Hi,
Well my TR7 (the Aqua Flying Doorstop) has finally made it officially onto the
road, proving my wife wrong, who figured it would be on the road at the same
time as the first snowfall!
I put the big push on the past week or so. My three biggest problems were a
coolant
leak under the dashboard, an intermittant right main beam and inoperable
windshield
wipers. The coolant leak turned out to be the hot thermostat in the heater
system,
something only those of us with air-conditioned TR7s have to worry about. I
bypassed
it with a length of heater hose - this means that the heat is on constantly,
but since
we're approaching fall I figured I could live with it. I'll replace the
thermostat over
the winter - it involves removing the whole dashboard, cutting slots in the
heater and
drilling out (mostly inaccessable) rivets.
The right main beam's duty cycle was raised to 75% with cleaning every contact
between
the fuse box and the headlamp. I figured I'd hope for the best at the
inspection station.
The windshield wipers were a pain, and the most expensive item to fix on the
car so far!
The wiper motor was fairly hosed, so I picked up a new one. I then found that
the metal
tang on the wiper rack that moves the stop switch had worn away, so the rack
had to be
replaced. I was missing the passenger wiper arm, but lucked on to a driver's
arm at the
junk yard - it's not authentic but it works OK.
I went to my favourite garage for the New Hampshire inspection. Since I live in
Nashua,
I have to have an emissions inspection also. The car passed the inspection (a
quick
prayer to the Lucas gods caused the high beam to work, I'm sure), then flunked
the
emissions with 3X over the CO (1.5 the limit, the 7 scored 4.5). The garage guy
& I
have a quick conversation about this problem - I make a quick drop of the carb
idle to 700,
and the CO drops to 2.0. I drop the idle to 600, the garage guy puts the car in
gear,
feathers the clutch, and we get 0.5! Run the test again for a new world'd
record of
0.37 CO! :-) This was without the air pump running, although I still have all
the
emissions stuff for it in place, but I just have to pass emissions for another
4 years (NH
requires emissions tests for 15 years).
What's next? I have to put a new hood on; a new Robbins one is in the garage.
I'm also
looking for another shift lever - mine was broken when I bought the car, and
TRF and
Victoria say they are now unavailable. If anyone has a 5-speed lever they want
to part
with let me know. I'm also on the lookout for the lower half of the steering
column
cover...
Today is day two of driving to work in the TR7. I find that I drive about
55-60mph into work,
but enjoying the drive more. I also enjoy the stares from passersby, who mouth
"What is it?".
People have forgotten the TR7 already? Mine's only 11 years old...
--pete
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J. Peter Brady INTERNET: brady_p@apollo.hp.com
Hewlett Packard/Workstation Group Mktg UUCP:
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M/S CHF-02-MD PHONE: +1-508-256-6600 extension
7423
300 Apollo Drive, Chelmsford, MA 01824 HP TELNET: 256-7423
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