FHC resto nr. 45; A numbers game

Or the devil's in the detail ... Over the Christmas period I have been working on some smaller and less  vital parts for the car. But for the car's identity and looks they are crucial. In this case I have been busy remanufacturing the two body number tags and VIN plate for this car. As you can see in the picture below they were not really suitable to fit to nice & shining restored vehicle.

The two tags might have been salvageable, but the VIN plate was beyond repair. Time hadn't been kind to it, as a result of which the surface was badly corroded. Sadly "remanufactured" plates available through the usual channels are of rather poor quality and not very cheap. So I decided on a little experiment, using my computer and modern fabrication technologies. From a scan of the original VIN plate I constructed a vector file, using AutoCad ...

And this AutoCad file was used to generate a printing and machining file, using the software provided by Schaeffer a.g....

To the finalised product  ...

Not counting my own hours behind the computer (yes it was a rather time consuming job. Ideal for the dark days around Christmas 😋), it even turned out to be a rather cost effective solution. And you have to be a real anorak to be able spot the difference, if at all. The biggest difference from the original being the thickness of the plate material used. Where the original plate is only 0.5 mm thick, the minimum material thickness Schaeffer can process is 1,50 mm.
The body number tags luckily were far easier to reconstruct. Here I thought it would be nicer to have them fabricated in black, so they contrast nicely with the car's bright orange paintwork. The material thickness is less of an issue here as the original tags are 1,25 mm in thickness.

And to finalise renewing the cars identity, I ordered a set of period dark blue licence plates. As the car dates from before 1978, it was fitted with blue licence plates when it was first registered. So in this case it is quite legal to use them.

FHC resto nr. 44; Small progress

Managed to do a few small jobs on the FHC. First I finished the sound proofing of the body shell by rectifying a few minor blemishes and faults caused by the lowish temperatures when I applied them. This last issue meant a few pads were coming loose at some of their edges or had some air trapped underneath. But with the paint stripper and some blunt tools that was easy to rectify. I also added the last missing pieces on the inside of the sills ...

And for comparison, the same area in a FHC ...

With the soundproofing finished I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up all threads of welded in nuts and threaded plates. As it seemed rather inappropriate to cover up the car without any visible proof of an afternoon well spend, I decided it would be nice to fit the first few parts, the seat belts ...

Next steps; refurbish the rear lights and the wiring loom.

But there are some other jobs to do on my TR7's this winter ...

Seasonal greetings ...

Calendar Girls 2016

Another year almost over. So time again to start to think ahead to 2016. And time to browse through my pictures for a new calendar to grace the study wall. As last year I decided to use pictures of my TR7's ...

January: To remind me of the work ahead for the coming year.

A picture of the freshly painted 1976 FHC patiently waiting in the shed for assembly to begin.

(14 September 2015)

February: 't Kreng in front of the Ribblehead railway viaduct,

during the first edition of Club Triumph's Border Raiders Tour.

(2 August 2014)

March: The DHC on the Black Mountain in Wales,

during the second edition of Club Triumph's Taith o Amgylch Cymru.

(11 May 2014)

April: 't Kreng in the car park of the Old Stone Trough,

the night before the start of the first edition of Club Triumph's Border Raiders Tour.

(1 August 2014)

May: Refurbished interior for 't Kreng,

McBeans tartan covered Sparco seats and custom made switch panel.

(1 April 2015)

June: The DHC on the Hoverheide viaduct over the RW73 in Belfeld.

(13 November 2013)

July: Current wheels on both 't Kreng and the DHC.

The DHC shot at the Silvretta in Austria and 't Kreng closer to home in Baarlo.

(12 September 2015 / 28 November 2015)

August: The DHC pictured against one of my favourite views in the area,

the Maas panorama in the village of Neer.

(18 June 2014)

September: The first tour of 2015 with the DHC,

a local blast through the country near "Huis Oijen" in Baarlo.

(15 April 2015)

October: 't Kreng in in front of the parish church in the village of Buggenum,

during the last tour of the year before the car had to be laid up for 3 months.

(28 November 2015)

November: Again taken during this year's last tour with 't Kreng,

near the weir in the river Maas in Baarlo.

(28 November 2015)

December: The DHC on the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse in Austria,

during the 2015 edition of Club Triumph's 10 Countries Run.

(11 September 2015)