There's a hole in my garage

There's a hole in my garage, and it is TR7-shaped. Since the TR7 went away, I have filled my time with lots of jobs, from rebuilding the engine to repainting the inisde of the ash trays.

This is going to be quite a long post, because it spans almost six months and I should have blogged about these jobs as I did them, but alas work pressures got in the way. Anyway, the first job to tackle was the engine. I'd actually got an engine stashed away which I bought from a guy who said he had rebuilt it, but I wanted to strip down my old engine for two main reasons: 1. To have some practice and 2. to see what caused it to almost seize all those years ago in 1994.

Getting the head off wasn't too difficult, which surprised me considering how long it had stood in the corner of the garage. What I found was a whole load of rusty sludge. Further stripping revealed very worn big ends and a load of swarf/bits of metal in the sump. Clearly this one was a goner.

So, onto the new engine. I had hoped to just drop it straight into the car on its return, but something was nagging at me. The guy said it was rebuilt, but how well? Could I trust his word? In the end I decided that the pain of putting it in, only to find it knackered, would be too much. So the decision was made to strip it again and rebuild.

In the end I replaced the crank and shells, water pump and bearing, oil pump, timing chain & tensioner, head bolts/studs/nuts, and re-did the valve timing using new shims. Incidentally, this is a very fiddly job. Rather than do a blow by blow account of the rebuild, here are some pictures.

By the way, the brass cage into which the water pump is driven was a sod to remove. In the end, I made my own special tool.

Having rebuilt the engine, I scratched my head about what to do next. The TR7 was going to be away for some time, so I set about a campaign of pulling parts out of my shed and refurbishing them. I started with the larger items like the gear box, and worked through the brake components, clutch cylinders, interior trim, engine mounts, everything. I mean, everything. Again, I will let the photos do the talking although I must admit I didn't take enough photos so there are just a few here.