FHC resto nr. 94; Cleaning and inspecting RKC 3630

Managed to spent a few hours on the car’s restoration over the weekend. On one of those less interesting jobs, cleaning the chosen body harness (RKC 3630) and checking the various connectors. I wasn’t looking forward to this job as it meant removing a fair amount of old glue and wax oil. I especially disliked removing the old glue. Luckily the chosen harness wasn’t too badly smeared with the stuff.

And while I was visiting a friend he advised me to use special glue & tar removal instead of the white spirit I wanted to use. So that is what I ordered.

And I have to admit that it works brilliantly. With white spirit or thinner the old glue is dissolved. Giving a rather sticky mess that needs a lot of “cleaning runs” to remove. Not so with this glue remover! Spray it on, wait a few minutes and you can wipe of the old glue without any problems. And more importantly without getting your hands dirty, as the old glue doesn’t become sticky by the solvents. Despite that, it still was a fairly time consuming exercise! I sometimes wonder why I put so much time and effort in jobs that will be hidden from view as soon as they are fitted to the car 😜

With all the harness’ wires cleaned properly it was time to inspect the individual wires and all connectors. Clearly some overspray from a re-spray of the donor car  somewhere in the past. Especially the wires in the boot area are affected. But that will be dealt with when I start on the harness’ connectors and new vinyl harness wrapping.

Worst part of the harness is the part that connects to the fuel tank’s sender unit. Not very surprising as it is the only part of the harness that sits outside the car, thus collecting lots of oil and road grime. As a result of which the earth point is heavily corroded and broke off at the lightest touch.. All three connectors will be replaced, together with the rubber grommet. As you can see in the picture below I have already re-wrapped this part of the harness. That was to try out a vinyl none-adhesive wrapping tape. Pleased with the result and how it can be applied. So that will be used this time.

The other connectors are all in pretty good condition.

But probably most time will be spent on cleaning the square angled connectors for the rear light units. These connectors all are in good shape (including their crimp joints) but they are rather contaminated with wax oil and dirt. To be continued …

FHC resto nr. 93; Ignition lock bolts

A fact that most of you who read my ramblings on here will probably know. On all the TR7’s the steering column’s upper bearing carrier and the ignition lock are mounted with so called break bolts. Very handy when you don’t have a torque wrench when fitting these. But a bit of a hassle when you have to undo them! Therefore I decided to replace them with normal bolts. To start with the bolts for the ignition lock. Sadly I couldn’t find a decent standard alternative. Which meant I had to go for the next best option. Find some bolts with a head resembling the originals as close as possible, and adapt these to fit the ignition locks mounting holes’ recess. The closest I got were these dome headed stainless Allan head bolts.

But despite the fact that their heads look pretty small, their diameter was well over 3 mm too big to fit the ignition locks mounting lugs. Which meant a trip to a friend’s business, and his lathe. And 10 minutes later I had four bolts with the correct shaped head to fit the ignition lock.

Needless to mention they fit perfectly. Though all in all the whole exercise of sourcing and adapting the bolts was a pretty time-consuming exercise. Let’s say that it’s all part of the fun!

And talking of time-consuming. As I don’t have a workshop of my own I have to carry my tools around from time to time. So the most important tools are stored in two traditional tool boxes. Sadly after many years of faithful service one of them was so worn that repairing it wasn’t effective anymore. Time for a new one.

But also time to assign the tools in the two tool boxes differently. And to help this I laid out the tools in the back yard for inspection, cleaning and organize them.

FHC resto nr. 92; Choosing wiring harnesses

I finally found some time to go through my spare wiring harnesses, in search for a suitable main harness for my ’76 car. Right from the start the plan has been to change the car’s wiring to the later loom, as it is much more reliable. And using the body harness (RKC 3630) recently retrieved from a spare 1980 DHC shell, the choice was pretty easy. I have currently have four spare main harnesses. Two from 1981 Solihull built US spec PI cars, one from a 1981 Solihull Continental FHC, and the original loom from the ’76 car of course. The last one wasn’t an option. As was one of the PI looms, which is part of a complete functioning PI system. And I want to keep that system together.

That left me with two main harnesses from Solihull cars. One harness from a PI car (PKC 1507) and one from a Continental spec car (PKC 1946). And although the latter was in slightly worse condition, that is the harness of choice.

This harness originates from the car pictured above, which was broken for spares several years ago. This harness has a few bodge adaptations. But it will be far easier to rectify these compared to sorting the different connectors on the PI loom. Time to get the camera out and capture all the connectors and bodge repair damage.

A few of the good and the bad points of the main harness:

The body harness (RKC 3630):

And the facia harness ((PKC 1946):

Wiring harnesses not yet pictured are the engine harness (TKC 2894 or RKC 5511), the gear box harness (UKC 9200), and the door harnesses (TKC 3831). But the box in which these were stored has been located in the shed! As soon as these are selected I can start with cleaning and repairing the various wires and connectors. But first I’ll prepare an inventory of all connectors, wires and grommets needed to rectify and adapt the various harnesses for the slightly different ’76 body shell.