Sunroof part 1

A little while ago the TR7 was looking nice, all in grey primer and (to my mind, anyway) about five minutes from getting a respray. Fast forward to now and I am back where I started, in a sea of dust and the car looking like a patchwork.

Why? Because, having had two quotes for £7k to finish the car, I have decided to do it myself. So, that has meant lots of reading up on "blocking" (using a block of sandpaper to straighten any (almost) imperceptible high spots and low spots on the panels) and skim filling. It is a big job and I am starting to see why the quotes came in so high. It is taking ages, one panel at a time, but hopefully it will be worth it.

You know how it is with old car restorations - you do one bit here then get side-tracked elsewhere. That's what happened this weekend, as I was filling and blocking the roof area, ahead of the sunroof aperture.

While I was doing this I realised I had filled over a number of revit holes, originally there to hold in place the Weathershields sunroof. The rivet holes got drilled out again, and my mind wandered. What of the sunroof?

The roof on RJW 307R was certainly aftermarket, judging by the fairly rough work to the aperture. It is the "short" sunroof and not listed as an extra on the Heritage certificate, so I reckon it would have been a dealer option, possibly. Anyway, into the shed I went to dig out what was, in reality, a grubby, dusty and torn item sellotaped together with the frames, which after some unwrapping fitted the car well and gave me a lift.

The sunroof itself was in a sorry state, so it was time to get brutal and strip it. The black cover came off fairly easily with the help of a hot air gun to soften various gluey bits (and I had forgotten that it was originally brown. Neil and I used VinylKote to change it black in 1994, for our trip to Greece), leaving the remainder looking not so bad. The mechanism is all good although the headlining will need a massive clean.

The metal, er, members at the front and rear of the roof were very rusty and made me realise just how much water must have been getting in over the years. These were removed and so far the front one has been de-rusted, treated and painted.

So, here's the plan. The top cover will go to the guys at Littleport Boat Haven, to be used as a template for a lovely new one. While it is away, I'll carry on refurbishing the "inner" part of the roof by cleaning it and repainting the headlining. On that note, I did today dig out of the shed the original headling for the remainder of the car, and what a sorry state that was in. I do have a brand new, boxed BL headlining but it will need cutting into shape to accommodate the sunroof aperture.  I'll leave that news until next time.

Paint Prep

Having laboured for years on this project, I felt that I had come to the end of my talents with preparing the body for paint. It was all in primer, but I wanted someone to finish it for me, i.e. do the final flatting & fettling, then paint it. Two £7,000 quotes later I decided that I would do it myself Yikes. So, for the next little while my posts will mostly be about getting panels to fit, treating low spots with filler and applying primer. I'll probably get bored though so you might suddenly find a post about TR7 ash trays or something else equally as exciting.

Right, last time we were here I was talking about the doors. No, not the Californian psychedelic outfit from the 70s, I mean my doors. Well, I got them on the car and they just didn't fit at all. The nearside, in particular, was out all over - the leading edge to front wing; the bottom to sill and the trailing edge to b-post just wouldn't line up.

I am compressing about three months' history into just a few lines here and I don't have any photos, but getting them to fit was a nightmare. Sure enough I got bored, so decided to strip the two old (but original) doors of their fittings, nuts, bolts and channels. While I was at it the stickers from the bootlid were carefully peeled away and kept - they had been there since the 1994 journey to Greece.

I am not sure what the artist was "on" when he drew them, but my particular favourite is the deliciously bonkers "Greece is Nice Not Mice".

Anyway, back to the TR7. It was good to strip the boot and doors of their parts, as it gave me an opportunity to see all of the inner parts.

Changing the hingepin on the nearside door helped no end, and after many, many hours of shimming and unshimming, I managed to get both doors to hang about right. They have to line up at so many places - the front wing, swage line, door tops etc and it is very, very fiddly.

I learned that you have to fit the door rubbers and striker plates to do this job properly, so on they went. However the doors now wouldn't close flush and protruded beyond the b-post quite considerably. The technique used to get this right was a combination of bashing back the frames on the car, and using thin skims of filler to lift the build of the rear wings to match.

After that, it was just a case of filling, then block sanding, and filling again.

Now they're not looking too bad!

I am going to get some stickers made: "TRs7 Are Great Not Slate". They'll sell, don't you think?

Ladies and gentlemen...The Doors!

Gosh, two posts from me in as many days. Spring must be in the air! Actually, it is freezing in the garage but I had to get out of the house, having been couped up for days during Giant Sunday, a.k.a. Christmas and New Year. 

Staring to look like a car again.

This will be a quick post, just to say that I put the doors on today for a trial fit. I had forgotten how fiddly they are and how they need shims, but it came together pretty well. I ran out of lower hinge shims, so will have to get some more from somewhere. The damaged boot lid got shoved on, too.

Obviously this was purely in aid of aesthetics because they will have to come off again to be painted, but I can see now where more profiling will be needed to make them fit nice and snug.

Exciting, eh?

Bessy has landed

Well, it seems a long time ago that I pulled the TR7 out of a barn, brought her to my garage and put her high

Time to come home. (Oct 05)

"Just needs a little T-Cut"

Home

up on a rotisserie. She was off the ground for years, until a couple of months ago she came down onto tall axle stands. There she sat for some time until the refurbished and re-tyred wheels were fitted and she was ready to hit the ground.

On the spit

On the axle stands after coming down from the spit

Originally the idea was to find four burly blokes to lift her by each corner, just enough to remove the stands and then lower her down. However, this couldn't happen as I couldn't muster enough muscle so some ingenuity was needed. With help from my neighbour Phil, a combination of jacks, ramps and bits of wood saw the car lowered gracefully to the ground.

Just a few inches to go...

I can't begin to describe the pride and joy I felt in seeing Bessy the TR7 actually sitting on the concrete, looking like a car again. Ok, a fairly empty one I admit, but a car rather than a lump of rust nonetheless. She actually rolls, like a car!

On the ground on its own wheels

 

There's a TR7 in there somewhere...

This little TR7 is nearing paint shop time. Woo hoo! My plan is to continue to prep the remaining panels (doors, bonnet and boot lid when I can find one) then hand it over to a body shop for final finishing and painting. Can't wait.