Strut Brace

Have been thinking about a Strut brace on the DHC for a while, I tried a strut brace a friend in Bury St Edmunds has developed for a V8 but this will not fit, it fouls on SU carbs, so today I experimented with a couple of bits of wood, some 2d patterns of the strut top mount and have come up with a concept.


Paper templates and wood to obtain measurements.




3d drawing of complete brace, have made this adjustable.




Close up rendering of mounting plate and tube end.



Now have to generate the 2d drawings for manufacture and get a sample made up to try it on the car before plating.

Pretty sure it will clear a standard air filter, but not sure if it will clear Sprint engined cars.

Battery and Alternator

So after the battery dying on me on the New Year run, I pinched the battery of the wifes Blue TR7 and took the car back to the barn to work on it on last Friday afternoon.
It got me there without problem and seemed to be charging OK.

The rest of the afternoon I chased about for a new battery, firstly having the battery checked, which was confirmed as U/S. Dont know if both my cars wiring is an oddity, but my positive terminal is to the left, which I was told is quite rare on modern batteries of the size I required, I also needed a flat top battery due to the Dis-car-nect device which isolates battery, otherwise I would have to modify cables, again difficult to find as most have an inbuilt handle.

After trying 3 tyre and battery places I eventually found a Unipart battery to fit, this was duly fitted on Sunday, alternator was checked and appeared to be charging OK. No time to have a run out on the Sunday as I had homework!! seized float valve on water tank in loft.

New battery fitted.

So come this Fridays early finish from work, I pick the car up from the barn, get a couple of miles down the road and the ignition warning light comes on and stays on. Pull over, turn off, start up, no warning light, off we go again only for ignition light to come on again when near home. At home, a quick check with the meter confirms not charging. So I took off the alternator, checked the brushes which to my untrained eye look OK, and gave it a good clean out, plenty of dust in there which was cleaned away. What I can see of the diodes looks ok, ie: no burn marks and all wiring contacts look OK. After re-fitting the unit the light is on straight away, and still not charging. Not a lot else I can do, so looks as though its gonna swallow more money. Will pinch the alternator of GIlls FHC for a week or so.

Idle TR7

Not a lot to report on the TR7 front from Norfolk, Gills FHC is stored away in the barn as we normally do every winter. Mine is unused and unloved at home, with the combination of bad weather and the short hours at work last year I have had to SORN it for a few months to save some money.
Only work carried out has been the replacement of the BAL needles with some richer BCA needles I aquired from Burlem.
Suspecting wrong needles I had finally found my Triumphtune booklet after a long search, The recommendations for needles listed in the booklet are:

Standard Set up-----BDM needle
+ K+Ns ------------BDA needle
+ extractor manifold----------BAL needle
+ fast road cam-----BCA needle
so with my Stage 2 Cylinder Head Specification of:- Heavy Polish and port and Fast Road Camshaft, the BAL needles where not correct.

You can see the richer, slimmer needle in the middle of this shot. They are quite easy to replace, I also took the float chamber covers off and cleaned out some small particles in chambers, and checked needle valves.

I then tried to tune up as best as I could with a old colour tune kit I have had for a while, dont think its too far out, but I will need to take to an SU specialist when re-taxed in March for a proper tune up.
I have to say I have missed using the car, but with the weather we have had it is best I had it SORNed as temptation to use it in the snow would have been too great!! I would have ended up in a ditch.

Master Cylinder Reservoir

When I fitted the uprated master cylinder and servo some time ago to the DHC, which is sourced from a Rover SDI, it had a rectangular reservoir which sits level when fitted on the SDI, but is inclined when fitted on the TR7 bulkhead, thus all the fluid is at the cap end and it is virtually empty at the other end. I did not have a serviceable reservoir from a TR7 at the time so stuck with the one supplied.

SDI Servo and Master showing fluid level at cap end and low at other end.

I found a correct TR7 reservoir recently for next to nothing on fleabay, so today gave it a good clean up.

TR7 Reservoir.

I then removed the SDI reservoir and fitted the TR7 one, this I managed without getting fluid everywhere, I simply removed the 2 screws, then with a shallow container under the cylinder and an old quilt cover to soak up any fluid, quickly pulled of the reservoir allowing fluid to run into the container, handy these plastic Chinese Takeaway containers.

Reservoir off.

TR7 Reservoir fitted.

I was not worried about getting fluid on the paintwork in the engine bay as I use silicon fluid, after bleeding the brakes I ran out of fluid to top the reservoir fully, unfortunately living in a small country town none of the local garages stock silicon fluid, however there was enough fluid for a quick spin around the lanes in lovely Autumn sun. As usual my planned 5 miles turned into 15 as I got carried away!

Topping up gear box oil

I have had a bit of a gearbox oil leak for a while, this is in an innacessible area near the top of the box, and drips onto the prop and is sprayed around tunnel area, not too worried about this, not excessive, and it spreads under the car and forms an effective rust barrier.

Today I decided to check the level. With the 4:2:1 extractor manifold fitted access to the filler plug is difficult, with only a couple of inches swing on a spanner or socket. So, eventually with grazed knuckles I got the filler plug undone, there is no gearbox dipstick, so as I could not feel wet oil in the filler hole I presumed it needed some oil. Trying to fill from underneath is impossible without a pit or a ramp due to manifold and exhaust, so I ended up removing the gearstick/handbrake console, attaching a pipe to the oil bottle, feeding this down past the gaitor into the gearbox filler, and asking the missus to lie under the car and tell me when the oil flows out of the filler hole, thus indicating full.

Had to remove all this to top up the gearbox.

After putting it all back together I took it for a spin along some local roads.

I spotted a group of guys in a field, with a digger, TV cameras where there, I thought it might be the Time Team! also saw some old military vehicles too, so being nosey I stopped to find that they where unearthing a dump of 2nd World War US Air Force scrap from Metfield Aerodrome from where they used to fly Liberators to bomb Germany. This was all dumped in an old sand pit during the Yanks final days at the airfield.

Digging out aircraft scrap, note large manifold to left and bits of fuselage.

Aircraft Oxygen Tanks.

This is only 1 trench, they expect to dig a few more, a barrel from a Gatling Gun

can be seen on the left of the soil mound.

This was segragated from the rest of the scrap dug up, couple of round things could be bombs, and in view is a machine gun belt with a few live rounds still in the belt.

Talking to one of the guys, there has always been a rumour since the Yanks departed that at one of the Suffolk Airbases they dug a massive pit and dumped in complete Indian motor cycles, complete Willys Jeeps, complete aero engines, which they could not transport to the states, the local aircraft group hope to find this one day.

Fluid on rear wheel

I thought a couple of thousand miles of trouble free motoring was too good to be true! Today I discovered a fair amount of brake fluid inside the rear offside wheel and on the tyre today, and a slight drop in level on master cylinder reservoir.

Fluid around tyre and inside rim.

Was hoping it was a leaking pipe, but after removing the wheel and brake drum discovered it was the slave cylinder leaking badly from the seals.So again I had to remove brake shoes and springs to replace with a spare cylinder picked up at autojumble.

There was a fair amount of fluid thrown around in the drum and on the brake shoes, quite messy cleaning it up.

Fluid and dust collected on shoes.

Dismantling the cylinder I found a fair amount of bad pitting in the bore, as previous experience on honing out has always involved changing it again a few months later, therefore I wont be fitting a repair kit.
Also managed a couple of pre-mot jobs on Gills FHC, namely fitted a new bush to the steering column at bulkhead, I had to dimantle the steering column to do this, and also swapped a worn steering UV joint for a slightly less worn one. Checked all lights, gaiters, etc, so hopefully should be OK.