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.

 

Happy for most of the time

Returned to UNJ this afternoon with all the nearside interior needing to be fettled and placed back in the car. Here's how it looks at the start of play, the carpets all pulled up, bits of trim missing and the passenger seat is not actually bolted in.

I found it all very satisfying actually. First I put the seat outside of the car and then went about finding and replacing the right screws where they were missing in the rear trim panel and also in the kickpad on the left. Then it was a case of putting the bulkhead sound proofing back on and refitting the original carpet.
The car has had another set of carpets fitted over the originals which are very faded and although the new set are black rather than the correct blue they look pretty good.
I did as a previous owner has done and fitted them on top of the originals so there's 2 layers which in theory gives good soundproofing although I like driving with the top down as much as possible which makes it all a bit academic.

Next I ran a bolt through all the captive nuts in the floor with copper grease on it to try and ease the refitting of the seat and this certainly helped as it went back in quite easily. I also took the opportunity to unbolt the the seat belt from the seat, unravel it and bolt it back on so that it will now fit much better and as intended.

Here's how it all looks and I must say I am very pleased.

So why does the post title say "happy most of the time"?

Well by comparing both seats it's obvious that the driver's seat's reclining mechanism isn't working properly, or even at all. It's in the one position and not firmly in that either so it looks like I need to do a bit of research and probably strip it down to make a repair.

It really is a shame as it's in very good condition otherwise, certainly better than the one that came out.