FHC resto nr. 65; Work slowly resumes

After moving all my TR7 parts including the '76 FHC's body earlier in the year, not much has happened to that car. This was mainly caused by work that needed doing to my other cars and sometimes life gets in between! But over the past few weeks I have slowly started to pick up work on the car.

First job that needed doing was find another insulation pad (ZKC3176) for the centre exhaust bracket, mounted to the rear bulkhead. I had one coated but somewhere between shot blasting and moving the parts to their current storage, it got lost. So I had to search for another one in the shed:

This one was sent of to have it shot blasted and powder coated a few weeks ago. And when it returned with a fresh layer of black coating, and I found the exhaust mounting bracket, it was time to add some sound proofing material to its back (as per the original):

And bolt it in place together with the exhaust bracket (YKC957). Always very rewarding work, to mount freshly coated parts to a car under restoration!

Luckily while searching through my parts I stumbled across this little box, containing the black plastic rivets for some of the plastic trim pieces. I knew about its existence but had forgotten where I had stored it!

Which meant that the next item on the to do list was cleaning some of the plastic trim pieces from my parts collection, including the front grill mouldings, the sidelight blanking plates and the sill tread plates:

After which these parts were fitted to the car. Well at least the sill tread plates, the grill mouldings and the front blanking plates. The rear ones will have to wait till the stripping is fitted!

The plans for the rest of the year are first to finish the heater (I ran into a problem there with one of the flaps so that was put aside for a while!) and start on the wiring loom. I also hope to finish fitting the striping and decals to the car together with bending and fitting the brake lines! But first I need to fit the refurbished carburettors to the DHC and see that 't Kreng passes her biennial inspection.

Judgement Day

Today my two roadworthy TR7's and the Defender were valued for the car's insurance. So 't Kreng and the DHC were together again to grace the driveway.

As for the valuation. 't Kreng's value will remain the same despite ever more signs of her hard use. This is because she still looks pretty good for a car that was restored between 1994 and 1997. And she has seen a lot of action since she returned on the road in '97.

The DHC's value has increased a little bit. This is mainly caused by the current market situation, but also by the fact that the appraiser was impressed by how well she looked after 8 years of regular and sometimes hard use since she was restored! The mileage readings were there to prove the fact!

The Defender's price will be a surprise once determined. Due to the current rather unfriendly (local) rules against diesel powered cars, prices are starting to become unstable. So that value needs some further consultation before it's finalised.

Enjoying the last day of spring

As the title states I took the DHC for a spin, to enjoy the fine weather yesterday. Spent a lovely afternoon and early evening in the country:

Next on the to do list is some work on the Defender's gear linkage, fit the refurbished carburettors to the DHC and resume work on the ''76 FHC. I made a start with the last one, some small jobs to the hand brake lever! As you can see I don't really like the original grip so this one too was changed for a different (Austin Rover) item, which I like much better. In this case it was stripped from an earlier Range Rover:

Another MOT for the DHC

Yesterday morning I drove the DHC to my friendly garage for its biennial inspection and a thorough check of the front suspensions alignment. As almost everything had been checked in the previous weeks I wasn't to worried about the inspection's outcome. And my gut feeling turned out to be correct. Nothing wrong and no advisories, though in my opinion the CO level (@ 4,22% within the limits) was slightly high. But that will be addressed soon when I am going to fit the refurbished carburettors.

Another smallish issue came to light on the brake test bed. Both front and rear brakes were OK (with the rears exactly the same left and right!), but the hand brake showed a 50% difference between left and right. As the combined retardation for the LH and RH side was well above the minimum figure that was also a pass. Again something to address when I returned home.

And the last item on the to do list was a thorough check of the alignment of the car's front suspension. Turned out to be slightly worse than expected. But easily corrected with the proper equipment! But when I wanted to set off for home (via some lovely country lanes of course) the owner of the workshop rushed out to tell me he forgot to refit the outer cable ties for the steering rack's gaiters. Not life threatening so something that could wait till I returned home.

After lunch and some housekeeping duties the tools were out. As the engine bay still was slightly hot I started at the back of the car, adjusting the handbrake. After disconnecting the handbrake cable and depressing the brake pedal a few times, a rasping sound from the left hand rear brake proved my suspicion. The self-adjusting mechanism hadn't adjusted properly due to the hand brake cable's tension. Should have disconnected it in the first place. But glad it was an easy fix!

Time for the last and even more easy job, fit two cable ties to the steering rack gaiters. But while working on the LH side I noted a slight fuel smell, which was stronger on the RH side. And while finishing the cable tie on that side I thought I saw a small drop falling to the ground. Time to get he light out. Turned out the fuel hose between the fuel pipe and filter had become porous. And my attempts to find the exact location of the leak (hose or clips or cracked filter) had made it worse. So something that had to be dealt with immediately. Luckily I always have some lengths of spare hose lying around. Sadly searching for a correct piece of hose actually took longer than fitting it!

As can be seen in the picture above, this one was well and truly fit for the bin. At least it showed me again that current quality hoses really have become a regular service item! And while working on the hose, I found out that the front pulley's oil seal, which was replaced last summer together with a new front pulley was leaking badly. How I hate this disposable society!