Back to work

In the meantime holiday is over and it’s back to work. Took my camera with me today and tried to shoot some nice pictures; I hope you like them…

Finished work for today and driving back home…

Small road trips

During this summer we did had some days without rain  and we took the opportunity to make some small trips with the TR.

First big test with the new water pump was a trip to Luxembourg. The car behaved very well and we had a stop at Bastogne.

We covered a total of 450 km and everything was fine just until the last 5km when that strange noise came back. (Later I found out it was only the alternator belt making this noise).

On the way back we had a stop at the brand new train station of Luik Belgium  (Liége in French or Luttich in German) called gare de Guillemin.

A few weeks later we went for a day trip to Germany. We took some lovely twisting roads thru the Ardennes to get to our destination.

Monchau; a nice little town in Germany just past the Belgium border.

A cool beer is always welcom with these temperatures

 

Stockheim/ Düren/Germany



This time there were no problems at all during the 300 km trip. The engine kept cool although it was almost 30°C outside; the new thermostat does the job.

Trial fitting the EFI plenum

When I was working on the engine and the carburetor inlet manifold was off the engine I took the opportunity to trial fit the EFI intake. 

I tried both directions and it looks like the EFI inlet manifold can be put in place both ways without too much work involved.

 It also doesn’t interfere with the bonnet so that’s good news. I tested this with a piece of cardboard and adhesive tape and there is at least 5mm space between plenum and bonnet when closed.

The other good news is that I can keep the frech air induct there's plenty of space left.

Even the strut bar can be left in place without any modifications; the only thing I need to do is to cut off a part from the gas cable lever.

I prefer this setup because this way there is no interference with the bonnet stay-up. I only need to fabricate a support for the flapper but this can't be too difficult.

On the other hand having the air intake on the left hand side makes life easier because I wouldn’t have to change the plumbing of some flexible hoses. We will see how it will work out; this will be done during winter period in the meantime I have to buy some other parts like an EFI fuel tank and high pressure pump and some other things.

Steering shaft and connecting joints

When I drove the car there was a rattling sound at the steering column; an inspection showed that the connecting joints at the steering shaft were worn and that this was causing the vibration and the rattling at the steering wheel. Replaced the shaft and connecting joints and all vibration and rattling was gone; another problem solved.   

I had a flexible clutch pressure pipe made by a company; the pipe could resist 850 bar but just to be sure I replaced it by another one with a metal surrounding (picture above) to prevent damage caused by friction. 

To make sure that the steering shaft wasn’t rubbing the exhaust pipe I asked a company to make me some spacers. The spacers are laser cut and are 1cm thick now there is about 5mm space between steering shaft and exhaust pipe and a few mm between exhaust and chassis rail; very tight fit but it doesn’t rub anywhere. 

Thermostat problem

One of the last problems I had to solve was the water temperature rising to high and the loss of engine coolant;

took out the thermostat and drove the car a while without thermostate and temperature was fine so I bought two new ones (one for the carb setup 82°C and one for the EFI setup 88°C  ).

New and old part ; left 82°C side and right side EFI 88°C

Before I could instal the 82°C thermostat I had to drill a little whole in it (4,5mm) for the airbleed.

 After that I installed the thermostat and all coolant and heating problems were over.

Noise problem solved

When everything was back in to place I started the engine and straight away  there was this noise again. By now I was definitely sure that it could no longer be the release bearing making this noise.

I drove to the workshop and asked the guy to have a look at the car. It didn’t make that noise anymore but after revving the engine a few times al of a sudden it was there and we noticed straight away that it was not coming from the gearbox but it came from the front of the engine. We found out that it was the alternator belt making this noise; the tension was not high enough. This means that as well as the old belt and the new belt were making this noise. Ok this is my fault; I don’t like to put on to much tension on a belt to prevent to damage the bearings.

In any case; making this faulty diagnose showed me that there was a problem with the clutch witch I wasn’t aware of; so in the end it was not such a bad thing to get the gearbox off and I also had the opportunity to change the rubber bushings.

Leak at brand new clutch master cylinder

I changed the slave cylinder and put in a new release bearing just to be sure. In the meanwhile I also changed the rubber gearchange bushings by new yellow ones and I put in fresh gearbox oil.

I also had a look at the brand new clutch master cylinder

and found out there was a small oil leak ???

 I dismantled the master cylinder and gave it a good clean and you can see some small traces in the cylinder.

I put it back together and it doesn’t leak anymore so I guess there was some debris from the old slave cylinder between rubber cap and cylinder wall and the small traces are not big enough yet to  make it leak.

Gearbox noise

I changed the release bearing and the problems where gone…

but just when we came back from a 450Km trip the noise was there again.

The first time the noise was there after about 500km’s now it was back after another 450km’s so I guessed something was pressing against the release bearing all the time.

   The only thing that I did not change was the slave cylinder although that I didn’t had the impression there was something wrong with it I took it off and took it apart; on the inside there was a large surface that was corroded this prevented the piston to go back far enough when the clutch pedal was released.
This could be the reason for the clutch being slightly burned and the burned release bearing... 

Burned release bearing

The water leak stopped but the screaming noise was still there from time to time;

I had the impression it was coming from the gearbox so I took the gearbox off and found a burned release bearing.

Water leak after long trip

We went for a longer trip a few weeks later and I had some water leaking from the water pump at the end of the trip the leak was quite severe and there was also a strange metal screaming noise from time to time.

I bought a new water pump and belt and overhauled the alternator to make sure everything was fine at the front of the engine.