It was back in 2018 that we last looked at the sunroof (it is here if interested). At that time it had the cover fitted, apart from the rear and critical edge which is important for tension purposes and had been on my dining room table for a year. 

Well, I am glad to say that the cover moved from the dining room to the garage and eventually onto the car. It was decided in the end that the best way to tension and glue the rear edge was to fit the damn thing, albeit temporarily, let the glue go off, remove the roof, then fold the rear flaps underneath. Following this slightly unorthodox procedure I ended up with a roof which was ready to go onto the car, if it were not for the need to refit the headlining. 

Everyone wants their headlining to look nice, right? We don't want it to resemble a ruched boudoir yet there were just so many areas where it had to fit. These are:

1. Front top edge of screen surround

2. The inner sides of the door frames

3. The sunroof aperture

4. The rear screen area

If ever there was the possibility of total failure, this was it. I've mentioned before that I can fall at any hurdle requiring accuracy, so my mates Terry and Neil were requisitioned to stop me from following my usual "just lob it in" mentality. Neil is very good with anything requiring metal rulers, callipers, dial gauges, micrometres, torque wrenches, lasers, particle accelerators and so on, none of which were helpful in this case. Terry, on the other hand, is adept at studying a particular thing for hours, like a hole for a grommet and declaring that the car is to be written off because the replacement grommet is 0.00001mm too small. Clearly these were the friends I needed and jolly grateful of them I am, too.

Where was I? Oh yes, the headlining. One of the difficulties encountered was that all of the above challenges needed to be addressed while contending with a part which was fundamentally upside down. What I mean is, the headlining is unlike anything else because you have to fit it upwards and of course gravity is all the time trying to defeat you. It isn't literally upside down (if it were, it would be carpet) but it is very difficult to fit at all, let alone accurately.

Your friend here, aside from Terry and Neil, is the the bulldog clip. I bought up the world's entire stock (DVLA had to close for a month as a result) and used them to good effect in attaching the headlining and tensioning it. Progressive errors are really common here and when, for example, you attach the headling to, say, the front corner of the screen surround and pull to tension it, wrinkles will appear in the most unexpected places such as the boot/trunk carpet. I made that last bit up but it really is like trying to fit a duvet cover to a duvet in one of those military jets which do massive nose dives to create anti-gravity. 

Having got it about right, albeit accepting that some wrinkles would be there forever, the next step was to cut out the hole for the sunroof. As you can imagine, this was very nerve-wracking and certainly a step requiring Neil to measure twenty times and Terry to check his work. Eventually, after much group bonding and some deep breathing exercises, Neil was brandishing a very sharp knife and declared something like "Well chaps, I'm going in. Wish me luck". Terry couldn't watch.

So, a large hole was cut out of Bessy's lovely new headlining (by the way, this was the second one I bought as the original was of the wrong pattern. This one is "Houndstooth", unlike the other which is called something like "Lots of Dots". I still have the unused one, new and in its original BL box if anyone needs one). Once cut, the edges were glued to the roof and the runners for the sunroof fitted. After this, the sunroof itself went in and the job was done. 

There, wasn't that hard, was it?

Now, where were we?

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, in my experience that is certainly true. The reason for my lack of posts (what's eighteen months between friends, eh?) was due to the car being 2,566 miles away in the UK while I was in Greece. Clearly that made popping into the garage to do some tinkering slightly inconvenient, so I made up for it by fiddling with two worthy but frankly no-substitute-for-Bessy projects. One was/is a Citroen C5 and the other a Yamaha TT600RE. 

Greek mafia?

I'd love to bring this to the UK one day.

Of the two, I know which I prefer: the TTR. It is fantastic for getting around the island and rather like the bike equivalent of a "series" Land Rover: a gentle giant which will never let you down but makes your fillings fall out above 60kph. Unlike the C5, it is no good for carrying stuff back from the local Papathakisthaskalakis supermarket, and it has no broken electrics to fix, but it is remarkably effective at scaring small children.

Two summers (and lots of winter) were spent in the glorious Greek climate, but the absence of Bessy the TR7 was starting to bother me and in the end, having had my fill of sun, sea, tzatziki and souvlaki, it was time to come back to Blighty. For now. 

I think I was in the garage within five minutes of getting back, lifting the cover off the TR7 and feeling a mixture of guilt and elation. The car was exactly as when it was left (not sure what I was expecting, really). So, that meant sleeves rolled up and back to work!

Getting the interior back in was step number two (paint being number one) towards having a car which looked like a car again. With sound deadening and carpets in, it was time to refit the seats. In my enthusiasm to crack on I failed to take any photos, but the job was reasonably straight forward and satisfying. 

These things never go exactly to plan, however, and much trial and error was needed to work out where the washers and distance pieces went in the floor/hole/runner equation. Plus of course lining up the four holes in the runners to fit the securing bolts required (a) a lot of patience and (b) the same number of limbs as an octopus. After much jiggery-pokery (and newly learned Greek swear words), they were in.

Steering wheel only upside down due to parking angle.

This car has been stored in various barns (usually in an array of boxes and bags) over the years and thank-the-lord-for-small-mercies I managed not to break or lose very many parts. However the plastic trims which fit around the interior door release handle were very broken, or missing. TR aficionados will know that these are almost always broken these days, and not being able to find NOS or used replacements resorted to a novel solution. 

Helping my neighbour Phil fix his Land Rover Discovery, I noticed that his trims looked remarkably similar, or at least, would do for now. So I stole them in the night and fitted them to my TR7. I didn't really do that, but I did think about it - in the end I got the part number and for a tenner took delivery of a pair of new ones. 

They took a bit of fettling, but fitted ok in the end. Sure, they don't look right but they are better than broken originals/nothing. Since doing this the originals have become available again through the TRDC so I'll get a pair when I have a spare £40.

Being a stickler for originality (the above excepted), I was troubled by the state of the parcel shelf. As is the norm with these, the vinyl covering had shrunk to the point where the GRP moulding just contained the TR7 equivalent of a bouncy castle. The three-compartment shelves are difficult to find in better condition secondhand, plus the new fibreglass replacements are reputedly not very good copies and in any case are only available in two-compartment form. So, with a heavy heart and being out of options, I removed the old vinyl and painted the shelf as best I could. It doesn't look great, but again it will do for now until a better one comes along. 

Well, that's about it for now. See you in eighteen month's time! Only kidding, there's lots more to report. Did I mention fitting a new headlining? That brought out some serious Greek swear words, I can tell you. More next time.

*** Thanks to fellow TR7 enthusiast Gavin Cooper for a kick up the backside and kick-starting this blog again ***