FHC resto nr. 142; Engine harness

With my road going TR7’s more or less sorted, I managed to spent another few hours on the my restoration project. It won’t come as a surprise that I continued where I left off; with the engine harness (RKC5511). After my previous post on this subject I had laid out the harness on a large table in the spare room. And every time I had a bit of free time I would perform one or two small tasks on it, like cleaning some wires or replace some of the single spade connectors. So when I started this afternoon most of the work had been done already. Only remaining jobs were cleaning the connector pins of the two main connectors and clean the plastic connector blocks;

Fit a new connector for the gear box harness. The first picture also showing one of the single spade connectors I fitted where necessary;

The connector block for the alternator. Luckily the connectors inside were still in good condition, needing only a good polish;

And the final job for the day, wrapping the harness with new (non-adhesive) wrapping tape. A before and after picturee:

Post MOT service DHC

With a fresh MOT for the DHC, it was time for her postponed service. Most important being the fluids (the hydraulics were ignored as these were changed last year) First the old oil filter and drain plug were removed, so the still warm old oil could drain from the engine. Pretty easy when you have access to a four post lift!

With the engine oil draining from the engine I turned my attention to the fluid levels in the gear box and back axle. Both turned out to be fine. Which was hardly surprising, as there were no signs of any leaks from both. This couldn’t be said from the engine’s front crank shaft seal (UKC 3344). This was leaking badly, though it wasn’t a fail yet! But bearing in mind it was fitted less than 5 years ago (together with a new front pulley), I can only conclude the seals quality was rather poor. So I decided not to use the normal TR7 suppliers, but my trusty vernier caliper and a specialised bearing supplier. Taking reference measurements from a spare front pulley and timing cover, I found out I was looking for an 1 7/8” x 2 5/8” x 3/8” oil seal. And I ordered a few of these, from a renowned manufacturer (Eriks) and reasonably priced.

And with the car on the four poster lift, access to the front pulley and the oil seal was easy, making it a straight forward, 15 minutes job. The biggest challenge (if it could be called that!) was putting in the new seal. This took a few extra minutes as access is limited by the fan shroud. What was obvious though, was that the quality of the new seal felt much better. The old one felt much harder. See if that was the cause for the seal’s short life span! Final job was cleaning the filth left by the oil leak.

Next in line, and final job for the day, were the custom-prop shaft’s union joints grease fittings. Greasing them was easy, but getting the surplus grease from between the yokes wasn’t. As the amount of grease against the gear lever extension clearly shows (I might fabricate a shroud to prevent this happening in future to protect the connector!?)

After which it was time to enjoy the car for a few hours. The most important point of attention here were the brakes. And I am pleased to say that they are slowly settling in. The pedal still is very light, but the feeling is starting to get confidence inspiring. Will do my best to add some more miles before September …