My TR7’s in 2025

One final look back on 2025 from a TR7 point of view, before 2026 is well and truly upon us. Starting with the repairs of the DHC’s body. Below are a few shots of the work done so far. More in the relevant blogposts;

Early in the year the original body shell of that car saw the light of day again,

after many years of storage in the shed.

Ready for the next chapter in this car’s life and a new beginning!

After paint removal and shot blasting.

The repairs of the right hand sill and rear wing edge.

Rear of the right hand cabin floor section.

Left hand sill repairs.

Rear right hand suspension pick up points.

Next car in line for some attention was the 1976 TR7. Actually looking back not much work was done to this car (proof HERE!). But there has been some progress. Starting with a few small interior jobs.

Refurbishing and fitting the early style roof mounted interior light.

Fitting the gear-lever-gaiter-finisher to the gear-lever-gaiter.

It wasn’t as straight forward as it looks because I wanted the top of the

gear-lever-gaiter to be folded inside by a few millimetres to give a nicer finish.

Reassembling and mounting the steering column.

Always nice putting nice shining parts back on a car!

Than there was the business off redoing the gearbox extension because

my first attempt turned out not to be thorough enough. I think it is now.

And swapping the mounting hardware for the brake

balance pressure reducing valve for some nicer items.

Later in the year I had a go at fitting the ill-fitting but very nicely refurbished repro parcel shelf to the car. Needed an extra pair of hands to complete this job. But well worth the effort. And with the parcel shelf in place the boot trim could be finished:

But most of my Triumph time was spent on ‘t Kreng. Starting with another water pump replacement earlier in the year, after which the car was used as much as possible.

So far this pump has been pretty fine, with only a few very tiny leaks from time. But that is nothing to worry too much about with a graphite drag seal. These can always leak a tiny bit. So the most worrying bit is the lack of time to use the car on a regular basis. And thus preventing oxidation starting on the water pumps sealing surface. Which in turn can start another leak. But I did my best, covering exactly 2750 kilometres since fitting the new pump in the second half of April 2025. With the last drive just over a week ago:

End I reached an important milestone with this car. The car's odometer is around the clock for the second time in its life! Sadly at the moment the roads are covered in rock salt to prevent icing. So the next drive will be “somewhere” in 2026!

Mission accomplished

Alongside the “Heerenvennen” part of the national parc

“De Hamert” near the small village of Wellerlooi.

Or another milestone in the 45 year life of ‘t Kreng. Last month I mentioned that I was on a mission with ‘t Kreng. And that mission was to clock up some more miles before the end of the year in order to get the odometer back to its original setting, when the car left the factory about 45 years ago. This would be the second time that happened with this car in my possession. I actually purchased her with 73993 kilometres on the clock. And after the restoration was finished in July 1997, it only took me 2 years before the clock was back to 00000 kilometres:

The next 100000 kilometres took slightly longer. Mainly because the car was relieved of its daily duties at the start of this century. But this morning I set of for the final 160 kilometres of my mission. And it was quite a lovely drive!

View across the river Meuse on the monastery village of Steyl.

Brangk Baarlo

Old monastery wall along the Legioenweg, Baarlo

And when I turned into the forecourt of a petrol station just across the border in Germany, the odometer turned from 99999 to 00000. Call it timing!

More TLC for ‘t Kreng

Part two of the general service and maintenance check of ‘t Kreng, which was carried out over this weekend. With the most important job being flushing and bleeding the hydraulic fluids. From a mileage point of view this wasn’t really necessary. But both clutch and brake fluid were well over three years old. Where my normal interval for these fluids is two years. So time to call on the help of a friend for a traditional flushing and bleeding session!

Starting with emptying and cleaning the clutch cylinder’s reservoir. And this immediately showed why regular hydraulic fluid changes are absolutely essential. The fluid I sucked out of the clutch cylinder’s reservoir was almost completely black. Forgot to take the picture but the one in this earlier post gives a good indication on how it looked! After that the reservoir was cleaned and filled was fresh brake fluid (Bosch DOT4). Flushing and bleeding the clutch system was left till later though.

We moved to the brake system instead. Starting with the removal of the brake master cylinder’s pressure failure switch. Always tricky as this one is by now old and brittle. But I succeeded to remove it intact. Probably helped by the anti-seize paste I used when I re-fitted it a few years ago.

With that hurdle successfully out of the way, we could start flushing and bleeding the brake system. Starting with the front brakes which are fed through the rear chamber of the fluid reservoir. This chamber was also first emptied with a small manual suction pump, after which it was filled with fresh fluid. And the flushing/and bleeding could begin, starting with the front calliper on the right hand side. For both sides together, we used twice the contents of the rear chamber. No air came out.

As the reservoir’s front chamber can’t be emptied with my simple pump (a large syringe type affair) we had to empty this chamber by pumping the brake pedal with one of the bleed nipples at the rear open. My assistant was a bit overzealous though, emptying the front chamber too far. Which resulted in some air being drawn into the system. Luckily the air could be bled very easily though one of the two bleed nipples at the back.

Next job was flushing the clutch system. With the reservoir filled with fresh fluid, and the old fluid still in the pipe, it should be clearly visible when all the old fluid was expelled from the system. It was! But just to be sure all the old fluid was expelled, the contents of a full reservoir were flushed through the system after clean fluid came out of the master cylinder. Job done! Actually the biggest problem here was removing the rubber dust cap from the slave cylinder’s bleed nipple underneath the car! It had collected some oil, resulting in a rather slippery dust cap.

Next on the to-do-list where the wheels. They would certainly benefit from a good clean. Rather straightforward with warm soapy water and a collection of different brushes. I did need a shower afterwards!

Final job on the on the to do list was cleaning the two earth points behind the head lamp mounting panel. Hardly any oxidation there, only a lot of paint. So I cleaned away the paint around the mounting points and refitted the earth points using some copper slip to prevent future corrosion.

And the final job for the day was cleaning the steering wheel and treating it with a leather conditioner. The lack of use in the recent years had dried out the steering wheel’s leather cover. And after well over thirty years of service (it started life with me when I fitted it to a Mini Cooper, in 1994!), it could do with some tender loving care. It did soak up quite a bit of leather conditioner fluid.

FHC resto nr. 170; Fitting the steering column

Another job that needed redoing was coating the steering column’s outer tube. Actually I had to find a spare one as the original item that was powder coated got seriously distorted in the process. And with only one part to do I decided on a traditional line of approach: Cleaning the dirt from the tube and bead blasting it. After which I used primer and satin black paint from rattle-cans to coat it. Looks quite good for a piece that will be completely hidden from view!

Next stage was rather straightforward; fitting the two new steering column bearing bushes to both ends of the tube and adding the steering shaft to the outer tube. Decided to use a silicon based bearing grease as lubricant between the bushes and the steering shaft. Feels quite tight but also very smooth. Will see ones the car is back on the road!

Final jobs were fitting the steering/ignition lock and fitting everything to the car. Though while fitting the lock mechanism to the outer tube I found out that I prepared four Allen head bolts with an incorrect thread to replace the original shear bolts. I thought they were metric M8. But they were 5/16”. First idea was to drill out the holes and use a metric thread repair to get the necessary M8 thread. But I decided to try out a little bodge first. Changing the 5/16” thread with a M8 tap. The result was actually far better than expected, with smooth threads. And I could even torque down the bolts pretty tight without stripping the new threads. And much tighter compared with the original shear bolts which still had their shear heads in place. So more than good enough for a non-structural part!

The two M10 Allen head bolts, I prepared for mounting the steering column to the support rail, were a perfect fit. So no issues there.