Wet Weekend

Bit of a wet day here in Norfolk, Saturday OK, but poured down all day Sunday so no progress on the axle or rust repairs. Saturday I took a 240 mile round trip to the TRDC AGM at Rothersthorpe near Northhampton, mainly all dual carriageway, car went well, no faults to report with the TR7 DHC other than the lights which are awful on dipped beam.

These are halogen conversions of dubious make, with Osram nightbreaker bulbs. They are so poor that I have to use foglights at the same time. So today I ordered some Wipac Optronic Halogens from Mini Spares which should be an improvement. Another job on the to do list. Should be easy to change over, I may also fit relays and a direct feed from the battery to protect the now scarce Lucas light switches as all the current goes through the switch and damages the contact, I have gone through 2 of these in 2 years. Hardest part will be deciphering the wiring diagrams, as the TR7 light wiring is a nightmare.

My 7 at the Rothersthorpe meeting.

Grinnal V8 at the meeting.

Tin worm is back.

Sunday 18th - Its about 6 years since I restored the Gold DHC, last year it was outside for most of the time as when we moved we could not find a house with a garage in our price range as Suffolk is a little pricey. I am now starting to see some rust problems on this car. The worst is at the bottom of the B Pillar panel with cill joint. I should have welded these up fully at the time. The joint was red leaded, filled with a sealant and painted, however over time the paint has cracked, and looks as though it has let moisture in, and small blisters are starting to show.

Today I peeled out the sealer along the whole joint, this revealed there was surface rust along the whole joint. I sanded the rust back to metal using emery glued to a scraper, the rust had extended round into the door shut, then I blew away all the dust and applied sume Hammerite cure rust.






Next problem is on the crease line of the passenger door, again it looks as though the paint has cracked, allowing moisture in. I sanded back the rust and applied cure rust.

Would have done more, but the shower head broke in the house giving me an excuse for a trip to Beccles Homebase and back. Too cold for the hood down.

Have a few more areas to tackle next week. In the meantime I will have to look for some painters in this area.

Axle Cleanup

Saturday: One of the problems on the Blue DHC is a very noisy diff, I have obtained a secondhand replacement rear axle from Dave Aspinall at Anglian Triumph, however this needs a major clean, all the rust needs removing and the axle painting, Mechanically wise there is little I can do without special tools, however I will change wheel bearings as a matter of course and fit new rear cover gasket, then swap over all brake parts when I do the axle swap.

First thing was to remove old rusty brake pipes, brake pads, and handbrake cable and discard, then remove the rear cover and check operation, the diff feels ok, very little play in crown wheels and pinions, half shafts also have no play in them, the oil was quite dirty but expected in a 20+ year old axle. Wondering if to just refill with clean oil or give it a wash out with petrol or paraffin first?

I started to clean the rear cover with a wire wheel on the angle grinder, then gave it a coat of rust cure. Just this one part took around an hour to clean up, so I will investigate a local shot blaster for the rest of the axle, making sure breather is plugged first, I cant face all that wire brushing.

My First Blog

Hello, I thought I would try out this blogging, so here goes. I will talk here of the trials and tribulations of running 2 Triumph TR7's. My Gold DHC, not exactly a daily driver, but used where practical all year long, and my Blue FHC, used by the wife for 6 months of the year.