Triumph Festival Durbuy

As the weather forecast for this Sunday was rather nice we (Rene(Dolly 1850), Leon (Stag) and I (shabby TR7) decided to go to the annual "Triumph Festival". This event, which is organised by the Belgian Triumph Club, was held at the rather pretty little town of Durbuy. Initial plan was to go there with our little rogue Triumph group on the Saturday and stay for the weekend, but sadly due to all sorts of circumstances that wasn't possible this year. So the three of us gathered near the Belgium border this morning and set off to Durbuy.

Rene (Mr. Nachtrit) had chosen a nice route to Durbuy. He only forgot to tell that to the local farmer who held us up with his tractor for quite a while. After that we were only held up for a couple of miles by an old chap who didn't know that his Renault had more than just one forward gear. And to make matters worse someone had scattered some three cars haphazardly across a junction, but even this accident couldn't refrain us from reaching Durbuy in the end;

Nice background for over 200 Triumphs.

Some of the culprits mirrored in the bonnet of one of the many British entrants' cars.

The meeting itself , well it's just a meeting. Drop the car in the parking lot in a nice little village and enjoy the rest of the day. They usually do have a scenic route to drive, but we already had seen all the scenic routes so we went off into town to have something to eat and drink (yes CT the club that dines ...). 

After strolling through the town and having a chat with Andy Flexney who was there with some of the guys from the TR IG SüdWest it already was time to return home. This time all the mobile and slow moving chicanes stayed at home!

Fiddling with the carbs

As the carburettors were off the car for the water pump change, it was time to make a tiny change to the throttle linkage. Originally the carburettors were supplied with a linkage rod with a left and right-hand thread for better adjustment. But this one was actually a little short if the throttle mechanism had to be mounted underneath the carburettors, as is the case with 't Kreng. As a result I had to put the linkage rod in the middle hole of the lever, resulting in a rather long stroke for the throttle pedal.

With the original (Weber) rods and ball joints being rather expensive and too short I opted for a pair of normal threaded ball joints and 1,0 meter off M5 threaded rod. As the ball joints are at a 90° angle it shouldn't be a problem to get the rod at the correct length. The original linkage rod with only very little thread inside the ball joints;

And the "homemade" one;

When I took the old linkage from the car I was rather pleased with the fact that I ordered new ball joints as the original ones were rather worn out after 80.000 km. And with the new rod at the correct length it was time to give the linkage mechanism a good clean and some lubrication were needed;

After which it was a matter of reassembling everything and put it back on the car;

Although the linkage rod isn't that much longer now, I needed to screw out the throttle pedal stop about 5 mm. Which means I actually shortened the pedal's travel by several centimetres! Well pleased with that. A test drive is scheduled tomorrow to see how it all works!

Changing waterpump

With the 10CR over and the worn front bearings on the DHC sorted I could switch my attention back to 't Kreng. Changing the water pump to be precise. For those who are familiar with the slant four engine know it is quite a lot of work. After draining the coolant you need to remove the inlet manifold so you can reach the pump cover;

With the inlet manifold removed it was simply a matter of taking the pump cover off. Luckily in my case I put some anti-seize-paste on it when I assembled this engine 11 years ago so it came off without any problem. Advantage here is that the cover was mounted with ordinary bolts instead of studs which were also used on TR7 engines. With the bolts removed from the cover you can twist it a bit so that it's easier to break any seal or bond.

The same applied for the pump itself, when I wanted to undo the nut on top it came out all by itself. Only the brass cage put up a bit off a fight. But that was fairly quickly solved. First the cage was loosened by tapping it with a hammer and drift to break the seal;

After which the cage could be levered out using two screwdrivers;

From then on it was all straightforward, cleaning all mating faces;

Putting new gaskets in and putting everything back together. I opted for the easy way (hopefully). As I had a fairly new used pump lying around I put that one in instead of reconditioning the old one.

The only things left for tomorrow are to reconnect the carburettors and refill the coolant system with fresh coolant.

10CR statistics and aftermath

The 10CR in numbers for car 20;

• 3007 km;
• 276 litres fuel;
• ¼ litre of oil
• Fuel consumption 1 : 10,9 (30.8 mpg).

During the run the car developed a slight rumble, especially noticeable at constant speeds. Also at certain speeds and road surfaces there was a slight vibration in the car giving a rather nasty sounding rattle in the steering column. Also, and that was the giveaway, the pedal stroke for the brakes became longer. So yesterday I had a closer look at the front bearings;

First check off course was turn the wheels by hand, this gave some rumbling sounds from the bearings. Also there was quite a lot of play on the left-hand bearing, I could move the wheel inside out for some 5 mm. After I got the bearings out and washed them, the damage was quite clear;

Not very good, on the other hand they covered some 85.000 km including numerous Night rally's, 3 trashes through the Alps and several trips to Britain just to name a few. The right-hand was much better but also started showing signs of wear. So nothing else I could do but put some new bearings in, that should improve things!

Hopefully will get a full report on our 10CR online somewhere next week.

As ready as can be for the 10CR

After the carburettors were reinstalled it was time to change the rear oil seal from the gearbox and inspect the differential and put new oil in;

By the look of it the differential should be OK. Also hardly any backlash on the gears and fairly free of funny noises. Only some very slight whining on overrun. Which can't be said of the gearbox, I should have picked another one to put under the car by the sound of it. There is a fair amount of rattling now after over 2000 km's (on idle and 'box in neutral). Also the gear change hasn't improved much!.

While thinking over what spares I should take with me, one of the first to spring to mind was an alternator. As I have two reconditioned ones in the attic that shouldn't be a problem. Only that you are dragging the spare all over Europe! So after checking the one that was in the car I decided that it would be better to put a reconditioned one under the bonnet instead of in the boot. After driving it I have to admit that the car is a bit quieter now;

The last job I did today was put the new tyres on the car. Looks much better now that the arches are filled slightly more. Which immediately got me to the next problem. In true TR7 style the back axle on this car sits off centre, to the right to be precise. Funny in that all my TR7's have the same deviation. While driving this shows by the right hand rear wheel scraping the rear wing. But not anymore, thanks to a round table leg (between wheel and rear wing) and some brute force (me standing on the rear bumper) this was fairly easily sorted.

Also did a 40 km test run in the dark tonight to see how the lights work. Let’s call it adequate, interior and instrument lights are perfect, dip beam is as good as can be, but the main beam is not really what you'd call confidence inspiring. On the other hand most night-time driving during the 10CR will be on through roads so that shouldn't be much off a problem (famous last words!).

So car number 20 should be ready for the 10CR. Last thing to do is give her a polish tomorrow and get everything packed.

Nearly there

Collected the wheels with the new tyres yesterday. Had hoped to have them on the car by now ... But working on the carburettors has taken a bit more time than expected. I took them of last Wednesday but hadn't an opportunity to work on them till yesterday. In between picking up the wheels I managed to dismantle the carburettors and give them a good clean and inspection. Despite the fact that the engine they are attached to had been idle for nine years before being put into the DHC there was not much wrong with them. Just a few perished seals and gaskets. Also the mounting rubbers were in quite a bad shape. They had some cracks on the outside but the inside revealed much worse damage;

As you can see the seal lip on the old mount (on the left) had started to fall apart. Luckily I still had a brand-new OS pair lying in the attic (on the right). At least that’s what they look like, but they were sold to me as reproductions. Only thing left to do was the rather straight forward task of putting the carburettors back on;

In an attempt to prolong the life of the mounting rubbers I used some cable ties. The idea is that they take a bit of load from the rubber mounts, thus preventing them from shearing off. So the only remaining jobs left to do under the bonnet are the fuel lines around the carburettors, put new air filters on (when they arrive in time that is). After that I only have to put the new oil seal in the gearbox and some new oil in the differential. And those wheels off course;