FHC resto nr. 51; Parts coating

A few weeks ago the repairs to the air-box-lid were finished, so all parts that should be powder- or E-coated were ready. And I am glad that I managed to drop of this batch of parts for paint removal, shot blasting and coating yesterday. It was slightly later than planned, but that's the price you pay when you have to much spare parts to search through. And the fact that these parts are spread over three locations and two countries doesn't help here either. But in the end I got everything sorted. A small selection ...

And to prevent any mistakes as to what part should get which coating or colour I decided to make an inventory of all the parts (Those of you who have been following this blog will notice that there are also a few parts there that will be used on my other TR7's)...

Added advantage is that both the coating company and I have a checklist to work from. And thus it should make life a lot easier. And if all goes to plan all parts should be ready within a week or two. When they return I can start on some proper restoration jobs, like assembling the heater, and cleaning and coating the inside of the fuel tank.

As you can see it looks pretty solid from the outside, and it was actually rather mint on the inside too when I pulled it from the car. But some 3 years in storage has resulted in a fair amount of surface rust on the inside. So once it returns I'll have to visit a local supplier to get me some Tank Cure to attack the inside!

The start of the driving season ...

After a bit of a false start for 't Kreng I actually managed to get her back on the road last week. Wanted to take her out for a short test run in preparation for the Nacht van het Oosten, which actually turned out a bit longer than planned. Not because something went wrong but because it was good fun. But when I got home and went over the engine bay after everything had cooled down a bit, I found these traces of coolant around the waterpump cover ...

Bugger! Clearly the leak is coming from the infamous connecting tube (UKC2538) between the water pump cover and the thermostat cover. As there was no visible loss of coolant in the header tank I decided to ignore it for the time being and hope for the best. This was mainly given in by the fact that I didn't have time to repair the leak or swap cars and go over the DHC in preparation for the Nacht van het Oosten in the time remaining for the event.

So while travelling up North towards the start I kept an anxious eye on the temperature gauge, but the needle remained rock steady between the 1/4 and 1/2 mark. And a last check before the start showed a complete dry area around the waterpump cover. Time for a (one sided :-) look at some of the other cars.

©GTRoger

©GTRoger

The rally itself again was very good fun. 180 Kilometres of rather challenging narrow winding country lanes around the Salland area in Overijsel, with a wide variety of surfaces, ranging from smooth tarmac to forest tracks. Which from far above looks like this ...

And I needn't have worried about the car, she behaved absolutely fabulous. It was almost as if she tried to persuade me to use her more often. Even the leak seemed to have disappeared completely. But on arrival home next day there were again some traces of coolant around the waterpump cover. See how it develops, but I have a feeling that the manifold will have to come of sooner rather than later!

Not the start of the driving season ...

With February behind us, the mandatory three month hibernation for my TR7's is over for another year. And because I am enjoying a short holiday the plan was to give 't Kreng a short check up in the morning, and take her for a ride in the afternoon. All under the pretence of preparing for the first event of the  year "De Nacht van het Oosten" just over a week away.

As the car had behaved rather well last time I drove her I didn't expect much wrong. My main worry were the front bearings but they turned out to be OK. So I changed my attention to the fluid levels; coolant and brakes were up to their normal level. Not so for the clutch fluid. After removing the cap I was greeted by a rather empty reservoir ...

A quick inspection under the bonnet and in the interior with a small torch, showed that the master cylinder had no visible signs of any leaks. Safe to assume the leak was elsewhere. And there is not much else on the car were clutch fluid can leak, the slave cylinder. As this cylinder (as usual) was covered in all sorts of oily muck it was impossible to say whether it was leaking or not. So only one way to find out. And that is by removing it. With the two mounting bolts removed I carefully took the slave cylinder of (as in not to dislodge the push rod). Once free of the push rod the damage immediately became clear as a fair amount of fluid spilled out through the opening of the dirt cover ...

Initial plan was to use some new seals to rebuild the slave cylinder, but whilst searching for the correct seals I found two reconditioned slave cylinders in the same box. So I opted for replacing instead! Sadly it wasn't as straight forward as that. With everything cleaned and the new slave cylinder firmly in place I found out that the connecting hole for the flexible hose was deeper in comparison to the old cylinder. As a result of which I couldn't fully tighten the connector. At that time I remembered that the guy who made the flex hoses for me many years ago also supplied some copper seals, just in case. Glad that I remembered where I stored them.

Sadly there was nobody around to help with bleeding the clutch so with everything connected up it was time to store the tools and pull the cover back over the car. And time for a closer look at the leaking slave cylinder. Glad I made the decision I did, as there are some score marks on the piston the inside of the old cylinder has some patches of rust and scoring of the bore ...

Hopefully back on the road soon!