FHC resto resto nr. 72; Or how time flies!

It's exactly five years ago today that my latest TR7 joined my small collection. I actually bought the car for its, at first glance rather tatty looking, Wolfrace Turbo wheels:

But they were completely undamaged, with absolutely no curbing damage. And on the cars arrival in the shed the wheels were quickly removed and sent of to be refurbished. Shod with new rubber and with newly designed 3D printed wheel centres, they were fitted to my 1980 DHC. Why? Because for as long as I love TR7's I have always wanted a TR7 DHC with a set of these wheels fitted:

With the wheels removed from the car, it dawned on me that I was in possession of a pretty early and fairly original Dutch car, which was first registered here on the 6^th of October 1976. So it was quickly decided it had to be restored. Though with a few slightly non original twists. And the rest is history as the saying goes! But still very much a work in progress, a few pictures of the body work (the full restoration story so far can be found here) ...

As bought in Hoek van Holland (17-10-2013)

Disassembling complete (12-02-2014)

Welding complete and waiting for final "light" shot blasting and a coat of primer (10-07-2014)

Almost ready for painting (08-11-2014)

Underside and inside painted (05-02-2015)

Patiently waiting for its turn in the spray cabin (05-09-2015)

Painted at last! (14-09-2015)

Slowly taking shape (30-05-2017)

Original plan was to have the car restored and back on the road in 2016. As this would be the year that she'd became tax exempt. But life and other games got in the way from time to time ...

FHC resto nr. 71; Fitting fuel filler and happy birthday

Another smallish job on the car completed. This weekend I found a bit of spare time to fit the fuel filler neck and connect it to the tank. Over the past few weeks I had been searching through my spare parts in search of a decent filler neck hose to use between the filler neck and the fuel tank. But I only found one, and that was badly damaged. So in the end I opted for a more modern approach and ordered a 300mm long piece of universal ø51mm diameter flexible fuel hose from a motor sport outlet.

Another "problem" I encountered was the non vented large diameter fuel filler cap. When I bought the car it came with  a rather bodged rear deck replacement from a later model, so with the small vented filler cap. As a result of which the original "breathing" device (part #158526) was missing. Luckily I found a separator canister (part #UKC2257) from a US specification PI car I broke a few years ago. Which should do the same job. And it turned out that the mounting bracket for this canister was fitted to the inside of the fuel filler shroud of my car's body:

With all parts ready it was time to fit them to the car. I had mentally prepared for a few frustrating moments because there is very little room to manoeuvre inside the shroud. But I had hoped that at least the universal hose would slide onto the tanks filler tube easily (as it did on the filler neck). Of course it didn't!

With the later type of filler neck you can assemble the filler neck and hose to the tank, and fit the everything from underneath. Sadly with the early type the filler neck has to be fitted from above. Which means the filler hose has to be slipped over the tanks tube in a very confined space. Took me well over half an hour to get it on. Time for the next challenge, fit the canister and the various hoses and tighten all hose clips in the now even more confined space. But got everything in position in the end. Only had to turn one hose clip after I took these pictures ...

I also had planned to fit the panel to close of the filler neck shroud, but I remembered just in time that I needed access to the space for fitting the left hand rear shock absorber! And just for the records, yesterday was the cars 42 birthday or should I say registration day, as she was first registered on October the 6^th 1976!

Reconnaissance LTV Nachtrit 2018

Yesterday I finally got the SU carburettors on the DHC set up correctly, using the emission tester from a friends workshop. Turned out that it was running pretty rich at almost 7% CO, but that was easily rectified by turning the adjustment nuts 3 flats up. Which gave a reading of just above 3%. Synchronising them brought the CO level to 3,5%. With an idle speed of circa 1000 rpm. Result! Sadly the homeward journey turned into a shower dodging contest. So it was kept short ...

But today the weather forecast was much better, so I used the reconnaissance for the 30th edition of our Nachtrit, which will be held on Saturday the 27th of October, as an excuse to take the DHC for a drive in the country. And it turned out to be a rather enjoyable day, clocking up well over 300 kilometres all together. A few pictures of some of the areas we will be visiting this time;

And the car behaved quite nicely. Most noticeable is that since fitting the slightly richer needles, the engines temperature is running slightly lower than before. So that looks good. And another trip planned for this Sunday!

FHC resto nr. 70; More small jobs

In between solving the DHC's carburettor's problems, and with no motivation at all to finish the heater, I carried out some more smaller jobs on the FHC. First of these was collecting the refurbished parts for the headlight mechanism for reassembly:

Putting them back together was a rather straightforward job. Though I was surprised it took me a fair amount of time, mainly caused by the fact that all the threaded holes needing careful cleaning with a tap. This was to remove the powder coating that got in there despite all threads being plugged during coating. But after spending a few relaxing hours outside, and enjoying the fine late summer weather, the headlight mechanism platforms and headlight bowls were back together:

Next came the rear quarter grills, together with various small parts to fit them and for the head lights. Again back to the shed to search through my spare parts. First to select the best pair of rear quarter grills:

Followed by a search through my many boxes with various small parts. Not too bad a job when you can combine it with some nice weather!

These were all taken home for a much needed clean up. Rather time consuming but also very relaxing and rewarding to do. With everything cleaned it was time to fit the rear quarters grills, but not before fitting 2 pairs of newly fabricated air extractor flaps to the B-post together with two small plastic spacers to help keep the rear of the grills in position:

Followed by the grills themselves. This is turned out to be a bit of a fiddle with the small plastic T-bolts and nuts. At least I didn't lose any of the small (M4) nuts, to secure the grills with, in the depths of the car's interior!

And to finish off on a very rainy day, I fitted the drain plugs to the rear underside of the front wings: