Seat Belt Anchorage

Today's job was to repair the rotten metal around the seat belt mount/anchorage. The mount itself is a thick piece of steel held in place with just four of Speke's best spot welds (and you know how good they are!). Once I got in there with a chisel, the plate pretty much fell out leaving a ragged hole.

 

The seat belt mount and hole.

 

After removal and a quick clean & paint.

The mount was in re-usable condition after it had been cleaned and painted.

Here you can see the extent of the metal which had to be cut away before sound metal was found.

With the help of the grinder and a file, I was able to square off the hole to a much bigger, albeit solid, er...hole. Next step was to make a plate which was then welded in the hole, then another hole was drilled through it to accommodate the seat belt anchor bolt. Using the bolt to hold everything together, the mount was then offered up to the new metal and welded in.

A plate was welded in, then a hole drilled through the centre.

Finally, the mount was offered up (making sure the bolt went through the hole ok and on into the captive nut).

 After I had done that job, I put some more paint on the underside.

Rear Wing - Nearside - Part 6

Spurred on by Kent Sandiford's email, I decided to venture back into the garage today to fix up the rear wing area. There was a lot of prep to do, from grinding down edges to be welded to drilling holes for spot welds.

I don't have many photos unfortunately, and those that I do have were taken whilst the car was turned on its side on the spit. However, I will try to talk you through it.

Basically, I clamped everything up and went for it. There, that's it! None of it was too difficult, although the lower leading edge of the wing, where it meets the sill, was pretty tricky as it is in a box section which made getting the MIG torch in there pretty hard. The troublesome rear inner and outer lower sill panels finally came good, even though they still don't fit right to be honest - a lot of bending had to be done. I used a combination of MIG plug and seam welds here, plus spot welds.




Rear lower sill panel (outer & inner) welded in place with a combination of MIG and spot.

The rear wing arch lip was plug welded, then the welds were ground down and treated to a skim of filler. Inside the boot all was well, with the new section of boot floor going in nicely. I didn't weld the boot gutter channels or rear lamp panel to the rear wing, as I think I am going to change the rear lamp panel at some point soon.



Boot floor repair and lower rear edge of rear wing welded in place.



Outer arch plug welded to the inner arch.

One "minor" point is that the door does not now fit very well, even though it did when clamped up. Oh well, I will deal with that later. I am sure some shims and some brute force will help. I also came across some nice holes in the "inner" inner wheel arch, especially around the seat belt anchorage. Another job to do.

Rot around the seat belt anchor plate.

Some more near the rear strut.



TR7 Design Proposal - Part 2

Hi folks

One of the things I have realised about restoring a car is that sometimes you have to know when to quit for the day, as things always look better in the morning. Another is to break a job down into chunks, so that when you go back the next time a lot of it is already done. Another is that doing the job can become a very solitary affair and that we all need a bit of motivation from others every now and then.

Never having been a fan of classic car clubs, I recently found myself going against my own grain and joining the TR Drivers' Club. What an epiphany! I now feel like I am in a little family of TR7 owners, all obtaining great enjoyment from whatever they (we) do with their TRs, although in my case I can only dream of the "driving" bit. After an email conversation with the club's John Clancy, masterminded by Simon at Robsport and in connection with my Austin-Morris styling sketch for a TR7, I decided to join. Now I have a childish thrill of anticipation when the club magazine arrives each month and enjoy very much reading its contents cover to cover. 

Incidentally, it turns out that the sketch is a genuine Harris Mann affair! How do I know? Because John sent the link to Harris who then telephoned John in amazement that his trace drawing had survived all these years. John can't recall exactly what Harris said but apparently the full colour rendering below was coloured in after Harris had taken the tracing of it which now hangs on my office wall. Clearly the design was just one of those never expected to go into production but gave a possible option as to a styling update to the car. Interesting!

Harris Mann styling sketch for a TR7 upgrade. Now hanging on my office wall.

The coloured-in version, from Harris Mann's own collection.

I had a great email today from Kent Sandiford, who follows this blog. It is another example of how a few words can motivate an individual. Kent also has a TR7 which he is restoring and - amazingly - his story is even longer than mine, starting in 1987 (a year that always reminds me of my heavy metal phase,typified by Whitesnake's 1987 album. Ahem, we were all young once). The car concerned is a 1977 fixed-head like mine, although Kent's is S-registered whereas mine is an "R". What's interesting to me is that my car has a VIN number starting ACG178** whereas Kent's car's VIN is ACG257**, which means that they must have made 7,000 odd cars between mine and Kent's. And of course you can take the word "odd" any way you like. Kent has a great TR7 restoration blog, which puts mine to shame, at http://irestorationtr7.blogspot.co.uk/.

Me + Followers + Happy New Year

Dear Readers (if there are any!!)

So, it has been nearly a year since I started this little blog about my beloved Triumph TR7, RJW 307R. Originally I started it to give myself a way of looking at my restoration chronologically, so that I could put it all together in one place with photos etc. But to be honest it has turned into a sort of motivator for me in getting the car done, because anyone might be viewing it and therefore I have to get on with it!

That's not to say that I don't care what people think. In fact, I would love to hear what you think of my blog. I am not very techno-savvy but I do understand that it is possible to become a follower of the site, in order get the latest updates etc. So, if you know how to do it, please do become a follower as that will motiovate me no end to get this age-old restoration finished.

By the way, I just realised that there are few photos of me on here, so I thought I should "reveal all". Ok, not all, just me so that there is a person behind the blog.

Me on the left, twirling myhair and enjoying a belly full of Amstel. (Paxos, 1994).

...and me looking rather older. I wish I could twirl my hair now!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all.

John

Dodwells of Hinckley

When I bought my car in 1993 for a quick tart-up and trip to Greece, it had a dealer sticker in the rear window. It said "Dodwells of Hinckley". The photo shows the car proudly displaying that sticker after the first restoration circa 1994. Unfortunately I failed to appreciate the significance of this provenance and later removed the sticker.

I am a stickler for originality and now wished that I had kept that sticker in the rear window. Neil, however, has done some amazing things with Photoshop and re-created the sticker for me to put in the rear window of the car, once it is restored (and that might be some time!). How he did it just from looking at the photo above, I have no idea.

If anyone knows of a TR-friendly printer who would be willing to make just one of these window stickers, do let me know.

Rear Wing - Nearside - Part 5

It's amazing what difference a week can make to your mindset. After last time's tale of woe, today was actually a pleasurable garage experience. Having gotten into the garage at 10.00am ish, the first job was to try to set the carbs up on the Bond Equipe. This I managed pretty well, although the old thing did disgrace herself by weeing oil everywhere, almost the entire contents of the engine it would appear. Oh well, I'll look at that another day.

Right, back to the TR7. Last time we were here I was moaning as I couldn't get any of the panels to line up. So, after a week or so of contemplation, I decided to have another go. They reckon that problems can be solved if they are broken up into smaller ones, so I smashed all of the panels up and went to the pub. Only joking.

I decided to get the inner wheel arch repair section welded in, ignoring the troublesome rear inner and outer sill panels - they can wait. To my mind it is important to get the wing all lined up with the arch before commencing those repairs, so that's what I decided to do. In the end it was fairly straightforward - I just fitted the rear wing, clamped up the loose inner repair panel, tack welded it in place, removed the rear wing and then welded the whole inner arch section in place between the tack welds. I did have to make a couple of cuts in the repair panel to give it sufficient "flex" around the inner wheel, however, but these were then welded back up. You might be able to spot these in the photos.

It all went pretty well, with nice strong welds which were then ground down (just for fun, as they won't actually be seen), sprayed with zinc-rich primer, and seam sealed.

This is where we got to last time, with the rot cut out This is the section coming off, to be binned.
 

This is looking into the boot. You can see the inside of the rear wing and part of the inner arch repair panel clamped in place.

 

After clamping the rear wing to the arch repair panel, it was tacked in place. The wing was then removed again, leaving the inner arch repair panel where it should be relative to the outer wing. I then started to seam weld the repair panel in place.

The repair panel was then welded in place here and there...

...before stitching between the welds...

...grinding them down...

...and covering with zinc-rich primer and seam sealer.

So, now I have a solid inner wheel arch for the rear wing to sit over. Lord alone knows if the rear wing will still fit over it, but I don't see why not. Next stop on the TR7 Express is aligning the rear inner and outer sill panels. I hope there will be no "leaves on the line". See you next time.

Rear Wing - Nearside - Part 4

It must be nearly a year ago since I started this blog, as it is cold in the garage today. I remember saying that a year ago.

Today was one of those TR7 restoration days when I just wanted to back inside the house and forget all about it. It was cold, and try as I might, I just could not get my panels to fit. The problem is that, once again, everything relates to everything else, i.e. the inner wheel arch lip has to align with the outer wing; the outer wing must fit the whole car including the rear lamp panel. Yet there must also be a fit with the boot floor, and of course the outer and inner lower sill panels. Nothing appears to line up and I am feeling fed up. Weirdly, the only thing that fits perfectly is the entire rear wing.

The areas in red, below, show what I have to make fit.

I just cannot seem to get any of it right, as none of it lines up. The biggest problems are the lower inner and outer sill panels which just don't sit right. In fact they don't even appear to interact with each other at all, even though they are well made. Today I honestly wondered if I had bought panels for the wrong side, but that is not a slight on the supplier- I am sure they will fit eventually. Just not today.

Days like today are the worst, as I can't see when it will get better. Nothing fits, but I know that eventually it will all come together. However this section is REALLY testing me and I am not afraid to ask for help.

If anyone has carried out this repair before and is willing to help, do let me know!