It's official!

I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Office today. It contained the official statement that the 1976 FHC, which I am currently restoring, was first registered 40 years ago on October the 6th of this year. And as such it will be tax exempt from that date on ...

Next question of course is, how long that is going to last? As I received two similar letters for both my other TR7's. That was when they turned 25. But that limit was changed to 40 a few years ago. Time will tell how long it will last now ...

Also the date on the letter is interesting as it dates from 21 July 2016. Back to the future!

Another MOT

Last month I took the DHC for its biennial MOT, and today it was the turn for 't Kreng. As with the DHC last month I only got round for the most basic of checks of some of the essential items. And luckily nothing was wrong, so earlier this Wednesday I again drove over to a friend's workshop to have the car tested.

As expected not much wrong with the first stage of the test, checking that brakes, lights, wipers etc. work properly. Everything did, even the wipers :-). And although I found the CO slightly high (@ 4,1 %) it did pass without adjustment as it was below 4,5%.

On to the next stage, the suspension and brake lines. Again everything fine except the front suspension. Where we of course had a bit of a discussion. The mechanic thought that the LH steering rod end and the steering rod had some play. But after I replaced the track rod ends and adjusted the wheel bearings everything was fine.

I did make myself a mental note though. With the suspension on full droop there is some play inside the RH front strut assembly. Nothing worrying yet but after 10 years of use and abuse a full service of the AST struts looks near.

And while the mechanic was pouring over  my car in search of any faults I admired the cars standing around ...

I even managed to lay my hands on a small but vital part for the FHC I am currently restoring. In a TR7 he is currently breaking I found this undamaged early interior light. A bit of elbow grease should get it back to its former glory ...

Gearbox oil change DHC

Although the weather is slowly but surely improving, we haven't seen much summer so far. Though we can't complain about a lack of rain! And as a result the DHC hasn't seen much action so far. Actually I only drove her to a friend's workshop for its biennial MOT and back. And while driving home I thought I could hear a very slight whining noise which seemed to be coming from the gearbox. But only under prolonged braking/retardation. As the gear changes were rather good I didn't pay much attention to it. But it kept nagging at the back of my mind.

So for peace of mind I decided to check the oil in the gearbox today. Initial plan was to just top up the oil level. But bearing in mind the awkward position of the filler/level plug and the fact that the previous time I drained the oil it had been rather murky, with lots of swarf on the drain plug, I decided it would be better to drain the 'box and refill it with fresh oil. Removing the drain plug revealed a plug that still did contain a bit of swarf but notably less compared with previous time ...

And the oil that came out did contain only very little contamination, but most importantly no swarf from the synchromesh rings or the gears ...

Time to refit the drain plug, remove the filler plug and put 1,6 litre of Castrol Syntrans Multivehicle 75W90 in. Easier said than done when you are lying underneath the car with a rather inaccessible filler hole! Luckily I did have a bit of PVC tubing lying around, which, together with a funnel, makes life so much easier (thx for the tip Phil) ...

With the 'box refilled I turned my attention to the drained oil. I always use the containers from the new oil to store the old oil. And I was mildly surprised to see that all the drained oil fitted inside one 1 litre container. With a little room to spare! Clearly the small oil leak I noticed last year in preparation for Club Triumph's 10CR needs rectifying sooner rather than later ...