Headlamps

Is it me, or are my sheds emptying of TR7 spares? I guess you wouldn't know but it certainly appears so to me. Wandering in to the outhouse these days is a joy, as I am starting to take an interest in the various spare parts I have amassed over the years.

And so it was over the last couple of weeks as I decided to rebuild the headlamp motors. Here is a snapshot of the procedure:

Unbolt the motors from the lift mechanisms > Wire brush them > Disassemble them > Try to follow the procedures in the "How to restore..." book > Get totally baffled about how to set everything up > Grease everything in site > Repair the wiring (using solder and heat shrink tubing > Put it all back together > Seam seal the gaps > Spray them in zinc primer > Spray them with stone chip paint > Spray them with satin black paint  > Hope to God that they will work when reconnected to the car in many years' time.

That was pretty much it  for the motors, but I did mount them on new lift assemblies which was the icing on the cake. These have been sitting in unopened BL boxes for many years, and now I don't want to throw the boxes away. Is that a bit weird?

Halfords made a profit today as I spent a small fortune on paint and anti-rust products. The nuts, bolts, washers etc from various parts of the car were dunked in a solution of Kurust gel and left to behave overnight. This stuff is supposed to remove rust in this way, but the instructions were rather difficult to implement. Given that I was de-rusting in an up-turned aerosol can cap, how on earth was I supposed to measure the "one part Kurust, nine parts water" thing? With a teaspoon? In the end I just mixed some of the stuff up and chucked in the metalwork. We'll see how it does - I will either end up with my entire garage dissolved, or nuts more rusty than I started with.

Finally, I decided to strip one of the headlamp pods so that I could paint it. Stupidly I used a cup brush on the angle grinder, which removed the paint very effectively but also cut grooves and scratches into the alloy surface. Again Halfords provided the U-Pol etch primer in a can, which was applied to good effect. The next job is to spray this one with lots of high build primer.