Killed another few hours on the restoration of
the ’76 TR7 this Whit Sunday weekend. While going through the boxes with spares
in search of a gearbox harness (I really should make an index!), I found an
undamaged RH front side lamp lens. I already had sourced an undamaged LH lens for
the “to-do-when-I-have-nothing-better-to-do-box”.
So with the set complete (RTC1794/1795) I spent
a few hours cleaning them. For this job I used some rather exotic cleaning
materials 😋 Like
an old nail brush, a sponge with scouring pad and an old tooth brush! And warm
water, washing-up liquid and toothpaste of course. Nothing high tech really!
Most of the dirt came off pretty easily. Only a
few small patches of what looked like tar put up something resembling a fight,
which they lost against some hotter water.
With all the dirt removed and the lenses rinsed of I noticed that the plastic
surface had become dull in places. That is where the tooth brush and tooth
paste came in. And after some polishing they look like new again.
That would mean that the job was finished. But
I decided on a little detailing. This to prevent dirt, that will inevitably find
its way between the lens and the gasket, from being visible. I used this trick
on the DHC, and almost 10 years on the lenses still look fresh. To achieve this
I painted the inside of the outer rim silver, using a felt tip paint marker
from Tamiya.
In my opinion it looks much better than the original transparent finish
of the outer rim.
2 comments:
These lenses were fitted to the Morris Marina too - same size but a slightly different part number. The Morris Marina ones have a silver edge!
Thanks for that info!
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