New Sprint engine (part 2)

Collected my two spare Sprint heads recently and took them to a friend’s workshop to get them cleaned a bit in preparation for flowing, polishing and rebuilding the best of the two. All in preparation for the rejuvenation of ‘t Kreng.

After cleaning, it was time to remove the valve gear from the second head. With the proper tools that wasn’t too difficult. The exhaust valves were removed rather quickly ...

Sadly though the valve spring compressor tool couldn’t be used on the inlet valves. So I had to revert to a slightly more robust approach, a correct size socket and a hammer! Worked pretty good and was even quicker than with the valve spring compressor!

With the valves removed it was time to inspect both heads. Overall they are both in fairly good condition, but it looks that both have been skimmed somewhere in the past. There are also some minor dents in the edge of a few chambers. These need to be filled in with some welding ...

Also one of the valve guides is damaged, which means all need to be renewed, but that gives me the chance to look for some slimmer lightweight valves ...

More can be gained by opening up and polishing the ports ...

And to finish, I at last got round to find someone who could machine some nice and shiny alloy spark plug tubes. First sample (to double check the measurements) looks really good, can’t wait to get them fitted to ‘t Kreng’s engine, as the (still original) spark plug tubes are starting to leak a little oil ...

Spring’s in the air

With the temperatures rising and the days becoming longer, it’s been time to start on the TR7’s again. With the DHC more or less finished it is time to start with some long postponed work on ‘t Kreng. Over the past months I have done a bit of reading on what to do with the rear suspension ones the coil overs are fitted. Original plan was to adapt two sets of upper linkages arm, fitting rose joints on the axle side and poly bushes on the body shell end. So I took two sets out of the spares stock and after removing the original bushes ...

I got the angle grinder out and cut of one end ...

As you can see they are fairly thick walled. Compared to this the weld looks a bit suspect to me, so that will get a bit of extra metal added for extra peace of mind.

At this stage it was time to decide whether to stick to the TR7’s original four link rear set up, or adapt it into a parallel four link plus a Panhard or Watts linkage. I have decided to go for the latter one as the roll centre for this set up lies much lower so should improve handling. But that also means I’ll have to fabricate the necessary box sections to change the upper pick up points on the body and brackets for the axle and lateral linkages. Or find one of the so called “Increased lateral location kit” (STN 0104) which ST manufactured for theTR7 rally program, in order to comply with homologation requirements. The third option, and probably the easiest, is to go shopping at some Ford escort specialists to source parts which can then be adapted to fit. To be continued.

As the weather was rather fine last weekend I thought it a good idea to take the DHC out of hibernation. My only worry when I drove to the shed was that something might be wrong (I hadn’t seen the car since October last year). But after the most basic of checks all looked OK and she fired up fairly quickly. For the rest I can be pretty short, it was a rather enjoyable afternoon. Actually so enjoyable that I forgot to stop so now and then to take some pictures.

Another thing on the to do list for last weekend was removing the starter motor from ‘t Kreng. Over the past few weeks this had developed a problem. With the engine cold it was rather reluctant to work properly. So time to get it out and put one of the second hand spares in. Should have been no more than an hour’s work. But one way or another the old starter motor refused to be taken from the car. But after an hour and a half’s struggle and lots of swearing it came out ...

Needless to say I wasn’t in a mood to put the spare one in, so I left that till yesterday. Again took much longer than it should, not helped by a knee injury which started to play up after less than 15 minutes and a fluorescent tube that fell from its aperture when I went in search of some wire to hold the steering column out of harm’s way. Got it all sorted in the end and in time to take the car for a spin to a neighbouring village to visit an old school engine builder. Was as if the engine felt I went for its replacement. It was rather reluctant to run properly, sometimes backfiring heavily both under load or with the throttle closed. First guess is that I drowned the engine whilst starting, which has been a problem a few times in the past. At least by the time I got home she behaved quite normal again. Will check all likely culprits in the next few weeks just to be sure.

Out and about

Over the past few weeks I have had a few opportunities to take ‘t Kreng out for a blast. First we had the second edition of our own very informal “Early Bird” run. In this case a lovely tour with some like minded local classic car fans  ...

... through the northern part of our Province ...

It also was a trip to get my co-driver for this year’s International Auto Ecosse and 10CR, acquainted with my driving style and with the car. I needn’t have worried, the navigating was perfect.

As last year Roger and Robbie managed to come up with a very nice route, compromising all sorts of interesting roads, ranging from very narrow and “low-slung-licence-plate-on-an-Elise-shattering” country lanes (sorry Robbie) to nice smooth and wide roads with long flowing corners ...

After a short stretch through Germany I overtook one of the Mini’s, and the driver thought it a good idea to stick to my rear bumper. Which of course was easy as long as the roads were fairly smooth, but as soon as the roads became twisty and the tarmac worse he started struggling and in the end I shook him of.

But probably the most interesting bit was a nearly 7,5 kilometre stretch of almost ruler straight road alongside an old disused canal near Griendtsveen. How it looks from the air ...

... and from the ground ...

Due to the very soft and soggy soil in the area (peat), this road had some rather severe damage, in places the tarmac had sagged more than 0,25m¹. Luckily the holes were “smooth” and not pot holes. Turned out to be quite a challenge to maintain a speed of 80 km/h, but I managed it. Have to admit that the front of the car behaved very well indeed, but I used the full extent of the suspensions stroke (with 336 lbs springs). The rear was  a completely different story. Halfway through the stretch the rear dampers started to make all sorts of funny noises. I think they are knackered now, so time to fit the coil over’s I have lying around.

After the “canal stretch” it was plain sailing to the finish over some very nice roads and past a few hallmarks for the region, like this castle/abbey dating back to the 12th century ...

An old road along the western bank of the River Maas ...

A typical Dutch river crossing ...

A for our area even more typical small field chapel ...

And the rather new but already famous dragon on a roundabout in the village of Beesel ...

Was good fun to be driving in my own backyard again and, due to the early time of year and the early hours of the day, it was fairly quiet on the roads. Oh, and did I mention that the breakfast before and the lunch after the tour, at Tom’s farmyard pub, were excellent?

Next outing was last weekend’s “Nacht van het Oosten”, which used to be the traditional start of the driving season. As last year the start was in Beckum. And again there was a very nice selection of cars present …

Only downside was that this time the event coincided with Stoneleigh which meant only 2 British CT entrants. It was also the carnival weekend, which again kept quite a few teams away, especially from the Southern parts of our country. But with over 70 teams there was no reason to complain for the organizers.

After the by now traditional Chinese buffet we were flagged of as number 43 at around 18:25. As ever we managed a decent pace, helped by the fact that we are not interested in the rankings. This enabled us to overtake quite a few teams in the first part of the first stage. So after less than an hour we were driving all on our own. But just before the end of the first stage René made another little mistake, which turned out quite nicely in the end. He pointed me to the right instead of  left. When we found out the mistake and returned to the previous situation an MGB GT-V8 thought it wise to hurl itself onto the road in front of us! And although he hampered me quite a lot, it was good fun to see him trying (sometimes desperately) to keep in front of me. Was a good chase to the half-way stop, he even managed to misjudge a  (I have to say tricky) corner rather badly, locking up his brakes and selecting reverse gear all in one! He wasn’t happy when I told him he’d better not get in front of ‘t Kreng next time! Turned out that despite a few small mistakes we had done very well, as there were only 4 or 5 cars in front of us (we had start number 43).

As I don’t like drivers who are slower but try to stay in front of me at all cost, we decided to keep the stop short. So around 9 o’clock we started on the second stage. As my other pet hate is people who try desperately to stick to my rear bumper, we made sure no one had a chance to do so. And as we wanted to be back at the hotel well before the bar closed, we set a brisk pace. But only after a few minutes we were tempted to retire out of the event, as we drove past our hotel! As it was only just after 9 o’clock we decided not to. But it was a stimulant to keep up a steady pace.

Second stage also was a great drive and as we didn’t make any mistakes, thanks to René’s perfect navigating, we reached the finish just after 10 o’clock in the evening. Covering the 74 kilometres in just over an hour ...

The few beers back at the hotel tasted rather well. Was again a top event from Rutger, only downside being that there was no hotel at the finish.

A little bit of maintenance

Last weekend we took the cars out for the first tour of the year. During that tour I found out that the screen washer pump was by now completely dead at last. It had been steadily become weaker over the past year, so I ordered a new one and took the afternoon of from work to fit it. But when I returned home and opened the bonnet, I was reminded of the rather awkward position of the current pump. As the old pump was clearly working I decided to check the hoses from the washer first. Turned out that the previous screen washer liquid I used doesn’t mix with the one I am currently using, resulting in a slimy substance which blocked the filter! So after cleaning the filter gauze thoroughly and flushing the reservoir twice the screen washer again was fully functional.

At least I have a spare pump now! With the screen washer sorted I thought it a good idea to check the (front) bearings for play. I fitted a new bearing set to the left-hand front last summer and I hadn’t checked it since last year’s Nachtrit. And during last Saturdays tour the suspension again had to endure quite a beating. Wasn’t really surprising that one of the bearings needed to be adjusted slightly.

After that I tried to localize a light screeching sound under acceleration but didn’t succeed. It isn’t the fan pulley or the alternator, so I presume it isn’t very bad. Will see, next event "De Nacht van het Oosten" this Saturday.