Stormbear's Weblog

Since i got the Spider rolling, I have been driving it everywhere it seems. Been to my club's big yearly event - The Gathering plus British Car Day South and VIR's Gold Cup.

You can see hundreds of pics HERE for all of those events I mentioned plus some nice ones of my Spider after the pollen was cleaned off and the squirrel nest removed.

To get all the juicy details, visit my other blog Rally Badge.

Have a great Summer!

Yoke over in the forum suggested rechecking the ignition system as a possible cure for my spluttering engine and anemic performance. I had a hard time finding information concerning the firing order and the corresponding distributor cap plugs. My Haynes manual and other TR7 books told of the correct firing order, but no pics or diagrams of how it related to the distributor cap.

Once I got it worked out, I put together a diagram.

Today was a good day.

I got the car to start today and all was well with the world. I drove it around a bit and but alas the car was running rough. No torque and a huge lack of power. Need to work on that.

Some of the things I thought were problems weren't. The headlamps flip up now with no problem. Once the car was running, I had to cycle the light switch twice to get the headlamps to rise.

When the sun went down, I braved the dark to get some decent gas in it. Guess what? No dash lights.

Now I need to get the carb situation under control.

It has been a long time getting to this point. Damn near everything on the car has been replaced, except the rust.

Yet another holiday used in the wonderful pursuit of British Sports Car Maintenance.

We started with my neighbor Malcom (the original owner of my Spider)....

We got his 78 Spitfire going after about 2 years of storage. We also got his 80 TR7 at least to turn over... no slack miracle there.

Then we turned our attention to the Spider that has yet to start. After finding problems with damn near every bit of the ignition system, now we whittled the gremlins down to discover a fuel problem. The fuel istelf was drained and replaced. But we also discovered that fuel was getting to the pump, but not OUT of the pump.

The troubling part was that the fuel pump did not match what was in the Haynes manual, official British Leyland shop manual or could be found in the Vic Brit catalog. ::sigh::

So here are some pics of the mysterious fuel pump...

I was doing a much closer inspection of the body and I found one or two spots where rust is cropping up. I temporarily treated them with WD-40 to try to stave it off until I can get the car to a body shop.

But enough teasing, here is the Spider without the car cover.

I got around to snapping some digital pics of the 7 and thought I would share one with you guys.

Trust me, you do not want to see what is under there!

What was a beautiful black and shiny Spider is now layered with dust, pollen and dirt. Almost makes you cry.

The gas tank has been checked and is goop-free. That's good news. It does need a battery and a complete hose refit. If anyone knows of a retailer that sells a complete Hose Kit, let me know. I don't think there is a Hose World in my town. :-)

Way back in 1980, my father wanted me to learn how to work on cars. He knew I was a freak about British cars, so he thought a proper car for a strapping young lad to learn automotive mechanics on was a Triumph, TR7. So he bought one that didn't run. It was towed to the house! I was crestfallen, all my friends were already tooling around in their Camaros and getting the chicks! But I digress...

If I was ever to drive a car on my hot new driver's license, I had to get the TR rolling.

Soooooo.......
rebuilt carbs
replaced water pump
replaced thermostat
replaced battery
replaced all hoses
flushed radiator
milled head (work done by machine shop)
replaced head gasket
ignition coil
starter
starter solenoid

Then within 6 months of driving...
replaced transmission
replaced rear end
replaced driveshaft (it fell off the car!)
Installed electric fans (radiator fan fell off and I could not find a replacement)
painted car (idiot hit the car in parking lot)
replaced master cylinder
replaced all the clutch goodies
wore out one Haynes manual

Almost 30 years later, the story continues.

My neighbor is an avid collector of British Leyland cars and GAVE me his TR7 Spider VIN TPVDJ8AA401221 (I helped him out in a family matter and he figured I would be stealing it any day now anyway...)

The car has sat for almost 2 years, I have been the only driver (he collected, but never drove the cars... don't ask) as I drove it a few times a year to exercise the car (not enough) and to show it as the local car shows.

Before he got the Spider, it sat again for 2 years in a tobacco barn after a very thorough restoration (I met the restorer at a show - this guy had one nice Lotus).

Currently, the battery is dead and I see no signs of rust... amazing that.

Other things I have checked so far is the state of rust and to see if there was any sign of "mocha oil" on the oil cap (sign of water in the oil). As long as I have driven it, the temp never moved higher than half, flipped on the car heater and it came under control. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a heat problem... I can just feel it.

So here in this blog, I am going to detail this Spider's road to recovery.

Pics to come!