TR5 Interior

This may not look like much, but its taken 3 days work to get to this point.

The interior is now finished (although I have to bolt the seats in, and fit the door cards).

The carpets are correctly secured with the snap rings too - what a pain of a job!

The H frame on the transmission tunnel was fun too - a very tight fit at present. The gear knob is not original (although I have the original one) as I have fited an overdrive logic controller - actuated by the small black button on the right hand side of the gearknob. so no changing up into a gear with overdrive already selected !

The next item to have attention was the grill, you cannot even get repro ones, and although the grill was in good condition the anodising had worn through in many places. I looked at having it re-anodised, but the consensus was that stripping and polishing would probably damage the alloy, so I have taken a different approach.

After a good clean, I have sprayed it with acid etch primer, then a coat of white primer, follwed by a chrome paint. When this has dried, I shall mask off and apply the matt black - it will be interesting to see how this comes out - and if its no good I can always strip it off again and try re-anodising.

Grey primer

and now chrome paint applied - front

and back

The pictures actually don't do it justice, it looks far shiney in reality

So all thats left now is:-

fit the grill
fit door cards
finish the elctrics
fit fuel pump and lines
fit the hood
fit an exhaust

and then find all the niggles !

By the way got another nice part got the Sprint, a nice new old stock gearbox mount

More TR5 Work

I had a good session on the 5 this weekend.

Firstly I bled the brake system and the car finally has a working brake system, although I still need to adjust the rerar brakes and handbrake cables, but thats waiting on obtaining the correct clevis pins for the handbrake cables.

Next was seat work, I had purchased some 3mm steel rod, so a happy hour or two was spent bending it into the shapes needed to replaced the damaged "wing" frames on the seats.

That done I strted to affix the foams to the seats

and then fit the seat covers

which have to be done in stages, glueing the centre of the cover into the foams, with a weight on top to make sure it fits the lower area.

This was repeated with the top covers too, until I ended up with this

I then needed to tension the covers by stretching the cover over the base, and fit the seat tilt release

That done I had two complete finished seats.

With a little bit of time to spare I got round to fitting the rear wheel arch trims, and the B post trim.

Carpets next, but I put the seats in the car just to see what they looked like

I must finish fuel pipes and electrics next before I do much more trim work

Sprint Parts

I didn't quite make it to Norway today, for some reason my visit got postponed, however some more nice parts arrived for the Sprint, firstly an airbox - designed for webbers, but I don't see why it won't work for Jenvey bodies - just need to cut the intakes, and make provision for an intake pipe.

and head studs with UNC thread for the block end, and UNF for the nuts which allows for more accurate torquing of the head

I have a clutch

Well at least the TR5 does, first job of the day was to check all the pipe connections in the clutch system and bleed the system. I had the usual issues with big gear box clutches of not being able to pump the fluid through (on new systems), but I have recently purchesed a hand operated brake vacuum pump, which you attach to the bleed nipple and it sucks fluid through. That done I have a working clutch with a bite point abouit 3/4 way, I am happy with this, as the 5 has a tilton hydraulic release mechanism fitted (no cross shaft etc), and as the plate wears, the release bearing is pushed away from the flywheel, so making the pedal actuate the clutch with less travel, so its good it starts near the bottom of the pedal travel. If it was near the top, it would soon be into clutch slip as it wore as the hydraulic mechanism would not be able to retract far enough with your foot off the pedal.

Now that I have a working clutch I can fit the tunnel cover, but first the tunnel seals want replacing (I prefer the old cardboard tunnels to the plastic repro's as the fit isn't always so good, and I had a really good condition cardboard tunnel cover)

And now tunnel fitted, a bit of a pig of a job with the new seals, it'll be easier next time !

And thats it another 5 hours work !

I'm off to Norway tomorrow for a week's work with Top Gear, so more in 2 weeks time

TR5 seats and brakes

Another day on the 5, but nothing quite finished. Brake and clutch pipes are finished now EXCEPT for the rear trailing arm pipes, The kunnifer pipe work is finished, but I had forgot that the braided flexi pipes always come with nuts that are too deep to allow the pipe unions to compres down on the trailing arms, so two standard thin nuts need ordering to complete this

Now to the seats, the first one went fine and I got the membrane and rear cushion support installed

But when working on the second seat I found that parts of the rear cushion support had rusted through

So I need to find some 3mm rod to bend to shape to replace the cushion supports that are damaged. I could have completed the first seat but decided to leave it bare so that I can dimension the wires from this, so nothing finished today

TR5 Progress

I haven't managed to do as much on the 5 as I had hoped because of family commitments and the CT Dinner, which left me wrecked last Sunday.

Anyway what I have done is this

Got the accelerator pedal fitted

Door locks in place

Door internals finished, all locks and catches work as they should

 I have started to make and fit up the clutch and brake lines - I have made these up with kunifer as its more durable than copper and doesn't work harden in the same way. Also it looks more like the original steel pipes.

Finally I collected the seat frames up, after being blasted and powder coated

I hope to get more done this weekend

Sprint Unobtainium and TR5 Refurbish Parts

After a few weekends away and Stoneleigh last weekend I am hoping to do a little work on the cars this weekend.

Anyway I managed to get some more unobtainium parts for the Sprint engine rebuild

4 NOS rocker arms - I need the other 4, but I do have an unmarked set of secondhand ones to complete the head

I also got a NOS jackshaft sprocket

and a NOS  roller bearing for the nose of the gearbox input shaft - this sits in the crank

As to the TR5 I eventually got the accelerator pedal assembley replated, this has sat on  my desk at work for the past 7 years !

The soft top handles have also been rechromed

and I got the door latches replated

The seat frames have gone off for blasting and powder coating too, so two days spannering ahead