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Born again - as a V8

Late November 2002

Well it looks like there is no one interested in buying the TR7 despite the low price. However things are on the change once again: I will shortly have the opportunity to rent a local domestic garage to store the TR7 and other bits. I have also just heard of a Rover SD1 auto going quite cheap, which could donate it's engine and diff and make mine a more interesting car.

Now check the "Previous owners" page for the bit about Blackwood.

6th December 2002.

 Well I never thought anything would come of the Rover as people tend to tell you about all sorts of things when they know you are into cars, but I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from Chris Harris, a fellow Lorry Driver who also drives a Formula 1 Stock Car. He had bought the SD1 with the intention of squeezing the engine into his Transit Van so that it would make a better job of towing his stock car.

The gentleman who gave Chris my number was another hairy arsed Lorry Driver by the name of Andy Hankin, a big fan of oval racing who will also do a water colour painting of your car if you ask him nicely, look here: Reg' Watercolours

Now if you've looked around my website you will know that my mate Big Andy has a couple of SD1's laying around the place already. He also has a couple of genuine Rover workshop manuals and a wealth of Rover V8 knowledge in his head, so I hit him until he agreed to come with me to see the car. Not true; I know he would have been deeply pissed off if I had looked at it on my own!

Andy and I went over to fetch the car on Wednesday 11th December and took three petrol cans. Forgetting to stop to fill them up, we asked a local (Brinklow, near Coventry) where to go and ended up at Morrison's in Binley. "Did you just fill two cans or three." the nice kiosk lady asked me as I went to pay. "Three." I said. "Oh, you're only supposed to fill two, or you need a transportation licence."

Well, you learn something new everyday don't you? So now I'm a criminal before we even pick the car up!

Back at the car we fitted the new battery and checked the Strombergs diaphragms as we knew it was reluctant to pick up. they were OK so we looked in the back of the borrowed Transit breakdown van for some oil. Andy passed me a small bottle of two-stroke oil "beacause it's easier to poor" (we also had a couple of five litre cans of engine oil) so that went in. It started easy enough and I had a look at the almost non-existant exhaust. There was a gap of around 1/8th inch all round the pipe where it should have joined to a flange so I coated it with that exhaust gum pastey stuff and wrapped it nicely with a beer can and a jubilee clip. I have to confess I can't remember what beer it was, or the alcohol content but I should have used something stronger because it was still quite noisy when I had done.

One of the rear brakes seized on right up to point where Andy hit the drum with a big f*ck off hammer, then it freed.

So it would go, it would stop, and we checked the lights and they all worked OK so we loaded it onto the trailer and brought it home, honest.

Back at base we started the obligitory once over and discovered that most things worked and the bodywork was in remarkable condition for a car which had been scrapped three months ago! It is a 1983 SE model with all electric windows, trip computer, electric sunroof and other goodies. The only rot we can find so far is a small hole in the end of a sill, under a rear wheel arch.

Well here it is. Actually, this was taken after the engine was removed which accounts for the nose-up attitude.

5th Feb 2003

Well that seems like ages ago now, my how thing have moved on. Over a period of about a couple of weeks, we patched up the exhaust with welded sections and it has passed the MOT!

So what about the TR7? Well as reported elsewhere, I sold the Jensen but as part of the sale, I MOT'd it, so I asked Andy to take the TR7 on the same day. He did and it passed of course. BUT, as he left Leicester to bring it home, the clutch pedal went solid and the clutch ceased to be part of the functioning part of this car. Bearing colapse? Duff hydraulics? Nope. Andy guessed right when he said the clutch pivot ball had probably worn it's way through the fork. I found this out when I removed the gearbox in my garage last week. This morning I put it back.

The car could be driven with no clutch if you have the nerve to stop on the key but to get in my garage there is a slight slope up the drive from the road, then flat for around 30 feet, then a quite steep slope up into the garage. Furthermore, remember I did the patio a couple of months ago? (If not where have you been?) Well the surplus slabs were blocking access so these were laid over the existing ones but with a couple of gaps. I warmed the TR's engine first so the ride wouldn't be any more lumpy than it needed to be, and went for it.

There was a drumroll somewhere as I needed to get it just right; switch off too early and I'm stuck on the steep slope, too late and I push the bench through the wall and into the wife's greenhouse. Not good. I did it almost perfect but for the fact it grounded once and scraped one of the anti-roll bar bolts.

 I won't describe how I took the gearbox out but it is worth mentioning that gravity was great help.

While it was out, there was quite a bit of action on the planning and "where the f*ck do we go from here?" front. I decided that certain thing could be done before the actual engine swap, like putting the battery in the boot and shortening the gearlever. The remote linkage had come loose again so I enquired about proper rubber bushes for it. They are there but at around £10 - £12 the set, I could make something from left over Nylotron from the F27 suspension bushes.

Just put this here to break up all this writing.

I should state somewhere that although money is not short on this project, due to the crap value of the finished article I am loathed to spend a penny more than I need to as it is partly money down the drain; to hell with originality. Done that, got me nowhere.

 Radiator? Well there aren't a lot of radiators that will fit in the space available so what's the story? Of course there are plenty of dealers who will sell you a "TR8" rad, but where do they come from? We have a close friend in the radiator business as mentioned before and we guessed that the TR8 rad is in fact, the TR7 item with a 3 row core instead of 2. I then found that it also needs larger diameter hose connections but none of it is beyond the scope of your local radiator repairer. I have been quoted something like half of the cost of the cheapest TR8 rad, to have mine uprated. I'll let you know, bearing in mind the gearbox choice, read on.

The TR8 rad is also mounted sloping backwards due to the long water pump shaft of the V8, but new mounts won't be rocket science to make.

Gearbox. Stand by for a rant. Put the kids to bed, close all doors and tie yourself to the pc chair, here goes: To fit the TR7 manual gearbox I need a flywheel from a manual SD1, together with the bellhousing. I noticed these items seemed to be exhorbitantly high prices with the dealers; more than I paid for the SD1 in the first place. Never mind, I'll try the Street Rod boys; they prefer autos and maybe one of them will have the manual stuff and want a swap. I'm still waiting on that one, and I have asked a couple of Land Rover nuts to keep an eye out for me as well.

But what about "my" people; the classic car or Triumph enthusiasts? No f*cking chance mate!

"The kit car boys want them so the price goes up", was what one of the 3 people who had them I found at the Triumph Spares day at Stoneleigh said to me. And a prominent member of a certain club said, "I've got one but I'm hanging on to it".  What for, bragging rights? There were three sets available, all second hand, well used and £100 each! Bollocks. That evening I had an e-mail from a Landy freak who told me his mate had just thrown a set away as worthless.

It is my belief that in England at this time there is only one main hobby and that is Making Money by Wheeling and Dealing. All other hobbies are just sub-divisions of this.

 So what happens now?

Well whatever, I went to the Triumph Spares Day and came away with the main part I went for, a cheap subframe. Cheaper than the dealers that is; after a bit of haggling I got it for £50. It looked a bit sad but on close inspection I could see that all the welds were solid and as far as I could tell, it looked "straight". Subsequent tests have confirmed this and comparing it to my neighbour's S & S item, mine is of the Rimmers (original TR8) design and will therefore require spacers to drop it slightly for bonnet clearance.

More cheapness: the spacers are just round alloy bar so I will make these myself and find some longer bolts, although I probably have some in my collection left over from the F27.

Battery in the boot? I don't know whether to bother or not. I have already made a tray for it from the sheet steel I have, but it would be best to shove the thing right up to the inside of the offside rear wing, but this is not practical because of the well formed by the rear lower "sills". I know people put them a few inches inside the wing leaving a gap but this seems a waste of valuable space to me. And why bother putting the battery there anyway? Some V8 installations leave it up front and I know it helps to redistribute the weight in the back but it's not like the car's ever going to be driven on the absolute ragged edge of it's handling performance anyway. Bollocks to it; it stays where it is.

I have painted the wing mirrors matt black and the subframe blue. Nice. Why blue? Why not? These bits of the car are traditionally painted black for one or both of the following reasons: black paint is cheap in bulk and black visually "hides" things you don't want to emphasise (I will be painting the new exhaust tailpipe black for this reason). But now I have the opportunity to change it, why not brighten things up a bit? I would also like to paint the inside of the engine bay a bright colour so that I'm not groping in the dark when working in there. Just imagine how easier and more pleasant the job of changing the starter motor would be if the surrounding area were all white!

I picked up a tacho from S&S at the Spares Day, converted for the V8 at £15. Reasonable.

I had planned to buy the exhaust from Rimmers and chose the BL Motorsport replica single-but-chuffing-noisy tailpipe affair. Now all my planets must have lined up just nicely because checking their website, I found they had a sale on and the very system I wanted was £70 cheaper! It's fully stainless one with tube manifolds and 3 inch slash-cut tailpipe. Of course the first starting of the newly installed engine will take place with just the manifolds fitted; has to be done! :-)

Remember the sexy padded steering wheel I bought from a car-boot sale for the F27? Well I kept it, and it is now in the TR7; I bought the adapter from the Spares Day.

Thursday 25th Feb 2003.

Well it's Thursday 25th of February 2003 as if you hadn't guessed, and next week I have booked some holiday to give me Monday to Thursday off, work Friday (couldn't get it off; only 20 drivers off at one time and everyone trying to get their annual leave used up by the end of March), then off the weekend. This is specifically to get the conversion done as I don't want the sodding job to string out through the summer; I still have the garden to finish and I want to go shooting more.

As luck would have it (the planets are in alignment again), I have now sourced a flywheel and bellhousing to fit the manual gearbox, and it is from a surprising source. The Jensen Owner's Club are having an open day in Leicester on Sunday march 2nd and I contacted Alan Smith (Chairman) on a related matter. He expressed his regret at the passing of the Healey and told me he and his son Dan are into SD1's and have a pile of spares. Excellent! He's bringing them with him, well done Al! £30 is a bloody site more reasonable than most other people are charging, but then Alan is a genuine enthusiast and not a "trader".

Flywheel half cleaned, and engine before new oil seal fitted.

13th March 2003

Well you must be bursting to know how the conversion went last week. It didn't. Not that I'm all that disappointed because we did uncover several problems we hadn't foreseen which could have potentially spoiled things. Andy had kindly allowed me to use his workshop for a couple of days to get the main engineering bits done i.e. engine out - gearbox out - subframe change - engine in - gearbox in - sort out mountings. Unfortunately a customer's car took up extra workshop time so my project was re-located back to my own garage.

Monday we cleared three scrap cars from Andy's yard, that tidied things up a bit. Then we removed the diff from the SD1, well most of it anyway. At this point we came across the first of the many mysteries surrounding the deeper mechanical workings of these cars - THE THINGS THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW! ..because if you did, there would be less of a market for labour.

I already knew there is a collapsible spacer in the diff which is no longer available and wondered if that is the case, how do these people who offer reconditioned axles with different ratios do it? Well read on and I'll tell you.

I asked the TR7/8 mailing list for info about this subject beforehand but I have to say that the response was quite disappointing; the Jensen boys are much more forthcoming with technical info and I get the impression that the Triumph clan seem to be a bit of a closed community and more club orientated. That said, the guys at S&S are true to their word and will help on the phone without trying to sell all the time.

Andy is in possession of a genuine Rover workshop manual for the SD1 and this was our guide. Removing the torque tube took us into unknown territory and we were speculating as to whether there would be a nut on the pinion shaft or not. Not was the first reaction as we looked at the pinion oil seal housing which grins back at you as you reveal it. Then we read the instructions again and realised it should come off with special tool xx/xxxx. This was a secret code for two large screwdrivers. Behind we found the dreaded nut, a beast of 1 7/8th" AF. Two more special tools were needed so we called it a day while we worked out the secret code, and tried to borrow a big f*ck off spanner.

Tuesday no spanner yet so we removed the engine from the SD1. No real problems here and no nasty surprises.

Wednesday, got a spanner and used it along with the pinion extension shaft from inside the torque tube. A rather long bar also helped (see pics) and it came lose quite easily.

How it's done.

On the bench we got our first glimpse of the infamous collapsible spacer. I offered two ideas at this point: we could turn about an eighth of an inch from it's length and make a spacer about an eighth plus a couple of thou, or belt the ridge with a hammer to lengthen it a bit. The second idea drew laughter.

Pinion from the SD1. On the TR7, the oil seal doesn't have the alloy housing.

I forget exactly how it happened but for the rest of Wednesday and Thursday I managed to clean the engine up and found that to my great relief, it fitted onto the subframe AND when I fitted the manifolds, they didn't foul anything either. I cleaned up the flywheel and fitted it, and then offered up the clutch. Nowhere! We also tried to fit the complete exhaust together and found it didn't quite want to fall into place without a bit of trimming, which of course, I wasn't going to do. So I rang Rimmers. In most of the info I read about the conversion, it mentions the fact that you need the SD1 flywheel and bellhousing and clutch operating stuff, and that's it. You would think that while writing about that particular area of the car, they would find time to slip in a little bit about the fact that you need the SD1 clutch as well.

Had to be done; fitted up and photo'd.

"Of course you do" was the answer from Mike at Rimmers. No, not of course Mike. Not when you have a five speed gearbox capable of handling a V8 already in place, it is fair to assume that that clutch may be similarly over engineered. It's a shame you have to be so patronising.

5th April 2003

Excited, me? Yes.  I've just bought a new Vauxhall Omega CDX DTi estate to replace the Peugeot. It is quite simply the best car in the history of the entire universe.

22nd April

Bum bum bum bum, blast blow knickers!

My slaptop has let me down. Well I think it may have been the floppy disk going west, but I did a pile of typing for this page only to lose it all in the ether when transferring it to the PC. I guess I'll just have to start again.

But what about the TR7? Ah yes. A re-think of the modus operandi dictated that it was put back in the garage and hiosted up to give about 2ft of clearance underneath. The plan was to remove the engine and subframe, clean up and paint the engine bay, then fit the new subframe and engine etc. As I only have a small, rope crane I decided to strip the engine down to just the block and sump to save weight, but once it was done it became obvious that the best way was downwards so gravity came in handy again.

Crump! And it hit the floor.

With the engine on the deck I removed the steering rack (which turned out to be in excellent nick) and subframe. As the right hand engine mount came away from the inner wing, a rusty hole appeared just to piss me off. No bother; as you can see from the pics, access is easy and it's amazing what you can see from the engine's viewpoint.

Under the battery tray.

Under the front panel. This is a very old professional accident repair and clearly shows after-market panels.

Engine was left to wallow for a while until welding done. Found a new place for the steering rack.

Would you believe it? I got everything ready for welding; made the patch, worked out how to hold it etc. I had just enough time to do it before work. As I started to weld it was plain that no argon/CO2 gas was getting through. I use the small bottles on my Migmate 100 for convenience and this one was quite new. I had used the same type of bottle from Halfords when I built the F27 so I knew something was amiss. I checked and the bottle was completely empty. Nothing stuck in the valve etc. so I would need another.

The new one didn't seem to be right but we'll keep an eye on it. I notice that Halfords don't do a great range of welding gear anymore so I wonder if this is old stock?

With a new bottle the patch went on easy, then I cleaned up the rusty bits where the inner wings meet the bulkhead and treated them to a coat of underseal. The old front panel repair welds and the back of the front panels were all cleaned and undersealed. I painted the steering bits but you can see that; don't know why I mentioned it really, and I painted the bottom half of the engine bay as well. You may make out the white is a bit creamy coloured where it is applied over the underseal, but that's near enough for me.

Done, painted and ready.

When you sit in the lorry park on the Northbound Toddington Services at night, you can see rats running around under the lorries parked along the edge of the fields. Fancy nipping round the back of the trailer for a piss?

Back to the tale of the Pinion

The Rover manual states that the pinion nut should be tightened such that the torque needed to turn the diff should be between 13 and 23lbs/ft. Which means we are measuring resistance within the diff, NOT the tightness of the pinion nut itself.

It just so happened that a colleague of mine, Dave the Welshman had previous experience of rebuilding Daf rear axles and we think they could be the same. The use of the spacer certainly is. Dave explained the design of the torque-measuring device as a bar which you hung weights on until the pinion moved. I did it by setting the torque wrench to 10lbs (it's lowest setting) and tightening the nut in small stages. As I got close to the setting, the drive flange became worryingly stiff to turn, at least initially. I stopped well short of 13lbs as I was thinking that the already well-used bearings wouldn't take much of this. I would seek further advice.

I rang S&S to see what they do. After talking to someone there I was convinced that it was too tight, but I also found out that they re-use the old collapsible spacer after first "stretching" it by tapping around the raised part. Interesting, now who was it laughing at my suggestion?

I spoke to Dave the Welshman and came away further convinced it was too tight.

On returning to Andy's place a couple of days later, Eric, who runs a garage workshop next door, told me that he also used to rebuild axles with collapsible spacers by Bedford. I asked him for his valued opinion and he thought it didn't feel too bad, adding that a better way to check the torque would be to use the old-fashioned lever type wrench. He then produced one and declared my pinion to be set at 10lbs. Sod it, near enough.

Then I painted it blue. Except for the diff cover which in the fullness of time will be replaced with the nice, alloy Rover item.

Putting the axle back in the car didn't throw up any problems until I knocked off the little breather thingy as I tightened up the brake pipe union. Damn. Luckily there was enough thread left to screw it back.

How's the Omega running? Fine thanks for asking; it's done about 800 miles now.

Subframe spacers. I have had a devil of a job finding out how thick these are. It would help if I had a mate around the corner with a TR7 V8 but I haven't, nor do I frequent clubs as I don't care for them much. I thought this is where the information super highway should score. I'm still not sure if most TR7 enthusiasts are "cheque book" restorers or whether the TR7 culture is some kind of closed shop, but it would seem that it is preferable to buy goods from the established specialists rather than try to do any engineering one's self. So far, a lot of my questions to the mailing list have been answered with, "You can buy them from XXXX".

I don't want to buy them, I want to make them!

Andy is a Precision Engineer. I am not, but engineering has been my hobby all my life and my ancestors form a line of engineers for the 4 generations I have traced. So I rekon between us we could manage to make 4 spacers.

Ted Schumacher, who runs a TR7/8 business in Ohio finally confirmed them to be 1/2inch thick and I knew they had to be at least 2 inch diameter. Andy has a length of 1/2 inch alloy bar exactly 2 inches wide so this has been used and to hell with round spacers!

I have two bolts of the right length left over from the F27 so I just needed to source the two longer ones. My local supplier, within walking distance of my house, said he could get them, "They'll be next week and cost around a fiver, I'll ring you."

He didn't ring so I went up there. £28.78 for cash. I don't think so! Andy tells me this happens a fair bit within the nuts and bolts trade; I might just be a freelance engineer who can lose the cost on some project or other. Basically they charge for a complete box of say, ten. Eight left in stock for free. Shove 'em.

July 2003

Well it seems I've been ignoring this page for a while so time for an update I think.

A friend of a friend got me the two bolts I needed for nothing. It was a Saturday morning when Andy turned up here with the V8 and an engine crane in a trailer and work started on the delicate procedure of fitting the V8 in the hole. It had to be done like this: The car was pushed out, down the drive and into the street. The crane was then set up in the garage and the engine lifted from the trailer as high as possible.

Then the car had to be pushed back in, up the two slopes. The first was OK and we nearly made up the second but didn't. We got it about half way and tried a few tricks like trying to turn the wheels for more leverage etc. but it wouldn't go. Gravity was winning until I inspired myself with, "What we could do with is a sky-hook." When I thought of hook, I remembered the rope crane. We hooked it up to one of the roof timbers in the garage and pulled the car up by the tow loop.

Well, here we are back on the old slaptop at Newport Pagnell. I am here to see if it is any quieter than Toddington where you get a constant stream of vehicles looking for the fuel station. Pagnall has a separate lorry park but I've just had to move a few yards after having a short kip; the wanker with a fridge next to me let it start up and woke me up.

Anyway, the main ambition for the day was to get the engine in and connect it to the gearbox. At least I could then support the box with a jack until I could sort out the crossmember etc.
As it happened things went very well for once and the engine went straight in and the box went onto it lovely. Andy was called away at lunchtime but by then it was done. The only balls ache I had was bolting the engine to the subframe. At first, the gearlever didn't want to sit in the centre of it's hole in the tunnel, so I re-mounted the engine with one of the mounts in front of the subframe instead of behind. No luck.
I put it back and loosened everything off, all the engine bolts and subframe bolts. That was enough for everything to move sufficiently and all was well. I even had time to modify and re-mount the geabox crossmember so great progress was made on that day.

Another day, and I tried the exhaust manifolds for fit. Ok but I think they'll need a touch of "technical adjustment" with crowbars to keep them away from the chassis. The exhaust system itself was, I thought, going to be a major problem. It wasn't.
One of the joints was a bit off so I modified it with the aid of a piece of round steel as shown in the pics. After that it was just down to careful thought and planning before cutting. It seems to be designed in such a way that it can be shortened easily as the components slide into each other quite well. I can see that if you wanted to do as the BL works rally teams did, and mount the engine a further 6 inches rearward, then this exhaust system could easily be used.

Now the fuel pump. I had planned to use the ex-Jensen pump as it is the same as that used on the MGB V8, but it was reluctant to do anything when I gave some volts. I stripped the cover off the electrics and found the contacts all carboned up so a quick clean and scrape got it going again. Fine but I want reliability not just cheapness. It looked like the seals etc were replaceable so off I went to the Carburettor Centre in Leicester to see about a service kit. At £30 I thought I was on my way to a new pump so I took the advice of the very nice guy there and bought a weber pump, complete with all the fittings, for £45. When it came to the fitting, the worst part was draining the petrol from the tank and the realisation that the steel fuel pipe that goes over the chassis near to the rear wheel, was almost corroded through! If you have a TR7 go and check it NOW. You can't see it because it is covered by the rear wheel arch and the chassis, but it is in a lovely place to corrode away like a good 'un. I have replaced the vulnerable pipe with rubber type but I will also make a shield for this in due course.

I managed to get a large fuel filter (shop around, I paid £1.25 July 03) and you can see that the installation is quite neat.
At the engine end I am going to remove the fuel flow transducer and wiring, together with the wiring for the fasd and the fuel plumbing. This lot will go to Andy for the Rover and I will recieve in return, probably not much actually.

21st July 03

I have spent hours looking at wiring diagrams to try and identify individual wires on the TR7 and Rover so that I can match them up and connect the different coloured wires together. Problems arise because a 1984 car may be wired to 1983 spec etc. or later items fitted. For instance: on my ignition/coil module there are two white/slate wires coming from it but only one on the diagram.

It's not that these little niggles are impossible to work out, they just add to the sodding delays in getting the thing running.

And another thing: having worked it out (mostly then), I went into the dark depths of Andy's Mum's garden to find his Rover so that I could chop out some of the loom containing the connector and wiring for the starter and alternator. After getting most of my legs stung and scratched to hell I got home to find it's the wrong connector! Andy's Rover is an '81 model and "mine" is an '84. As I said, not impossible, just a balls-ache.

Breathing.

There has been some discussion about this on the mailing list but it would seem that the flame trap is not a flame trap but an oil separator; the wire mesh inside is there for the oil in the gases to condense on and drop back into the engine. From the trap, the pipe splits and goes to the base of each carb. We rekon this is only to do with balance and nothing to do with supplying anything essential to the intake so I think I'll come up with my own breather system.

As the Rover air cleaner doesn't fit anyway I'll try to fit an air cleaner near to the front of the engine bay and plumb it back to the carbs using the original cast elbows. It should then be easy to connect the breather pipe to this system.

Later that day..... (or the following day to be more accurate) It runs....

Well bright and not very early on Sunday, I went out and plugged the three holes in the inlet and tried again. Better but not good enough.

I had 5 litres of GTX for the engine but 2 litres of it had evaporated! Some into my Son's Astra and some into my Cousin's Toyota during a visit. This meant I had to wait until Monday to get some more. In the meantime I fitted the throttle cable, fitted another earth strap to the engine and somehow managed to get the oil light working.

Tuesday, (this morning as I write in Stowmarket, Suffolk) and it fired up again but still won't pick up. I now suspect the FASD, I'll check the connections again and although I still have no ign light, I do have a reading on the voltmeter and the tacho is fine. More connections to check.

I also shot over to Corley (by the sevices) to try and find the TR7 spares dealer who used to trade from behind a garden nursery there. There is still car repairs going on there but the TR7 man packed up around 2 1/2 years ago according the chap I spoke to. I didn't have a high regard for the bloke (the TR7 bloke that is), because when I spoke to him just after I got mine, he talked down to me and gave me a load of crap about my car being a ringer (yes, he was the one) but I thought that if he had some cheap TR8 radiator mounts, it would save me a lot of work.

I just wasted a morning that's all. Bollocks. Back to plan A: dangle the radiator on the hoses, tie it in place and make brackets to fit.

July 26th 2003   STOP PRESS!

It runs! After pratting around with the wiring for most of Saturday 26th, it spluttered into life at around 18.30 just before I had to get ready for a street barbecue at the neighbours. I have no oil light or ignition (charge) light as yet but I haven't had time to fathom out why, so I wasn't confident as I impatiently turned it over. However, after a few turns it fired and threw the starter out. Ooh!

I tried again and it spluttered for a couple of turns and stopped. Then I remembered that I had not yet fitted the TR8 throttle cable, so when it went next time, I slammed the door against the garage wall trying to get out quickly and grab the throttle. It back-fired a bit and seemed to be running on less than 8 cylinders so I let it die. Well, there was no oil in the sump either!

I was so determined to hear the thing run before having to pack up for the day that I didn't bother with the oil and I overlooked the fact that there were three orifices in the inlet manifold letting the wind in.

At least I reached a significant landmark and psychological boost; just the cooling and propshaft to go..... Oh, and the brakes, suspension etc...

By way of a celebration of the engine actually running, here is a pic I took at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. These Programme girls were relaxing after lunch as things were slowing down on the selling front, and it was about 30 degrees!

August 8th ish

Fate is a funny thing. I found a very interesting website run by Jon Wolfe who has a propshaft for sale at a mere £30. As I had Monday off I decided to go down to his place in Luton to fetch it and try to glean some info.

Now pay attention or you will get lost: I rang Jon at 09.15 but no answer, just the machine. I tried again at 11.15 on the basis that if I didn't get away from my place by 12.00, it wasn't worth starting out. Still no answer. Later I found that Jon has to work for a living!

At 11.30 I saw my neighbour, Simon whom I hardly ever see as he works away quite a bit. Simon has a TR7 and all the V8 conversion stuff (have I mentioned this before? I probably have and if so, you've read it twice) so I grabbed the oportunity to ask him if I could see his radiator mountings. During the conversation I mentioned the propshaft and he said, "Oh I've got a spare one, if it's any good to you, you can have it for a drink."

I had it and it fits, so it's mine. I just have to paint it now.

Looking at Simon's radiator helped me to decide that I should go for a proper TR8 rad as the thing is far more up to the job; it has a hefty 4 row core instead of the 3 on the TR7. His had a sticker with the name, "Covrad" on it, and seemed to me to be reconditioned. Checking their website it is obvious that Covrad were a specialist supplier to the automotive industry and based in Canley, must have made the original Triumph rads. Sadly though, they have had to diversify into other areas of the cooling industry as the British car manufacturing industry disappeared.

On Saturday 9th I went up to Rimmers to collect mine for £148 and when I opened the box at home the sticker read, "Serck Marston", and they are on my doorstep in Leicester! Now to make the mountings. They are a hell of a price for what they are, especially when the bottom mounting is basically a modified TR7 one anyway. I intend to use the original top one as well, but I'll see how it goes.

Late August '03

Well, you will remember that the engine splutters and coughs like an old man with very bad asthma? Cured it. More later.
How to fit the radiator by a cheapskate.
Any tosser can see from the pictures that "new" TR8 rad mounts are re-manufactured things; the biggest clue being the fact that they are supplied on an exchange basis. It's also easy to see that the bottom mount just has to be extended upwards, fairly basic metal fabrication.
The thing is, the holes for the rubber mounting grommets have shaped edges to fit the radius of the rubber and would therefore be difficult to replicate (posh word alert).
I set about trying to work out how I could use the TR7 top mount as well.

Plan A: Cut into the webbing of the original mount, right into the 90 degree bend, then straighten it out. Hey Presto, a flat mount complete with captive bolts. This almost worked but.... first off, one of the bolts snapped as I removed it from it's original position. Not to worry, still got the other mounting from which I could get measurements.
The bolts are exactly 2 inches apart but near to the original holes, there is another one the same size. They are a row of three along the bottom of the channel at the rear edge of the front top panel. With a bit of trial and more trial, I decided to use one of these and drill another two inches away. This worked, but it put the rad so far forward that it was touching the front brake pipe. I should have already said that I started this adventure by fitting the top and bottom main hoses to the block and then hung the new rad on them with a jack underneath.

Plan B: I took measurements, scribed up the markings and moved the holes on the mounting to bring it back a bit. Now effectivley I have just chopped the bend off the original TR7 top mount and used it pointing forward. I also had to bend it slightly to put the holes at the right angle to take the rubbers.
So what about the bottom then? Chase my arse time. There are what seem to be a spare set of captive nuts/bolts (one of each per side) for a radiator, forward of the original bottom mounts. Unfortunately, the bottom of the rad was now in No Man's Land between the two. I chopped the ends off the old mount, with a view to using them on the "spare" rad bolts/nuts and bridging the gap to the rest of the mount with new steel. This never happened either, because the holes were all staggered the wrong way and the nuts/bolts were corroded too much.

Bollocks to it, I welded a piece of angle iron to the chassis each side and bridged the gap to that instead.
Job done. Well nearly. I am not completely happy with the thickness of the steel I used to bridge the gap, but it will do for the short term, for testing purposes. At least now I can get the water in and run the engine up properly....

But first there is the small matter of all those sodding holes in the inlet manifold. It's like a bleeding cullender!
I can't remember if I've already put this but I broke a plastic Y piece in the breather pipe when we picked up the Rover in the first place. It was as brittle as hell anyway and the rubber pipes are solid. While at Rimmers I scouted through their Autojumble section in the showroom and found a load of Rover small bore hoses for £1 each. I had three of them and used two to plug the holes in the carb bases. I fetched the servo hose from the Rover in Andy's yard and this reached it's original hole in the manifold, where the TR7 one wouldn't. Then there was just that little annoying hole at the back of the manifold, facing backwards. After a lot of brain-ache, I'm sure this is for the kick-down on the Rover's auto box. I plugged it securely, making a mental note that this would be an excellent place to take a vacuum reading.

Are we ready then? No.
Air cleaners. What am I going to do? I had a brain-wave to use the ones from the Jensen Healey. The LHD one came with Strombergs identical to those on the Rover but fitted with after-market sponge filters. I still haven't got around to dumping these in the bin so thought they could be pressed into use. Nope; they catch fire (according to the previous experiences of those who frequent selected car based mailing lists). I'm guessing they can hold a certain amount of vapour under certain conditions and if you get the conditions right and produce a spark, WUFF!
As the long-term plan is to.. well there isn't actually a long-term plan, but if I get to like the car in V8 form, I would be looking to fit a Holley carb so it don't make sense to spend a lot of cash on air filters which could shortly be redundant.
I'll use the old ones. I can use the alloy elbows but I have cut down the round, steel mountings for the elements so that their diameter is no more than the elements themselves. The steel drum that used to enclose the elements is in the bin. Now I have a fighting chance of getting the bonnet shut!

Right, water in, with a splash of anti-freeze, let's give it go...
Splutter, splutter, fart, throbble.
We want more throbble and less of the others.

I managed to coax it up to temperature and to my delight, nothing leaked. But it still would not pick the revs up and back-fired a lot. I must have done something wrong because we had tuned the engine well, in the Rover. I suspected the pulg leads; had I put them back on in the right order? I got the Haynes manual and checked - nothing wrong there. I took the dizzy cap off, removed the vacuum pipe from the manifold and sucked it to see if the advance was working. I couldn't tell to be honest but then while trying to put the cap back on, the whole distributor moved. Shit, it was lose.
We obviously A, didn't tighten it very well and B, clouted it in the transfer process.
I moved it a bit (it could only move anti-clockwise) and tried the engine again. Better, reach for the timing light - a mile out. Set it up to the white line we had painted on the crank pulley - perfect!

About this time I e-mailed Will Holman, Editor of Practical Classics magazine because he showed a picture of his own V8 Capri with the tube manifolds wrapped with bandage to keep the engine bay temperature down. I had considered this but as with my sponge air filters, the experiences of global "friends" put me off the idea. I wrote to Will explaining that the intense heat has to go somewhere and people have experienced cracking due to uneven heat along the pipes, corrosion due to the bandage sucking in moisture as it cools, and stuff melting under the car. Apparantly, it causes more fun on plastic bodied cars!
Anyway, after a few mails back and forth, Will asked me how the car sounded so to give him (and me) a fair answer, I tightened up What do you mean, "I tightened up...", you haven't fitted them yet. oh yes. I fitted the exhaust clamps along the system and the tightened them up.

Trying to describe how something sounds in words? I am amused by guitar mags where journos are trying to review amplifiers, explaining their differing sounds. I told Will it sounds f*cking great!

I have noticed however, that my engine bay does indeed get rather warmish, but I am off to B&Q to find some plumbers type insulation matting to shield the wiring and battery etc.
Now before it can hit the road it will need the clutch rod putting back in, and the two cylinders re-rubbering. Between us, Andy and I forgot to clip the operating rod onto the clutch fork and this was quite a fiddly thing to do. I found a piece of pipe who's diameter was just right for pushing the clip into place. I cut it just longer than the rod and slid it over, then jammed a tapered paint brush handle in the open end to hold it in place.
Dead easy now; you just lay on your back under the car, hold a mirror so you can see the fork, hold a torch so you can see the fork in the mirror, and with the other hand.... no wait a minute. Hold a torch in the mirror so you can see the fork without using any hands, that's it. No, let's get this right. You can't see a f*cking thing and you haven't got enough hands to hold everything if you could!
I jammed a small torch in the subframe somewhere to shine on the fork, then held the mirror with one hand and poked the rod/tube/paint brush handle, towards the fork, thus blocking the light from the torch! Another torch jammed in somewhere else did it. Once the rod was in place, (this is the best bit) you put the mirror down (now you can see f*ck all again) and pick up the hammer. Hit the tube without hitting the paint brush handle, to locate the clip onto the fork. Just four attempts did it, lesson learned!

I modified the original air cleaners. I can shut the bonnet but I can't fit the vent scuttle.

The bore of the slave cylinder cleaned up OK with wet or dry paper and new rubbers fitted. The master was a bit of a mess and looked as if it were on it's last legs. I will take this to Andy's where there is one of those tiddly honers for cleaning tiny bores; I can't get me finger in it (ooh, er!).

The prop shaft has been painted white and I have had a re-think on the engine breather system. I chopped the oil separator through and welded it together again as a short-arsed version of the same thing. At the same welding session, the gearlever lost one and a half inches of tallness.

We are getting close; the tax runs out at the end of the week and I want to have a run out in it before I lay it up for at least a month to sort a few more things out properly. Propshaft and gearlever back in, screw the seats back down and make a junction for the breather pipes under the bonnet and we're away! Oh, and fit the bonnet. Oh, and make provision for driving over a foot-deep hole in the drive because that is not yet finished!

Sept 9th

Well it went! I spent most of Thursday 28th working on it, only to fire it up at 6.30 to take it down to the petrol station, but that in itself wasn't easy. Wifey and I were going out that evening so time was getting on a bit, anyway, I backed it out into the sunshine for the first time in ages and the burbling engine brought out two of the enthusiastic neighbours.

Imagine my embarassment when, after letting it roll into the road, it wouldn't pick up the revs again! No guts whatsoever. By revving and slipping the new clutch, I managed to get it around the block once and back onto the drive. With a bit of warmth in the engine, it seemed to be better so I went for it!

I got it to the pterol station but the performance had only come up to the poor standard of the two litre lump I've just got rid of! :-(  But I rekon Mars was having an effect on things because as I turned the key on the locking petrol cap to put it back on, I thought it felt a bit loose. I picked it up and the guts of the locking mechanism dropped into the tank! Thankfully, there is that restrictor thingy in there to stop things and I think the only bit which actually fell into the tank was the circlip. On the way home I booted it up the hill but it died on me 'cause of driver error; I forgot to flick my secret switch to turn the fuel pump on!

I had booked Friday off to play with it all day and as it turned out, I needed it. I richened up the mixture before I set off for Andy's place. It got about two miles from home and it cut out. God himself only knows why.
I thought was the circlip from the petrol cap jamming things up so I found a tiny screwdriver and loosened the fuel pipe at the carbs with a view to blowing down it to clear the blockage. It pissed fuel out under pressure so that wasn't it. I was confused as I couldn't hear the pump running, but then I never got it up to full pressure before. But if there is fuel under pressure, it should surely start? It did. As I said, I don't know why it stopped.

At Andy's place things got a little clearer; He told me that when he took the Rover for it's MOT, he had to lean off the mixture a couple of turns to get the emissions right. On top of that, the bloody timing had moved again! So eventually, having re-tuned the engine it went like a bomb! YES!

I had put too much faith in the fact that we meticulously tuned the engine in the Rover.
I then used it to get to work on Saturday and Sunday and really enjoyed the country lanes. It is along time since I actually enjoyed going to work!

I have now decided to keep the car and do more to it, but it now goes on a back burner while I sort out my drive and other things.....

Feb 2004

Well it seems like ages.... but then it has been ages since I wrote anything here. I really should get around to tidying up the home page of this site.

Ah well, while the car was off the road again I fitted an oil pressure guage in place of the clock. It should have been fairly straightforward but like most things I attempt, it nearly turned into another career.

Cheap enough to buy; I paid £2 at the resoration show for a set of 4 Rover SD1 guages in a pod. Having spent ages fitting the thing in place, I found one of the tiny wires had broken and it didn't work! Balls.

The fuel guage from the pod seemed the same so I worked out how to change the plastic scale for the oil pressure one and gave it a try... Yes, it worked. But it took about a week for the needle to climb to the normal reading for idle. Hmm.

The later SD1's have guages that read upwards. That is, the needle pivots at the bottom. But I have one spare so I fitted it to the TR7. It would be possible to use the scale after a bit of trimming but I made a bit of a balls up of it and ended up painting my own, simple scale. It has just two white lines, one at zero and one at 35psi (idle pressure). It looks a bit crap to be honest but it does the job.

This is where it went, epoxyed to the tabs.

The later SD1 guage. You can see there is a lot to trim off, I have marked it with a pencil here but don't trim THAT much off!!!

The guage (before I painted the scale on), the over-trimmed scale and the "cradle".

April '04

It's dented!  A female driver (of whom I have nothing against) reversed into it as it sat outside my house minding it's own business. Even she herself doesn't know why, she was trying to park on the opposite side of the road! Anyway, the Audi A6 crunched the offside rear wing, but just gently. The lady in question was quite shaken and legged it into her sister's house, hotly pursued by my Mrs. who saw it happen. I was at work at the time but nearly wet myself as my wife related the story.

But all's well in the end because they paid up up promptly and now I had three choices: a) just do the repair. b) do the repair, the crack in my filler on the same wing and the front wing where I pushed it into the garden tap. c) paint the whole f*cking thing yellow.

I had a good offer from the guy doing the work because he was quite ready to let me do all the prep to keep the labour cost to a minimum. So it will shortly be a fine shade of Daytona Yellow, the best thing ever to come out of a F*rd factory.

On the same day the TR7 got pranged, I had already got the news that I had won a day off in an attendance raffle. So I took the 25th April off and visited Billing Aquadrome for the Rover SD1 Spares Day hoping to find a manifold for the Holley carb I have aquired. Didn't I mention that earlier? No.

There, nicely chromed. Probably been on a rod.

Oh dear, I have been neglecting this site. I got this Holley from "Find-it!" but the manifold is going to cost about £120 but for more or less the same I could get a complete EFi setup. As soon as I get registered on E-Bay, the Holley is going and I'll make do with the Strombergs for now but if they don't seem up to the job it'll get EFi'ed (yes, I just invented a word).

I did however get a BL Motorsport rally type spoiler from Rimmers at Billing, having ordered it on Thursday before. As I write, I have only offered it up to the car but it seems to fit just right and looks the dog's danglies.

Also, I have long thought that the back of the TR7 could be improved visually by the addition of a small spoiler on the bootlid. Not a rubber thing; they weren't popular in the seventies. Not a chuffing great wing; they hadn't been thought of back then. No, a nice little alluminium jobby on the tail, a sort of scaled down NASCAR effort. So I'm going to try one.

May 5th (That's "May the fifth" in England)

Wednesday today and my "rest day". I am pleased to have fitted the front spoiler today and it does improve the appearance "no end" (got that from my Mum), without being too modern. I have taken pics but at the moment, my camera has fallen out with the pc and refuses to download.

A chap at Rimmers ( a decent one this time; he didn't talk down to me) said he fitted one with just three bolts or screws, one in the middle at the front and one in each wheel arch. I wasn't entirely sure that this was enough so I have gone for belt and braces with fibreglass. It took a bit of fettling to get the spoiler to fit without stress (that's the spoiler not me, I was cool at all times), and I had to cut off the two tabs molded into the corners for mounting. Oh, before that I had to straighten up one of the towing eyes as it stopped the spoiler lining up properly. It had obviously been damaged in a previous visit to the scenery.

So with the thing fitting nicely, I drilled three holes and mounted it on three self-tappers. Then I took it off again and primed it. Then I put it back. Only this time I mixed up the resin and cut six 2" squares of matting. I resinned a pair of squares together on a bit of card and used a mixing stick (like a lolly stick) to transfer them to the area around the middle mounting point. The mounting screw goes through the matting and pulls the two panels together while the resin sets. Do the same at the ends. Actually, I made up the three pairs of squares first or the resin is setting while you're still trying to use it.

The excess resin was used to bond in extra matting under the ends of the spoiler. Still not happy that it was rigid enough, I mixed up more resin and put in more matting under the ends before filling the visible top edge along the front wing. Nice.

I have been told that bonnet which I took for sand blasting (only in a small, pitted area) is ready for collection so I'm off to get it in the morning....

25th May

Look!

Nar nar ne nar nar!

Here are some pics, words later.

Nice plumbing? Holley carb???

Things to do (probably) before it hits the road again.

Too late; it hit the road on 1st Feb 2004.

Brakes: Get Volvo 240 callipers and make to fit front. Get balance valve for rear brakes and do something with standard thingy. Get Sherpa servo.

Fit rear adjustable dampers

New sunroof

Minilites

Boot spoiler

Paint Daytona yellow.

Shopping list:

Volvo 240 4 pot callipers

Escort 10.24inch vented discs

Brake balance valve

Sherpa servo

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