More 10CR checks

Spent a few hours over this weekend, preparing the car for the 10CR. Starting on one of the lifts in a friends workshop, with the aim of checking all rubber fuel hoses from below. First check was the fuel hose between the (FI) fuel tank and the 8mm metal pipe running to the engine bay. After cleaning 12 years of road grime from it, I found out there was nothing really wrong with it. Which turned out to be a good thing! Because I was reminded that on a FI tank the supply hose connection is 12mm. Clearly forgot that over the 12+ years since I restored this car 😶 At the time I fitted a fuel resistant 8mm hose with a 2mm wall thickness inside the hose end that connects to the 8mm pipe.

So that would have been a challenge to replace with a half empty tank and only normal fuel hoses at hand. All the rubber fuel lines in the engine bay were also in good condition. Not really surprising as these were all renewed in the past few years.

To prevent future problems, I think I will replace the two separate outlet and sender units for a normal carburetted version. The tank’s redundant hole should be straight forward to close up with a round steel plate with the same dimensions as the sender unit’s base plate.

Next job was a bit of tinkering and cleaning of the carburettors. Starting with the suction chambers and pistons. Main job here was polishing the inside of the suction chambers and the pistons outer rims. Though one of the pistons had clearly accumulated some dirt on its piston’s surface.

With the internals cleaned I spent some time on the custom carburettor linkage. Mainly consisting of a good clean and some fresh grease inside the link rod ends. Inspecting the rod end’s surfaces proved there was nothing wrong. And as such still one of the better adaptations on this car.

Final jobs were a detailed general check of the engine bay; emptying the catch tank, changing the routing of the two fuel hoses connecting to the carburettors, checking the earth point (found and rectified one loose bolt behind the RH headlight, caused by a stripped thread). Next weekend I will have a look at the front suspension. But in between I’ll start with preparing the route for my GPS and mark the route out on a good old fashioned paper map!

Pré 10CR check DHC

Spent most of this Saturday’s afternoon on another check for the car of choice for next month’s 10 Countries Run. First area to get some attention were the rear brakes. Because the brake pedal’s travel is still to long for my liking. The drums where a nice tight fit over the brake shoes, with no ridge.

Of course hardly surprising as they were machined in 2019. And after that the car wasn’t used as much as I would have liked due to the Covid pandemic. But despite the lack of use the handbrake adjusters were still free and working properly. And no sign of leaks from the 5 year old rear brake cylinders.

With a clean bill of health for the rear brakes, it was time for a rather simple but also important job. Checking the valve clearances. And about time these were checked. The last time I checked and adjusted them was in 2007, when the engine was in the Bordeaux red DHC.

Rather pleased with the condition under the cam cover. Especially considering this engine has been in use since 1994. It is actually the first car engine I built myself!

And 15 years and 44.531 kilometres on I found the clearances weren’t too bad. One spot on, five less than 0,05mm to tight, one between 0,05 and 0,10mm to tight and one 0,05mm to wide. While typing these words I have still not decided whether to adjust them or not ... To be continued!

FHC resto nr. 142; Engine harness

With my road going TR7’s more or less sorted, I managed to spent another few hours on the my restoration project. It won’t come as a surprise that I continued where I left off; with the engine harness (RKC5511). After my previous post on this subject I had laid out the harness on a large table in the spare room. And every time I had a bit of free time I would perform one or two small tasks on it, like cleaning some wires or replace some of the single spade connectors. So when I started this afternoon most of the work had been done already. Only remaining jobs were cleaning the connector pins of the two main connectors and clean the plastic connector blocks;

Fit a new connector for the gear box harness. The first picture also showing one of the single spade connectors I fitted where necessary;

The connector block for the alternator. Luckily the connectors inside were still in good condition, needing only a good polish;

And the final job for the day, wrapping the harness with new (non-adhesive) wrapping tape. A before and after picturee:

Post MOT service DHC

With a fresh MOT for the DHC, it was time for her postponed service. Most important being the fluids (the hydraulics were ignored as these were changed last year) First the old oil filter and drain plug were removed, so the still warm old oil could drain from the engine. Pretty easy when you have access to a four post lift!

With the engine oil draining from the engine I turned my attention to the fluid levels in the gear box and back axle. Both turned out to be fine. Which was hardly surprising, as there were no signs of any leaks from both. This couldn’t be said from the engine’s front crank shaft seal (UKC 3344). This was leaking badly, though it wasn’t a fail yet! But bearing in mind it was fitted less than 5 years ago (together with a new front pulley), I can only conclude the seals quality was rather poor. So I decided not to use the normal TR7 suppliers, but my trusty vernier caliper and a specialised bearing supplier. Taking reference measurements from a spare front pulley and timing cover, I found out I was looking for an 1 7/8” x 2 5/8” x 3/8” oil seal. And I ordered a few of these, from a renowned manufacturer (Eriks) and reasonably priced.

And with the car on the four poster lift, access to the front pulley and the oil seal was easy, making it a straight forward, 15 minutes job. The biggest challenge (if it could be called that!) was putting in the new seal. This took a few extra minutes as access is limited by the fan shroud. What was obvious though, was that the quality of the new seal felt much better. The old one felt much harder. See if that was the cause for the seal’s short life span! Final job was cleaning the filth left by the oil leak.

Next in line, and final job for the day, were the custom-prop shaft’s union joints grease fittings. Greasing them was easy, but getting the surplus grease from between the yokes wasn’t. As the amount of grease against the gear lever extension clearly shows (I might fabricate a shroud to prevent this happening in future to protect the connector!?)

After which it was time to enjoy the car for a few hours. The most important point of attention here were the brakes. And I am pleased to say that they are slowly settling in. The pedal still is very light, but the feeling is starting to get confidence inspiring. Will do my best to add some more miles before September …