FHC resto nr. 140; Door harness refurbishing

With the brake and fuel pipes finished, I moved back to the cars wiring. And in particular one of the door harnesses (TKC3831). These were never fitted to ’76 cars. But I have the complete and (more important) unmolested wiring harnesses, from a late Solihull FHC, which I will be using on this car. But as I have decided not to use the door mounted interior lights, only part of these two harnesses is needed. And one harness needs a few alterations to switch the roof mounted interior light. But the easiest one first

As expected it was in pretty good shape. But I decided to strip it down completely nevertheless. Just in case! Unwrapping the wires and removing the terminals from the connector block didn’t reveal any hidden horrors. Only the female spade terminals for the door light and door switch were removed, as they were badly corroded.

For the tools used, I refer to THIS earlier article in my blog

Next job was cleaning the connector blocks, after which the terminals could be refitted to them.

Speaker connectors

Final jobs were fitting the new female spade terminals together with new (soft PVC) electrical insulation sleeves. After which the harness could be re-wrapped. For this I used non-adhesive PVC wrapping tape.

Door harness TKC3831

As I had some time left l also cleaned and refurbished (where necessary) two small leads;

Backlight feed UKC2427

Coolant lead ULC2353

A few hours well spent! Next I will subject the wiring diagram to a proper study, to work out what is the easiest way to connect the roof mounted interior light to the door switches. And what changes are necessary to the other door harness.

Last one tax exempt

In daily use shortly after her restoration was finished in the summer of 1997

After a local navigational rally in the autumn of 2000

Like almost two years ago, I received another letter from the Internal Revenue Office recently. And it contained the official statement that ‘t Kreng, my 1982 registered FHC, will be tax exempt (again I may add) this spring:

Or as the letter states;

“From the data from the vehicle registration register, I conclude that on the 16th of April 2022 it will be 40 years ago that the aforementioned motor vehicle was put into use for the first time. This means that from the 16th of April 2022 you will be eligible for a tax exemption for this motor vehicle”

25 years of age and tax exempt for the first time

(respectively at the Buttertubs Pass and on Langstrothdale Chase, Yorkshire dales)

As with the DHC two years ago, it is the second time I have received such a letter for this car I was a bit sceptical. But so far the rules haven’t been changed. And no rumours yet, that they will be soon. Fingers crossed!

And her current guise and nearly 40 years of age

So from the first of March all my TR7’s may be used all year round! Though the ’76 car is still far from road worthy at the moment 😳

FHC resto nr. 139; Fuel line

With the brake pipes and hoses fitted to the car it was time for the next and final pipe bending job. The fuel pipe(s) from the tank to the engine bay. I purchased a bespoke tool for this last year. And for the short pipe from tank to RH rear wheel well (PKC390) it worked perfectly, as these pictures show.

But for the more complex main pipe, the lack of a proper reference point on the tool proved the tool useless. Time for 2150mm off new 5/16” copper pipe and another cheap tool from the internet. This time I chose a similar tool as the (main) tool I used for shaping the brake pipes.

And with this tool (and its ability to use reference points) bending the main fuel pipe (PKC389) in its correct shape, turned out to be fairly easy. This was aided by a few original pipes which I could use as a template. But it was again rather time consuming!

With both the pipes finished it was time for their final stage, fitting them to the car. But before I could do that, I first had to fit the various plastic clips to the body, needed to support the pipe underneath the car. This turned out to be rather time consuming. Especially cleaning the anti-chip-coating from the small steel mounting heads for the clips along the sill (ZKC924) took me well over an hour!

But after that the clips still didn’t want to go over the heads properly. This time caused by the sharp edges of the clips digging into the thick anti-chip-coating. Luckily that was easily solved with a sharp pen-knife. This was used to chamfer the “front” edges of the clips a little, and thus preventing them from digging into the anti-chip-coating:

Final preparations consisted of slightly enlarging the mounting holes for some of the other pipe clips. And with that job done, it was time to fit the various clips to the car;

Rear bulk head

Sill

Cross over behind the passenger foot well

Left hand front chassis rail

And with all clips in place it was time for the moment of truth; fitting the fuel pipe itself. Didn’t start well, as one of the clips broke immediately. Luckily I have a few (second hand) spares. But the chosen replacement decided to break while fitting it to the car. Bugger! The second replacement went on without any problems. As did the pipe itself. It needed hardly any adjustments to get a decent fit!

On to the next job; checking and refurbishing the remaining wiring looms and fitting them to the car.

FHC resto nr. 138; Brake pipes part 6

And the final part I dare say! Yesterday I had to pay one more visit to my local brake specialist. To collect yet another brake pipe and a small handheld flaring tool. The last item was necessary as I decided I would use the original holes in the nose panel. And as such I would be working without the correct template pipe. But by using my late template pipe, the drawings from my parts manuals and the car itself as template, I was able to create a new pipe. Though this time I had to do most of the shaping in the shed.

With this last hurdle taken it was at last time to fit the brake pipes to the car. But not before I had to spent some more time searching. For the braided flexible brake hoses this time. Luckily this time the search lasted only 5 minutes!

And that left me with the final job. Fitting them to the car. This time there were no more problems. Even my first attempt at using a flaring tool went well!

RKC1033 (PRV to back axle):

RKC1005 (PRV to LH front strut)

& RKC1007 (PRV to RH front strut):

Flexible hoses:

All pipes turned out to be fairly spot on. Though they all needed some on the spot tweaking to get a near perfect fit. Rather pleased with the result. And I now have regained some experience to tackle the final one; the fuel pipe.