Last tour of the year

Today saw the by now traditional last tour of the year before my two current TR7's have to be tucked away for the months of December, January and February. As the weather forecast was rather poor I decided to leave the DHC in the shed and take 't Kreng for a final blast through the country. It was again good fun, also thanks to the sometimes slippery conditions!

At least one problem that reared its ugly head almost two years ago has solved itself. In other words the coolant leak from the water pump has completely vanished over the year. Probably caused by the frequent use the car got over the year. But this last trip also did remind me of some maintenance work that needs to be done to the car.

To start with the pedal's pivot points need lubrication, as they are starting to make squeaky noises. Another one is a thorough check of the drive line as there is a vibration and a slight rumble at certain road speeds; could be prop shaft related. And finally it sounds like the valve gear of the engine needs some new shims. Hopefully the weather won't be to cold this coming winter as I have to work on the car outside under the carport ...

And the final job I might do on the car if time allows this winter, is to shed some more weight by fitting these plastic side windows that have been lingering in the attic for far to long:

Will see what other jobs will come in between if any!

Signs of age for 't Kreng

The picture above is already well over 20 years old and taken about 8 months before the car returned back on the road early in the summer of 1997. Fast forward to the present day and the car is definitely starting to show it's age. Actually well over 10 years ago the first tiny signs of rust appeared in the seam between the rear light panel and the right hand rear wing started to appear. So far I have tried to prevent the rust from spreading with an occasional squirt of waxoil. But as this picture shows I was losing that battle:

Clearly more drastic measures were needed to stop the rust from spreading. Time to get the tools out. And after about 15 minutes of scraping and chiselling at the affected area the extend of the rust became clear:

Could have been worse! I could have gone for a nice and clean finish, but that would have taken many hours of work. And as the paint in the affected area is also starting to fade I went for the quick and dirty solution. Take a spray can with an epoxy based industrial rust converter and treat the affected area with a few liberal layers.

It won't win any awards but it should hold on long enough to prevent the rust from spreading before the car will get a full re-spray somewhere in the future ...

Hopefully I will be able to use this car for a few more trips before the end of the month, and its mandatory three month hibernation, which starts on the 1^st of December.

Still enjoying a fine autumn

So far this autumn has turned out to be very fine indeed. And although the maximum temperatures have dropped to around 10°C in the afternoon, it is still rather enjoyable. This meant that the DHC has seen some extra action. The fact that it is rather quiet at work at the moment certainly helped here, enabling me to take a day off from work yesterday and take the DHC for a sunny tour through our lovely province (Limburg), including some short stretches of Belgium and Germany. A few pictures:

A2 Motorway bridge over the river Maas, Maasbracht (NL)

Newly developed flood plain and nature reserve north of Geulle aan de Maas (NL)

One of the many narrow country lanes, the Akerstraat in Mechelen (NL)

Looking over the valley of the river Geul, Reu de Beusdael Sippenaken (B)

Between Wijlre and Ubachsberg, Bronkweg Elkenrade (NL)

Close to the Vrakelbergerweg Elkenrade, also between Wijlre and Ubachsberg (NL)

Sunset near the German border, De Lanck Swalmen (NL)

I managed to add another 425 kilometres to the cars odometer, which brings this year's total to 2785. Not too bad bearing in mind that the car was of the road for most of the summer months!

And with the temperatures forecasted to drop towards freezing, it is pretty safe to say this was the cars last trip before her mandatory (tax induced) three month hibernation. But as the weather forecast also states that the weather will remain fairly fine I hope I can take 't Kreng for one or two tours before the end of the month!

And as you can see in the picture at the top I also found some time for a short local green laning trip through the area with the Land Rover:

FHC resto nr. 73; Staying up

While working on the car over the past few months the fact that I needed a makeshift prop (the anoraks will probably recognise this TR7 part!) to keep the bonnet and the boot lid up, started to get ever more annoying:

Time to search through the boxes of galvanised parts for the two support stays and their mounting parts. That's when I found out that I forgot to add the special mounting bolts to the batch of parts that were sent of for galvanising:

So these were quickly added to the "need-to-be-galvanised-as-soon-as-possible" basket. But as galvanising is a batch process, plating only a handful of parts is rather expensive. As I wasn't too keen on the temporary stay, and disliked the fact that the bonnet was fitted with a metric bolt and the boot lid with a pair of old school  imperial ones, I decided on a redesign. For which I (again) used a  local firm (Montagetechniek Patrick Saes) specialised in all sorts of stainless fasteners. And he managed to come up with a fairly simple and cost effective solution, using standard M6 Allen head bolts with ø10mm rod with an M6 inside thread:

This solution was almost direct plug and play. Only the pivot holes in the two stays needed enlarging to slightly over ø10mm, to fit the new mounting bolts. But that was rather straightforward with a drill column. After which mounting the stays in their designated position was a piece of cake. At least the boot lid was:

The bonnet took slightly longer, as I needed a new jack nut for the mounting point on the inside of the LH suspension tower. But that was quickly sourced and ordered:

And I didn't have to take the special tools out to fit it into its designated place. A long M6 bolt with a sturdy washer, a small vice grip, a spanner and plenty of grease on the bolts thread, was all that was needed to do so:

After which securing the bonnet stay was straight forward. Paying particular attention as not to knock the temporary stay (as pictured @ the top of this post) from its position. The bracket of the bonnet stay is mounted to the bonnet with two M5 bolts. In my case dome headed stainless Allen key bolts:

With another small task finished I went in search of some parts for the headlamp mechanism. To be continued ...