My entire fleet of cars is operational! This hasn't been true in
a *very* long time. This weekend was very productive. Saturday morning
Bob Leger stopped by with his Colortune and some performance tuning
books. We had at the 16v TR7 and found the idle settings I'd set by
ear were pretty close. Bigger (richer) idle jets are in order. I'm
attempting to get some now..
With the day still early, we had a look at the TR7 coupe. A month
or so ago, I'd removed the intake manifold so that I could replace
the water pump. The tricky part was pulling the water pump up out
of the block without Triumph tool #xyz. A quick brainstorming session
decided that we'd re-tap the left-hand thread bolt hole to a right-hand
thread and use a threaded rod and pipe as a slide hammer to pull it
up. We hit went for a drive down the road to the hardware stores and
picked up the rod, washers, bolts and tap we'd need. And had lunch.
Back at the garage, we found that no matter what we tried, the tap
wouldn't bite into the bolt hole. It must be hardened. A few calls
to machine shops in search of some help proved fruitless. We came
with a radically creative idea (for me, at least :-) involving
some large washers and three bolts. It looks like this:
|| <-- threaded rod
++ || ++ <-- nut
=||=||=||= <-- washer
bolt ---> || ++ ||
|| -- ||
=||=||=||= <-- washer
-- || --
|| <-- Left-hand bolt
With this contraption, we connected the threaded rod to the
LH bolt. The bolt screwed into the top of the water pump. With
a length of pipe and some nuts/washers at the top of the threaded rod,
we had a crude slide hammer. It worked. It worked elegantly, while
allowing me to vent my frustrations on the water pump.
With the pump out, Bob left to see his brother. I left to pay some
attention to a patiently waiting friend of the female persuasion.
Sunday morning, I realized that not all of the pump had come out. A
circular brass piece was still wedged in there. A quick application
of the (slightly modified for this application) handy dandy slide
hammer had it right out. I placed the new pump in position. Tapped
it in with a hammer, and smiled wickedly. :-) Replacing the intake
manifold, adding coolant and reconnecting wires, hoses and whatnot
took another hour or two. The battery was dead, requiring a jump,
and the thermostat housing leaked at it's seal, requiring 1/2 a
turn of it's bolt - AND THE PUMP DIDN'T LEAK!! In fact, nothing
did. I just started it and drove it away. I hate when that happens :-)
Then I fixed an uneven idle on the Blazer, washed the 16v TR7, had
a Sam Smiths (leftover from the NESOL meeting - thanks!) and rewarded
myself with a drive in the 16v TR7. What a weekend. The TR7 coupe's
got a For Sale sign on it now, at the end of the driveway.
And what did *you* do this weekend? :-) Happy (British) Motoring!
'Rob
rimbold@apollo.hp.com
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