Some more
small jobs finished on the car! To start with the repairs to the head light
surrounds. True to their reputation all the bonded in steel mounting washers
had fallen off. Time for a well proven though slightly messy repair. When I adapted the head lights
for ‘t Kreng, I fabricated a batch of alloy washers to
replace the original ones. At the time I thought it a good idea to fabricate a
few spare sets. And it proved a good idea indeed, as I used one of these spare
sets to repair the FHC’s head light surrounds. Though this time the sealant I
used was slightly more difficult to work with. As a result of which the
finished product looks a little messy, but that will be completely hidden from
sight And at least the washers are properly bonded to the rubber surrounds!
After I
finished the head light surrounds it was time for the next job, preparing and
fitting the sill mouldings. These had been powder coated almost two years ago,
after which they had been safely stored away. But due to the fact that I had to
move a lot of my TR7 stuff to another location last year, I had these mouldings
in my hands far too often while searching through the parts. And I finally got
fed up with them lying around, so I decided to fit them to the car! Last summer
I already had made
a start by searching through my spares for all the parts I’d need to fit the
mouldings to the sills:
And to make
sure the end caps will stay firmly in place, I used a generous amount of PUR
based sealant to fixate them in their designed position:
Remained the
final task of fitting everything to the car. To start with the plastic mounting
clips (GHF1167 and ZKC2272) were put in place. There were a few small problems
here, mainly caused by the clips themselves, and the cold temperatures in the shed. Let’s say I was glad I had enough
spare clips with me! Sadly while fitting the LH front clip (ZKC2272) the pop
rivet pliers managed to slightly damage the paint work. Grrrrr! Luckily it is
only a very small and hardly visible chip. Will see what I’ll do with it …
Finally all the clips were aligned with a straight
rule and some more PUR sealant was applied to the ends of the mouldings to bond
them to the car’s body. After which the mouldings could be fitted to the car.
Which turned out to be the easiest part of the job. Carefully align the
moulding in its correct position, and place it over the top notches of the plastic trim clips (GHF1167 with two notches pointing up). And while holding it down with one hand whack it in place with a few well aimed blows
with the palm of your other hand. Making sure it seats properly over all the mounting
clips. Job done!
