gear from the car, we decided to pay a visit to the nearby Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden ...

Turned out that the BBC were shooting a documentary on Leonard Ratcliffe, D.S.O., D.F.C., A.F.C. that day. He is the last surviving squadron leader from the top secret RAF Tempsford aerodrome who actually flew into occupied Europe during WW2, to deliver and collect resistance fighters, flying a Westland Lysander ...

Alert and full of life at 91, he was interviewed by Sir John Allison Air Marshall (retired) before we were treated to a private air display.

Sir John is one of the regular Old Warden display pilots and after the Lysander was towed to the airstrip, he treated us to a superb impromptu display.

Although the Lysander might look ugly and awkward on the ground, in the air it becomes quite elegant and alive.

After this private display the ground crew allowed us to photograph the car with their precious plane. A very unexpected and humbling privilege!

Edited using Howard’s private diary ...

Round Britain Reliability Run 2010

2010-10-23T16:37:00.015+02:00

Having done the RBRR twice before I was longing for another go. I’d hoped for a three man team in Roger’s Mk1 saloon, but sadly Roger and Robbie decided to enter with Roger’s GT6 instead. Which meant no three man team from the Netherlands. This also meant I had to find another way of entering. In the end I teamed up with Howard B and his TR7 DHC. So after two runs in a GT6, I would be doing the event in a for me rather familiar car, be it with the steering wheel on the wrong side :-)

So the day before the event I flew to London Stansted were I was picked up by Howard. When we drove to his house the car felt very nice. But while doing some last checks on the Friday morning, we found out the engine was idling on only two cylinders. First impression was that there was something wrong with the ignition. But just to be sure I had a quick look at the carburettors. Lifting the piston of the rear carburettor cured the problem completely, so clearly something wrong there. As there could be several causes for this, and the car had only been there two weeks earlier for a tune up, we decided to drive over to Robsport for a quick check of the carburettors ...

Turned out that the jet from the rear carburettor wouldn’t return to its normal position after the choke was pushed back. As we wouldn’t need the choke much in the next few days, we decided not to bother too much. So after a cup of tea and a chat with the friendly staff at Robsport we headed for The Plough. But not before we received some sponsoring, not for Mind but more for peace of mind (in the form of a few service items “just in case”). Also added some extra stickers to the car.

By the time we reached the Plough, the rain had settled into a rather miserable heavy drizzle. So after a good meal we were glad we could get into the car at last, to be flagged of for the first stage to Blyth services, around 18.30. As usual this isn’t the most exciting part of the run, and as it is Howard’s back yard he was driving, making life for me as a navigator quite easy. As there were no traffic jams on the route and the car was running as it should we reached Blyth control ahead of schedule. So a little time to have a chat with a few people and receive last year’s 10CR finishers award from Burnerboy.

With all formalities completed it was time for me to take over the wheel, for the next stage to Edinburgh Airport. Luckily the rain had stopped by now, making driving conditions fairly good. Although I was a bit careful because the roads were still wet and slippery in places, and I didn’t want to write off someone else’s car. Everything went pretty well all the way up to Edinburgh. Although fairly soon after we turned off the A1 onto the A68 I ran into a small problem that would haunt me right till the end of the event. I had problems with the gear change. At first I thought it was because I wasn’t accustomed to changing gear with my left hand, but after a while I noticed that the gear lever had quite a lot of play, even when in gear. So Howard had to get used to me swearing quite a lot, because changing into 3rd gear became a bit of a lottery, like stirring a ‘box filled with gears and see which is selected ...
But apart from this small fault the car performed rather well, with a very nice balance between comfort and handling. Especially bearing in mind that it is more or less standard, the only upgrades being poly bushes and some beefier brakes up front.

At Edinburgh Howard took over again, and after crossing the Firth of Forth and hitting the A9 I went into shut-down mode, as usually for me on this stretch. So only a few vague recollections off Triumphs hurrying past and lorries being overtaken. So (for me) in no time we reached the next stop, Skiach Services.

As we were ahead of schedule we had some time to relax a bit, before the road books would be signed. But by 5:50, and with me stirring the gears, we were on the move again. For me this stretch of the RBRR is one of my favourites. Always great to drive along the coast to John o’Groats, with the light of a new day coming in from the North Sea. Especially as it turned into a rather un-Scottish beautiful morning. And with the light coming in the road conditions could be judge much better. So we again made good progress, reaching John o’Groats less than two hours after we left Skiach, still well ahead of schedule. This left us with plenty of time to have breakfast, relax a bit and make some more photo’s ...

With the photo shoot done and in glorious sunshine, we headed west onto the A836. As the weather forecast for the event had been rather poor, we had left the hood stowage cover at home. Sadly without the cover the hood will start flapping in the wind at around 50 mph, so we couldn’t put the hood down to enjoy the weather. But it was rather enjoyable nevertheless.

Shortly after filling up the car at a small petrol station in Betty Hill we turned left onto the B871. The road running parallel with the River Naver and Loch Naver. Certainly one of the best stretches of this edition of the RBRR. Beautiful scenery, a great road with hardly any traffic and glorious sunshine, what more do you want ...

Just past Loch Naver we rejoined the A836, and headed south toward the next stop, Conon Bridge. During this part of the run the clouds gradually moved in, but it remained dry. Looked like the weather knew how to behave itself. Which could also be said of the car, which kept on going without any problems. This couldn’t be said of McJim’s GT6 which seemed to have problems with the rear brakes ...

From Conon Bridge we headed further South till we hit the shore of Loch Ness, and again I didn’t catch a glimpse of the monster! From here we turned right onto the A82 and followed the shore to the West. Although there were a few rain showers the weather conditions were rather good for Scotland. It was a good drive, and by now I had accustomed a bit to the car’s slightly random gear change.

We followed the A82 all the way over Glencoe, were it rained of course. Well it was more of a down pour, reducing visibility but mainly the speed of the other (Sunday) traffic rather dramatically. At least the other drivers were driving so slow, that they could be overtaken quite easily and safely. Although in some places there was so much standing water on the road that the car started to aquaplane, always slightly scary! Luckily the weather cleared after Glen Coe, making the rest of the section to Stirling again a rather pleasant affair.

Only managed to annoy one of the other teams slightly when turning of the M9 south of Stirling. I was struggling with the gears again, as a result of which I went wide a bit. At least I had the indicator on in the correct direction so he should have been warned about the direction I wanted to take ...

After the pies in Stirling Howard again took over for the very boring section to Lancaster services. I was in shut down mode again so not much to report. It was nice to have a short chat with Martin (aka Raider) at the control stop. With all formalities sorted, and after a large coffee, I was ready for the next section to Gledrid. Also not much to report there, as it was motorway all the way. The stop in Gledrid itself was again very nice with a friendly atmosphere, and again some spannering going on ...

After Gledrid it was up to Howard to enjoy himself on the roads through Wales. The fact that the weather and the driving conditions were still pretty good, certainly helped with the enjoyment. This time the route through Wales was divided in two shorter sections with a control stop right in the middle of Welsh’ nowhere, the Sugar Loaf Halt. Glad I put the exact coordinates of the halt in my GPS, making it rather easy to pinpoint it in de dark. As there was a slight drizzle in the air, we were glad that we weren’t too much ahead of schedule, so we needn’t wait too long for the control to open. So as soon as we got the road book signed, we were on our way again. As Howard really got the hang of the Welsh roads, I made myself comfortable in the passenger seat and tried to rest as much as possible

After crossing the Bristol Channel I fell asleep only to be awakened when Howard left the Gordano stop, heading for Land’s End. As he still felt very well we agreed that he’d carry on for a while. So I went back to sleep, to be woken up just before Exeter by some strange movements of the car. Turned out that the weather had deteriorated badly, with very heavy rain and a gale force wind, really what you are not waiting for on the second night of the RBRR. It was clear that these conditions had taken their toll on Howard, as he looked rather knackered. Luckily we were right up to a service station, so we pulled into that to swap places.

The moment we set of again Howard was fast asleep and, although fully rested I missed the road sign for the A30. OK visibility was rather poor, but that was hardly any consolation when I realised the mistake. Sadly I only found this out shortly before we reached the point where the A380 forks of the A38. A quick wake up call to Howard got him into the maps, but by now I had taken another wrong exit. Luckily Howard managed to pinpoint our position on the map, and led us back to the A38. Sadly shortly after we joined the A38 we ran into a Police road block. Turned out that a little further on the road was flooded, and no, we wouldn’t be able to carry on, as there was 2 ft of water on the road. Nothing we could do about it but take the suggested diversion.

Turned out to be a lovely but very narrow and twisty country lane. Under normal conditions I wouldn’t mind this, but the weather was still rather bad, with lots of branches on the road, and we were starting to run late for the halt at Land’s End. And the road that, according to the police officer, should bring us back onto the A38 turned out to be no more than a track. We eventually did find our way toward Land’s End, joining the A30 again at Summercourt.

It had been a nice drive but I was glad we were back on a through road again. Soon after we got onto the A30 we passed another Triumph. At least we weren’t last. But with still half an hour to go to Land’s End we started to encounter the first participants who were heading for breakfast in Scorrier! But in the end we reached the End, still within the scheduled time window ...

By now the rain had stopped almost completely, and as we headed north for the new breakfast stop at the Crossroad Lodge in Scorrier it stopped completely. When we arrived there it was clear that the run was starting to take its toll on the cars, as there was some spannering going on in the parking area, with jobs ranging from electrical problems, through wheel bearings to gearbox’s ...

After breakfast and signing of the road book Howard did a check of all the vital points of the car. He found nothing disturbing. So with the knowledge that the car was in good health, we left for the next control stop, Bude Castle. This turned out to be a very nice control halt indeed, as a result of which we lost even more time ...

As we were now running dangerously close to the end of the scheduled time window I decided to press on a bit towards to next halt, Badgers Holt. Managed to get there with minutes to spare.

From here it was rather straight sailing to Pimperne for lovely cakes and tea. Really was a shame that we were running late, as we couldn’t taste all the cake varieties. So after a small but lovely selection of cake, it was my job to bring the car back to the Plough. By now I had slightly accustomed to the rather awkward gear change, as a result of which I could keep up a decent pace. Managed to get almost 15 minutes off the time, reaching Didcot with slightly more time to spare.

With the road book signed we immediately started on the last section, home to the Plough. Actually the roads after Didcot were quite good fun but as we were quickly running out of daylight, and I managed to run into the back of another car at some traffic lights (oops ...), we decided it was time to hit the motorway, and take the easy way home.

Returned to the Plough at 20:23. Needless to say we had a few beers on that, before heading to the hotel. And the car? Except for the problems with the gear change it performed faultlessly over 3224 kilometres. Was really nice to drive an almost standard TR7.

Reconnaissance run Nachtrit

2010-10-17T18:53:00.006+02:00

Early yesterday morning I went to the shed to dig out “t Kreng. I left her there shortly after she got her MOT in July, so I was rather curious as to what would happen when I switched on the ignition and primed the fuel system. As usual I needn’t have worried, she started pretty quickly and even managed something resembling a half decent idle. After picking up Rene at his home, we headed south to the starting point in Slenaken, where we set off at 11:15 hr.

The weather forecast had been pretty good with a chance of some light showers, which would die out in the afternoon. How wrong they were! The reconnaissance quickly turned into an epic drive through heavy rain showers. It had been dry for quite a while, the leaves were already falling and the farmers were harvesting. Al this put together made for rather slippery road conditions to say the least. In places it was so slippery that the car’s rear was sliding all over the place while accelerating in a straight line. Good fun, with the ATB diff clearly working overtime. I was glad I took 't Kreng for the trip and not the DHC or the Land Rover!

But despite the very bad conditions it was again great fun driving the car on these challenging roads. What also struck me was that some roads seem to have deteriorated rather badly over the past few years. Time the Walloons start spending some money on them ...
So we were a bit surprised when we returned in Slenaken exactly 5 hours later. Bearing in mind the weather conditions and the Saturday (shopping) traffic, we had expected we’d need much more time to get round. So this might turn into a very quick one ...

The car again ran faultlessly over the approximately 500 kilometres I covered yesterday. So looking forward to the final reconnaissance run on the day of the Nachtrit itself. Hopefully the weather will be better. But before that I will give the car some well deserved attention.

Leaky Clutch master

2010-09-25T23:45:00.008+02:00

I clearly was a bit overoptimistic in my last report. After the Triumph Festival last Sunday I thought it a good idea to check the engine bay thoroughly when everything had cooled down a bit. Which is what I did last Monday. Everything on the engine turned out to be fine, no more visible leaks and the slot underneath the water pump was completely dry ...

So everything looked pretty much Ok, until I removed the cap from the clutch master cylinder that is. The level had clearly dropped a bit and the fluid was looking rather dark and murky, not a good sign. A quick look inside the foot well confirmed what I feared. There was a drop of (very dark) brake fluid hanging underneath the dust cap. So a clear sign that the seal from the clutch master cylinder had perished. Luckily there were no visible traces of fluid on the carpets or the pedal box yet. Clearly found the leak just in time.

So a change of the master cylinder was on the cards. Luckily I had a rebuilt one lying in the attic. Plan was to change the cylinder today but as I was home from work rather early last Thursday, I thought it a good idea to start with the preparations for the change. 45 minutes later the rebuilt cylinder was in place. It only needed bleeding, but as it was dark by now I kept that for today.

As the clutch hose and slave cylinder were still full of fluid I could use my proven bleeding method, using the self bleeding abilities of the system. Depressing the pedal slowly and releasing it quickly got all the air out. As I had no assistance this time I took my time, giving the little amount of air in the system plenty of time to collect at the top of the clutch hose ...

With the bleeding finished I turned my attention to the leaking cylinder. Taking the piston out clearly showed why it was leaking, the seal was well worn ...

As the bore looks undamaged, I’ll clean it in the near future and put it in the attic for future use, together with a rebuild kit.

And with the weather being rather fine for a Dutch autumn, I decided to put the roof down and take the car out for a spin, to see if everything was working OK. Was rather enjoyable dodging the various rain showers ...

A few firsts for the DHC

2010-09-19T22:49:00.005+02:00

This weekend saw the 6th edition of the Belgium Triumph Festival. Having missed a few years and with nothing better to do we decided to give it another go. Another reason to go there was the fact that this year’s edition was held at the rather lovely “Landcommandery Alden Biesen” which is just over an hour’s drive from where I live ...

Although it remained dry all day the weather wasn’t very bright, which probably resulted in many Triumph owners keeping their cars under cover in the garage. Resulting in a car park that could have done with a few more Triumphs. At least we managed to bring 4 cars over (Spitfire Mk IV, Dolomite 1850, Stag and of course my DHC) ...

It was actually the first official meeting which I attended with the DHC. Car seems to be pretty well know as several people came over to talk about the restoration. She indeed managed to attract quite a lot of interest ...

Luckily there were more interesting and nice cars around to enjoy, like this nice French 1300TC ...

a very yellow GT6+ ...

an equally yellow Vincent Hurricane with gorgeous alloys ...

a rare Herald Courier van ...

and a very lovely long door TR2 ...

Although some people seemed not to be impressed ...

And while preparing the car yesterday I found another first, the first stone chips ...

So with a water pump that looks OK, I can safely say that the restoration of the DHC is finished at last. And she should be fit for some proper use :-)

Water pump, here we go again ...

2010-09-05T18:20:00.005+02:00

Returned from the Alps with an oil leak from the water pump. So in the previous weeks I removed the carburettors, manifold etcetera again, in order to rectify the problem. As I already have covered that not so long ago I won’t bore anyone with the details. With the pump cover removed I wanted to undo the impellers bolt, to fit a big washer, so I could lever the pump out easily. I needn’t have worried, at the first turn of the spanner the complete water pump assembly (including brass cage) came out. So no need to use this simple but effective puller again ...

With the pump out in one piece, the cause for the leak was easy to spot. The oil seal that should sit snugly on top of bearing, was completely visible through the holes in the brass cage. This means that one way or another the seal got dislodged from the brass cage, enabling oil to leak out. Either I didn’t fit the seal properly or there is something wrong with it.
As I only fitted this pump two weeks ago it hadn’t endured much in the way of use, making dismantling it rather straightforward. There was no visible damage to the seals so I reused both of them. Only this time I made double sure that the oil seal was properly pushed into place, with the water thrower tightly on top of it. Followed by the coolant seal and the impeller.

Having finished the pump, it was time to put everything back. Only little problem I encountered was the manifold + carburettors assembly. Before I fitted these I had glued the gasket and O-ring to the cylinder head’s mating face. But while fitting the manifold (with the carburettors fitted to it) I managed to dislodge the gasket. But I got it in place in the end. Only to find out, while refilling the coolant system, that there was a leak from the O-ring. Turned out that the supplied O-ring was to small, as a result of which it had moved inside the recess while I tried to reposition the gasket, causing the leak ...

As you can see the inside diameter is spot on, but comparing the original O-ring with the supplied one clearly shows the size difference ...

Should have done that before fitting the ring ! But it turned out that the supplied ring fits perfectly inside the original one. So to prevent this happening again I used both rings, glued in place with sealant ...

And with the manifold ready for refitting I had another go at removing the old gasket. Nothing difficult there, you only have to be careful not to drop bits of gasket into the inlet ports. And when it happens the air compressor is very useful indeed ...

After that is was a fairly long wait for the new gasket to arrive, which eventually arrived last Friday. So yesterday morning I started reassembling the manifold and carburettors. First I glued the gasket to the head with a little bit of sealant ...

After which I fitted the manifold. As I removed the carburettors from the manifold this was much easier, then the previous time. But I did use a few drifts, just to make sure the gasket couldn’t move too much ...

Also used a small 13mm socket with a flexible joint to fit the bolt that sits underneath the thermostat housing. As it is slightly oversize I didn’t tighten it up with this socket, but used a ring spanner with the correct size (½”).

And with the manifold in place ...

It was just a matter of transferring these parts from the boot to the engine bay ...

And take her out for a spin ...

Back home I found a little bit of oil underneath the water pump slot, and I had to tighten one of the radiator hoses slightly. Will see how that develops in the near future ...

Tour Des Alpes part 3

2010-08-20T23:19:00.008+02:00

Day 5 (478 km)
This would be the start of our home journey, and as it turned out in the end, the longest driving day of the whole trip.Aim was to drive as far as the town of Thun in the heart of Switzerland to meet up with fellow TR7 owner Thomas. And as the Stilfsèrjoch was open, we incorporated that one in the route. But sadly before we reached that, we first had to endure a serious traffic jam. The only road through the Vinschau valley was blocked due to an accident. So we got stuck right in the middle of a tunnel with the air temperature and the engine heating up alarmingly. So nothing we could do but switch of the engine and sit it out. As a result of this we lost almost an hour.
So by the time we reached the foot of the Stilfserjoch ...

The tourists were out in force, anxiously waiting to spoil the fun as much as possible. Needless to say I took revenge on a few of them. Luckily the view up to the top remained as impressive as ever with the road snaking its way up the North face ...

For the rest of the run up the Stelvio I can be very short, rather uneventful, even boring in the dense traffic. Only the engine tried to liven it up, by pretending to overheat a bit. But halfway up the temperature gauge’s scale, it remembered that it was built to be reliable. At the very crowded top I only halted briefly, so René could take a picture of the sign ...

After which we quickly headed down the southern slope, where we stopped briefly near the old Italian border post to re-enact a picture taken 8 years earlier when we did the Stelvio with ‘t Kreng ...

With the photo taken we continued with the descent which luckily was much less crowded and thus more entertaining. So we made good time to the bottom off the pass from where we headed west towards Livigno and Switzerland. But before we could enter Switzerland, we first had to cross three more mountain passes, the Passo di Foscagno, the Passo d'Eira and the Forcola di Livigno. After which we entered Switzerland over the Bernina pass. As we still had quite a few miles to go till we reached Thun, we pressed on. We opted for the “shortest” route over the Albula pass, which turned out to be a very good choice indeed. As this pass isn’t on one of the larger through roads, it is still fairly quiet and unspoilt. But in true Swiss style the road itself is in pretty good condition, they even went to some length in inventing an original/period way to prevent speeding ...

At the top we stopped for lunch ...

only to be reminded of the fact that Switzerland is very expensive indeed. At least it was a good lunch. And with the lunch and the discussion with the waitress over the bill finished, we headed down towards Thun ...

But in between there were some more great driving roads, and not only mountain passes ...

Although, due to the sometimes spectacular views, the mountain passes impressed most. And probably the best of them all was the Süstenpass ...

with nice flowing corners and a smooth road surface. Sadly René was so impressed by the scenery, that he forgot to take some more pictures from the navigator’s seat ...

As it was by now nearly six o’clock in the evening we pressed on towards our final destination for the day, the lake side town of Thun, situated at the north-western shore of the Thunersee, which looked very nice in the early evening sun ...

In Thun we would meet up with fellow TR7 owner Thomas. I had phoned him from the top of the Albula pass, to tell him that we probably would be much later than originally planned. So to be sure that we wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor he decided to book us a room in a nearby hotel, again thanks very much for that. So as a reward for that we invited him for diner. Needless to say that the remainder of the evening was spent on food, drinks and (mostly) Triumph talk ...

Day 6 (395 km)
Next day dawned quite early, and after a hearty breakfast we set of for the German border town of Bad Säckingen some 25 kilometres east of Basel. But not before I filled up the car with some decent 100 RON fuel. Was amazed to find out that over 478 kilometres and 8 mountain passes the engine had consumed only 46,5 litres of fuel. Very impressed with that.
We choose Bad Säckingen for the border crossing as there was no Motorway heading there directly, thus making the navigating that much easier (we didn’t buy a vignette, so had to keep of the motorways, I know thrifty Dutch) . But before we crossed into Germany we had a few hours of great flowing country lanes ahead of us. What the scenery lacked in spectacular views was more than compensated by the quality and layout of the roads ...

And despite a few navigational errors we reached the German border just past noon ...

From where we headed for the narrow Wehrtal ...

and lots of other great driving roads through the heart of the Schwartzwald (Black Forest). But all these lovely roads eventually took much more time than planned, and by the end of the afternoon I called it a day. So instead of somewhere north of Kaiserslautern, we found ourselves a nice hotel in the little town of Appenweier, not far from Strasbourg, still a fair distance from home. Here we put the car to rest for the last time ...

While we spent the last night of the trip with some good local food and beer.

Last day, going home (532 km)
The last day turned out to be one not really worth remembering to long. While preparing to leave it started to rain, and that stayed with us more or less all day. As we still had a fair few kilometres ahead of us, we decided to take the Autobahn till Karlsruhe, from where we headed over the Bundesstraße B48 through the Pfalzerwald ...

to Kaiserslautern, and from there to Bernkastel-Kues. After lunch in one the many little villages along the shores of the Mosel river we headed toward Adenau, and the Nürburgring. We shouldn’t have done that. Scarcely out of the Mosel valley we met some road works, with a very un-German diversion. Yes of the variety that isn’t signposted correctly, as a result of which we were running in circles. And in true Eifel style the downpour began. Luckily the hood is pretty much waterproof.
To cut a long story short we managed to find our way to the Ring and from there to the A1/A61 ...

where she again proved to be a very relaxed long distance cruiser ...

And home in the end. Sadly most of the road grime she collected over the week was washed away in the Eifel downpour.

The car clocked up 2825 kilometres without too much trouble and with pretty good fuel economy, averaging 10.7 km/litre (or 30.2 mpg) over the trip. Looking back I have to admit the car behaved pretty well, although there were some issues that spoiled the fun a bit;
Firstly the grip of the Continental tyres is rather poor under braking (in wet and dry conditions). Although this could be caused by the Mintex pads biting to hard when cold?
And secondly not being able to rev the engine when needed was a bit of a disappointment, especially on the passes. The little skirmish with the M3 on the Jauffenpass clearly showed that the car can be quick and handles rather nicely (although the tyres will start to screech pretty quickly).

So we again have a few small issues to sort in the coming weeks;
• Fit other tyres and only use these for sedate events;
• One side of the instrument lights stopped working (probably a loose contact);
• Speedo cable bounces up and down wildly (probably caused by a broken strand);
• A slight water leak along the fuel filler cap surround;
• And of course the oil leak at the water pump.
At least I don’t have to worry that I have nothing to do in the next couple of weeks. Will start on the water pump tomorrow ...

Tour Des Alpes part 2

2010-08-15T20:28:00.014+02:00

Day 3 (334 km)
This was to be the first “touring” day. Original plan was to head up to the Stilfserjoch (probably better known as the Stelvio) and return over the Umbrai. But after sitting in a traffic jam on the SS38 outside Merano for quite a while I decided to pull into a fuel station. While filling up the car with fuel, the attendant told me that the Stilfserjoch was closed due to heavy snowfall on its northern flank. So we needed a change of plan. As we already had lost quite a lot of time in the traffic jam we opted for a short trip into Switzerland, over the Ofenpass and then back over the Reschenpass. Especially the Ofenpass was good fun with very smooth road surfaces and nice wide flowing comers ...

and some very nice views.

After lunch in the public house at the top of the Ofenpass we headed down into the valley of the River Inn.

Which we followed right till the border with Austria. But instead of taking the Finstermünzpass we took a shortcut, a rather lovely and almost deserted pass road between the villages of Martina and Nauders.

From where we headed back to the B&B in St. Martin. And as we passed the road leading to the foot of the north face of Stelvio for the second time that day we found out that they had cleared the snow there. So we decided to stop for a drink and see if there were some interesting cars come down. Not much really, only grey boxes and motorcycles. So nothing we could do but admire the views instead.

With the drinks finished we returned “home” to our B&B, only to find out it was still too early for some food. As the Jauffenpass is only a few miles from St. Martin we thought it a good idea to go up there just for fun, which it was. Added bonus were some fabulous views at the top.

Only problem was the low early evening sun, as a result of which in some places visibility was rather poor, with the sun shining through the trees and straight in my eyes. Not good if you can’t see where the road is going. Another thing which we noticed on the way down was that the brakes clearly were starting to get on temperature, they could be smelled very clearly. So René thought that they were overheating. But it looks like the Mintex M1144 pads need some heat in them to work properly, as the feel of the brakes was much better than the previous days.

But that evening, while returning from St. Leonard, they were up to their normal standard again. While slowing down to allow some bikers (on foot) to cross the road, the brakes managed to lock up the front wheels rather dramatically. The bikers also saw the fun of it ...

Day 4 (226 km)
I had planned a trip back over the Timmelsjoch, through the Õtztal and up the Kaunertaller Gletscherstraße. But after reaching the top of the Timmelsjoch ...

we found out that the weather on the north side of the mountains wasn’t brilliant. So after a little photo shoot at the top ...

plan B was put into action. This plan consisted of driving to Bozen (Bolzano) through the Passeirtal and from there over the Penserjoch and Jauffenpass. Only problem we encountered was a filling station that didn’t deliver the fuel I paid for. Luckily that got sorted properly.
The drive up to the Penserjoch proved very nice, with the road gradually climbing out of Bozen through the narrow Sarntal, up to the pass itself ...

At the top we encountered a German woman who was driving a lovely coloured Triumph motorcycle. And judging by her friends rather sarcastic remark (“great you’ve chosen a colour from 1980”), she was not very pleased when I pointed her to my car a few yards away ...

And after enjoying some lunch and the views ...

we headed down ...

for the last pass of the day, the Jauffenpass.

On the way up to the pass road itself I was driving behind a modern BMW M3. As the driver was really hanging around I thought it a good idea to challenge him a bit. He took the bait, resulting in a very nice blast up to the top of the pass. Jolly good fun indeed. The down side was that I lost nearly half a litre of oil in 25 kilometres! Made a mental note to keep the revs down.

As we had been on the top a day earlier we decided to drive on and stop a few miles down the road at a public house with a nice terrace overlooking the valley below and enjoy a few drinks and the views.

Initial plan was to stay there till the first Triumph came up the road. But after a few drinks we left the idea and returned to St. Martin, otherwise we might probably still be sitting there! To end a nice day we were driven inside the restaurant by a fairly heavy rain shower that managed to find its way into the valley ...

To be continued ...

Tour Des Alpes part 1

2010-08-12T23:33:00.011+02:00

Returned from the DHC's shake down run last Wednesday, a report from the driver’s seat;

Day 1 (771 km)
The original plan was to leave on the Tuesday the 4th of August, but due to the water pump playing up, and René being taken to hospital with an acute bacterial prostatitis, that was postponed a few days. But two days later Rene had recovered enough and the water pump was replaced, so we headed south. As we had lost two days, and the weather forecast wasn’t exactly brilliant for the Thursday we decided to drop the initial plan to drive to the Alps over secondary and country roads only. And rightly so ...

Instead we took the Autobahn all the way through Germany. And despite the by times monsoon like rain we made good progress. The car ran very well on the Autobahn, easily cruising at 120 km/h @ just under 3000 rpm. Also very impressed in the way the tyres coped with the by times huge amounts of standing water. There were no traces of aqua planning at all. But that seems to be their only pro ...

But after I had pulled into a service station for some fuel, and a short rest, I found out that the water pump was leaking very badly. Not coolant but oil! In just over 500 kilometres she’d lost well over half a litre of oil, not good with a lot of challenging Alpine passes still ahead. But there was nothing that I could do but top up the oil and hope for the best. Which I did.

And by the middle of the afternoon we left Germany and entered Austria, where we eventually found ourselves a comfortable hotel in the little village of Längenfeld, not too far from the Timmelsjoch. But not before I had nearly totalled the car while overtaking a lorry on the Fernpass. Going downhill I wanted to overtake the lorry on the outside in one the few hairpin bends this pass has. Was a pretty good plan as I could clearly see that there was no oncoming traffic. But while braking into the bend I was reminded pretty abruptly how much grip these tyres lack. At the slightest push on the brakes the front wheels locked up immediately in the still wet conditions! This resulted in a nice under steer slide in the direction of a pretty solid rock face. Two thoughts crossed my mind in rather quick succession at that moment;
• I should have fitted the steel wheels with the Yokohama’s;
• Release the brakes and more power;
The first thought was pretty useless, but the second thought worked pretty well. Although sliding wide I could keep the car under control and on the tarmac where she belongs. Needless to say that this narrow escape gave me a perfect reason to drink a few well deserved beers in the Hotel’s bar that evening. Sadly the car had to endure more of the downpour, which she took rather well ...

Day 2 (86 km)
Next morning loomed still very wet indeed, but the heavy rain had been replaced with a very light drizzle. We were informed that in the night in some place on the higher grounds up to 40 centimetres of fresh snow had fallen. But compared to yesterday it looked rather nice ...

After a hearty breakfast we set off for the last leg of the journey, over the Timmelsjoch into Italy to find ourselves a place to stay for a few days.

As we were rather early there wasn’t much traffic on the Timmelsjoch, but maybe this was also caused by the rather uninviting conditions ...

But at least the weather conditions provided me with some rather dramatic back grounds for a few pictures of the car ...

With the photo shoot over it was time to head down the Timmelsjoch in search for a hotel or B&B. Plan was to try to find something in Sankt Leonard in Passeier, but that turned out to be not such a good plan. Everything we tried was fully booked, and to be honest I didn’t mind very much to turn my back on the place, it all looked rather to touristic in all the wrong possible ways. Found ourselves a simple B&B in a neighbouring village a few miles down the road.
As it was by now well past noon we decided to give the car a well deserved rest outside the B&B ...

And have lunch somewhere in the village, washed down with a little beer ...

The rest of the afternoon was spent with a sightseeing tour off the village ...

To be continued ...

Ready for the Alps???

2010-08-04T21:47:00.006+02:00

Received a few missing gaskets yesterday afternoon, enabling me to finish the water pump change. Which meant refitting the manifold and carburettors, and connecting everything up again. As I always use a very thin film of sealant on both sides of the gasket, and this had to set for 24 hours, I had to wait till this afternoon before I could refill the coolant system and take the car for a little test drive.
This enabled me to pack up a bit of hopefully not needed stuff, like some spanners, a bit of oil and coolant etc. All in preparation for the Alps.
And this afternoon it was time to full up the coolant system and go for a test drive. Which almost not happened. After starting up pretty nicely I reversed of the drive onto the street, but half way there the engine started to splutter, and it felt as if it was only running on 2 to 3 cylinders. And when I wanted to return to the carport the engine cut out altogether ...
But she started up immediately and ran as if nothing had happened, so I did go for a test drive. Car behaved very well, temperature went up as it should till a third of the scale and remained there. And the coolant light stayed of, also a good sign. But all that changed when I returned home and opened the bonnet. I was looking at the biggest coolant spill I have ever seen from the slot underneath the water pump. So nothing I could do and let the engine cool down and see how the coolant level was. That turned out to be quite fine (I had overfilled the system slightly). Time for another check, I started the engine and let it run till it was full warmed up.

As you can see there were no signs of any leaks and the paper tissues I had put in the slot remained absolutely dry. Will put it down to a water pump seal that needed to seat itself. But something I will keep an eye on in the next few days when we’ll be touring the Alps. We should actually have been somewhere in the Alps already, but due to the water pump and René’s health, we’ll now be leaving tomorrow morning. So hopefully next entry will be some nice shots of the car with some Alpine back grounds ...

Changing the DHC’s water pump

2010-08-01T21:15:00.007+02:00

With the Alpine Tour only a few days away there was no time hanging around, which meant an early start this morning. First I had to collect all my tools which were scattered over a few different locations. But before I started on that round I soaked all the nuts and bolts, that needed undoing on the engine, with penetrating oil.
After having collected all the tools I started with draining the coolant system and disconnecting the carburettors, in preparation of the removal of the complete manifold/carburettor assembly ...

As I had already filled up the fuel tank in preparation for the scheduled trip to the Alps, I had to make sure the fuel hose coming from the pump was closed of properly. So I clamped the hose using a small ViceGrip and plugged the end ...

With everything disconnected it was time to remove the manifolds mounting bolts. All could be removed without a problem. Only wondering what Muppet at Leyland designed the manifold, as the front bolt is pretty much inaccessible for a half decent socket set. Luckily I do have various spanners, but due to the limited space it was rather time consuming to remove this bolt ...

But with all bolts removed and the heater pipe disconnected (nearly forgot that one) the manifold together with the carburettors could be lifted of the engine ...

Giving me chance to look inside the engine for the first time in 17 years, doesn’t look to bad I think ...

And after a minor break to make a brew, I tackled the water pump itself. Removing the cover was very easy, two taps with a rubber mallet and it was out. Was amazed to see that the gasket was blown out at the back of cover. But there were no signs of any leaks from there ...

The pump itself did put up something resembling a fight, but it lost out against a sturdy washer, screwed to the pump’s shaft, and two hefty tyre levers. The impeller gave the game away why the pump failed. There is a fair amount of rust on it, almost certainly caused by being in contact with air for nearly 18 months ...

Of course the brass cage remained behind in the block ...

... but with this little tool it was a piece of cake ...

After removing the old gasket and cleaning the inside of the pump housing, it was time to refit the pump. It did take a few attempts to get the jackshaft gears to engage with the gears on the pump shaft. But ones I got that right, the pump could be gently tapped in place ...

Left me with checking the clearance of the pump cover ...

Choose a gasket with the correct thickness (measured gap + (0.30÷0.50) mm) for the 12 vane impeller ...

And tighten the cover ...

Only have to refit the manifold etc. but I ran out of gaskets and O-rings. Will get that sorted tomorrow morning, so hopefully the car will be ready by evening.

999 Kilometres

2010-07-31T19:07:00.007+02:00

After nearly 1000 kilometres since she came back on the road and in preparation for next week’s Alpine Tour I went over to a friend’s workshop to check all nuts and bolts underneath the car. Didn’t do this at Robbie’s workshop as I wanted the car to be on its wheels when (re)tightening the suspension bolts. So I needed a four post lift ...

There were a few nuts and bolts that needed to be tightened a bit, but nothing seriously wrong so far. And with ‘t Kreng’s MOT failure fresh in mind I checked the wheel bearings, nothing wrong either.

But while underneath the car I was reminded of the fact that the centre silencer box has a tendency to turn around slowly with time. I have been thinking of some welding in the past but this is a much easier solution ...

But when I returned home this afternoon, and after the car had sat for about half an hour I did a check of the engine. Guess what, after exactly 999 kilometres the water pump seems to have developed a leak. Over the past few weeks there was always a bit of moisture inside the slot underneath the pump, but no traces of coolant on the block itself. There were now! Also the coolant level has dropped a bit, so it looks like I have some work to do tomorrow. Luckily I do have a spare pump lying around, but the original plan, of a few easy days of preparing for the trip, will have to be discarded ...

She’s got an MOT

2010-07-22T22:02:00.007+02:00

On Tuesday evening I changed the faulty front bearings on the driver’s side of ‘t Kreng. Turned out to be quite a challenge. First, to get the hub/disc assembly of the front strut we had to use a flange/hub puller, not a good sign. And even than it didn’t go quite easy, but we got the hub assembly of in the end. Left us with the bearing race of the inside bearing. As we couldn’t get a decent hold on it with the puller, and we didn’t want to risk damaging the axle stub with a grinder, we welded a bit of steel to it. Mainly to get more grip for the puller but also to get some heat in it so it would expand a bit ...

This worked very well, the bearing race came off without any problem, and no damage to the axle stub. But next time I really should remove the coating before I fit the bearings ...
With everything of it was time to inspect everything. Clearly this bearing got to hot somewhere in the past 5500 kilometres ...

After the hassle of removing the damaged bearings, fitting the new ones was very easy indeed ...

Slightly more worrying is this little crack in the left-hand brake disc. Not enough to change the disc yet, but certainly something to keep a constant eye on in the future ...

Yesterday afternoon I sourced and fitted the wiper refills for the driver’s side, so both wipers could be refurbished ...

And fitted the wipers to the car.

And this afternoon I dropped the car of at the MOT garage with the message that she should be OK. They didn’t even bother to check my work, and reported the car to the RDW as passed. There was no spot check on the car from the RDW so now I have another years MOT.
And just found out that the DHC being older than 30 years now, only has to go for its MOT ones every two years.

MOT time for ‘t Kreng

2010-07-19T22:13:00.006+02:00

Had ‘t Kreng MOT-ed today. Have to admit that I neglected the car a bit while working on the DHC in the past 18 months. So yesterday I went over her to see if there was anything wrong. Only found a few small faults like worn wiper blades (temporarily sorted with the ones from the DHC) and a wheezy windscreen washer pump, which would probably be overlooked. So nothing to worry about I thought. Alas wrong ...

Turned out that one of the front wheel bearings is on the way out after only 5500 kilometres. I checked them last year and they were fine then and as the car has only covered 1200 kilometres since, I thought it unnecessary to check them. So two new bearing sets ordered, should be ready for pick up at local parts supplier tomorrow afternoon.

And as I had a bit of extra time I started looking for some new wiper blades, which turned out to be not that easy. It looks like the Japanese style “pin on blade” type wiper blades as used on the TR7 are no longer available through the normal parts suppliers in this part of the world. Luckily I found some wiper refills for the passenger side, and a good clue where to find “refills” for the driver’s side. Hopefully get that sorted tomorrow too.

At least I got one item on the fail sheet sorted this evening. After a browse through my spare parts I found a washer pump that does work. And after half an hour’s spannering I had the windscreen washer functioning again. To be continued!

DHC report nr. 105 and last; She’s ready!

2010-07-18T01:09:00.004+02:00

As I have to draw the line somewhere, today I finished the restoration of the DHC. The last thing I did was a final polish of the paint work. The remaining items are “service” related. From now on she’ll be used as she was meant to.
So to end the series of DHC reports I did a little photo shoot this evening ...

Looking back over the past 18 months a few things spring to mind;

Almost as soon as I started my initial plan (upgrading the body and interior only) was abandoned. This was caused by the fact that I had more time to spend because paint preparations and painting started later and took much longer than planned. As a result of which I started coating and upgrading parts to keep busy, with known result ...

Then there was this very long and very cold winter, which didn’t help progress on the project. As the shed, where the car was being assembled, isn’t heated I lost quite a lot of time because certain jobs (like fitting the wiring looms) took much longer, while other important jobs (fitting carpets) had to be postponed.

Another plan that had to be abandoned was the use of the 15” Revolution alloys. To accommodate them in preparation for the 2007 edition of Club Triumph’s 10CR, I had adapted the right hand rear arch, but I forgot to till the guy who did the body repairs. So he straightened the seam very expertly. As I only noticed this when the car returned from the paint shop, there was not much to do other then find an alternative. Which I found in the shape of the original 13” wheels. But as I couldn’t decide what to use, I refurbished two sets of wheels. A set of banded original steels with street legal Yokohama racing tyres for a blast through the country...

and a set of original alloys with original spec Continental tyres for long distance touring and shows ...

The choice for the car’s colour also saw a few different options. When I removed the leather seats from ‘t Kreng in 1998, I put them in the attic with the idea to use them in the DHC somewhere in the not to near future. And of course the car would be painted Sapphire blue, as it looked quite lovely. But by the time I had to decide on the colour, I had seen a few DHC’s in Cavalry Blue (which is almost the same shade as Sapphire Blue), and I found it didn’t look quite right on a DHC, they really need a bright colour.
I have actually been thinking of a bright green TR7 for almost as long as I have owned a TR7, but I wanted an original period Leyland colour. So when I stumbled upon an old post on the CT forum, by the late Ally Hickman, the choice for Triton Green wasn’t that difficult.

And finally, the project is dedicated to the memory of a friend’s wife, who died the day I started on the restoration ...

DHC report nr. 104; Finishing touches part 5

2010-07-11T18:34:00.006+02:00

Due to the very hot weather in the past few weeks, with temperatures well over 30ºC, I haven’t done much to the car. Not even driven it as much as I would have liked ...
But did find some time to fit the badges to the car, so people don’t have to guess anymore when I drive past them. The boot lid badges were fitted more or less to their original position ...

Whereas the nose badge didn’t quite. Looking at factory photographs, the top of the laurel wreath should be just above the top of the headlamp pods. But it was easier to align the top of the badge with the top of the headlamp pods. And I think it looks better too this way.

Also had a bit of an issue with one of the steel wheels, as mentioned earlier one of the tyres was almost flat when I wanted to fit these wheels to the car. At first it looked promising as it kept its pressure well. But after a week or so it started to lose pressure again slowly but also randomly. In the end I dropped it of at the tyre shop to have it checked for leaks. Turned out to be three leaks in the welding, which were easily sorted with a few blobs of special sealant on the inside of the rim.
And to bridge the time the leaking wheel was away, I fitted the alloys to keep the car mobile. Looks rather period. Was quite a revelation how different the car handles on these, more or less “period” specification type, tyres. They completely change the cars handling, very comfortable, but also lacking a bit of grip. I won’t mention why one of the sills is so dusty at the moment ....

List of things to do is getting rather short by now. Most importantly , with some 800 kilometres under the wheels so far, the knocking in the front suspension is getting less and less, I really have to provoke it now. So looking good for its first Alpine trip in August.

DHC report nr. 103; Finishing touches part 4

2010-06-27T20:36:00.003+02:00

List of things to do or get sorted is getting shorter by the day. Although a few new items have been added.
Most important for its topless use is that the hood cover was fitted last Monday. Turned out it also needed some slight adjustments to the front to get a proper fit without fouling the side windows. And with the cover fitted it was time to enjoy the car a bit. As I didn’t have to keep an eye on the hood (it would raise at speeds of 90 kmh and over) I could concentrate on the driving. Was very good fun indeed. First impression is that the handling is much more precise than expected, but combined with a very comfortable ride. Was an enjoyable afternoon indeed.

Over the week I busied myself with some of the simple things on the to do list, like sorting the dashboard lights for the heater switches. Turned out that one bulb was burned out, one fitting was molten on the inside and one of the wires turned out to be broken, probably during fitting. So what should have been a 10 minute job took me well over an hour and a half to get sorted properly.

Next I fitted a protective sleeve over part of the wire running to the starter motor, to prevent damage by chafing on the heat shield. When I installed the wires they had enough clearance but after a few kilometres they were already chafing against the heat shield ...

Replaced the temporary tape over the hole in the bulkhead (near the battery tray) with the correct grommet I found in my spares stock at last ...

Adapted the inlet tube on the oil catch tank to get more clearance between the breather hose and the exhaust manifold, to prevent the hose from getting burned away...

And while at a petrol station, I found out that the fuel filler cap wouldn’t go of easily. Turned out it wasn’t vented. Luckily I had the necessary part, to make it vented, lying around. And fitting this to the filler cap was only a few minutes job.

Spot the difference ...

In the pictures the plate on the left is vented, and the one on the right is of the non vented variety.

Also sorted a broken interior door lock surround, fitted some new and heavier cable ties in order to take some strain from the carburettor’s rubber mounts and washed away a fair bit of excessive wax oil where visible.

And due to the rather fine weather over the past week the car has clocked up some 700 kilometres since she came back on the road. Still nothing really wrong so far. Water pump is still weeping very lightly, but no visible coolant loss in the header tank. The rest of the mechanics still work as they did before the restoration. Only the clutch doesn’t stick anymore.

Now waiting for the front badge to arrive, so I can officially finish the restoration, and go for a little photo shoot.

DHC report nr. 102; Finishing touches part 3

2010-06-20T15:23:00.004+02:00

Haven’t spend much time on the DHC over the past week. After having spent so much time on her over the past year and a half, I have enjoyed a few free evenings. But as the weather forecast for yesterday wasn’t great I asked Robbie if I could use his workshop to sort a few of the remaining jobs on the car.

First thing to get sorted was the permanent burning low-coolant-light. Knowing that you can’t trust the coolant light on these cars even gets me slightly nervous. As mentioned a few days ago I suspected my own work on the main wiring loom to be the cause of this problem. So after raising the RH headlamp, disconnecting the connectors I could pull the loom clear for inspection. Sounds easy but wasn’t as I did a pretty thorough job of wrapping up the loom. Took me well over half an hour to remove enough of the wrapping tape to find the two suspect wires. I indeed had just cut of the (unused) connector, isolated the wires and wrapped them inside the loom. Luckily sorting the problem was easy with a spade connector and a crimping tool ...

Before re-wrapping the loom I applied some heat-shrink tubing over the connector to isolate it. After which it was fiddling the connectors back through the front panel’s hole (not easy with the headlamp motor in position) and reconnecting everything. A quick check revealed that the lights still worked but also that the coolant level light now switches of as it should.

As the car was on the lift in Robbie’s workshop I used the opportunity to check underneath the car. This actually was the first time the car was on the lift so a good opportunity for some pictures ...

First I went over all the suspension nuts and bolts. Most needed a little bit of tightening but nothing worrying. Only the nuts for the front struts lower ball joints needed more tightening. This is probably caused by the fact the struts themselves have been powder coated. And as this coating is wearing of through use, this gives some play between the ball joint’s stud and the mounting point on the front strut. Something to keep an eye on for the next few miles.
Last thing I checked was for leaks, there were none ... yet. Only the water pump is weeping very lightly. Hopefully that will go away after a few more miles.
And, clearly visible in one of the pictures, the fact that the centre exhaust box (still) has a tendency to slowly rotate under engine load.

DHC report nr. 101; Finishing touches part 2

2010-06-16T22:58:00.003+02:00

After having covered some 200 kilometres so far, I went over the car this evening to make a list of things that still have to be done or which need sorting. Didn’t find anything really worrying, the list so far;
• Fit the stud sockets to the custom made hood stowage cover and apply the badges. Ordered these parts from S&S and they should be with me for this weekend;
• Coolant warning light remains on all the time. As I can’t find anything wrong I think I made a slight mistake when refurbishing the main wiring loom, removing the connector from the spare (TR8) coolant wires on the right hand side of the engine bay and taping the wires away inside the loom, thus separating the wires;
• Under (hard) braking there’s still a slight knocking sound, also felt in the steering wheel. So another check of all the front suspension nuts and bolts (including the front shock absorber closure nut) is prominent on the to do list;
• One way or another only one of the four lights above the heater controls is working, new bulbs ordered;
• Fixate the speedo cable and the header tank’s overflow hose with some cable ties;
• See if I have a spare LH finisher for the top of the door seal/header rail. The one fitted at the moment has developed a nasty crack;
• Fit some protective covering to the RH engine mount, to prevent damage to the lower radiator hose;
• Fit a protective cable sleeve to the wires going to the starter motor. Also to prevent future damage, as their clearance is to minimal for my liking;
• Re-align the bonnet slightly together with the lock and striker pin;
• Find a grommet to fill the (temporarily taped over) hole in the bulkhead near the battery tray;
• Make a banjo connector for the oil catch tank, to prevent the engines breather hose from getting burned by the exhaust manifold.

DHC report 100; Finishing touches part 1

2010-06-12T17:10:00.009+02:00

First of all over the past week I have been keeping an eye on the pressure in the right hand front tyre. When fitting the steel wheels this one had lost nearly all of its pressure, with only 0,5 Bar remaining. As sticky valves are not uncommon I decided to pump it up to 3,0 Bar and see what would happen. But after half an hour the pressure had already dropped by almost 0,1 Bar, at which pressure it seemed to settle, remaining steady for nearly an hour and a half. So I put the wheel on the car, dropped the pressure to 2,0 Bar and drove home. After that I have been keeping a close watch on the tyre’s pressure, but it has remained steady since. Looks indeed like a sticky valve.

On Wednesday really was the most import day so far, It was time for the verdict from the expert. 17 Months of work were to be valued by a sworn valuator. This is necessary to get the car insured properly.
Right from the start my aim has been that the cost of the restoration shouldn’t exceed the cars value. And it looks like I have succeeded, and with quite a margin. Considering the amount and quality of the work done the valuator would only give an indication of its value. Because it was so high for a TR7 he first wanted consultation with a few of his colleagues, before committing himself. Looks like the valuation will be a fair bit higher than the cost of the restoration, well pleased with that ...

After that it was time to give the car a good wash in preparation for the finishing touches. To start with a few flaws in the paint were polished out (dust particles and silicon faults). Turned out to be easy but rather time consuming;
First the blemishes were polished away by hand with a little cutting pad ...

giving a rather unsightly look to the paintwork, in this case the boot lid ...

After which the paint was cut back in three separate stages ...

With the paint polished the seams between front wings and nose panel, rear wings and rear deck and spoiler to front wing were sealed with a special sealant. I opted for this approach as it gives better protection compared to painting over the sealant. This way there is no risk of the paint cracking and trapping water underneath.
To prevent the sealant from making a mess of it, the seams were first taped of ...

after which the sealant was applied and washed in ...

Only two things remain now, the badges and the hood stowage cover. I Managed to make a mess of the front badge. So we removed that one immediately. Will have to order a new one. Hopefully I can get a better quality one from one of the (TR7) suppliers.
But I can and probably will take my time for that, as I received the cars new licence papers today. So it’s fully road legal again, about time to enjoy it.

DHC report nr. 99; MOT

2010-06-07T19:37:00.004+02:00

An early start of the day to get the car MOT’ed (or APK as it is called here), only to find out on arrival that the garage didn’t open till 8:45-ish on Monday. But in the end the staff arrived and after making space inside, the DHC could be driven in for the first check, the brake test. I had a slightly bad feeling on the handbrake but I needn’t have worried. Brakes were OK. Same could be said for the emissions which turned out to be perfect, with a CO level of 2,7%.
Next were the lights which all worked as they should. Only one of the headlamps needed to be adjusted upward a bit. But while the mechanic was doing this the light concerned went out. Not good. All other checks didn’t turn up any faults, so they cleared a space for me in the workshop, gave me all the tools I needed and left me to get the light sorted, the joys of a friendly workshop.
Only thing that could be wrong was the connector block at the back of the headlamp unit. And after I had the unit removed from the head lamp pod this was proofed correct, the connector block nearly fell off. Turned out the connectors inside the block were all a bit loose. But from the outside they all looked quite OK. But when I removed them from the block with a special tool, it was clear that they were all to wide, which was easily sorted with a pair of pliers. And within fifteen minutes I had the now fully functional headlamp pod back together and adjusted. After which the car got its APK-certificate.

Next job was go over to a friend’s workshop to get the alternator tested. I thought it was on the way out, but it turned out that in true Lucas style it was stone dead. Luckily he had a 70 Ampere alternator lying in storage. Only needed realigning the mounting lugs (turning the front cover through 120º) and a different fan and a new pulley, after which it was ready for fitment.

And the last port of call was the tyre shop, to get the alignment of the front suspension checked and set up properly. Wasn’t that far out. Also checked the overall alignment, which showed us that the suspension (front to rear) on this car is absolutely spot on. Well pleased with that. And when I got back to the shed it was time to fit the wheels I prepared for the car. I didn’t fit them earlier because I didn’t want them to get damaged by the alignment gear that is hooked on to the rims. Car looks completely different now, very 70’s which I quite like....

But there might be a problem with one of the wheels, as there was hardly any air left in it. Could be a sticky valve (which I hope), but might as well be much worse. Will see if said tyre keeps pressure over the next day or not.

Also fitted the new alternator and put the borrowed one back in ‘t Kreng. And last job was to realign the steering shaft. Turned out I fitted it upside down, as a result of which the indicator didn’t return after the corner. With that sorted I took a slight detour home to see how the car behaves. Must say it was a pleasant surprise, the car feels much easier to drive with the 13” wheels. The handling, although lacking the precision and road holding of ‘t Kreng’s suspension, is rather predictable and comfortable, which suits it quite well I think. Makes a very nice and quick GT car!

DHC report nr. 98; Happy birthday ...

2010-06-06T22:18:00.004+02:00

Nothing to do with the restoration but it was a memorable day today. Because today 30 years ago the car hit the road for the first time. Doesn’t look very much like she left the factory anymore, as I used parts from at least 5 different cars I have lying around ...

Sadly no time to celebrate as there were some minor problems to get sorted. First one was the fan guard. While driving over speed bumps yesterday there was a very slight metallic sound. I first thought it was part of the exhaust touching the body but there were no signs off that. After a few minutes searching I found out it was the fan touching the fan guard. Clearly that somehow the original spacers weren’t thick enough. So I needed a few new and slightly thicker ones, which thanks to Robbie and his lathe were only a few minutes work. Now with the same clearance as ‘t Kreng I am quite sure the fan won’t hit the guard anymore ...

Next on the to do list was checking all suspension bolts. A few needed to be tightened up a bit, but nothing excessive. Also checked for any further leaks (but found none) and fitted the fresh air duct ...

So only one thing remained, the first repair. In true Lucas style the almost brand new (only 10.000 km) alternator decided to pack up. As the only decent alternator around was in ‘t Kreng I decided to use that one, and get myself a new one for her tomorrow. I had already planned to take the DHC home with me and put ‘t Kreng in the shed, as I have to leave fairly early for my appointment at the MOT garage tomorrow morning. I used this opportunity to swap the alternator. And for the first time in more than two years the cars were back together again ...

After that it was time to bring the DHC home with me. I took a detour for a final check. Should be OK for the MOT tomorrow.

DHC report nr. 97; First drive

2010-06-05T19:29:00.006+02:00

Yesterday, with the front screen’s sealant fully cured, I fitted the lower wind screen finisher and the wipers. Should have been a quick one but the nut from the right hand wheel box put up quite a fight. Took me well over an hour and a half to fit the nuts. After that the wiper arms were easy indeed.

Final job was fitting a new battery and connecting it up, she was ready for her first outing.
And this afternoon the car left the shed under her own power for the first time in just over 17 months. As the car officially isn’t roadworthy without an MOT, I decided not to venture to far from home. Luckily there are enough interesting roads within a 10 mile radius for a gentle shake down run.
Really nothing much that was wrong. Only the coolant warning light refuses to go out, and after about 50 kilometres she developed a slight knocking under (hard) braking. But I am not too worried about that, as going over all suspension nuts and bolts was planned for tomorrow afternoon.
Other thing that needs some attention is the alternator, which looks like it’s on its way out. Near the end of the test drive I noticed that the indicators were only working very slowly. A quick look at the voltage gauge learned that the alternator was only charging marginally. So I will have to use the alternator from ‘t Kreng to get the car to the MOT and order a new one.

Safe for these few problem the test drive was rather good fun. This together with the fine weather made me forget that the car isn’t road legal yet. It was a rather enjoyable afternoon. And most importantly she looks absolutely gorgeous in the bright sunlight ...

With the car back in the shed I carried out a few more checks, but no real problems. Still a small leak at the front of the rocker cover. Turned out that I hadn’t tightened one of the screws properly. Also had a look at the wind screen washer which didn’t work. But after filling the hose with water that problem was solved, clearly the pump isn’t self priming.
Will see if there are any other things that pop up tomorrow afternoon ...

DHC report nr. 96; More checks and front screen

2010-06-03T22:45:00.008+02:00

Carried out more checks today. Turns out that the centre console lights safe one have decided to go on strike. At least that’s no MOT failure. So something for next week or so.

Next on the to do list was re-filling all remaining fluids. The rear axle was easy, but the gearbox wasn’t. I have the impression that this exhaust manifold runs slightly different, because access to the ’box’s filler plug is pretty awkward indeed. I’ve made a mental note to make an inspection opening in the transmission tunnel of ‘t Kreng when I start on that cars body. After that I filled up the cooling system. Only interesting thing there was that I needed 8,5 litres of coolant to fill the system compared to 7,5 litres for the original system. Clearly the capacity of the alloy radiator is much bigger than the standard one, definitely an added bonus.

And last but not least, I put 5 litres of fuel in the tank. After which it was time to start up the engine, at least I tried to. As there wasn’t a hint of combustion I presumed that there wasn’t any fuel getting to the carburettors. Probably that 5 litres isn’t enough to prime the fuel pump. At least I could see that the low-fuel warning light worked. So of to the local filling station with a few cans to get some more fuel. And with that in the tank the low-fuel warning light switched of, and after a few turns the engine spluttered into life!

I let it idle for some 20 minutes to see what happened, not much really. Temperature is fine coming up the scale and remaining in one position ones on temperature. Will need a bit of fine tuning.
With the engine on temperature last thing to do was change the oil and the filter. As the engine had been standing some 16 months I thought it better to start her up on the old oil to wash out any stuff that had come into it while in storage and put new oil in after that.

And before I put the car back on its wheels I checked for leaks, which I found, but only one. The front of the rocker cover. Due to the temperature and the oil the new cork seal had softened as a result of which it didn’t seal properly. Easily sorted by tightening the nuts and bolts a bit.

This evening we tackled the last major job, fitting the front screen. Last time we did one in a TR7 was on ‘t Kreng in 1996. The process was still the same only the materials and tools have evolved a bit over the years. I decided to use one of my top spare parts, in this case a brand new, original Triplex screen I have had lying for many years now ...

First it had to be cleaned a bit ...

After which the screen’s edge was treated with a black primer ...

and the wind screen surround with a transparent primer (not very visible) ...

After that the sealant was applied to the front screen ...

And the screen was fitted to the car ...

I was a bit too quick here as a result I’ll have to live with a bit of visible sealant for the next few years.
With the front screen positioned correctly last thing to do was fit the front screen finisher ...

A day well spent :-)

DHC report nr. 95; Systems check

2010-06-02T19:26:00.000+02:00

On Monday I started with a check all systems. First one were the brakes, bleeding them and checking all unions for leaks. There were none ... I thought. When I returned to the car on Tuesday there was a damp patch underneath one of the front callipers, and there was a drop of brake fluid hanging at the bottom of that calliper. I presumed it to be from a very minor spillage when I loosened the bleed nipple too much. But just to be sure I cleaned up the suspect area on the calliper and put a piece of clean paper underneath to give the exact position if there was a leak. It turned out there wasn’t one.
After Bleeding the brakes the obvious thing to do was bleed the clutch. This time definitely no leaks and we managed to get all air out fairly quickly. It is not unusual on these cars that bleeding the clutch can be a real pain.

As I was lying underneath the car I carried on with the adjusting the hand brake cable. Hand brake lever still has a fair bit off travel, but I presume that with the servo in operation, the brake shoes will adjust a little more. So should be OK.

Yesterday was the big day, or the dreaded one, time to connect the battery and check all the electrics. With a battery in place there at least was no smoke or smell of scorching wires. And when opening the door, I was welcomed by the interior lights, at least one thing that works.
I started with the lights at the rear. Rear lights, reversing lights, licence plate illumination and indicators (including hazard) working fine. And the brake lights were also working fine, even with me standing outside the car. Clearly something wrong. A quick check with the multi meter showed that the switch was always switched on. This could only mean two things, either the switch was faulty, which it wasn’t, or I fitted it incorrect, which I did. I fitted the shims/washers on the wrong side of the bracket. With these on the correct side the brake lights worked as they should, or don’t as they shouldn’t. Most obvious is that they are much brighter with the inside of the clusters coated with chrome paint. And much cheaper than LED’s ...

While checking the rear I already noticed that up front something was fairly wrong. Everything worked fine, safe for the headlamp lift motors. Switching of the lights raised them, switching on the lights lowered them, clearly not good. First thoughts were that I fitted the wires incorrect to the connectors, but that didn’t explain the fact that the lights didn’t raise fully. And of course I refuse to accept that I make that kind of mistake. So time for a little experiment. I crawled underneath the front of the car to disconnect the levers that attach directly to the motors, and raised the pods manually. After that I switched on the lights and disconnected the battery. 5 Minutes fiddling with the little levers later and the headlamps raised and lowered as they should! I mounted the levers the wrong way round ...

To end the day I checked the instrument panel where possible, horns (very loud), wiper motor, screen washer, heater and starter motor. Everything works fine so far. More checks to follow in preparation for its MOT on Monday and insurance valuation on Wednesday ...

DHC report nr. 94; Two steps backwards

2010-05-29T21:50:00.009+02:00

In the past week it was mostly sorting various problems. The first problem I tackled were the two faulty brake pipes on the rear axle. These were supplied with incorrect end fittings ...

As the fitting were too short they not only were very difficult to fit (and remove ...), they also didn’t seal properly. So after a phone call a new set was collected from C&C Parts earlier in the week, after which it was again time to get the little brake-pipe-bending tool out and bent them in the correct shape.

With the pipes in the correct shape fitting them to the axle turned out to be a much easier exercise with the correct fittings.

The other problem, and a serious one, was the central dashboard vent. One side of which didn’t seat properly, as a result of which the upper right hand corner stuck out some 5 millimetres. Not very worrying if you don’t notice it, but I did. And every time I looked at the dashboard it irritated me. So this one needed to get sorted properly. After two unsuccessful attempts over the past week I decided to go for a little bodge job, but for that I had to dismantle part of the dashboard. Also loosened all mounting screws and bolts to give me as much freedom of movement as possible without having to remove the complete dashboard ...

With all necessary parts removed I found out that there was no room for the bodge repair I had in mind. But I also found out what caused the problem. It was actually a combination of several alignment problems (heater, instrument panel and dashboard) combined with the new rubber seals. To cut a long story short, I removed the vents completely, removed the seals and replaced these with thinner ones. And after reshuffling everything were possible the vents clicked in place as they were meant to do. Will probably sleep much better tonight :-)

Next job was fitting the oil cooler and connecting it to the engine. I wanted to re-use the old oil cooler but with new hoses, as the old braided ones were looking rather frayed and scruffy. But while trying to remove the hoses from the old oil cooler, to measure the fittings, the spanner, supporting the fitting on the oil cooler, slipped off. As a result of which the full force of the 24mm spanner I was using to undo the hose fitting, was released on the alloy cooler, which it didn’t survive. So a new one was ordered together with new hose and hose fittings ...

Making up the new hoses went pretty quickly once I worked out how best to tackle it. And fitting everything to the car was rather easy. Although I was glad when everything was connected without shearing of one the cooler’s fittings ...

And with the hoses connected to the engine I could at last put the air filters back on the carburettors.

Only the smaller coolant hoses remain to be fitted, together with the exhaust clamps and the bonnet lock. After that filling her up with all the necessary fluids, bleed the clutch and brakes, check all systems, bond in a new wind screen, fit wipers and ...

DHC report nr. 93; After the wedding ...

2010-05-23T22:28:00.004+02:00

With the engine fitted last weekend, I had the opportunity to spent my time on all kinds of small jobs. I now could go over to the shed in the evening and work for an hour or so and return home. Which I found rather relaxing after the rush of the two weeks work holiday before that.
The first job to tackle was the gearlever. Should have been straightforward, but I had to dismantle part of the centre console because the carpet at the back of the gearlever opening was in the way. The offending carpet can be seen in this picture ...

But with the console out of the way the carpet could be trimmed easily, after which everything fitted nicely. Love the looks of the interior ....

With the interior bits sorted I switched my attention to the engine bay, to finish everything there. First job was finishing the engine itself, by fitting some freshly coated parts to it. I did have some mixed feelings about using the engine as it is, but that was mainly because of its looks. Due to its age it proved rather difficult to get it cleaned properly. And I didn’t want to take it apart because it is a very sound engine which produces 135 BHP with good torque and fuel economy. So I was well pleased with how the internals underneath the cam cover looked ...

... when I removed it to replace it with a nicely coated black item ...

Followed by connecting up the accelerator and choke cables to the carburettors. Even though the choke cable is very slightly frayed at the end connecting the cables went very smooth indeed. I’ve made a mental note though, to sort out a good linkage in the (hopefully near) future and have it zinc plated, together with a set of refurbished SU’s maybe ...

Next on the to do list was fitting the alternator. But before that I used the opportunity, and the remaining bolt hole on that side of the engine, to fit an extra earth strap between the engine and the car’s body. As good earth points are essential for a cars reliability I usually add a few extra ones. Another one is connected from the bell housing to the transmission tunnel.

Sorting the wiring to either the alternator ...

and the starter motor took slightly longer ...

Due to the loom’s new tape wrapping it had lost its original shape, resulting in a bit of a puzzle how it should go around the back of the engine. But with a bit of reshuffling I got all connectors lined up pretty nicely, so I could fixate them with the ties at the back of the engine.

After that it was the turn of the various coolant hoses to be fitted. But I forgot to get the proper jubilee clips to fit the smaller diameter ones. So those have to wait till that slight omission is sorted.

And to finish the main bulk of connecting up everything, I turned my attention to the exhaust manifold. As I have had some pretty bad experiences with tubular manifolds in the past I tackled this job with some reserve. I had a tubular manifold on the car, but that was well and truly past its prime by now. So I was going to use my spare manifold, which I bought from S&S Preparations a few years ago. I shouldn’t have worried, it dropped in with very few problems indeed ...

After which I moved underneath the car to fit the rest of the exhaust system, the prop shaft and the speedometer cable.

Only real problem so far is that a nipple from one of the rear axles brake pipes is incorrect ( to short), as a result it doesn’t seal properly. So I’ll have to get myself a new one. Also as you can see the cable between coil and dizzy is too short ...
But all in all well pleased so far. The car should be ready for its MOT within the next one or two weeks.

DHC report nr. 92; The Marriage ...

2010-05-16T21:03:00.007+02:00

Today was the last day of my two week May holiday. And although there has been a fair amount of progress on th ecar over the past two weeks, today stood out. It was time to put the engine back in its designed habitat, the engine bay.
But first there were some small jobs to complete, like fitting wheels, cleaning the sump, fitting the lower engine mount and repairing some of the threads from the exhaust manifold bolts.
Turned out I misjudged the situation slightly yesterday evening. All threads had already been re-coiled in the past and were fine safe one. This one had come out of its designed hole, as a result of which it got damaged by the bolts thread. I only needed to remove the old insert, clean up the thread and insert a new one.
And by lunch time the engine was in the hoist, ready to be dropped back into the engine bay.

After lunch it was time for the big moment. With the engine at the correct angle in the hoist, the rear of the car jacked up as high as possible, and some wooden blocks under the front wheels for extra clearance the engine slid in pretty easily.

Only thing that took some time was aligning the two engine mounts properly. But after we agreed how to tackle this one, it slid onto its mounts fairly easily. After securing the engine on its mounts with some loosely (hand tight) fitted nuts, I fitted the rear mount under the gearbox. And while I was working underneath the car René found my camera ...

By now Robbie had come in to have a look at the progress and bring us some coffee, so time for a well deserved coffee break. After the break we fitted the ventilator and the radiator. And to finish a nice days work we fitted the bonnet. Now it really is coming together nicely. Can't wait to get her on the road!

Plan is to connect up everything and finish her over the coming week or two. And hopefully after that an MOT ...

DHC report nr. 91; Engine preparations ...

2010-05-15T23:17:00.007+02:00

... But first I finished the steering wheel, by fitting the spoke's padding ...

Over the past few days I have been working on the engine and gearbox. The engine was fully rebuilt and slightly tuned quite a long time ago. Actually it was fitted to the DHC in June 1993, and between then and the summer of 1998 (when the car was taken off the road) it covered some 50.000km. The gearbox is the original ‘box from ‘t Kreng. Have forgotten when I fitted that to the car, but probably in ‘95 or `96. By now it has covered somewhere between 100.000 and 120.000 km.

When I last drove the car both engine and ‘box behaved as they should. Only the clutch had a tendency to stick when the engine was cold. So that was the first thing to check. With the ’box removed there wasn’t anything obviously wrong with the clutch or the release mechanism.

OK there was some dirt on the splines and inside the release bearing carrier but not enough to cause the sticky clutch in my opinion. But when I took the release fork out I found that the slipper pads needed quite a bit of force to rotate them due to excessive contamination. With all parts cleaned thoroughly and with a thin film off grease on the moving surfaces everything moved freely so hopefully it should be OK now.
The clutch cover and driven plate were in pretty good condition (and with only 60.000 km behind them they should) so they were cleaned and put aside to be re-used, together with the various engine mounts I prepared ...

With the transmission sorted I set to work on the engine itself. I first attacked it with some degreaser in an attempt to clean it up a bit. Result isn’t brilliant, but then it is a well used, but also very sound engine, so it’ll have to do as it is. Next on the to do list was getting a fair bit of play out of the throttle linkage. Original design isn’t brilliant so I adapted an old Weber linkage I had lying around. Hopefully it is going to work as putting the old linkage back will be quite a fiddle with the engine in the car. But first impression is that the action is much smoother ...

With the engine mounts back on the engine I finished the day with refitting the gearbox. First thing (of course) was refitting the clutch assembly. Which isn’t that difficult as long as you use on if these simple, little and cheap tools ...

And with the clutch in place putting the gearbox back on was fairly straight forward.

Would have been quicker and easier if I had some help, but that is for tomorrow, when René is coming over to help with putting the engine back in the car.
And to finish a good days work I found out that several of the threads in the head for the exhaust manifold have been stripped, so need a recoil. Luckily I have a Helicoil set at home, so that is on the to do list for tomorrow too ...

DHC report nr. 90; Interior finished

2010-05-12T22:34:00.004+02:00

With the seats in place the “only” thing left to do on the interior was the centre console. The console itself (the part with the heater controls) wasn’t the problem, that slipped in place very easily. But before it could be fitted I first had to adapt it a bit to accommodate a simple radio. This is always a bit of a problem with the limited space available in a TR7’s console. First I just put the radio’s mounting sleeve in place and bent a few of the tabs to keep it in place. But due to the angled position that was not going to work. So plan B was put into operation, I glued the sleeve in place with some heavy duty window sealant/glue. And with the sleeve in place the centre console was put aside for the time being, so the sealant could cure a bit.

Next job, and the most dreaded so far, was getting the wiring for the radio and some extra interior lights sorted. This took me nearly all of the afternoon. But I got it sorted in the end ...

Then came the most difficult bit, connecting everything up to the centre console. But after a bit of a fiddle I managed to get everything connected. And as I already stated the console slipped in place without a problem.
Left me with the centre piece of the console, which surrounds the gearlever. As space is tight to fit this one with the control console in place, I opted to put it in place loosely before fitting the control console. As the handbrake cable isn’t adjusted yet I could pull the hand brake lever right up enabling me to push the centre console backwards to give me more than enough working space. Only problem I encountered here was the seam in the centre of the transmission tunnel carpet which was to thick, so I had to cut part of the seam out. After which everything fitted quite nicely. And to finish the interior I connected the radio to its wiring and slipped it in place. Very pleased with the overall look ...

Last bit, cleaning and checking the engine and gearbox and putting it in the car ...

DHC report nr. 89; Seats & more

2010-05-10T20:55:00.006+02:00

Yesterday morning I took the seats for the DHC down from the attic, where they had been stored for nearly 12 years. First thing was to give them a thorough treatment with some hide food. And after wiping them of today, I brought them over to the shed to put them in the car. But first I had to finish the last bit of the dashboard, fitting and connecting up the dashboard loom to the instrument panel ...

If I hadn’t forgotten to look at one of the many pictures I took when dismantling the car, I wouldn’t have had to return home to see how these four wires had to be connected to their respective warning light ...

With the wiring and cables sorted, fitting the instrument panel and shroud was the proverbial piece of cake ...

Having to return home meant a slightly belated lunch break, after which it was time to put the seats back in the car. Took a far amount of time, especially enlarging the holes in the floor carpets to accommodate the seat’s frame spacers. But with the holes enlarged, fitting the seats themselves again was pretty straightforward. Only the least accessible bolt on both seats put up a bit of a fight, which they both lost. And to finish a good day’s work I fitted the steering wheel and the arm rest, but the last one was fitted as an afterthought, so after I put away the camera ...

And when I returned home there was this large package waiting for me, containing this rather lovely alloy radiator. Ordered it through Robsport, and have to say it took a little bit longer than expected but still in time to fit in the slightly stretched time schedule. But it’s been worth the wait, the quality of the work looks very good indeed ...

Ordered this one with an update of 't Kreng’s coolant system in mind. See how the engine behaves, as this radiator should be more efficient than the original one.

DHC report nr. 88; Fitting dashboard

2010-05-09T21:13:00.004+02:00

After I finished the trim around the hood stowage area, I continued with fitting the hood pivot cover and the floor carpets. Although not very difficult it was rather time consuming, especially marking and cutting the various holes for mounting points, cable passages or steering column ..

Visible in the last picture is a very useful piece of kit to locate screw holes behind a carpet, a pop-rivet. Also clear with flash photography is the amount of dust on the trim parts. Luckily it wipes of very easily with a damp cloth.

With the carpets sorted I went over the wiring in preparation for the fitting of the dashboard to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything (which I had ...) and fitted some extra interior lights in some strategic places like footwells and glove/fuse box. These will be switched through a normal but hidden switch. Gave me some headaches to work out how best to supply them with power (I wanted them to work without the ignition being switched on) but got that sorted by using a direct supply from the battery. Handy as I need power directly from the battery for the radio ... But in the end I got everything sorted in preparation for the fitment of the dashboard ...

And after a short tea break I started on the dashboard itself, although I nearly managed to damage the cars paint work very seriously first. While walking to the car wit the dash’ in hand I nearly lost my balance. This resulted in the dashboard hitting the side of the right-hand rear wing leaving me with a very nasty looking black mark on the paint. Turned out to be excess coating from the dashboard which luckily could be polished of quite easily, phew ...
The actual fitting of the dashboard was a bit of an anti climax as it went in fairly easy. I think it only took me about half an hour to put it in place, get it aligned properly and put in all the screws. Looks lovely in “all black” ...

To finish the day I fitted the steering column switches and the switches’ nacelle. This one really put up a fight. Took me an hour and a half to get it in place. Whatever I tried the two halves just didn’t want to fit together properly. There was just to much tension on them. In the end I had to undo the steering column bolts and dashboard’s screws alongside the column to get the tension of. Which did the trick in the end, the nacelle slipped in without a problem and even the slim long bolts slipped into place as they should ...

Also fitted the mud flaps. As their mounting holes were drilled and fitted with threaded inserts before the car went away for coating this was a rather straightforward job. Only need to fabricate two small brackets for the inside mounting points of the rear mud flaps. And hopefully I find some decent stuff to make some new ones, as the ones I have on the car now have seen better days ...

DHC report nr. 87; Trim ...

2010-05-05T22:00:00.004+02:00

With the doors finished I switched my attention to the interior. First I sorted the last bit of dashboard wiring, which took me quite a while.

And while busying myself with the wiring yesterday I got a phone call from the trimmer telling me that the sun visors and footwell mats were ready. So yesterday afternoon I picked them up. Must say he again did a great job on both.

Sun visor before ...

And after refurbishing with one of the footwell mats as background ...

With these fitted I busied myself with the preparations for the work today, for which I needed a second pair of hands, fitting the front bumper and the convertible hood. As he is free from work on Wednesday afternoons, I asked René to help me out. So this afternoon we went over to the shed.
We started on the messy bit, the front bumper. This first needed a liberal dose of wax-oil. While René was happily injecting wax-oil into the bumper bar I laid out all the nuts and washers ready for use. And with the wax-oil still dripping from the bumper we fitted the indicator/side lights and mounting blocks. After which the bumper could be mounted to the car. It needed a few attempts to get a fairly decent fit. It still droops slightly at the ends but it is now much better as it used to be, so I’ll leave it as it is ...

Next came the hood, which shouldn’t be that difficult to put in. Just a matter of taking it out of storage, drop the whole assembly into the car, fixate with one bolt on each side, pull the hood up and fix remaining two bolts. With the hood thus in place the rear was fitted to the car’s rear deck, after which we pulled the hood assembly upwards to nicely stretch the hood and tighten up the four main bolts. Easy ...

Only thing left to do was mark various holes onto the tunnel carpet. This is so much easier when you have some help! After which it was high time for a tea break, after which it was time for René to head home and me to head back to the shed for some finishing touches, like fitting the rear bulkhead trim panel and starting with the carpets ...

And in between I fitted the handbrake cable, new door seals (the ones I got first were too short but they were exchanged for correct ones) and radiator and oil cooler supports.

DHC report nr. 86; Doors finished at last

2010-05-01T22:57:00.007+02:00

Last week I returned the door cards to the guy who re-trimmed them to have the upper seals swapped. Also made use of the opportunity to drop of a pair of sun visors that need refurbishing, and an old pair of footwell mats to use as pattern for a new pair. Maybe they’ll be ready this week ...
He was kind enough to swap the seals immediately so I could take them home with me.

In between other commitments yesterday I found a few spare hours to work on the car. First thing to do was undo a fair bit of work ...
While working steadily through my boxes with parts I found a small bracket last week which was put in the wrong box, and thus forgotten when I fitted the supports for the dashboard.

It’s the lower left-hand mounting bracket. Luckily easy to put right as it is only a matter of undoing the bolt, add the bracket and fit everything. And that of course was too easy, so the thread of the mounting clip in the A-post decided to call it a day. As there was only one way to get this sorted the steering column support had to come out again, giving access to the faulty clip ...

Luckily I could retrieve a good one from one of the body shells I have lying around. Allowing me to put everything back in place.

After that it was time to have a second attempt at installing the left-hand door card. This time it slid in place quite easily, as it should. Only to find out I had forgotten to take some 4.8 mm connectors with me to fit to the wiring harness. Can’t use the original 6.3mm connectors as I am using slightly different Peugeot/Citroën interior lights, which have smaller contact spades. As the scheduled time was up I called it a day and headed home to prepare for the Koninginnedag festivities ...

This morning I started with cleaning the ash trays and the hub caps for the steel wheels, and after lunch I headed for the shed. This time with all the connectors I could find!
First I finished the left-hand door. Only the interior light had a bit of a mind of its own. It didn’t want to fit in it’s aperture. But some trimming of the plastic surround with a penknife sorted this.
Next job was to get the wiring for the map-reading-light sorted. Took a fair bit of time, but with this sorted and the map light taped in place temporarily, the door card could be fitted. Only to find out that this seal was either placed to far forward or it was too long. It looked as if it was stretched lightly so I cut of a few millimetres at the front after which it fitted perfectly.
Sadly I was a bit overenthusiastic and didn’t notice that the wires for the interior light had slipped out of the aperture. I only noticed this when I was nearly finished, only had to fit the light itself ... damn!
So of with everything, undo the door card’s clips and retrieve the wires from inside the door, and put everything back in place. Only to find out that the map-reading-light couldn’t be mounted as I had thought. So everything of again! Really getting the hang of it now, but this was third time lucky ...

After that I really thought it time to call it a day. But not before I trial fitted one of the steel wheels together with one of the hub caps I intend to use. Suits the car very well, very 70’s ...

DHC report nr. 85; Mixed feelings

2010-04-25T21:07:00.007+02:00

Some small but steady progress over the past few weeks. But this weekend I encountered a few fairly minor setbacks, which can have quite a big impact on my overall work schedule in the end ..
This weekend the plan was to finish the doors completely. First thing to do was fit the door mirrors. This went pretty smoothly and within an hour both mirrors were in place ...

After that I made a half-hearted attempt to fit the windscreen side finishers. But as they put up a bit of a fight, I put them aside and continued with the inside of the doors. First thing to do was change the connectors of the speaker wires, as I am not going to use the original speakers in the car. Here I encountered the first set back, I ran out of the correct connectors. Searching through my own parts stock and that of some friends turned up nearly all the connectors I needed, but not quite. I am still missing one. But at least this enabled me to finish one door completely. So with the wiring of the left hand door sorted ...

I took the inside door card, connected the wiring to the speakers and fed the courtesy light wires through the light hole. Only to find out that the door card didn’t fit to the door anymore. After a few futile attempts and with the help of another door card I noticed why. During refurbishing, the window seals have been swapped, as a result it doesn’t fit anymore. So I’ll have to go back to the car trimmer to have this rectified.

With nothing better to do I made another attempt at fitting the windscreen side finisher. This time they slid on pretty smoothly. But I managed to damage one slightly nonetheless, but only real TR7 anoraks will notice this! And as this job went pretty smoothly I had a go at the sill mouldings underneath the doors. Can’t say they went on smoothly but didn’t take much more than half an hour. Really starting to look like the finished car I had in mind when I started on this project ...

And to help with the overall picture, I trial fitted the wheels, I shouldn’t have done that. As I forgot to remove the coating from the centring holes, as a result it took me almost half an hour to get them both of again.

As you can see I couldn’t make up my mind which wheels to use, so I prepared two sets. The “driving” set consists of banded TR7 steel wheels (6” instead of 5,5”) with pretty soft road legal Yokohama A-021R racing tyres. The “Sunday” set consists of refurbished original TR7 alloys with normal Continental 185/70R13 roadtyres.

DHC report nr. 84; RH door mechanism

2010-04-19T22:13:00.004+02:00

Picked up the newly coated wheels today, piccies to follow. Fitting the tyres is scheduled for Thursday.
After a weekend spent on other things than the car I went over to the shed for a bit of work.
Managed to get the RH door handle and latches fitted. Only thing that didn’t go to plan was the door windows rear channel. I shouldn’t have fitted it before the latch mechanism. But luckily it came out pretty easy.
With the rear channel removed fitting the door handles, latches, etc. was rather straightforward ...

The door catches on the B-post. As they were fitted last week the only needed aligning

The doors inside latch mechanism ...

The doors outside latch mechanism ...

The inside door handle ...

And with the various parts in place it was time to align everything to get a proper closing door. Very pleased with the alignment, the way it closes and the looks of the all black door handle.