Lots of things going on

Been rather busy with Triumph related stuff over the past few weeks. But first a little milepost in the life of Baerke, my little Land Rover. The previous Saturday morning, while en-route to a friend, the odometer passed the 100.000 kilometres.

On arrival at my destiny I was greeted by the job for the day, this rather different (or should I say tasteless) looking TR7 ...

The appointed task was dismantling the interior of this car completely so we can transport it to a (more or less) local roll cage manufacturer to discuss the possibilities/detailing for two custom cages and get a price offer.

Whilst working through the various parts of the interior we encountered lots of botch jobs, some so bad that you start to wonder what inspired the previous owner to do this. Of course there were loads of wiring bodges, lots of extra gauges and switches, and rather dodgy seat mounts.

But the biggest surprises came after the interior and all (glued!!!) carpets were removed and we put the car on the lift for some measurements for the sump guard. The bad news is that all cavities (sills, chassis legs etc.) have been injected with PUR foam. So now looking for a course in PUR foam removal. The good news is that the car is pretty solid, so a pretty good basis for a rally car, after all the foam is removed that is.

Some progress on the DHC. I received some brand new original TR7 steel wheels recently to replace the previous set. This set was a bit of a mixed bag of problems. One wheel had an air leak through the rim, one had a leak though one of the spot welds that secures the centre to the rim, and one had oxidation inside the steel causing a part porous weld while banding it. And the only good wheel got damaged by a piece of rock "crossing the road".

The new set was dropped of at a workshop last week to have them banded, from 5,5J to 6J just like the previous set. And as they will be used for more sticky tyres (again Yokohama A021-R, 185⁄70 R13) I have decided to go for something different and more aggressive for their colour. The general opinion so far is "Don't Like", but then I was never good at following sound advice. A little bit of Photo-shopping to give an impression how it will look ...

Also been across the border into Germany to pick up an adjustable cam sprocket for the new Sprint engine, and get some info on fabrication of the bits needed for the 5 or 6 link back axle location. Turned out there are even more firms in the area where I live that are able and possibly willing to do small quantity or one of jobs then I imagined.

And yesterday we had the traditional start of the "official" driving season, the already 10th edition of the "Nacht van het Oosten", better known as the Chinese Rally. Sadly I haven't had the time/motivation/conditions to prepare 't Kreng, so the Land Rover was put into action for this one. Which was surprisingly good fun. Again a good event with some interesting cars at the start...

And some of the usual suspects who found their way across the pond ...