You can almost feel it!

Wired up the relay for one of the headlight mainbeams and it still works - amazing!

Only did one though as I didn't actually have all the wiring I need etc so one side at a time is fine.

Then moved on to the steering wheel and non cancelling indicators. The steering wheel I had fitted is on loan from BRP and is an original TR8 type. The boss though had flaking black paint and I have been having trouble lining it up straight.

So first I removed it and took it apart. Then cleaned up the boss and gave it a few coats of matt black paint as below.

Meanwhile, I gave a thorough clean of the wheel itself with oven cleaner (!) on the spokes where there was some dirt that didn't want to be removed. Having cleaned the rim I then used hide food on the leather and my goodness it feels great as a result - so good you can almost feel it from the picture below!

And the non cancelling indicators? Well I removed the cowling over the steering column, loosened the bolt holding the indicator and wiper stalk mechanism and slid it further up the steering column so that the collar would engage with the steering wheel boss.

Then put it all together and no, the indicators still don't cancel :-)

The steering wheel looks and feels great though :-)

A light serving of swarf sir?

Well, at least things have improved since the last time I updated the blog.

Charging the battery on a slow battery conditioner for a week did the trick and UNJ started no problem.

Next was a service and I started with an oil and filter change for the engine which went along quite OK and I didn't even spill too much!

This weekend I thought I would drain the gearbox and replace the ATF in it. This is the first time I have done this on a TR7 and the photo shows the swarf held on the magnetic drain plug. I cleaned it off, inserted it again and got some more out before filling the gearbox back up.

It's no fun lying under the car getting the ATF back in. I had the car up on axle stands and removed the exhaust mounting bracket which is "handily" in the way of the plug hole you fill up from. Then for me with no clever pump or anything it was just a question of filling up a hypoy type oil bottle and squeezing it uintil I had got the necessary 2 litres in.

Followed by re-assembly of course.

The diff level was fine, oil immediately dribbling out as I loosened the plug. This was EP80/90 dropping straight onto a halogen light I was using - ah, the smell of burning EP80/90!

Also retorqued the bolts holding the hubs on at the front and then all good to go.

Next week is wiring up the relays for the headlights.

I have had the chance to find out how good they are though on the short trip to the Old Stone Trough last Friday for the Pendle and Pennine meeting and they certainly are so much better than the original sealed beams.

Not a great afternoon

I returned to UNJ on a cold afternon up here in the Pennines but I was kept quite warm by events!

Plus side - fitted the Xenon bulbs I bought into the headlamp conversions and they certainly look brighter.
Mounted the relays quite cleverly I thought to where the two earthing points are behind the front panel either side of the radiator in the engine bay.
Started a service - drained the oil and replaced it and changed the filter.
Checked the gearbox oil level.
Fitted another speedo drive to see if I can rectify the speedo over-reading.
Fitted the tyre and wheel from the spare wheel well to the rear nearside, rear nearside to front nearside and so on until the rear offside wheel/tyre assembly was in the spare wheel well.

Down side - The frigging car won't start! Either the battery has been drained whilst fitting and testing the new bulbs or the earths have been disturbed by my removing and fitting the relays. Tried to resolve this by removing the relays and cleaning up the earthing points. No joy so the battery is now on a slow charge until next weekend.

Oil change OK as far I know but I can't run the engine to make sure all is well (no oil leaks around the oil filter for example).
Gearbox oil level seems OK but I need to buy some more ATF really so that I can really pump some in and make damned sure.
That speedo drive replacement - a 5 minute easy job once the car is in the air. Or at least that what I was assured by someone - you know who you are Burnerboy! Well, not on this one and I had to resort to gripping the end of the shaft with a pair of molegrips and then hitting those with a hammer. Thank you very much you git! Of course I can't see if it has made a difference as the car won't start so I can't take it out on the road - grrr! I don't think it will actually as the drive looks the same as the one that came out.
Rotating the tyres around the car is a good idea - why let a brand new tyre on a spare wheel sit unused for years. It did mean however that I found this.

What you see here is one of the bolts holding the front hub to the disc on the floor when it fell out as I removed the wheel! Followed by one of the other bolts being loose.

Doesn't bear thinking about really. This might be why I have sometimes felt a "pulsing" under braking through the brake pedal and a knocking from the front end recently too - so much so that I had done a spanner check of all suspension components to make sure nothing was amiss.

Of course I replaced the bolt and retightened everything but this is something I will be checking again for a while!

By now I had had enough for the day so all tools etc were put away and I managed to get in the house just in time to catch up with the FA Cup match between Sunderland and Arsenal before the goals had been scored. Some consolation then for a very frustrating afternoon.

This morning it's just been a little tidying and getting that battery on charge.

Looking forward to Stevenage v Tottenham on the TV this afternoon, again in the FA Cup. I used to live in Stevenage from 1996 to 1998 and remember the buzz in the town when they played 

 Newcastle in the cup so let's see if they can have a good game this afternoon.

Twitch ye not!

The week after the last post I did indeed return to the offside rear and, if anything, the bushes that side were even worse. By now of course I knew what was what so it didn't take too long to replace and I can report UNJ now behaves much more like it should.

This is all just as well because I have entered Club Triumph's Historic Counties Run with the car so I am focussing work on UNJ as much as I can. This weekend I fitted halogen headlamps which should have been easy enough apart from the nearside one refused to work on main beam.

I got my digital analyser out and there was power to the connection under the bonnet so I then suspected a dodgy brand new bulb. I reconneceted the old seal beam but that didn't work either. So, after a little thought I checked and there was power at the headlamp if  I used another earthing point. All I needed then was to do some work on the connections under the bonnet and all was well.

In addition I have now ordered some Ring Xenon bulbs so that should certainly make a huge difference over the original sealed beams whiich will be well worthwhile on an overnight event like the HCR as well as on the 2013 10CR I plan to take part in with the car.

I also intended to fit two fused relays but I seem to have lost one of them - grrr!

Leaving my cars aside for a moment though I also found time last week to help Bryce collect a new car he has bought. It seems driving my Toledo round Europe in 2007 left a deep impression so he has now bought an early 2 door white Toledo for himself. I have contributed a Sprint engine and overdrive gearbox, a pair of 2" SUs, 4 tyres and an exhaust manifold. He then went and bought a donor Dolomite Sprint too. The plan is to build a standard looking Toledo with Sprint running gear which he is planning to use on club events including the 2013 10CR - looks like a 2 car team then.

Finally, PMW has not been forgotten with more debate and advice sought on the engine rebuild. This week I also collected a heated front windscreen for the car and this is now safely stored on it's back seat. This will be installed in due course along with the brand new screen rubber I bought a couple of years ago. Ideally I would like PMW available for transporting me to my marshalling posts on the RBRR in October but we'll have to see if that deadline is made.

A bit twitchy

UNJ had been a bit "twitchy" for a while now. Lifting off the accelerator I could feel the rear of the car twitch from side to side and sometimes under acceleration too.

I had never got round to fitting the polybushes in the rear trailing arms so now's the time.

It was also a good time to drive over to the workshop with the top down in bright sunlight but with a temperature of just above freezing!

Anyway, onto the lift and start to remove the nearside trailing arm using the tried and trusted method of a spanner wedged on one side whilst using a ratchet and socket on the other.

Then when removed it's quite obvious one of the bushes was completely shot.

I already had some spare trailing arms so with a lick of paint (far from perfect!) and new bushes the nearside one  was ready to go back on.
The next two photos show it with the new bushes next to the removed one with the old bushes - quite a contrast! Then it all wentback together with a bit of a struggle but I got there in the end.

And the result?

Well actually the car is even more twitchy than it was before.

Under acceleration and especially when changing gear it really twitches on the offside. I think it's because the nearside is now so well located the offside is really taking a hammering so that's the next step as I ran out of time today.

Oh, and I still drove home topless as the light was fading at about 5PM so if you saw a blue TR7 with the top down between Keighley and Barnoldswick yesterday around that time it was me!

Sitting comfortably

After fitting the "new" driver seat to UNJ I found the back flexed quite alot and was certainly not fixed.

So, out it came again and after a partial strip down this is what was found - a broken weld.

So we cleaned it up and here's Bryce welding it back up

And the result

Refitting to the car today and all is well.

Little things that please

A series of little things done on the convertible but I am well pleased.

1. I had a TR8 steering wheel fitted to BRP and as I won't be using it for months now I swapped it over on to UNJ and it's a better driving eperience for it.
2. I have never been able to get the door/interior lights to work properly on a TR7 and UNJ was no exception but today's the day I cracked it. Thanks to help from people on http://www.forum.triumphtr7.com/default.asp as well as a PM on the Club Triumph forum and an email (you kow who you are) I have finally realised how thick I am
   
   Strangely,I thought that two wires both of which had purple in them would/should both be live whereas the one that was black would be the only earth.
   
   Hence I had the black earth wire to the single contact on the lamp and the two purple "live" ones to the other two connections. I was then wondering why there was no power to the purple/white wire
   
   Now I have realised there are two earth wires and only one power I have the lights connected correctly, I have cleaned up the courtesy light switches and guess what - yes, courtesy lights that work.

The correct way to wire the lights up! Purple is power to the single connection, the other two are earths

    3. Having done this I then thought about the annoying horns as they are more of a "peep" than a proper loud blast. It's one of those jobs that gets left as there are always more important things to do but today I had some time at looked at the problem.

One of them  just wasn't working so up into the loft for a replacement from my stash of hoarded second hand parts and it was replaced in a few minutes. Result is a proper blast from the horns as they should be.

  4. Adjusted the washer jets. Yes another small thing but like everything else, small niggly things spoil the experience of driving the car so it's good to get them fixed.

I'll have to return to the driver's seat though as the back isn't as fixed as it should be and then there'll be new bushes in the rear parallel trailing arms so there's more to do yet of course.