Enjoying another drive!

With the heater of the ’76 FHC finally in place I have decided to step back from this project for a while. This is because time is scarce at the moment and I have a few jobs scheduled for the DHC that I want to finish within the next few months. These are in preparation for this year’s edition of Club Triumph’s 10 Countries Run which will be held in September. These jobs are:

• Fitting the new brake cylinder and servo;
• Fabricate a bracket to mount the new satnav;
• Decide whether to fit a quick rack with PAS or not;
• Check the rubber fuel lines at the tank, after the leak I found last year in the engine bay;
• And a full inspection and service of the car of course!

But before I will start with these I found some time today to enjoy some more driving. I had hoped for some nice sunny weather so I could take the DHC but it wasn’t to be. So I took ‘t Kreng again. And with the cobwebs from the winter hibernation already blown away last week I could fully exploit the cars potential. It was good fun indeed!

And as soon as the jobs on the DHC are finished I hope to start on refurbishing the wiring looms and fit the remaining striping to the doors, and front and rear wings of the ’76 FHC. Though I might spent some time tinkering on ‘t Kreng too from time to time …

FHC resto nr. 78; Heater rebuild final part (#9)

At last there is light at the end of the tunnel, because you are reading what looks like the last report on the car’s heater rebuilt (fingers crossed!). Yesterday saw the  final saga of this project in a project: fitting the heater to the car. But there were some smaller jobs that had to be done first.

I fitted an extra (second) fixing point to the bulkhead seal plate, so I had to drill an extra hole for this. This was the easy bit, because I thought it would be much simpler to use the seal plate as a template when it was not fitted to a cumbersome heater! Indeed was only a few minutes job, certainly helped by a proper quality step-drill. And with the new hole in place in the correct position it was time for the final assembly of the heater, fitting the coolant pipes and bulkhead seal plate:

I had hoped that after all the preparations done already this would be straight sailing. It wasn’t, the heater certainly kept the fight up right till the end! Because there was only very little room to manoeuvre, fitting the two short hoses between the heater matrix and the shortened steel pipes took some more time than expected. All rather frustrating. But after almost an hour everything was in place, and ready to be fitted to car.

Again the heater didn’t quite cooperate. But overall this went pretty smooth. I first manoeuvred the heater in place and loosely fixated it with the bolt on top of fresh air inlet.

After that I moved to the engine bay to put the nuts on the three mounting studs.

And finally the two bolts for the brackets on top of the transmission tunnel could be put in position. And with all nuts and bolts in place it was time for a final alignment check after which the nuts and bolts could be torqued down.

And finally a close up of the pipe work:

An afternoon well spend. And with the heater in place I can continue in earnest with some other jobs, to start with the wiring loom that fits around the heater!

First tour of the year

It is already almost four months ago that I took ‘t Kreng for her almost traditional final drive of the year. And today (after being allowed back on the road for almost three weeks) I finally found some time for a short first drive of the touring season.

I had planned a few jobs on this car but again time (mostly lack of it) and the weather intervened. But I did a service check of the car last month. So the only thing I had to do today was fire up the engine and enjoy the driving and the countryside:

It was good to be out again. Hopefully more miles (and smiles) to follow this year!

FHC resto nr. 77; Heater rebuild part 8

Again a set back with the heater’s connecting tubes. It has already been several months ago that I visited the shed in search of a good original heater pipe assembly. But before sending it of for coating I thought it a good idea to have the ends shot blasted first to check if there was enough metal left there to get a water tight seal. There was. After which it was well over a month later that I finally found time and motivation to have them galvanised. Sadly something went wrong there and the assembly was badly damaged. Both pipes were torn from the mounting plate leaving me with three loose and parts:

Being rather fed up with the whole thing I decided to go back to one of my initial ideas for the pipes’ fire wall crossing. As the base plate was badly deformed where the tubes had been welded to it I decided to use the plate I prepared for my original set up last year. But with a slight adaptation of the extra mounting point to make sure this wouldn’t foul the larger grommets now being used: 

In my previous post I mentioned an upgrade I am working on for the DHC (actually PAS). As there still are some doubts about the clearance for such a set up I decided on another trip to the shed. This time  for a comparison picture of some inlet manifolds. Clearly visible is that the FI manifold needs some extra space at the front where the PAS pump should sit. And one of the other future plans is to the fit a modern injection set up to the DHC using an original set up as base:

Both to be continued, the heater hopefully soon! Because as long as that isn't fitted I can't and won't start with the wiring and the rest of the remaining jobs on the car …

Brake repairs for the DHC part 2

Earlier in the year I dropped a rather used looking brake master cylinder plus servo unit of at my local brake specialist C&C Parts, with the instructions to renovate them or replace with new units where necessary.

After a few days I received a message that they had completed the inspection. It turned out to be best to refurbish the servo unit, though the diaphragm had to be replaced. And the piston rod needed machining to get rid of any oxidation damage. But the master cylinder was beyond economical repair so that would have to be replaced with an new one.

And after authorizing the order there was nothing more I could do but wait for a message that the order was ready for collection. This took slightly longer than expected,  but a few weeks ago I was able to collect the parts. And as ever their work looks rather good as these pictures clearly show:

The new (old stock) brake master cylinder

The refurbished brake servo

And they even had the correct brake fluid reservoir in stock!

So as soon as the DHC gets out of here still mandatory annual hibernation I will fit these to the car. But before that I hope I will be able to use ‘t Kreng for a few runs. I  really had hoped the weather would have been good enough to take her out as today was the first day that both cars were allowed on the road again after their three month hibernation. Sadly the weather didn’t cooperate. So instead of enjoying some driving, I went to the shed to search for a part that will be needed for another upgrade I have in mind for the DHC before Club Triumph’s 10CR. And I found one, though it needs some tender loving care as the bearing and the viscous coupling both are pretty worn. Also to be continued …