FHC resto nr. 112; Another small upgrade

The advantage (or should I say disadvantage) of having a few later TR7’s, when restoring a pretty  early TR7: I know most of the many detail changes and upgrades done by the factory over the circa 7 years these cars were produced. And as I do have a fair amount of spares from later cars it is always a good thing to apply some of these changes to my ’76 car.

One of these changes was the prop shaft bump stop (UKC8268). In the picture above you can see the later variant, which was retrieved earlier this year from one of my spare shells (a 1980 DHC), before and after cleaning.

In 1976, when this car was produced, this part wasn’t fitted yet. And as a result the mounting studs welded to the transmission tunnel were also missing. Below are a few detail shots of these tiny parts. The first picture was taken from below, from the part’s donor shell. The second picture is taken from the inside of another shell. Clearly visible in this picture is the way the two studs are mounted to the rear of the transmission tunnel.

I should have removed the studs and mounting plate from one of these shells in order to weld them to the ’76 body. But I simply forgot to! And as welding to the still freshly painted shell will not happen, I had to look at an alternative. Turned out to be pretty easy. First I had to collect the necessary fasteners. I went for stainless flat domed Allen headed M6 bolts and nyloc nuts.

Final stage was marking out and drilling the two mountings holes and dropping the bolts in from the top of the transmission tunnel (using plenty of non-conductive grease to prevent contact corrosion). At this stage I had expected I needed an extra pair of hands to keep the bolts in place while putting the bump stop in position from below. I needn’t have worried. The bolts slipped into the holes quite easily. Even fitting the washers and nuts wasn’t a problem. As was tightening the nuts, using an Allen key wedged against the rear bulkhead to prevent the bolts from spinning while they were tightened from below.

And while I was at it I removed the wiring clip I forgot to remove before painting, touched up the damaged area, and replaced it with a nicely refurbished clip.

As fitting the bump stop went smoothly, I had some time left to look through my spare parts in search for some parts needed to finish both the boot area (rear light bulb holders) and the front bumper (side lights). A few hours in the shed well spend!