She’s got an MOT

On Tuesday evening I changed the faulty front bearings on the driver’s side of ‘t Kreng. Turned out to be quite a challenge. First, to get the hub/disc assembly of the front strut we had to use a flange/hub puller, not a good sign. And even than it didn’t go quite easy, but we got the hub assembly of in the end. Left us with the bearing race of the inside bearing. As we couldn’t get a decent hold on it with the puller, and we didn’t want to risk damaging the axle stub with a grinder, we welded a bit of steel to it. Mainly to get more grip for the puller but also to get some heat in it so it would expand a bit ...

This worked very well, the bearing race came off without any problem, and no damage to the axle stub. But next time I really should remove the coating before I fit the bearings ...

With everything of it was time to inspect everything. Clearly this bearing got to hot somewhere in the past 5500 kilometres ...

After the hassle of removing the damaged bearings, fitting the new ones was very easy indeed ...

Slightly more worrying is this little crack in the left-hand brake disc. Not enough to change the disc yet, but certainly something to keep a constant eye on in the future ...

Yesterday afternoon I sourced and fitted the wiper refills for the driver’s side, so both wipers could be refurbished ...

And fitted the wipers to the car.

This afternoon I dropped the car of at the MOT garage with the message that she should be OK. They didn’t even bother to check my work, and reported the car to the RDW as passed. There was no sample check on the car from the RDW, so now I have another years MOT.

And just found out that the DHC being older than 30 years now, only has to go for its MOT ones every two years.

MOT time for ‘t Kreng

Had ‘t Kreng MOT-ed today. Have to admit that I neglected the car a bit while working on the DHC in the past 18 months. So yesterday I went over her to see if there was anything wrong. Only found a few small faults like worn wiper blades (temporarily sorted with the ones from the DHC) and a wheezy windscreen washer pump, which would probably be overlooked. So nothing to worry about I thought. Alas wrong ...

Turned out that one of the front wheel bearings is on the way out after only 5500 kilometres. I checked them last year and they were fine then and as the car has only covered 1200 kilometres since, I thought it unnecessary to check them. So two new bearing sets ordered, should be ready for pick up at local parts supplier tomorrow afternoon.

And as I had a bit of extra time I started looking for some new wiper blades, which turned out to be not that easy. It looks like the Japanese style “pin on blade” type wiper blades as used on the TR7 are no longer available through the normal parts suppliers in this part of the world. Luckily I found some wiper refills for the passenger side, and a good clue where to find “refills” for the driver’s side. Hopefully get that sorted tomorrow too.

At least I got one item on the fail sheet sorted this evening. After a browse through my spare parts I found a washer pump that does work. And after half an hour’s spannering I had the windscreen washer functioning again. To be continued!

DHC report nr. 73; Tidying up loose ends

With the headlights fitted, the carnival over and still freezing, I really didn’t much fancy going over to the shed today. But not going means no progress so I put on some warm clothes again and spent a few hours on several smaller jobs.

I started with the headlights, these had to be connected to the cars wiring loom. As I hadn’t fitted the connectors for the light units yet, getting the wiring in place turned out fairly straightforward. Due to the cold the wiring is rather stiff but this actually helped with putting them through the various openings. So with all the wires inside the engine bay, it was time to fit the missing connector blocks. Should have been easy as I had all the bits properly marked. But while putting the second wire in (blue/white) it slipped out of my hand. I “followed” it while it flipped away, picking up the end immediately and putting it in the connector block. Shouldn’t have done it ... got the wrong wire and of course I noticed it too late! To cut a long story short, I had to pull it out using brute force. Hopefully nothing is damaged inside the cable, at least no visible damage. After that all the rest went in without problems, forewarned is forearmed!

To finish the work in the nose area I fitted a pair of new horns, which I purchased locally. Just to be safe I made two extra earth wires which I connected to the earth points behind the headlight panel. Wonder how they’ll sound as they should be fairly loud!

As it was still fairly early in the afternoon I decided to fit a new hose between the screen washer bottle and pump and drop the wiper mechanism in place. This decision was prompted by the fact that the blanking plate for the cavity above the brake cylinder was still lying around on the car. Thought it would be rather easy to drop the mechanism in place, but it turned out to have a mind of its own. And just when I was getting rather fed up with it, Robbie walked into the shed to see how I got on! We agreed that it would be best for me to call it a day and go home. But when I picked up the mechanism to put it back in the cupboard I thought it a good idea to give it one last try. Guess what, it just slipped in place without any problem.

This enabled me to fit the blanking plate at last.

As I have a week off from work will probably go over to the shed tomorrow to clean the back axle in preparation for painting. I already dismantled it a few days ago;

DHC report nr. 34; Wiper mechanism

As I am still working out how to adapt a few things on the heaters coolant valve I turned my attention to the wiper motor assembly. First thing to do was find myself a decent one to start with, but in the end I decided to use the one that came of the car (as it was almost dismantled). I started with dismantling and cleaning the wiper motor and putting it back together. But despite being careful while pulling of the housing I managed to dislodge the brushes. But that happened during assembly, I forgot how strong the magnets were. A frustrating 15 minutes were needed to get all three brushes back in together with the engines spool. Tricky with only two hands but it can be done! With that sorted, the rest of the assembly of the wiper motor was rather straight forward.

With the wiper motor sorted it was time for the wiper wheel-box, which didn’t look that good at first glance;

But after a thorough clean-up with degreaser, wire-brush and sandpaper, and a bit of black paint they (together with the tubes and the spacers) again looked quite acceptable.

Only (slightly) bad bit being one of the wheel boxes’ threads, which is damaged by contact corrosion with the locking nut. To prevent this in future I used some non conductive anti-seize-grease.

So another few bits ready for assembly once the body is back from the paint shop.

Test day ...

Thought it a good idea to use the DHC for work today. As it was raining cats and dogs all day, there are a few things I have learned about the car ...

First I found out that the new hood is rather waterproof which is good. After standing/driving in the pouring rain for over 10 hours there was still no sign off any leak.

The windscreen wipers do work in proper TR7 style. But as they work that should be OK for the 10CR.

Also the (ex airco) heater I kept in the car is much more efficient in demisting the windows than the standard TR7 one, which again is good news;

On the downside, the exhaust still touches the body (right at the back off the car) and the tyres are ... euhm ... a bit hard. Ordered some new tyres yesterday. Have to wait till the end off the month to get them fitted and see how they work. But that's still in time for the 10 Countries Run.

Will take the car to the Nürburgring tomorrow for the Historic GP weekend, see how she behaves on a longer trip.