10CR Preparations Day 2 ...

A fairly early start this morning, as the car’s preparations continued. First thing to tackle were the front brakes. As an inspection some four weeks ago had shown, the pads needed replacing, So that’s what I did. As I haven’t had time to pay a visit to nearby brake specialist C&C Parts, I took the pads from the attic that came with this brake set when I purchased it many years ago from S&S Preparations. Hopefully they are up to the job, will know next week. But more interesting were the pads that came of the car. They definitely were past their prime, showing clear signs of some excessive heat ...

With the pads changed, it was time to check and clean the front suspension ...

And the rear brakes and suspension. Brakes at the rear were fine, but I am a little undecided on the condition of the left hand half shaft bearing. It has a bit of lateral movement, which isn’t to worrying. What worries me more though is the fact that there was a fair amount of grease, which had escaped from the bearing. A discussion point for tomorrow afternoon, when a friend comes over to assist with flushing/bleeding the brakes and clutch.

After lunch I busied myself with a job that wasn’t really necessary from a reliability point of view. But as I had to take of the original starter motor to sort a rattling heat shield, I took the opportunity to change the rather heavy original starter for a modern light weight one ...

On the left 3.5 kg and on the right 7.5 kg! Fitting took slightly longer than planned as I had to adapt the wiring a little to get a proper fit. But the end result looks rather nice, with much more clearance from the exhaust on all sides ...

While in the Alps earlier this summer, I found that the temperature was wandering up and down more than what I am used to with my TR7's. Having checked various possible problem areas, in the end I decided it was time to fit a new viscous coupling. Turned out that the old unit had a fair amount of play on the centre part. Also there was hardly any resistance left in the old unit, irrelevant of temperature or revs. So probably all fluid has escaped from the unit!

Removing the viscous coupling from the pulley assembly wasn’t too difficult using the proper tools. I did support the assembly under the viscous coupling. And with a small outer diameter socket on the pulley shaft it could be tapped out. As the coupling was shot already I didn’t worry too much about damaging it!

When refitting the coupling I supported it under the rotating part of the pulley assembly. And gently tapping it in position using a correct (outer) diameter socket on the couplings inner ring and using a new tolerance ring of course (please note the clearly visible old and flattened tolerance ring in the picture above!).

Turning the viscous coupling showed that the new item has much more resistance compared to the old one, so hopefully problem solved. With the new coupling fitted to the pulley, I thought it a good idea to clean the fan a bit, as it had collected quite a lot of dirt over the past year. But it had also acquired something else, a few cracks ...

As I don’t like the idea of fan blades attacking my bonnet I picked another one without cracks ...

So remain the following items on the to do list before this Thursday;

• Second opinion on LH rear bearing;

• Change brake and clutch fluid;

• Sort dashboard lights;

• Finish general check over.

So it begins ...

With the start of a three week holiday, I started the preparation of the DHC today, for next week’s 10 Countries Run. But before starting with the actual work on the car I thought it a good idea to enjoy the lovely weather first. All under the pretence that the gearbox I fitted last month needed flushing a bit more, and of course hot oil flows better from engine and gear box. Was a nice run around the country side here in the area, but it nearly ended in tears. An oncoming driver clearly wasn’t paying any attention and completely wandered to the wrong side of the road. With my room to manoeuvre rapidly growing smaller I hit the horns to warn him. That clearly woke him up, almost just in time. While driving of the road in between two large trees he “only” clipped my door mirror, which shattered. If I hadn’t reacted the way I did it would have been a head on collision ...

On closer inspection it turned out that only the mirror’s glass was shattered, there was no other visible damage, top marks for powder coating! The guy was rather apologetic and promised to pay for the damage, will see if he keeps his word.

Luckily I do have a few original spare mirrors, so rectifying the damage didn’t take much longer than half an hour, with most of that time spent removing the small glass splinters from the interior. Have to admit that it was a rather unpleasant experience driving without a driver’s side door mirror.

Of course, immediately after returning home I removed the drain plugs from engine and gearbox and headed for a late lunch. After which it didn’t all go to plan. While removing the oil filter the adaptor plate thought it a good idea to stick to the filter. Shouldn’t be much of a problem, only I didn’t have a spanner or socket that fitted to the mounting bolt. Wonder how I fitted it a few years ago? But after an hour’s hassle, mainly caused by the fact I didn’t have my axle stands at hand, I managed to properly tighten up the adaptor plate.

My lesson learned, I went over to the shed to get my axle stands, before refilling the gearbox. Here I learned another lesson, when I rebuilt ‘t Kreng in the near future I’ll make an inspection hatch in the transmission tunnel to make this job easier. And to end the first service day I removed the wheels so I can immediate start on the suspension and brakes tomorrow morning.

List of things to do that’s left now;

• Fit new hi-torque starter motor;
• New front pads;
• Change brake and clutch fluid, as both look rather murky;
• Sort dashboard lights, speedometer side doesn’t work;
• Check condition of thermostat gasket probably renew;
• Check condition of viscous coupling, as the temperature is wandering a little;
• General check over.

More work before the 10CR

With the car on the lift in the workshop I had a quick glance at the front pads to see how they had survived two Alpine trips. Didn’t look to promising but as the wheels were obstructing a proper view I took them of tonight. Although the pads (Mintex M1144) behaved very well, with very good braking and absolutely no fade they clearly have one big flaw. This is how they looked just over a year ago ...

And this is how they look now after a little over 8000 kilometres ...

Clearly longevity isn’t one of their strongest points. They need replacing before the 10CR, as they won’t survive another Alpine trip. Not yet decided what I’ll do. I have a brand new “stock” set of pads in my garage. But maybe I’ll go for a set of Ferodo DS2500’s as they used to be very good in the past and see how they compare with the M1144’s. Still a few weeks left to decide on that. On the plus, the pads are quite evenly worn.

Changing gearbox

During my recent trip to the Alps the gearbox in the DHC developed some nasty noises. Especially when in neutral and/or hot it rattled away quite happily, indicating something with the bearings wasn’t as it should be. As the car will be used for Club Triumphs 10 Countries Run in a month’s time, a gear box swap seemed like a good idea. And while going through my spare parts in search of a better ‘box, I remembered that when I prepared the car for the 2007 edition of the 10CR I made a mental note to swap the gearbox in the not too distant future. Clearly forgot that when I restored the car ! And I found a reasonable box to use. As it hasn’t done more than 100.000 kilometres and has no noticeable play on the input shaft it should be OK.

So last Friday evening I parked the car in the workshop and started the preparations for the gearbox swap. This meant removal of the prop shaft, exhaust system, starter motor and clutch slave cylinder, and disconnecting the speedo cable ...

Also drained the oil from the ”old” gearbox. I had expected some grindings in the oil or on the drain plug, but there was absolutely none.

And on Saturday I returned with some extra hands to take the ‘box from the car, which went very smoothly. But the removal of the heat shield from the starter motor should have been a warning, it just didn’t want to come of the starter motor ...

With the old ‘box from the car it was time to inspect it. And indeed the input shaft had a fair amount of play. So we carried on and swapped the gear change extension over to the “new” box ...

and clutch release mechanism. I had a few reservations about fitting the last one, as it can sometimes be a real pain to put it back inside the bell housing. But I needn’t have worried it slipped in quite nicely at the first attempt ...

After that it was just a matter of putting the gearbox back under the car. But we needed three attempts before the gearbox slipped in place. Seems like they get heavier every year!

After lunch we returned to the car to bolt everything back in place. All went pretty smooth till we reached the exhaust, the manifold slipped in place quite nicely, only had to remove the strut brace for that. But when fitting the bolts Murphy paid us a visit. The least accessible one (lower rear) refused point blank to go in. Took me a very frustrating half hour to get it in place.

After that the rest of the exhaust system and the prop shaft went in without a problem. I should have gone home at that stage but I promised Robbie that I only needed his workshop for one day. On the other hand I only had the gear lever to put back. Sadly Murphy hadn’t gone home, so the lever, or more precise the anti rattle spring inside it put up quite a fight. But half an hour and lots of swearing later it slipped in as it should. Time to put the car back in the shed and head for home and enjoy a well deserved beer. Driving the very short stretch from the workshop to the shed revealed that the gear change was rather crappy, much worse than the old box. But at that moment I couldn’t care much!

So on Sunday I took ‘t Kreng for a short spin just for fun, after which she swapped places in the shed with the DHC. When setting of in the DHC the gear change indeed wasn’t very good, but not as bad as it had seemed the previous day. What should you expect from a box that has been lying in the corner of a shed for 5 years? And while driving along it gradually improved. Still not brilliant, but at least as good as the old ‘box, and with better bearings, so it should be OK for the 10CR. Plan is to drive the car as much as possible in the next few weeks to flush the box and renew the oil shortly before the 10CR. See how it all develops.