It's never easy

So today I went back to trying to fit the radiator.

A big problem here was that the front panel had been pushed back which was interfering with the fit of the radiator so first I used a length of wood and a big hammer (!) to bash out the front panel from the engine side.

Next I fitted up the radiator with cardboard covering the front of the engine initially to protect the radiator. The two pictures show the start and end of the process whcih looks straight forward enough but it was far from it. I needed to do a great deal of "fettling" to get the mounting points in a position where the radiator could be fitted.

I checked and found that there was clearance between the bottom of the radiator and the panel work this time but was not quite satisfied there was enough. I solved this by fitting spacers between the radiator side plates at the bottom and the mounting points on the panelwork which was tricky but manageable.

Having acheived this I then went to fit the elctric fan which mounts the grille side of the radiator. Amazingly I couldn't get it in from the front and even loosening the top bolts on the radiator wasn't going to give enough room to slide it in from the top on the engine side.

Now I know when to call things a day and this was one of those times! I'll return to this another time and that large hammer may come into play again.

Am I getting there?

The top picture shows a pack of parts I had ordered in an attempt to cure one or two problems and also tidy things up a bit.

The "tee piece" is a valve sold for Caterhams and kit car heater pipes designed to allow air locks to be bled out of the system. It was suggested to me by a good mate, Andy Pearce, that this might be the problem with the non functioning heater and as the tee piece was only about £5 I thought it was worth a go.

In the bottom picture it is fitted on the right at the rear the other side of the rocker cover and it does a good job in that it doesn't let water out (!) unless you undo the valve to clear any air lock. Hasn't helped the heater though!

Then there's a brand new set of expensive Lumenition plug leads. During the process of getting the car to run something like right a fair bit of swapping about of old plug leads was done which left a messy looking non matched lot on the car so I decided to put that right with the new set and keep the old ones on a spare dizzy cap. They certainly look the business as can be seen in the lower picture.

Finally as readers will know, the electric fan has started coming on immediately the ignition is switched on. The only way I have remedied this so far is to disconnect it but that's not really a solution. To be honest, having fit several Kenlowe electric fan kits now I am not entirely satisfied with them. The fans themselves are OK but the wiring and controllers are not that great.

I have used Revotec controllers as well in the past though and although relatively expensive they do work well and are a great bit of kit. Hence the alloy tube with controller which fits in the top hose as can be seen in the top picture and then actually fitted in the bottom one. Now after careful setting up and adjustment I have an electric fan that cuts in when it should and shuts off when it should.

Note to self, in the future if fitting an electric fan use Revotec controllers and buy fans separately.

With all that done a test run worked out fine apart from not being able to get the heater working still but that can wait for now as I am sure I will win in the end.

Menwhile, today I have briefly cleaned the car out and tidied up the boot with spares, tools and packed for the North Yorkshire Triumph Weekend as you can see below.

TR21!

TR21- that's not what Triumph would have reached by now!

It's what 3 x TR7s equal.

Here are 3 on my drive on the day before the International AutoEcosse.

Paul (AKA Diesel Dave, Burnerboy, Ginger or all of the above) and I were fitting a Kenlowe fan to his TR7 seen here at the front.

Of course, all the bonnets were up!

In the far distance at the back is BRP so there's proof it still exists. In this instance it was donating it's short fan belt so that we could ditch the viscous fan housing from Paul's car.

I can't remember why UNJ's bonnet was up but it's always good to have a car to refer to.

And finally, here's a picture of Ginger.

Ready for the off yet Squiffy?

The spannering and electrickery must have gone OK as we made it all the way round the IAE and came in 8th overall - not a bad result at all.