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TR7 BFH #7

To: Triumphs@autox.team.net, british-cars@autox.team.net,
Subject: TR7 BFH #7
From: Eganb@aol.com
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 18:49:11 EDT
The continuing saga of the TR7 with the Bearings From Hell continues....

Well, there was a delay getting the crank turned, since the T. Hoff crank man 
was sick for about a week, but I finally picked it up on Friday and they only 
had to take off .010, and the bill was only $60 and the crank looks fab.  AND 
they introduced me to PLASTIGAGE Clearance Indicators which I had never seen 
before -- leading the T. Hoff guys to roll their eyes at me trying to rebuild 
the TR7 -- in a half-joking sort of way.

For those of you as in-the-dark as I was, this stuff is nothing more than 
what looks like a stiff piece of dental floss.  you take a half-inch or so, 
and place it on the inside of one of the new bearings, then put in the 
crankshaft and tighten down the bolts for that one journal to the right 
torque.  then you take it apart again, and retrieve what is now a flattened 
piece plastigage and measure its width.  The more it is flattened, the less 
clearance you have in the new assemble, and the TR7 manual should tell me how 
much clearance I should have.  In this way, you can make sure that the newly 
ground crank and new bearings are going to have enough oil flow.  Really neat 
trick.
Apparently race car mechanics check every journal this way.

Now the bad news.  I have had my first major mistake.  When I took the 
flywheel off, I marked it and the end of the crank with paint so I could 
re-assemble it the same way.  Of course the T.Hoff guys did a complete 
cleaning of the crank, and the paint marks are long gone....   No wonder you 
are suppose to make the mark with a chiesel...
The manual talks about checking the runout with a dial gauge when a new 
flywheel is put on, so I assume there is a way for me to fix this mistake and 
make sure the flywheel is re-mounted correctly?    

Laughs are ok, as long as advice comes afterwards!....  And at least the 
paint marks I used for the driveshaft and transmission flange are still 
there!!!  I don't think there were any others I needed to worry about?.....

As always, thanks for the help.

Bruce
1980 Inca Yellow TR7 5-speed convertible
Chapel Hill, NC

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