Wiper Motor

They say that variety is the spice of life and it is certainly required when restoring a car. There was a great comment in Practical Classics recently from someone who had spent ages fixing up an old motor, which basically said "when you get fed up, just try to imagine yourself driving the finished product". That made me think, because I had been getting fed up, so it appeared a good idea to do something different and break the monotony. So, the diversion was the wiper motor assembly.

Looking rather tired.

 

What do you think of the colour?

The motor was looking a bit scratty, so it was cleaned up with lots of petrol and a wire brush after which it was painted with etch primer, followed by a coat of grey paint. I am not sure if that is original but it should look ok when on the car.

I should also say that I took the thing to bits and re-greased everything.

Additionally, the motor boxes were stripped down and re-greased, painted and put back together. The only problem was that I could not quite remember how it all went back together, so maybe when I put the whole thing back it will need some "adjustment". We'll see.

Painted in silver.

Bodywork

When I was little I would spend many a happy Sunday helping my dad with his car's bodywork. I loved being let loose on such a big and expensive thing, and that he trusted me to fill his Renault 20's sills with chicken wire. Even better, I got to play with fibreglass matting and - even better - plastic body filler.

To this day I love using filler, even if I only now use it for its proper purpose of subtly re-shaping panels or filling the odd dent. So, you can imagine how much I enjoyed this weekend as I did a bit of TR7 bodywork fettling.

The work is mainly around the arches and rear lower sill areas, which need some attention after new panels have been fitted. By the way, being able to turn the car upside down for this does have its considerable advantages, although I concede that the photos might look a bit odd.

One upside down TR7.

Blending of the rear lower sill and the wheel arch.

And the other side.

Looking into the near side rear wheel arch. The right way up.

I also finally got onto an outstanding job, which was to strip out the underseal from the nearside front inner wheel arch and get it painted up. Once again Hammerite was used over seam sealer and zinc primer.

Sealed and primed.

Painted.