Halfshaft Endplay + Friday 13th Strikes.

Hopefully I have finally cured excessive Halfshaft endplay on my rear axle. I had a selection of spacers made up by a machine shop at mates rates.


Various Thickness spacers.


The spacer is intended to go behind the bearing race in the axle tube, I first tried with a 1mm spacer in the tube, but had to go to 1.5mm in the end.


Spacer in axle tube.





The bearing race is then inserted into tube and freshly greased halfshaft and bearings fitted.

 

Bearing race with spacer behind.


Had a quick check and it has improved the endplay, only minimal now, took the car for a 15 mile spin to check it out, seems ok, no bearing noise from the rear on cornering, have a long run next weekend to try and really prove it out. I still cannot really say what is wrong here, bearings? axle tubes? halfshafts? oil seal? end plates? or a combination?

Yesterday, Friday the 13th, I had the wheel alignement re-done and front wheels balanced as I had developed steering wheel shake over the past month or two. After balancing and alignement it persisted for a while, but after the fitter swapped a slightly misshapened front tyre for a back tyre all was perfect, except been Friday the 13th we found a grumbling NSF bearing!!!!
I know I probably use my TR7 more than most other TR7 owners but the bearing situation is really wearing me down, they just dont seem to last, I cannot be fitting them wrongly as they are so simple to fit and torque. Must be Chinese or Indian crap! gotta keep my eye on Ebay for NOS bearings.

Easter Run

We joined the TR Register on Easter Sunday for their annual Easter Run. Stag Owners Club where there too.
The run set of from the Bird in Hand at Wreningham, and headed for St Georges Distillery at East Harling for coffee, trips round the distillery and tastings. Whisky is not for me but I am reliably informed that it is very good and on a par with the Scottish stuff and many bought a few bottles. info here http://www.englishwhisky.co.uk/the-distillery/about-st-georges-distillery
The run then continued on into the Thetford Forest and Breckland areas with a break at the small church at Santon Downham in the forest. Some photos follow, poor images from the camera phone!

The run then took in some fine roads through the forest before we stopped for dinner at The Crown Inn, Mundford where we had a good roast lunch along with a pint.
After dinner the run headed for the Foresty centre at Brandom, in heavy rain, good old Easter weather before we all scattered for the trip to home.
Generally I think numbers where down on last year, maybe influenced by the Easter weather forecast.

Fan problem and New Hood

An update on things TR7 related as I have not properly blogged for a while.
We now only have one TR7, Gill sold her Blue FHC at the end of last year so she could buy a more modern convertible. Sad to see it go, but it has a good new home. It was a nightmare to sell for a decent price, there are some prize "t--s" out there wanting something for nothing, even so called Triumph Enthusiasts from the 2 forums I visit and dealers.

FHC ready for collection on 2nd Nov last year.

The Gold DHC is still on the road all year round.
Recent Jobs

I had to do a little welding in the rear wheelarch/sill area of the DHC where it had "popped" when I scraped the fire hydrant sign on my drive. I took off the electronic ignition as a precaution, not sure what welding would do to this, also disconnected main earth and battery. Happy welded away, then put everything back together.
Upon trying the car I found out that the new type electronic controller of the Kenlowe had packed in, this would not work, even with manual switch. Tested the fan, that was ok, so I removed the controller and sent away for test, the unit apparantly contains a mini circuit board, this had blown, possibly as a result of welding with it connected. Had to buy a new one at £45. So if you have to do some welding, remove the fan control unit!
The vinyl hood on my TR7 has really suffered this winter, the stitching has rotted, with the result that the pieces over side windows has come adrift along with a couple of other stitched joints, letting water in.
Costs locally for fitting are expensive so I took the plunge and bought a new hood to fit myself, having a read up on the method to do so.

Old Hood, faded, stitching loose.





New Hood





I took the plunge on Good Friday, after stripping off the header rail and unbolting hood from the rear the old hood was removed, I needed to put in new frame straps and to re-cover the front header as these where frayed and header vinyl was coming unstuck.
I used a piece of leather for the header, a little thicker than the vinyl but a nicer finish. I managed to find some black webbing strap for the hood frame.


Re-covered Header Rail






New straps to Hood Frame.







The old hood was used as a pattern to locate the rear fixing strip which needs to be encapsulated at the bottom rear of hood, the hood was then placed on car, and temporary fixed to aid location of poppers. Once popper holes are marked, the hood has to be removed to burr over the popper fixings, then hood replaced onto car.


Hood all fastened at rear and poppers in place,




















The next job is to mark out the centre front, then prepare surfaces for glueing prior to stretching into position, I lost the sun at this time so had to wait an hour for it to re-appear. The hood needs to be stretched taught when glueing so it needs to be hot! Eventually the sun came out, and with an electric fan heater in the car adding to the heat Gill and I applied glue to the 2 surfaces then stretched into position.

Waiting for sun to come out to stretch into position.



Hood stuck to header rail, ready for trimming and glueing return under
header front.



Once glued, the front has to be trimmed, then the return glued under the header rail, quite tricky as it has a curve to it. The next job was to re-fit the header seal, this was quite frustrating as when the rivets where drilled out some of the rivet holes became enlarged, I had to drill a few new holes and use some slightly larger diameter rivets.

Finally the plastic hood frame covers have to be re-fitted.



Finished item.

 .

I think it is a good job considering I have never fitted one before, It is not as taut as I would like, however I still have to source some 1/8" rubber strips to go along the 3 rails, to stop the metal frame members rubbing on the fabric, what I took off had perished, this should then make it slightly tighter. It rained heavy last night, no leaks and it also had a run in heavy drizzle today with no leaks.

I have a couple of outstanding jobs to do soon, the tappets still need adjusting, bloody awful job I keep postponing.

I still have the rear bearing with axle end play still to sort, has not failed totally so I keep greasing. I have an engineering machine shop making me some spacers to put behind the bearing race, they tried to laser cut these but as they are so thin they distort, so these will be turned on a lathe when it becomes free.

Paintwork needs sorting, faded badly plus the scrape I did but cannot afford this at the moment.





HCR 2012

This year I entered the HCR 2012 Essex and Behond as a co-driver with Andy Panter from the Norfolk Area in his 2 litre Vitesse. We had quite a good, smooth run, picking up enough points to get us into 13th place. As it was Andys first time we did not push it, just kept to a reasonable average speed aiming to finish in a respectable time without any dramas. We had a few extra counties and some race circuits however in hindsight we should maybe have bagged a few more circuits to bring the points total up as we where not short of time. Only downside was we paid some extorniate prices for petrol due to the petrol panic numpties, couple of garages only having the Vmax stuff. Andy only just found petrol in Norwich at 10am on the Saturday of the event.

Waiting for the drivng round cones bit in Essex.

  

Day break coming out of Dorset on the A30



In our T shirts at the finish.



A few more finishers cars at the Greyhound pub.





















Thanks to Ellis and Mike for organising this years event and we look forward to next years.

More Urban Navigations

Just had another week on the Narrowboat, this time in mid March, only myself and my father on board this time round. Dad wanted to see the urban canals but firstly we headed out to the top of Tardibigge locks via 2 short tunnels and spent a night moored in the country.


Moored at Tardebigge





Entering Tardebigge Tunnel.


 



Shortwood Tunnel

 

Inside Shortwood Tunnel, 900 yards long.



We again headed into Birmingham on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. We spent a night in the centre of Birmingham, taking time for a meal out at a restuarant in Brindley Place. Then headed up the New main line, then up the 3 "Spon Lane" locks to "Old Main Line" and to moor at Dudley Canal Museum. We missed out on a tour of the underground limestone mines here last time round, so we took a morning trip into the mines, the Limestone was cut out from the inside of the hill in huge caverns and then loaded into narrow boats which used a network of canals inside the hill. One of these eventually became a tunnel right through Dudley Hill to exit at Park Head 1.8 miles away. Modern narrowboats cannot fit through this single tunnel now due to subsidence, but occasionally lower older boats make it through, however they have to be ballasted down with weight.



The start of Dudley Hill mines through the tunnel portal, this opens out
after 100 yards into the collapsed cavern in the hill as shown below.



This is where a Cavern collapsed, this leads into 2 of the tunnels heading
into Dudley Hill, the RH one eventually
 leads to Park Head Junction over 1 mile away.



Various tunnels from Limestone caverns led into the collapsed section,
boats where loaded from here.

Within the mine are scenarios of how the Limestone was gathered, and explanations of the various tunnels, shafts and caverns.
After the mine trip we set of again on the boat heading down the 3 "Factory locks" then turned off the "New main line" towards Netherton Tunnel, this was built to replace Dudley tunnel, the tunnel is 1 .7 miles long, built to allow boats to pass, with a double towpath and takes around 40 minutes to pass through.

Leaving Netherton Tunnel, the tunnel has towpaths either side, but
take a good torch if you want to walk it. The portal at the
far end is only a pinprick.

The far side of Netherton Tunnel is known as Windmill end, there used to be many pits and factories here, but it is now a lovely bit of wild country, a haven for wildfowl, it is a far cry from scenes of the past when factories and mines where pushing out smoke making this the "Black Country".

Windmill End canal junctions, on the right leds to Hawne basin,
Netherton tunnel ahead, and colliery loading basins to the left.

Leaving the junction the canal skirts Netherton Hill and heads for Park Head, an area where there used to be many founderies and chain making factories has now all been landcaped and makes a fairly picturesque scene as it winds its way along.

Passing the area where foundries used to be, interpretive boards on the
towpath tell the story of the "Black Country" Anchors and chain for Titanic
where made near here.



Site of old overgrown canal near Blowers Green.




View back to Netherton Hill.




















Another canal junction at Blowers Green. Canal to the right leads to
Stourbridge.





To the left Locks climbing up to Dudley Tunnel.




















Turning round, we re-traced our course back to Windmill End to moor in sight of Cobbs Engine House, where a steam pump used to pump water from mines in the area into the canal.


Mooring at Windmill End, Cobbs Engine House in
the background.




Cobbs Engine House, used to house a beam engine to pump water from
mines into the canal.




















We spent the next couple of days wending our way back to the boatyard, final night moored at Hopwood back out in the countryside.

Final mooring at Hopwood.

For those interested in facts:

We did 55 miles in total, with 5 tunnels, all passed in both directions I reckon we spent about 4 hours underground, we only had to do 6 locks and used 41 litres of diesel.

Oh and Dad fell in once, comedy moment, pushing the boat out from the bank, he clung on to the side for too long and could not get back onto land, nearly horizontal, hands on the boat and feet on the towpath he went in with a splash. Worryingly he could not climb back in the front so I had to rush down the side gunwhale and drag him in to the front cockpit by his coat collar. Luckily only a few bruises.

Urban Navigation Part 2

Getting a bit lax at this blogging, heres the second part of our Urban trip on the canals.

We spend day having a look around the Black Country Living Museum, well worth the entrance fee. Various buildings and industry have been transported here from all over the Black Country to create a living museum, with many demonstrations of life in the late 1850's to 1940's.

We took a trip around the re-created drift mine, looked at the old pit head, saw chain and nails been forged and many other crafts being demonstrated. Fish and Chips in the old fish shop where fantastic. Every building had a volunteer in the authentic garb of the day explaining Black Country life.



Black Country Commercial Street




Typical housing of Black Country.




Re-created Pit Head




Garage from the 1940's



The following day we then returned towards Birmingham on the BCN "Old main line" following the land contours, crossing over our previous route.



Crossing the branch passed on the level last time,
now high over the branch to Netherton Tunnel and Dudley.




Link down 3 locks to "New main line"



The canal then spends a couple of miles going under the elevated
section of M5 - Not very picturesque!



Then crosses the "New main line" where the legs of M5 are in the water.



In and out under the M5 again where one of the old bridges now leads
to nowhere.




Another branch down to the "New main line" Spon Lane Locks.



Back along the Galton Valley at a higher level.






Then the final locks down to Smethwick Junction and the "New main line"
These where closed due to lock wall re-building, someone had forgotten
to check for stoppages, so we had to retrace our route back to Spon
Lane Locks.

  

At the bottom of Spon Lane Locks, we have to take a sharp left here back
towards Birmingham.





Back in the centre of Birmingham, we head left, under Broad Street then
out past Selly Oak and Bournville towards our boatyard.



Out the other side of Birmingham, have passed through the tunnel and
nearing journeys end at Alvechurch.



Was an interesting week, enjoyed the different aspects of an urban canal, but not having to untangle rags and wire from the prop!

I would like to do a ring around Birmingham at a later date using the Netherton Tunnel, Dudley, and Stourbridge canals.