triumph wedge owners association · 2019-03-17 · issue 26 triumph wedge owners association page 2...

Issue 26, March 2014, Spring Edition

Triumph Wedge Owners Association

Inside This Issue

From the President .......................................... 2

Trailer Queen?

From the Vice President .................................. 4

Visors update, VTR 2014, FASD rebuilding

Make Your Own Brake & Fuel Lines ................. 5

Brent shows us how to make new lines

Bad Transmission Mounts ................................ 6

Tim Greenlee’s problem trans mounts

Hidden Horsepower? ....................................... 7

Steve makes a few adjustments for more power

TWOA Research Report—Trans Mounts .......... 16

In-depth testing on the quality(?) of our mounts

The Wedgewright—Part 6 .............................. 19

Mark continues repairing his TR8

Make Your Own Footwell Vents ..................... 21

Gary shows us how to create functional vents

Shoebox and Gizmo to the Rescue ................. 24

Paul used TWOA tools to pass his CA Emissions test

Member Cars ................................................. 25

Brent’s 1977 TR7 Coupe

TWOA Decals ................................................ 25

Get your own TWOA decal for your car

Fixing the Inertial Switch .............................. 25

Clay disassembles and repairs the switch

TWOA Renewal Process ................................. 26

The renewal process explained

Photo Submission .......................................... 27

Tony Rhodes shares some of his photos

Issue 26 Triumph Wedge Owners Association

Spring 2014

Trailer Queen?

I was having an Email discussion the

other day with one of our newer mem-

bers about the values of our cars and the

discussion took an interesting turn. He

commented that it seemed that it was

only "trailer queens" that were command-

ing high prices, cars with almost no miles

on them and cars that were seldom (if

ever) driven. I knew what he meant but

looked up the phrase and was intrigued

to see that a trailer queen is the person,

not the car: "A person who takes his clas-

sic car to car shows on a trailer, then

jumps out and starts polishing off all the

invisible dirt that might have attached

itself. Trailer queens don't drive their

cars. They just drag them around on a

trailer to be admired." (Urban Diction-

ary). However, I was a bit miffed when

the conversation turned to me, and he

remarked that people like me who trailer

a car to an event and are concerned

about getting every little detail of a car

"correct" are a different breed than own-

ers who actually drive them and use

them. Obviously he didn't know me very

well. I gently corrected him on my philos-

ophy of car collecting. I think it is possi-

ble to be an Anorak and yet still enjoy

and drive your car! Sure, you work hard

to make the car look like it did on the

dealer’s show room floor, really hard

sometimes. For example, I have been

known to detail the undercarriage of my

car every now and then. But then you

drive it away to a car show and it gets

covered in road grime. The last trip David

Elsberry and I took to a show was 1300

miles one way, 2600 miles round trip.

Sure the car gets sometimes (really) dirty

getting there but what I like about VTR

Concours judging is that normal road dirt

accumulated while driving the car to the

event doesn't count against you. In my

case, I suspect the "undercarriage" judge

was pretty lenient with my car since he

knew I'd just driven it 1300 miles and

there was no way I would have had time

to "detail" the undercarriage. I'm hoping

to do well in Concours at the VTR Nation-

als this Fall too and that'll be an 1800

mile drive for me to get there. Why not?

My philosophy for car shows has always

been to clean and polish the car up best I

can, then drive the car, show it off, auto-

cross it, and enjoy it!

Speaking of the VTR Nationals, I do

hope you're planning on attending, right?

It's "Celebrating 40 Years of The Shape"

and we expect to see a lot of wedges in

and around Mount Airy and Dobson that

week. This is also your chance to get to

meet Harris Mann and Graham Robson in

person; be sure to bring something for

them to autograph if you enjoy collecting

autographs! Your car doesn't run? Put it

on a trailer and bring it, you'll likely find

at least a dozen TWOA members who live

for helping people getting these cars to

run sweetly. Free advice from an expert

is always nice and having the actual car

to look at and tweak on the spot is a lot

easier than Email or telephone exchang-

es. Plus we can help you roll it onto the

field if you'd like to show it off too. We'll

have the TWOA FI diagnostic tools there

if you'd like your fuel injected car to get a

quick "check up" and we can now do FI

TR7s as well. We'll also have experts on

the TR8 water chokes and the TR7 FASD

as well. A springtime ago, TWOA pushed

to get a bunch of wedge cars at Dobson,

The Gathering, and without too much

trouble or advance warning we got 25

cars to that show. We think 100 TR7s and

TR8s isn't out of the question. Try and be

there! Check out the link elsewhere in

this newsletter and make your reserva-

tions today.

Finally, I'll close with a brief discus-

sion of our most recent research project,

one that you can read more about else-

where in this newsletter. The gearbox/

transmission mounts we're now getting

aren't "up to snuff".

We've done lots of different tests on

them and they're simply not right. I

won't spoil the punch line but we're hop-

ing we can work with our usual suppliers

and vendors and get this fixed! Howling

gear noise transmitted into the cabin is

simply not acceptable. Enjoy your news-

letter!

2013 TWOA

Board of Directors

President—James TenCate

(505) 672-1953

[email protected]

Vice President-Wayne Simpson

(732) 477-3878

[email protected]

Secretary/Editor—David Elsberry

(919) 279-5046

[email protected]

Membership/Treasurer– Gary Klein

(410) 551-2055

[email protected]

Member At Large-Bill Derksen

(306) 384-5882

[email protected]

Member At Large-Brent Roth

(314) 846-7546

[email protected]

Prior President—Tim Lanocha

(410) 557-0052

[email protected]

Founder– Mike de Andrade

(301) 318-6101

[email protected]

1st Quarter 2014

North American Membership 384

Overseas Membership 71

Total Membership 455

TWOA on the Web

http://www.triumphwedgeowners.org

http://www.facebook.com/groups/TWOAGroup

On the Cover:

Jack Russell’s Triumph TR7 DHC

Editorial contributions to the TWOA Newsletter are

welcome and encouraged. Submissions should be emailed

to [email protected]. Materials are

subject to revision as needed for publication. Unless

otherwise specified, all correspondence will be considered

for publication

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in

any form or any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior

permission of the Triumph Wedge Owners Association.

© 2013 Triumph Wedge Owners Association

Cutting the heart out of a dead mount

mailto:[email protected]








http://www.triumphwedgeowners.org/





Spring 2014


Spring 2014

From the Navigator - Issue 26

By Wayne Simpson, Vice President

Sun Visors - In The Pipeline!

As many of you already know, we can

finally report that we have product in the

pipeline! Simon Aldridge of Aldridge Trim-

ming, Ltd., called us recently to say he

had done a pilot run of 50 pairs of sun

visors, all black and in LHD spec (in other

words, with mirror on the right hand one)

and was keen to make these available to

our members. We put out a call on the e-

mail list and via our own communications

net, and got commitments enough to buy

most of these within a day. Don't worry if

you didn't score a set this time, there will

plenty of opportunity in the future.

Next up will no doubt be Navy since

Aldridge has a ready supply of that color

on hand. Of greater concern is the availa-

bility or lack thereof of Golden Tan. Rest

assured we are working on this issue, try-

ing to locate a source of material. It's not

as easy as it sounds. The material has to

be the right color, the right grain, unsup-

ported by any fabric backing (try finding

any vinyl upholstery material that isn't)

and the right thickness, otherwise our

heat sealing dies won't work on it. So yes,

we're working on the problem, trying to

get as close as we can. We've uncovered

some new leads this week and will investi-

gate. Please try to be patient.

We did receive a little bit of griping on

the price. A set of these black visors will

set you back £36, about $60 at current

exchange, plus shipping from the UK. If

you think this is expensive, you clearly

haven't priced these on the open market.

A set of visors for a TR6 or Spitfire (they

apparently share this part) will set you

back £39 from Rimmers, and a set for a

Stag will cost you a whopping £70. Our

visors are bespoke to the Wedge cars, and

as far as I know, were the only visors Tri-

umph supplied in any color other than

black. Aldridge is doing a great job holding

costs down for us, and the workmanship

on these is first rate.

The last time Rimmers listed a price

for black visors, they were £35.32 EACH—

for ONE visor. The current price from Al-

dridge is nearly half the cost that these

were priced at by Rimmers in 2010.

VTR 2014 Preparations

Do you have your rooms booked for

VTR yet? If you have any intentions of

coming, you'd best get to it. As far as I

know, the host hotel is full up, but there

are two other participating hotels in near-

by Mount Airy still available. Jim, Dave

and I have stayed in both of these hotels

recently and they're both very nice. The

host club tells us that this National will be

spread out, so events will get hosted all

over the area and it won't be so big a deal

if you're not staying at the host hotel. My

advice would be to book your hotel rooms

now, you can always cancel later if need

be, to avoid being shut out.

So what will be there for you? How

about a question and answer session with

TR7 stylist Harris Mann moderated by

none other than noted Triumph historian

and author Graham Robson? How about a

tech session or two hosted by your TWOA

officers? How about our now traditional Bill

Wood Mountain Road Tour, "fun" and

more serious TSD rallies, a hill climb

(proposed but not yet finalized), an auto-

cross, and of course the big car show it-

self, held on the grounds of a beautiful

vineyard with wine tasting and tours on

premises, and all the other things that are

part and parcel of a VTR National Conven-

tion.

Yes, you should be there, and we re-

ally want to see 100 wedge cars of all

years, types, tops and colors. We believe

this is possible, but that's all up to you of

course. We already have people coming in

from Canada and the West Coast, so you

won't be alone in coming from a distance

and there is always the possibility of

meeting up with your fellow wedge owners

along the route to caravan for fun and

security. See VTR2014.com on the web for

further details and schedules.

Who Ya Gonna Call? HEAD HON-CHO!

Jim wanted me to say a few words

about our TR7 head lifting tool, which we

affectionately call the Head Honcho. It's

been out on several sorties this past year

and was successful in doing its intended

job each time. One fellow from the Stag

Club even joined the TWOA specifically so

he could rent the tool. Does a Stag count

for two sorties? We've recently done some

refurbishing to it, and it's ready to go out

again when needed.

I got a call the other night from a

very excited Karl Schmitt, a member out

in MO. Using the drawing we supplied with

a few modifications to suit his own tastes,

Karl has been building his own copy of the

tool. This past week, he gave it the acid

test; removing the head off a scrap engine

that's been sitting outside for a decade

and yes, the tool worked fine even on

such a badly abused engine. Karl is also

willing to loan out his head lifter should

anyone need it. This might be an option

for people living near him in the St. Louis

area.

FASD Rebuild Kits?

F-A-S-D, a four letter acronym that

engenders hate, fear and confusion among

TR7 owners and mechanics. These were

fitted to US spec vehicles from 1977 to

1980. Triumph built 41,000 TR7s for ex-

port during this time, and if you assume

that 75% of them came to America, you

see that there are quite a few of these

little gizmos around. We tried to demystify

the device with a series of articles in is-

sues 19 and 20, but we had to admit that

fixing these things is hard without a

source for parts. Now, we're trying to deal

with that problem by reproducing the

three gaskets needed to properly recondi-

tion them. This is a project that will come

to fruition sooner rather than later, and

The driver’s side (LHD) new visor

The Head Honcho, in situ


Spring 2014

we are currently investigating having

these computer cut. Failing this, we have

priced a set of steel rule dies to make

them and will go that route.

The ultimate intent is to offer a seals

kit consisting of three gaskets and three O

-rings; everything you should need to do

the job. Cost of this should be quite rea-

sonable, coming in at or below $25.

One other piece of the puzzle would

be to reproduce the thermostatic actuator

(wax bulb) that controls the device. I have

identified a Chinese manufacturer that

makes a wax bulb actuator compatible in

size, shape and temperature range to

ours. The only difference is the length of

the pushrod extending from the bulb. I'll

have to see if they can make actuators

with pushrods to our specs in quantities at

a price that will be practical for us. In

practice however, I have rarely seen one

of these go bad. It is, after all, the same

sort of device that controls your coolant

thermostat. Basically, it's an expanding

element in a fixed volume container that

squeezes out the rod the same way you

shoot a watermelon seed by squeezing it

between your fingers.

What I do see is actuators that are

stuck. We used to think that when you

could pull the rod out of an actuator, that

signified a bad one. Wrong! The expanding

wax actually sits behind a thick rubber

bladder. There is nothing whatever holding

the rod in place other than the force ap-

plied by the spring pushing it back. It is, in

fact, the stuck ones that are bad. In most

cases, you can pull the rod out (carefully,

put some rubber tubing over the rod so

you don't scratch it), clean it, put it back

in perhaps with a little silicone grease, and

this should return it to function.

I guess the final element in all this

would be to offer a reconditioning service

for those who aren't DIY types. I have

been doing this for local people for a while

and could do it on a more formal basis for

club members. Need help with any of this?

Ask.

I've covered a lot of ground in my

section of the newsletter this time so if

you have any questions or comments,

please feel free to drop me a line at

[email protected] .

E-mail is usually the surest way to get me,

but failing that, you can also look me up in

your Directory and give me a call, or just

look on page two of the newsletter.

Making Your Own Brake and

Fuel Lines

By Brent Roth

Disclaimer – The author is not an automotive re-

pair professional. The reader who chooses to

duplicate any descriptions of work, instructions or

tips found in this article does so at their own risk.

The author takes no responsibility for damages or injuries that may result.

Several month ago I found myself in

the fortunate position of having the entire

drive train (engine, transmission and rear

axle) out of my TR7. I’m sure some of

you are saying “Fortunate??? You are

______!!!" And normally I would agree

with you. But there is a method to my

madness.

I needed to remove the engine and

transmission for rebuilds. I also planned

to replace the link and control arm bush-

ings, and dropping the rear axle lent itself

to that effort. While working under the

car in preparation for the removals, I no-

ticed the brake and fuel lines had signifi-

cant rust in several places. In addition,

the fuel feed line had some road hazard

inflicted creasing and crimps. Suffering

from a severe case of Wedgewright’s dis-

ease (apologies to Mark Elbers) I con-

vinced myself that having all of those

drive train components out presented an

excellent opportunity to access and re-

place all of the brake and fuel lines.

Where to begin – pre-made or roll your

own?

I looked for replacement lines and

came across several options.

One was a vendor who provides brake

and fuel line kits with pre-bent lines al-

ready flared with fittings. For lines they

don’t stock, they can custom bend them if

provided a pattern.

Another vendor offered kits with lines

cut to length, fittings in place and the lines

flared. The installer then uncoils and

bends the lines to fit.

I could buy straight lengths of brake

lines already flared with fittings from my

local auto parts store. Since these are cut

to pre-determined lengths (e.g., 8”, 12”,

20”) only a couple of them exactly

matched my lines length-wise. This

meant purchasing longer than needed

lines and adding bends or loops to take up

the extra length. As the longest length

they offered was 50”, I would have to use

couplings to splice lines together to create

replacements for lines longer than 50”.

Another option was to buy the raw

components (tubing and fittings) in bulk,

then do all the fabrication myself – cut to

length, bend and flare to fit.

In the end I decided to go with the

last option. I’ve bent and flared both steel

and copper tubing, so am comfortable with

the work. While this is the most time in-

tensive option, I enjoy doing as much of

the work on my car as possible, so the

extra time wasn’t a negative for me.

So many metals – steel, stainless steel,

copper or copper-nickel alloy?

There are several tubing material op-

tions. Regardless of the material chosen,

the key is to make sure it’s rated for use

in a brake system.

Copper is a great material for tubing –

easy to bend and flare, and virtually corro-

sion resistant when compared to steel.

However, it is easily work hardened, mak-

ing it brittle and more susceptible to frac-

tures and cracks. In an automotive envi-

ronment, it will be subjected to flexing and

vibration which can cause work hardening.

I didn’t want brittle brake lines, so I re-

moved copper from the list.

Steel is a good choice from a cost

perspective, has excellent strength, and is

readily available at the local auto parts

store. Its biggest drawback is corrosion.

I would have gone with steel if I had plans

to keep the car in original or concourse

condition, but since that wasn’t the case, I

wanted to go with something that wouldn’t

have any rust issues.

Stainless certainly fills the no-rust bill,

but it is pricey. I’ve never worked with

stainless tubing, but I’ve read it’s difficult

to bend and flare, unless you get the right

grade of stainless. In either case its rust-

resistant nature kept it on the list.

Copper-nickel alloy, also known by

brand names such as Cunifer™ and

NiCopp®, is comparable to stainless in

terms of price and rust resistance. I’ve

also read several articles on how easy it is

to flare and bend. Some of those articles

tout that it can be formed into tight bends

by hand without kinking – something that

is very hard if not impossible to do with

copper, steel or stainless steel.

After going back and forth between

stainless and copper-nickel, I decided on

copper-nickel. The ease of working with it

appealed to me. And while not a mechan-

(Continued on page 8)



Spring 2014

Bad Transmisison Mounts

By Tim Greelee

In June 2012, my wife and I relocat-

ed from Huntsville, Alabama, to Phoenix,

Arizona. After spending our first winter

here in the “Valley of the Sun”, I decided

that a TR8 convertible would be a better

selection for the climate rather than my

1978 TR8 Coupe.

I started my search for a TR8 con-

vertible; I wanted to find a TR8 that had

spent its life in the Southwest. I located

several 1981 TR8 convertibles in South-

ern California, but research on these cars

revealed problems with the cars.

Then, in Feb 2013, I bought a

“project car” which is a 1980 TR8 con-

vertible with only 41K documented miles

that had spent its life in Tucson, Arizona,

and had been in storage for over 20

years. The body on the 1980 TR8 con-

vertible was rust and accident free, but all

the rubber components were totally disin-

tegrated. The previous owner had in-

stalled a Holley 4 barrel carburetor that

was not jetted correctly for the engine.

Fortunately, the original Stromberg’s and

all hardware were in the trunk.

Shortly after buying the convertible I

realized that I did not have enough gar-

age space for all our cars. I would have

preferred to have kept both TR8’s but

decided it was time to find a new home

for my too perfect, 1978 Preproduction

TR8 Coupe I’d owned for 16 years.

My new TR8 project car spent the

next four months on jack stands while I

sorted all the major systems and replaced

all the fluids, hoses, belts, seals, and sus-

pension and brake components.

The first drive around the block was

very disappointing. I was afraid to drive

over 25 mph. All I could hear was the

horrible noise from the transmission. The

transmission shifted very smooth and all

the synchros worked OK, but, the noise

was horrible. The fluid that I had drained

from the transmission was fairly clean

and free from metal. I used GM Synchro-

mesh Fluid to refill the transmission. The

old transmission mount had disintegrat-

ed, so I installed a new mount.

For the next month, I went over my

work to make sure the new engine and

transmission mounts had been properly

installed. Also, I was looking for issues

that may have been introduced by the

previous owner.

During all my diagnosis, I always

revisited the transmission mount. I had

removed the mount several times to

make sure it was correctly installed. The

first mount I purchased had been adver-

tised as a TR7/8 mount.

As a long shot, I decided to purchase

another transmission mount. I thought

that there may be a problem with the

new mount and the best approach would

be to try another mount to eliminate the

mount as the problem. The second

mount was advertised as a TR8 mount

and cost much more that the first mount.

When my second (TR8) mount ar-

rived, I removed the first (TR7/8) mount

and did my comparison of the two

mounts. Both mounts were very similar

in construction. I did notice that both

mounts have much more rubber bonded

to the outside of the metal mounting

frame of the mount than the original

TR7/8 mounts.

The additional rubber on the outside

of the mounts frame kept the mount from

sitting flush against the transmission

My 1981 TR8, as purchased

The engine, as purchased

The cabin of the TR8 coupe

After some well overdue maintenance!

All sorted and ready to test drive—I thought

Comparison of the two mounts, top side

Comparison of the two mounts, bottom side


Spring 2014

cross member. Some rubber must be

removed before installing the mount to the

cross member.

After I properly installed the new

(TR8) transmission mount and took the

car for a test drive, I still had the horrible

transmission noise. It was time to get out

my serious diagnosis tool, my stethoscope

to pin point the source of the noise.

I put the car on jack stands again,

started the engine, put it in gear and

started my diagnosis with the stethoscope.

Through all 5 gears and reverse, I could

not find any noise in the transmission. I

also checked the differential and rear

wheel bearings. Everything sounded very

quiet in the stethoscope.

My last check with the stethoscope

was listening to the noise from the trans-

mission compared to the noise of the

transmission cross member that attaches

to the body. Wow! I had the same level of

noise in the stethoscope for the transmis-

sion and the transmission cross member.

The transmission mount was not isolating

any of the transmission noise.

Once again, I removed the transmis-

sion mount for another inspection. Over

the next week, I spent several hours with

the two mounts on my work bench. I re-

alized that the rubber on both mounts was

very hard.

I decided to experiment with the sec-

ond TR8 mount by removing the rubber on

each side of the mount in an attempt to

soften the structure of the mount. When

I installed the modified mount in the car, I

did get a reduction in the noise being

transferred to the interior. Now that I had

determined that the very hard transmis-

sion mounts were not isolating the trans-

mission noise, my transmission was prob-

ably OK.

After that, I got on the internet and

started searching for sources of TR7/8

transmission mounts. I decided to buy

another TR7/8 mount from another source

and give it a try. Several days later I got

my third mount. Very excited I opened

the package and inspected the mount.

Seems I got the triplet for the other

two mounts. All the mounts were very

hard, and the quality was very bad.

I decided to post a message on the

TR7/8 list to see if anyone else was having

problems with their new transmission

mounts.

It just so happened that Jim Tencate

had posted another message about horri-

ble noise from his transmission after he

had installed a new transmission mount.

After a phone call and a long discus-

sion, we felt there may be a problem with

the new transmission mounts currently

available.

I have installed a used original TR8

mount back in my car. It is much softer

than the mounts currently available, but

this is only a short term solution. It is only

a matter of time until this used mount

fails. With this mount, all the transmission

noise is gone and the car is very quiet

inside.

With all the trouble with the transmis-

sion mounts, I did manage to find enough

time to get my new top installed.

If anyone happens across any NOS

TR8 transmission mounts, please drop me

line.

Hidden Horsepower?

By Steve Olson

Does your Wedge have a bit of hidden

horsepower lurking beneath the bonnet? I

think my TR8 did. I noted that the fuel

injected V8's were rated at a few more

horsepower than those with carbs. I al-

ways just assumed that was because they

somehow flowed more air or better mixed

the fuel and air or that injectors just pos-

sessed some kind of magic. I also sup-

posed that other parts of the engine were

different in addition to the intake system.

But one day while reading the manual I

noticed that all the specs were the same

and all the engine parts seemed to inter-

change. Then I spotted one specification

that was different, the ignition timing.

The carb fed cars called for a few degrees

less advance.

I strongly suspect that since the carbs

are a bit less efficient at getting the air/

fuel mix just right they must produce a

shade more noxious emissions. To pass

the test an easy solution would be to re-

tard the ignition timing a shade. And if

the ignition were a tad late then horse-

power would suffer slightly. I grabbed my

timing light and changed my car to the

injected setting. It ran better and I had to

adjust the idle speed down a bit. It also

seemed to perform better.

Where I live my car doesn't have to

pass any emission test so I no longer have

the catalytic converters in place, and the

(Continued on page 16)

The mount will not sit flush without trimming

Rubber removed to try to isolate noise

The three mounts, seemingly all the same

New top, and old transmission mount installed


Spring 2014

ical or functional plus, I preferred its cop-

per-tone appearance when compared to

the silver-grey of stainless (although the

lines will be rarely visible unless you’re

under the car or have the bonnet open).

Making a list – Tubing, fittings, and…?

I had to figure out not only how much

and what size tubing I needed, but which

fittings (thread size and count), grommets

and tubing clips (those bits that attach the

tubing along the body and rear axle).

The first task was to measure the

diameter and length of all of the lines,

which involved removing them from the

car. Before disconnecting/removing any-

thing I drained both the brake and fuel

lines as much as possible to minimize any

spills.

I removed the lines one at a time,

taking multiple pictures of each line before

taking it out of the car. Having a record of

how they were routed and attached to the

body would help with any questions when

installing the new lines. I also tried to be

as gentle as possible when detaching the

lines from the various attaching clips to

avoid breaks, since some of these are no

longer available (NLA).

<Lesson Learned: Label, label, label >

I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should

have labeled the lines before removing

them. The lines are all unique in shape

and length so it would be virtually impos-

sible to install a line in the wrong location.

But when they are out of the car and lay-

ing in a pile on the shop floor it can get

confusing which line is which.

I had a similar jumble of fuel and vent

lines

My car is a LHD. RHD cars have the

same number of lines connecting the same

components, but the shape and length of

some lines may be different from those

pictured.

A – Rear axle line, runs between the left

and right wheel cylinders.

B – Pressure reducing value to rear axle

hose.

C – Pressure reducing value to right cali-

per hose.

D – Rear axle hose to right wheel cylinder.

E – Master cylinder to pressure reducing

valve.

F – Pressure reducing valve to left caliper

hose.

G – Master cylinder to pressure reducing

valve.

H – Right caliper hose to right caliper.

I – Left caliper hose to left caliper. At

some point in its life this line was been

pulled ‘straight’ compared to its counter-

part on the right (item H).

Measure twice – how big and how long?

Metal tubing is sized by outside diam-

eter (OD), and is easily measured using a

ruler marked off in 1/16” increments. All

of the brake lines were 3/16” (4.75mm)

with the fuel/vent lines coming in at

5/16” (8mm). I believe TR7s & TR8s used

these same diameters for all variants and

years, but I’d recommended checking the

line size on any project for good measure.

Measuring diameter is easy, length

not so much. The simplest way I’ve found

to do this is with a tape measure like

those used by seamstresses and tailors. I

picked one up years ago for less than a

dollar at a local fabric store, and keep it

handy in my tool box. It works great for

something like a brake line with all of its

twists and turns. Below is an example of

the process.

Photo 2 – I aligned the starting end

of the tape with one end of the brake (or

fuel) line. Keeping the ends of the tape

and line held together with my left hand, I

used my right hand to run the tape along

the length of the line around and just past

the first bend.

Photo 3 – Holding the tape and line

firmly with my right hand, I let go with my

left hand. I then moved my left hand up

next to my right hand, firmly grasping the

line and tape just at the point before my

right hand. I let go with my right hand

and again used it to run the tape along the

length of the line around and past the

second bend, grasping the tape and line at

a point just past the bend.

Photo 4 – I kept repeating this two-

handed dance until I got to the end of the

line, noting the measurement at the end

opposite of where I started.

Photo 5 – This example came in just

under 11”.

My tape measure is only 60” in

length, so I had to improvise for lines that

were longer. When I reached the end of

Photo 1 – Old lines out, and identified


Spring 2014

the tape, I used a felt tip marker on the

line to show where the end of the tape

measure landed. I then moved the start-

ing end of the tape measure to that mark

and again began the two-handed dance.

When I reached the end of the line I noted

the measurement on the tape, then added

the 60” from the initial measurement.

As an alternative, you could substitute

string for the tape. Once you reach the

end of the line just mark or cut the string,

then measure its length.

Once I had a complete list of lines and

measurements, I added some pad to ac-

count for any losses when flaring the new

line as well as any inaccuracies during the

measuring of the old line. The amount I

added depended on the line in question –

from 1” for a line with only a couple of

bends up to 4” for one with many bends.

Below are the brake and fuel/vent line

measurements for my car, rounded up to

the next inch. Earlier I mentioned my car

is LHD – specifically it’s a 1980 California

spec (fuel injected) TR7 DHC. I call this

out to note that while the brake line meas-

urements for my car may apply to all LHD

cars, the fuel/vent lines are different from

those on a carbureted TR7, or a TR8 for

that matter. So I recommend always

measuring the lines for a project just to be

on the safe side. Note: PRV is pressure

reducing valve, MC is master cylinder.

Brake Lines – 3/16” (4.75mm) OD

122” (3099mm) PRV to front RH hose

22” (559mm) PRV to front LH hose

11” (280mm) Front MC to PRV

11” (280mm) Rear MC to PRV

12” (305mm) Front RH hose to caliper

12” (305mm) Front LH hose to caliper

101” (2566mm) PRV to rear hose

29” (737mm) Rear hose to RH cylinder

62” (1575mm) RH cylinder to LH cylin-

der

382” (9706mm) or 31’ 10” Total

Fuel/Vent Lines – 5/16” (8mm) OD

29” (737mm) Fuel feed – pump to

coupling

91” (2312mm) Fuel feed – coupling to

engine

82” (2083mm) Fuel return – engine to

tank

59” (1499mm) Vent – fuel filler vent

canister to coupling hose

92” (2337mm) Vent – coupling hose to

charcoal canister

353” (8968xmm) or 29’ 5” Total

Bits and Baubles – how many and what

type?

All of the brakes lines connect to the

various brake components with metric

fittings using a combination of male and

female tubing nuts. All the nuts have

10mm x 1.0 threads. The female nuts

need to work with 45° flare ends, the male

with bubble flares. Two different lengths of

male nuts are used, and all should have

non-threaded leads (in other words not

threaded the full length of the shank).

The counts and sizing details follow.

Male Nuts (bubble flares, non-

threaded leads) for 3/16” (4.75mm)

OD tubing

10 – 10mm x 1.0 x 17mm

2 – 10mm x 1.0 x 23mm (used on the

rear wheel cylinders, one per side)

Female Nuts (45° flares) for

3/16” (4.75mm) OD tubing

6 – 10mm x 1.0 x 16mm

The connections between the fuel and

vent lines are made via rubber hoses with

one exception – a metal coupling between

the two sections of fuel feed line, located

at the front of the right rear wheel well.

The coupling is comprised of the following.

Coupling for 5/16” (8mm) OD tubing

1 – 45° flare straight union (a male thread

on each end)

2 – 45° flare female nuts

Photo 6 – Tubing nuts and coupling

A – 10mm x 1.0 x 17mm male tubing nut

B – 10mm x 1.0 x 23mm male tubing nut

C – 10mm x 1.0 x 16mm female tubing

nut

D – 45° flare straight union, 5/16”,

UKC3775 (old fitting shown)

E – 45° flare female tubing nut, 5/16”,

UKC3776 (old nut shown, still on the line)

Below are all of the clips used to at-

tach the lines to my car, with the excep-

tion of Item ‘I’. Those on the top row (A

through E) are NLA. Unfortunately for me,

my car was missing one of the Item D

clips, but I came up with a substitute that

I’ll cover later in the article.

Photo 7 – Tubing clips, their part

numbers and use.

A – Retainer Clip, AFU1106, NLA. Used in

conjunction with items ‘B’ and ‘C’. Attach-

es to a stud on body.

B – Single 5/16” Rubber Insulator,

ULC2241, NLA. Supports a single 5/16”

fuel/vent line. Secured in place by item A.

C – Double 5/16” Rubber Insulator,

ULC2241, NLA. Supports two 5/16” fuel/

vent lines. Secured in place by item A.

D – 3/16” & 5/16” Clip, ZKC924, NLA.

Supports one 3/16” brake and one 5/16”

fuel/vent line. Attaches to a stud on body.

E – Double 5/16” Clip, TKC5168, NLA.

Can support two 5/16” fuel/vent lines.

Attaches to a stud on body. It carries the

fuel return line and speedometer cable.

F – Single 5/16” Clip, ZKC923. Supports a

single 5/16” fuel/vent line. Attaches to a

stud on body.

G – 3/16” & 5/16” Clip, 624155. Supports

one 3/16” brake and one 5/16” fuel/vent

line. Attaches via hole in body.

H – Double 3/16” Clip, 625521 or

625521A. Supports two 3/16” brake lines.

Attaches via hole in body or rear axle.

I – Single 3/16” Clip with Shoulder,

AFU1297. Supports one 3/16” brake lines.

Attaches via hole in body.


Spring 2014

Per the parts catalogue these are used to

support lines in the engine compartment

on LHD cars. It has a shoulder to hold the

base of the clip about 1/8” (3mm) above

the body. But my car had none of these,

only clip ‘J’ below.

J – Single 3/16” Clip, 623312 or GHF1192.

Supports one 3/16” brake line. Attaches

via hole in body or rear axle.

K – Single 1/2” Clip with Bracket,

AFU1091. Supports one 5/16” inside di-

ameter (ID) fuel hose. Used on fuel in-

jected TR7s to secure the fuel return hose

to the fuel rail attachment bracket.

L – Single 5/16” Clip, 150930. Supports

one 5/16” fuel/vent line. Attaches via hole

in body.

The last of the shopping list items are

grommets. I needed two 1-1/4” grom-

mets for the brake lines, and a 1” grom-

met for the fuel line.

Photo 8 – Grommets, their part num-

bers and use.

A – 1-1/4” grommet, UKC4498. Used

where the brake lines go through the right

and left front fender valance.

B – 1” grommet, 600396. Used where the

fuel line goes through the right front fend-

er valance.

Cha-ching – where can I get all of this

stuff?

This was the easiest part of the job –

spending money. With credit card in hand

and PC powered up, it was time to scour

the web.

In the U.S. I found several vendors

for copper nickel tubing. All of them car-

ried 3/16” (4.75mm) for the brake lines,

but not all of them carried 5/16” (8mm)

for the fuel and vent lines. Those that

handled both sizes listed varying lengths

with 25’ coils being the most common.

Some offered larger coils (50’ and 100’),

some smaller (6’ and 12’). Based on my

earlier measurements I determined a

combination of a 25’ and 12’ coil of each

size would cover my needs. I also order

the brake line tubing nuts from the same

vendor.

The remainder of the items

(grommets and clips, at least the ones not

NLA) I ordered from the usual British sup-

pliers. No one supplier had everything, so

I had to place separate orders with three

vendors.

Tools – where did I put that spanner?

These are the tools I used for this job.

Additional details on some of the tools are

provided below the list.

Wrenches

Tubing cutter

Tubing bender

Flaring tool

0-1” micrometer

Utility knife

Needle nose pliers

Slotted screwdrivers

Angled or hooked scribe

Small piece of wood

Small hammer

Felt tip marker

No. 2 pencil

Tubing straightener

‘Bending templates’ (explained below).

I highly recommend using flare nut

wrenches when working on brake lines.

Open end wrenches can be used if flare

nut wrenches aren’t available, but care

should be taken to avoid rounding the hex

portion of the nut. Once rounded it will be

hard to properly tighten (or easily loosen)

the tubing nuts. Use an 11mm wrench for

the male nuts, 13mm for the female.

Any decent tubing cutter will work.

Some people use hack saws to cut tubing,

but that’s a dangerous practice. The small

metal chips created by the saw can get

inside the tubing, potentially leading to a

blockage or brake failure.

A tubing bender that can handle

3/16” (4.75mm) and 5/16” (8mm) tubing

is next on the list. I have a tubing bender

that I’ve used for several years that can

work with a range of sizes from 3/16” to

3/8”. It does a good job and is easy to

use, so I figured I was set.

< Lesson Learned: Radius matters >

One thing I didn’t take into account

was the radius of the different bends. My

bender worked perfectly for the

5/16” (8mm) tubing. The 3/16” (4.75

mm) was a different story, as my bender

could not duplicate the tight bends used

for the brake lines. I didn’t realize this

until I started to bend the first brake line.

Some online searching led to a bender

used for 3/16” lines in nitrous oxide sys-

tems. This tool produced a radius that

was a spot on match for the factory

bends. Photo 9 shows my old multi-size

bender on the left, and the dedicated

3/16” tool on the right.

Photo 9 – Tubing benders.

I knew I would need to make a pur-

chase when it came to the flaring tool. My

current flaring tool only does single 45°

flares. Brake systems operate under very

high pressures and single 45° flares, while

fine for fuel lines, are not up to the task

and can lead to dangerous failures. The

brake lines on the TR7 and TR8 use a

combination of double 45° and bubble

flares, so I knew I would need to purchase

the appropriate flaring tool or tools to do

both types.

I did some shopping, and in the end

decided to splurge on the hydraulic flaring

tool set in Photo 10. It has dies for dou-

ble 45°, metric bubble, push connect and

GM fuel line flares. Please note that this

grade of tool is not a requirement. There

are less expensive flaring tools that will

produce the good quality flares needed for

this type of project – this was just the

direction I decided to go.


Spring 2014

Photo 10 – I admit it, I’m an addict.

And tools are my drug of choice.

The vendor who supplied the tubing

included a two page doc with tips on flar-

ing and working with brake lines. It in-

cluded the diameter of a properly finished

flare for the various flare types and tubing

diameters. A too large or a too small flare

could leak. A micrometer (or dial/digital

caliper) is needed to take the measure-

ment.

The utility knife, needle nose pliers,

slotted screwdrivers, scribe, small piece of

wood and small hammer were used to

remove and/or install the various mount-

ing clips.

I used both a felt tip marker and No.

2 pencil for marking the tubing for the

various cuts and bends. The basic ap-

proach was to use the marker for the line

cuts, with the pencil for areas where I

wanted to be able to easily remove the

mark later (e.g., locations for bends).

Tubing straighteners come in three

flavors: commercially made units that can

be purchased; those that can be cobbled

together from spares around the shop;

and free (no parts or labor). I’ll cover the

last two options later in the article.

Lastly, ‘bending templates’. One of

the hardest things for me when putting

multiple bends into a single line was to

determine exactly where to place bender

on the line to ensure the bend would end

up in the right location. When I tried to

do it by eye I seemed to end up

1/4" (6mm) or 1/2" (13mm) off, which not

only threw off the position of the new

bend, but of every bend that followed. By

making ‘templates’ I was able to more

accurately place the bends. Below are the

steps to make the templates. Later in the

article I’ll show how I used them. Note: I

made these from scraps of tubing left over

after I had cut the pieces for my lines. If

I had cut the pieces for the templates first,

I could have been potentially been short of

tubing when it came time to make my

lines.

Photo 11 – I started with a 6” (153mm)

piece of tubing. Note: This will be for a

90° template with a 1” (25mm) radius. A

template with a smaller angle and/or radi-

us can use a shorter piece of tubing, while

a larger angle and/or radius may need a

longer one. Since these are most likely

being made from scraps of the tubing the

main thing is to ensure the piece used is

long enough to allow it to follow through

the entire bend.

Photo 12 – Using a ruler and felt marker,

I made a short mark on the tubing every

1/4" (6mm). At 2-1/4” (57mm) I made a

mark that wrapped around the circumfer-

ence of the tubing. This became the

‘index’ mark for the template.

Photo 13 – I placed the tubing in the

tubing bender, lining up the ‘index’ mark I

made earlier with the starting line on the

tubing bender.

Photo 14 – I then bent the tubing to the

desired angle, in this case 90°.

Photo 15 – The finished product, a

‘bending template’.

Photo 16 – All of the ‘bending templates’

I used on my project. The top row (left to

right) 5/16” 180° (inside the ‘U’ is a test

double 45° flare), 5/16” 90°, 5/16” 45°,

and a test of a not fully formed double 45°

flare used for the fuel lines (I’ll explain

later). The bottom row (left to right)

3/16” 180° (made on the old tubing bend-

er), 3/16” 180° (made on the new tubing

bender with a tighter radius), 3/16” 90°

and 3/16” 45°.

Cut once – Did I measure those lines cor-

rectly?

I prepared to cut the coil stock into

the various lengths based on the measure-

ments taken earlier. If I had purchased

50’ coils I could have jumped right into

uncoiling the tubing, measuring, marking

and cutting. But I had gone with 12’ and


Spring 2014

25’ coils (cheaper than a single 50’), so I

had to do some “layout” work ahead of

time. If I just started cutting lengths at

random from either coil, it was possible

that when I got to the point of cutting the

last piece or two that neither coil would

have enough tubing left from which to cut

those bits.

The layout process wasn’t difficult –

just a few minutes with pencil and paper.

I’ve use the fuel/vent line measurements

for the example below.

First, I established a common meas-

urement unit. Since I already had the line

measurements in inches, I converted the

coil measurements to match.

Coil A – 12’ = 144”

Coil B – 25’ = 300”

I started with the shortest length,

which was coil ‘A’. I then subtracted dif-

ferent combinations of line lengths, with

the goal of getting the most pieces practi-

cal from the coil while still having the

smallest unusable piece (in terms of being

able to cut another line from it) as a left

over. In this case, the ‘fuel return – en-

gine to tank’ (82”) and ‘vent – fuel filler

vent canister to coupling hose’ (59”) lines

gave the best result – a total of 141”. So

only 3” of coil A went to waste.

A quick addition of the remaining

three lengths (29”, 91” and 92”) gave a

total of 212”, which would be cut from coil

B. This left a remainder of 88”, which

could be used down the road for another

project.

The final fuel/vent cutting layout is

given below:

29” (737mm) Fuel feed – pump to

coupling (Coil B)

91” (2312mm) Fuel feed – coupling to

engine (Coil B)

82” (2083mm) Fuel return – engine to

tank (Coil A)

59” (1499mm) Vent – fuel filler vent

canister to coupling hose (Coil A)

92” (2337mm) Vent – coupling hose to

charcoal canister (Coil B)

I repeated the layout process for the

brake lines.

The next step was to uncoil, mark and

cut each coil based on the layout.

When uncoiling the tubing, the goal is

to end up with tubing that is as straight as

possible. There are a couple of ways to do

this.

One approach is use a tubing straight-

ener. A tubing straightener is a tool with

a set of inline rollers that can be adjusted

based on the size of the tubing being

straightened. The coiled tubing is fed

through the rollers, emerging straight on

the other end. Straighteners can be pur-

chased or made from parts that may be

lying around the shop. I found a few

homemade examples online, so decided to

roll my own from some angle iron I had in

my scrap metal box, and rollers made for

sliding screen doors that I picked up at my

local hardware store. Photo 17 shows

the contraption in action.

Photo 17 – Home grown tubing

straightener taking the curl out of

some 3/16” tubing.

A more readily available approach

involves a flat surface (a smooth, concrete

garage floor works great) and a heavy

weight (something substantial, 10 pounds

would be on the light side) that will rest on

the floor without rolling. Place the coil

against the floor in an upright, vertical

position with the outside end of the tubing

down against the floor. Place the weight

on the end of the tubing. While keeping

the bottom side of the coil pressed against

the floor, begin unrolling the coil. While

this method works well, in some cases you

may still have a slight bend or curve in the

line when done. The last of this bend can

be removed with gentle pressure from

your fingers and thumbs.

I looked up the measurement from

my list for the piece I planned to cut and

rolled out a straight section just a few

inches longer. I measured from the end of

the tubing and made a cut mark with a felt

marker. Next I made a cut at the mark

with a tubing cutter. Photo 18 provides

an example.

Photo 18 – Cutting a piece of 3/16”

with a tubing cutter.

< Lesson Learned: More labels >

One more labelling lesson. I didn’t

worry about labelling the pieces as I cut

them as I was sure there was enough dif-

ference in the lengths for me to tell them

apart when I finally got around to the

forming work. WRONG! When preparing

to bend the fuel and vent lines I grabbed

the new ‘fuel return – engine to tank’

thinking it was the ‘Vent – coupling hose

to charcoal canister’ piece. When I got to

the 2nd to last bend I should have had

about another 2 feet of line. WRONG!

After a few expletives, I thought “No prob-

lem, I can use the left over 88” piece.”

WRONG! I cut pieces from the 88” piece

make my ‘bending templates’, so it was

too short to replace the 82” piece I just

mangled. In the end it cost me another

12’ coil of tubing. Not a break-the-bank

lesson, but that’s money that could have

gone toward another tool fix.

Now the real work begins – what have

I gotten myself into?

Finally, time to start turning out fin-

ished lines.

For each line I formed I used the fol-

lowing sequence, with some minor varia-

tions depending on if I was working with a

brake or fuel line (basically, did the line

have a flare nut at the end or didn’t it?).

I’m sure there are other approaches, but

this one gave me consistent results.

I started by picking an old line from

my stack of lines to use as my pattern for

the new line. The driving factor when

deciding which line to work on was the

amount of time I had available to me at

the moment. This work was spread out

over a couple of weekends and several

evenings. If I only had an hour or so I’d

chose a line with only a few bends. If I

had several hours or a full day I would

work on one or more complex lines. The


Spring 2014

reason for this approach is that once I

started a line I wanted to keep working on

it until it was finished. I didn’t want to

stop in the middle and come back to it

later. Once I’d chosen the line, I started

with the end that was closest to a bend. I

would began my duplication of old to new

at that location.

Next I formed the first of the two

flares. The manufacturers include instruc-

tions with their flaring tool. They can do a

better job of explaining how to make dou-

ble 45° and metric bubble flares with their

tool, so I’ll defer to them on that topic. I

will, however, cover a work around for a

flare that wasn’t readily available (at least

not with my flaring tool).

Photo 19 – This shows the flare used to

connect the rubber hose to a fuel or vent

line. It consists of a shoulder (red arrow)

to control how far the hose is pushed onto

the line, and a barb (orange arrow) to

secure the hose onto the line once the

clamp is in place.

My flaring tool has a die set (push

connect) that could duplicate the shoulder,

but not one for the barb. However, after

experimenting with some scrap tubing, I

found I could produce a reasonable fac-

simile of the barb using the double 45°

flare die set. To make a double 45° I

need to use 2 die sets – fully compressing

the end of the line with the first die forms

roughly 75% of the flare, and the second

die finishes the flare. I found I could form

a barb by partially compressing the first

die. It took a couple of tries to figure out

the amount of partial compression needed

to produce the desired result. Next, I

tried to combine the two (push connect

and partial double 45°) to duplicate the

factory flare. I formed the shoulder (push

connect) with no problem, but when I

tried to create the partial double 45° I

found there wasn’t enough tubing remain-

ing between the shoulder and the end of

the tubing to create the barb. Since the

purpose of the shoulder appears to be just

a stop to control the amount of rubber

hose pushed onto the line (just over an

inch, or about 27-28mm) I decided I could

go with just the barb. Then when I push

the hose onto the line I’ll need to make

sure it goes on about an inch before tight-

ening the clamp. Photo 20 shows my

test sample barb next to the original.

Earlier, I mentioned that the tubing

vendor I used supplied details on the di-

ameter of a properly finished flare. I

measured my old line’s flares against

these numbers and found they landed

within the vendor’s range, so that’s what I

used to verify my new flares were good

when finished.

Double 45° Flares

3/16” (4.75mm) tubing – flare OD 0.272”

±0.007” (6.9mm ±0.18mm)

5/16” (8mm) tubing – flare OD 0.418”

±0.007” (10.6mm ±0.18mm)

Bubble Flares

3/16” (4.75mm) tubing – flare OD 0.280”

±0.007” (7.1mm ±0.18mm)

After completing the first flare and

verifying its diameter with the micrometer,

it was time for the flare nut (the fuel/vent

lines may not have any flare nuts). I slid

the nut from the un-flared end. Note 1:

Verify if a nut is required and ensure that

it is placed correctly (the threads should

be towards the flare), because once that

first bend is in place there is no easy way

to add or turn around the nut. Note 2:

The rear axle brake lines each use one

long male tubing nut (all other brake lines

with male tubing nuts use the short ver-

sion). Be sure to get the right length nut

in the right position.

It was now time for the ‘bending tem-

plates’. The next set of photos shows how

I used the templates to mark the location

for positioning the bender on the new line

and forming the bend.

Photo 21 – For the bend in question, I

grabbed the template that most closely

matched its angle. I placed it alongside

the old line, aligning it as closely as possi-

ble with the bend. I made sure the

‘index’ mark (reference Photo 12 above)

on the template was placed on the side of

the bend towards the last flare or bend I

formed in the line. With the template

held firmly in place, I used a felt tip mark-

er to transfer the ‘index’ mark onto the

old line (red arrow). I set the template

aside, then continued the mark around

the circumference of the old line.

Photo 22 – I placed the new line next to

the old, aligning the formed portion of the

new line with its ‘twin’ on the old line.

Using a No. 2 pencil I transferred the

mark from the old line to the new line

(the pencil marks the spot). I picked up

the tubing and continued the line around

the circumference of the new line to mark

the spot for locating the tubing bender.

Photo 23 – I set the line in the tubing

bender, locating the pencil mark on the


Spring 2014

starting position on the bender (red ar-

row). I then bent the new line by eye to

the point where it looked to be a little

short of the original angle.

Photo 24 – I removed the line from the

bender and placed it next to the old line

to compare the bend angles. Since I had

stopped short I would note the additional

amount of bending needed to match the

angle. I placed the line back in the bend-

er and added more angle to the bend,

then repeated the process in the two lines

above. I did this until the angles matched

on both lines as shown in the photo.

Note 1: It’s easier to build up to the cor-

rect angle in small steps than to ‘unbend’

a line where the angle was overshot by

doing too big of a sweep with the bender.

Note 2: It may appear that the new line

is too short (red arrow): however, when I

pick up the old line and align it on top of

the new line the lengths match.

Photo 25 – In some instances I was able

to use an alternative to the trial and error

method outline for Photo 24, and it was

certainly the easier and faster of the two

methods. I placed the old line on the

floor, keeping the bend I was duplicating

flat on the floor. I placed the new tubing

in the bender and held it just above the

old line. I lined up the section of new line

to the left of the bender with the corre-

sponding section on the old line below

(red arrow). I then bent the line until the

right side of the line matched up with the

angle of the line below (orange arrow).

I worked the remaining bends in order

by repeating the steps outlined in Photos

21 – 25 until all of the bends were com-

plete. Note: If the last bend was within

an inch or two of the end of the line I

would hold off on forming this bend until

after the flare and nut were in place. This

is because the dies used on my flaring tool

need that much space to hold the line

while forming the flare. If I put the last

bend in place first then put the nut on the

line, there wouldn’t be room left to form

the flare.

< Lesson Learned: What’s your vector

Victor? >

Most brake and fuel are formed along

three axes – x, y and z. It was easy

enough for me to see this – bends going

left, right, up, down, sideways, crossways,

looping back upon themselves – and all on

one line. Nonetheless, this slipped my

mind on one occasion, forcing me to cut a

fresh piece of new line and start over.

Basically, when forming a new bend, the

straight section of the tubing is along the

x-axis. As the tubing is bent, the bent

section is moving toward y-axis. But the

relationship of that new bend to the previ-

ous bend also has to be taken into ac-

count, as the difference in angle between

the two is the z-axis. Photos 26 and 27

show how I kept the relationship between

the three axes in mind.

Photo 26 – The line between the yellow

and red arrows represents the x-axis. I’m

preparing to duplicate the angle at the red

arrow, and I can see the arrow bends

down into the y-axis. Note the distance

between the yellow and red arrows is ap-

proximately 17” (432mm).

Photo 27 – The same line from a different

view. It looks like the yellow and red ar-

rows are pointing at the same location on

the line, but they are pointing at the same

bends as in Photo 26 so they are actually

17” apart. That’s because I’m looking in

line with the x-axis shown in Photo 26.

This shows the relation of the angle (z-

axis) between the previous bend at the

yellow arrow and new bend at the red

arrow. So after my mistake above, I

made sure to look at the angle of the z-

axis so that I could adjust the bender ac-

cordingly before making the new bend.

Note: If the angle at the z-axis did end

up a few degrees off one way or the other,

I found I could hold both the previous and

new bends and do a slight twist along the

x-axis to get the z-axis angle where it

should be. But if I had to twist the line

too much it would start to kink, putting a

restriction in the line and potentially weak-

ening it at that point.

With all of the bends in place, it was

time to prepare for the ending flare. Since

I had added some padding to the line

when I initially cut it, it was now time to

remove any of the unused padding prior to

flaring. When marking the line for the cut,

I would add an additional 3/16” (5mm).

The purpose of the extra 3/16” was to

account for any loss that would occur

when forming the end flare.

With the line cut, I slid the ending

flare nut (if used) onto the line, making

sure the threads would point toward the

flare. I then formed the flare. The line

was now finished and ready for installa-

tion.

Photo 28 shows the completed line next

to the original. This was the last line I

had to make for my car.


Spring 2014

For anyone new to or not fully comforta-

ble with bending and flaring lines, I would

recommend starting with the two lines

that run between the front hoses and the

calipers. I suggest this for a few reasons.

First, these are short lines (12” or

305mm) so if they don’t turn out as ex-

pected there is not much loss if replace-

ments need to be cut. Second, there are

only three bends in each of the lines

(along with the two flares) so they’re not

as overwhelming as the longer lines with

many bends. Third, these lines are fairly

flat, so there is no z-axis to deal with like

on the longer lines, making them simpler

to form. Photo 29 shows a new copy of

this line, along with the original from

which it was modeled.

Time to put it all back together – why

d o

I

have parts left over?

With all of the lines done, the next

step was to replace any broken or missing

clips on the body and rear axle.

For those clips that mounted to the

body via a stud, it was just a matter of

lining up the mounting slot in the clip with

the stud and sliding it into place. The

clips that were fitted into holes in the

body or axle required just a little more

work. These clips are plastic and have a

bushing that is seated into the hole in the

body or axle, and then the post on the

clip is pushed into the bushing. On new

clips, the clip and bushing are molded

together as a single piece, and I was able

to separate them with a utility knife and

push the bushings easily into their mount-

ing holes. The clips themselves were

another story. The post of the clip is an

interference fit into the bushing, presum-

ably to keep the clip firmly seated. As it

comes, the post won’t easily start into the

bushing. The post of the clip is hollow, so

the best solution I could come up with

was to crimp the end of the post in a cou-

ple of spots using a pair of needle nose

pliers. This would shrink the post just

enough to allow it to start into the bush-

ing. I then placed a small block of wood

on top of the clip and tapped it with a

small, light hammer to fully seat the clip

into the bushing. Note: Make sure the

clip is aligned properly in relationship to

the line before seating in the bushing.

The clips can be rotated once seated,

but they are a rather snug fit in the

bushing so there is the risk of break-

ing the clip if rotated after the fact.

In Photo 7 I noted that Item ‘D’,

ZKC924, is NLA. However, by using a

combination of two other clips I was

able to create a substitute.

Photo 30 shows the two clips I used

– ZKC923 (Item ‘F’ in Photo 7) and

13H4767. In the later TR7 Parts Cat-

alogue it shows both AFU1297 (Item ‘I’ in

Photo 7) and 13H4767 as different part

numbers for the same clip. When I or-

dered parts, I requested a quantity of

both numbers. What arrived was a plastic

clip that can attach a single 3/16” line to

the body (AFU1297), and a metal clip that

attaches a 3/16” line to a 5/16” line but

doesn’t have an attachment point for the

body (13H4767). All I did to replace

ZKC924 was install a ZKC923 in place of

ZKC924 on the body stud. Next, just off

to the side of ZKC923 I attached the

3/16” line to the 5/16” line using

13H4767. I then snapped the 5/16” line

into ZKC923.

Photo 31 shows the final result.

Note: This arrangement doesn’t result in

as low a profile as the original clip. In

this instance, the clip is located in the

transmission tunnel. My car is missing

the noise/heat shield which was originally

attached to the underside of the tunnel.

On a car that still has the shield it is pos-

sible that this improvised clip will foul the

shield.

Once all of the clips were in place I

began installing the new lines into the

car, working with one line at a time. I

used the photos I shot earlier when I re-

moved the old lines to help me with the

installation.

In the case of the brake lines, as I

attached them to the various brake com-

ponents I would run the flare nuts in fin-

ger tight. Next I would use a flare nut

wrench to tighten them snug, then go 1/6

of a turn (or one flat on the nut) tighter.

I would then back them off loose and re-

peat the snugging and tightening process.

Years ago an old mechanic told me that

whenever installing new hydraulic parts

(e.g., lines, wheel cylinders) tighten the

fittings using the ‘tighten twice’ method.

He claimed the first tightening would help

to ‘seat’ the flare to the component, and

the second tightening would then form a

tighter, leak-free seal. I’m not sure if this

is true, but I’ve been doing it this way

ever since and haven’t had a problem

with leaks.

For the fuel/vent lines, since I had

come this far it was a good time to re-

place all of the rubber connector hoses

and clamps with new bits. I used fuel

hose that was rated for use in fuel injec-

tion systems and would handle gasoline/

ethanol blends.

Photos 32 – 35 are some shots of the

installed lines.

< Final Lesson Learned: “Space” >

To paraphrase an old movie, “I just


Spring 2014

want to say one word to you….just…one

word.” “Yes sir.” “Are you listening?” “Yes

sir, I am.” “Space….”

When I started this project, I knew I

would need some room for storing the old

as well as the finished lines while I

worked, but I didn’t fully appreciate how

much space to allow for the bending pro-

cess.

While working on the first long and

unwieldy line, I realized I was severely

lacking in usable floor space.

I cleared a large space on the garage

floor out in order to have room to move

the line as needed. Believe me it will

make the job much easier.

ignition retard side of the vacuum unit on

the dizzy seems to be blocked up and no

longer functions. I am more interested in

performance than emissions at this point.

(Continued from page 7)

The way I like to set the timing on my

other old cars is to disconnect the vacuum

advance, rev the engine to around 4K to

max out the centrifugal advance, and then

set the timing at 32 degrees before top

dead center. If it pings under a hard pull I

back off a degree or two. Of course I hook

the vacuum advance back up as this great-

ly aids light and mid throttle economy.

I set the TR8's timing this way and

again had to lower the idle adjustment.

The stock, low compression engine isn't

going to set any speed records but it is a

lot more peppy than before and my fuel

mileage is better as well.

But now I am wondering if I have gone

far enough yet. Usually an engine with

aluminum heads can run 2 or 3 degrees

more advance than one with cast iron

heads due to better heat dissipation. I

don't get pinging even under severe lug-

ging now and the starter has no difficulty

spinning the engine over even when it is

hot. 87 octane fuel is still all the low com-

pression engine needs. Would another

slight increase in advance be a good thing

or turn out to be too much of a good thing?

If I had access to a dynomometer then

I could conduct experiments and find the

optimum setting. If I had tons of money I

could rent time on one of these machines

but then if I had unlimited money I could

make lots of engine upgrades. So far all I

have invested is a bit of my time. I won-

der if the TR7 has this same discrepancy

between carbs and injection.

A Noisy Problem: TR7 and TR8

Gearbox Mounts

A TWOA Research Report

Editors note: This report is the result of a

research project motivated by Tim Green-

lee's experiences which you just read

about. Tim got Jim TenCate involved since

he was having the same sorts of issues;

Jim contacted and solicited advice from

John Clifford and a research project be-

tween the three of them was born. Other

folks have helped too, special thanks to

Simon Eaton and a colleague of his who

loaned us an original TR8 NOS mount to

have tested. Here are the results. I expect

you will be surprised. None of us—not

TWOA members or the vendors who sell us

these parts—are getting a good deal here!

Background

The rear-engine/gearbox mount on

the TR7/8 (TKC1044 or TKC2642) often

gets bathed in oil. The mount is supposed

to (1) hold up the engine/gearbox, (2)

isolate the car from engine and gearbox

vibration, and (3) isolate the sound com-

ing from the engine+gearbox+exhaust

from getting into the cabin. As a vibration

and sound insulator, the mount is made

from soft rubber, softer than a stock rub-

ber trailing arm bushing.

We cut apart and photographed an

old original TR8 mount to show you the

pieces—the TR7 mount is similar but with

softer rubber. You can see a central

wedge-shaped piece of aluminum that

mounts to the gearbox in the center, then

the surrounding (vibration-isolating) rub-

ber that is bonded to the mounting frame

of the mount. The entire mount fits into

the cross member which is bolted to the

car. (By the way, bonding rubber to the

aluminum wedge-shaped central piece

and the mount frame is not a do-it-

yourself process: high temperatures and

pressures plus nasty chemicals are in-

volved.)

Alas, oil attacks rubber and softens it

and will turn rubber into a jello-like mush

in time. An oil-soaked, too-soft mount will

result in really bad judder as the clutch is

let out. The rear of the engine/gearbox

actually shifts around when the clutch is

engaging; it's not a pleasant experience to

drive a car this way. So, replacing an oil-

soaked mount is essential for nice crisp

clutch action but the new mount should

also still be flexible and pliable enough

An original TR8 mount, cut apart for detail


Spring 2014

that it does a good job at isolating vibra-

tion and noise from the rest of the car.

What is the topic of this article? Many

of us like to resurrect cars and the gear-

box mount mentioned above often needs

replacing. Replacement is not a hard job,

but finding a good mount these days

seems to be challenging—as you've just

read in Tim's article! Recently, several of

us have noted that there's a problem with

the mounts we're now getting, and that

includes mounts from all the usual suppli-

ers. They fit fine, although the rubber

seems hard, but the real problem comes

when you start driving the car. For a car

with a reasonably quiet stock exhaust

you'll notice something immediately after

fitting one of these new mounts: gear

noise, and exhaust noise too (the exhaust

is attached to a bracket which bolts to the

gearbox). It can actually really howl at

times and at certain RPMs. Jim's wife Deb

noticed the noise immediately when taken

for a ride with one of these repro mounts

installed: "You're taking this car across the

country to Dobson, what's that racket?!"

This isn’t acceptable! What's going on?

Research Preparation

We started buying up every mount we

could get our hands on to see what was

available. It seems NOS mounts are now

(almost) impossible to find, we were only

able to locate one NOS TR7 mount and

two NOS TR8 mounts (Rover “Made in UK”

labels on them). Used ones, if you can find

any, are generally oil-soaked, we found

only a couple of used (but nearly new)

mounts on eBay after about a month or

two of prowling. The mounts we got from

our various vendors are now all reproduc-

tions and seem to come from two places,

Taiwan or India. So, in all, our research

team ended up with about a dozen or

more different mounts from anyone who

had one to sell us: TSI, Wedgeshop, Moss,

VB, Rimmers, TRF, BPNW and a few from

eBay and, of course, the NOS ones we

found. The plan was to try these out in our

cars first, qualitatively compare and note

the noise transmitted into the cabin, and

then send them out for testing to learn a

bit more why these new mounts are so

noisy compared with stock. The testing

report given here will discuss (1) hard-

ness, (2) composition, (3) construction

differences and (4) we'll plot up the meas-

ured force-deflection curves to make it

easy to compare these. Ready?

Hardness testing

In the discussion that follows, it's

helpful to know that a rubber band is

about a 25 Shore A hardness, an ebonite

bowling ball is 100 Shore A. So how hard

are all these mounts? One slip of paper

attached to an old-stock TR7 mount says

its hardness was (once) measured at 45

Shore A. That 45 is actually not a ridicu-

lously low number! (We discovered that

after talking with guys who make engine

mounts for a living.) We measured hard-

nesses of 55 and 60 for the NOS TR7 and

TR8 mounts respectively. The other TR8

NOS mount from the UK was a lot harder

80 Shore A for some reason—age and

heat will harden rubber, these won't last

forever! The rest, all the ones you can buy

today from our vendors, were all generally

above 80, depending on where you made

the hardness measurement. TSI's mount

was an odd one; Ted takes a stock TR7

mount and coats it in a special coating to

protect it from the inevitable oil bath. It

too, however, has a hardness of around

80. Some (like the Taiwan-made TR8

mount) were nearly 90 Shore A, close to

bowling ball hard. Notably, not one of the

aftermarket mounts were even close to

being as soft as the NOS mounts. Further-

more, we suspect that the NOS mounts we

found have probably hardened some with

age; the originals back in the day they

were "fresh" were probably even softer!

That's the first reason all the repro mounts

you can buy today are noisy, they simply

don't absorb the noise and vibration from

the gearbox/exhaust like the originals,

they just transmit all that noise to the

cross member like a mechanic's stetho-

scope. Let's explore further.

Composition

You can send rubber (and material

like it) out for testing to learn about its

general composition. A thermal gravimet-

ric analysis (TGA) was done on several of

these mounts. The result was a good esti-

mate of the composition of several of our

mounts, i.e., the stuff they're made of.

The results we got back were enlightening.

First of all, the NOS mounts had the usual

components you'd expect from a rubber

mount, rubber/polymer, some oil, some

carbon black, and a little ash. Ash, by the

way, is not a type of wood or tree species

but is any material (e.g., a mineral) that's

not rubber. It is probably fair to call any-

thing over about 10% of this stuff "filler".

The NOS TR7 mount tested had 9% ash,

the NOS TR8 mount and the sample from

an original mount we dissected had only

1% ash. These are expected values. In

contrast, all of the aftermarket repro

mounts had around 30% ash! That much

ash is just cheap filler, it does not contrib-

ute to the elasticity of the rubber. So

around 20% of our repro mounts are filler.

No wonder they don't isolate vibration and

sound from the cabin! How elastic are

these mounts then? How does the filler

affect that? To answer those questions, we

turned to force-deflection measurements.

Force-deflection curves

If you put a mount in a machine

called a load frame, you can apply a

known (calibrated) force and measure how

much deflection you get from that force

very accurately. Road springs are tested

and measured in a similar way. We actual-

ly had deflections measured in a couple of

InstronTM load frames for a whole cycle of

forces applied to our mounts during com-

pression (positive downward force) and

tension (upward force). Here we'll show

just the compression data since the mount

is mostly under compression with the

weight of the gearbox; the tension results

are similar. We plotted all these results up

A typical oily and dissolved mount Our collection of mounts to be tested


Spring 2014

together on the same plot to make it easy

to compare and the results are shown

below.

A pure linear spring will plot up as a

straight line on a force-deflection curve

and the slope will tell you how stiff the

spring is. A very soft spring will yield a

gentle upward slope (to the right here) on

its force-deflection curve, a very stiff

spring will give you a steep slope. If you

examine the plots, you'll see that the

"softest" mount is a lightly-used TR7

mount we found on eBay and the stiffest is

a Taiwan TR8 mount. The Taiwan TR7 and

TR8 mounts are nearly 10 times stiffer

than the NOS TR7 and NOS TR8 mount

respectively. Wow! Hard and very stiff

mounts do a lousy job of isolating vibra-

tion and sound. Additionally, the Taiwan

mount exhibits hysteresis, a time-

dependent behavior that makes the dis-

placement curve for increasing force dif-

ferent than the curve for decreasing force.

Hysteresis is something you do not want

in a mount, yet several we tested had it.

In contrast, the rubber mounts with low

ash content had minimal to no hysteresis.

The softest TR7 mount measured has no

hysteresis at all. It's pretty obvious that

the reproduction mounts are much stiffer

than stock and we're guessing that the

large amount of filler used has a strong

effect on the force-deflection curves. Not

only do we see time dependent behavior,

we're hypothesizing that the filler makes

the mounts a lot harder and much stiffer.

Neither are good for isolating noise.

Construction

Finally, we cut a few of these apart.

There was an earlier TWOA webpage built

with some detailed photos of the differ-

ences so we’ll not include that here. We

note that NOS mounts have far less rub-

ber in several places when compared with

the repro mounts which you can see on

the webpage.

http://www.triumphwedgeowners.org/

gearboxmount

However, we have a new photo to

share with you too (below). We chose a

new India mount to dissect and an original

TR8 mount. (The construction of the Tai-

wan TR7 and NOS TR7 mounts appears

identical to the India TR8 and NOS TR8

mounts, respectively.) Interestingly, the

original wedge shaped piece (left) from

the mount center of a NOS mount is actu-

ally just a simple block of aluminum in a

repro mount (right)! On one repro mount

it was painted and machined to look like it

might be a wedge-shaped piece but it's

just a rectangular block. You can imagine

that the shape of the insert (which is what

bolts to the gearbox) affects how the force

is transmitted to the rubber of the mount.

The originals push the rubber down and

out so they use some combination of com-

pression and shear forces, the reproduc-

tions only push downwards (shear force

only). We cannot imagine the reproduction

mounts have the durability of the originals

with this design.

Conclusions

The reproduction mounts we buy today

are all too hard, and too stiff and have

notable construction differences. We sus-

pect the extra 20% filler we found in most

of these is to blame and perhaps the

shape of the insert as well. We’re hoping

that after this article is published we can

work with our vendors to see if this unfor-

tunate state of affairs can be remedied.

Stay tuned!

http://www.triumphwedgeowners.org/gearboxmount

http://www.triumphwedgeowners.org/gearboxmount


Spring 2014

The Wedgewright – Part 6

By Mark Elbers Disclaimer - The author is not a professional in

metal fabrication or repair. The reader who choos-

es to duplicate any descriptions of work, instruc-

tions or tips found in this article, does so at their

own risk and must ensure that appropriate safety

precautions are taken. The author takes no respon-

sibility for damages or injuries that may result.

Believe it or not, this article was sup-

posed to be the second one in the series.

However regular readers will know, I took

a detour down into the rocker panel(s)

and so here we are at part 6. Time to

repair the front fenders and nose cone

skin, prior to completing the repairs for-

ward of the firewall. I thought I’d write

an article showing a couple of techniques

that I’ve used successfully to make repairs

on salvaged body panels.

The next step in my worsening

wedgewright’s affliction entailed restoring

a passenger side fender to usable condi-

tion. I had two of them, but neither was

that pretty. The picture below shows

what I had to work with. The bottom

fender was the one I removed from my

car and the one on top was from the parts

car. There are no prizes for guessing

which one I chose to restore.

As you can see the original passenger

fender was missing about a 1/3 of the

forward fender lip and a large chunk of the

lower panel. The parts car panel also suf-

fered a little with a small perforation in the

lower panel and some rust behind the

wheel. In my mind it presented the lesser

of two evils and since I had been consider-

ably emboldened with my work to date, I

thought why not just patch it and see how

things turn out. After cleaning off the

paint and under seal in the affected areas,

followed with a quick sandblast to deter-

mine the extent of the corrosion, I set

about making myself comfortable. On the

next page you can see that a piece of 2 X

4 lumber clamped in the vice along with

suitably positioned vice grips and nails,

makes a very versatile work mount for the

fender.

Tip: When making patches I make

extensive use of the paper recycling bin.

Cereal cartons are a great renewable

source of cardboard. Normally I first cut

out the offending damage, trying not to

cross over any compound curves, as these

can be difficult to duplicate in one piece of

sheet metal.

As luck would have it the front fender

damage was restricted to a single curved

surface. Then I placed a piece of card

board on one side of the hole and traced

the shape using a sharpie pen. To assist

in orientation I also marked the template

with orientation information, hence the

“top” and “out” written on the template in

the picture below. Then I simply cut out

the cardboard template, check for fit and

transfer to a suitable piece of sheet metal.

You’ll also see below that I’ve already

shaped the patch to conform to the fender

curve.

Before I go further, it might be useful

to show the tools I used for this process.

First I generally use a small air powered

90 degree die grinder with a thin (.045”)

cutting disc to remove the damaged mate-

rial. Its size allows for access to some

pretty cramped locations and the disc,

doesn’t distort the surrounding metal like

a pair of metal cutters might do. The oth-

er tool is a small electric angle grinder that

is very handy for all sorts of things, but in

this instance an 80 grit flexible sanding

disc makes really quick work of leveling

the heads of protruding welds.

The three metal scissors pictured be-

low are light duty aviation sheet metal

cutters. They are often available in sets at

very cost effective prices and are available

in both left and right handed configura-

tions. Notice the different cutting jaw

orientations. I use all three configura-

tions, depending on the orientation of the

piece I need to cut. They are great for

cutting sheet metal patches and also for

cleaning up the holes created with the die

grinder.

Moving on, I simply weld up the

patch, making sure to first tack it in

place in a couple of places on each side,

moving around and waiting for previous

welds to cool, before making new ones. I

don’t show it, but I made extensive use of

copper backing to ensure adequate pene-

tration and heat distribution. The copper

also helps align the patch, as it gives a

level surface to lay the patch onto. Please

excuse the messy welds, since I was still

learning my way with the MIG when this

photo was taken.

The original fender on the bottom and the

donor fender on top

Using a 2x4 and clamps to mount the fender

for ease of work

The new patch, and the cardboard template

The electric grinder above, and the smaller air

grinder below

Left, right, and straight angled aviation

scissors


Spring 2014

Tip: Use sheet metal that is slightly

thicker than the original body panels. My

local metal mart was not able to supply

me with sheet metal of the same thickness

as the original wedge body work, without

special ordering it. So I settled for materi-

al that was slightly thicker. This turned

out to be a bonus, because I could estab-

lish and focus the weld (and therefore

more of the heat) on the patch. The

thicker metal also seemed to resist warp-

ing a little better.

Next, grind the heads off the welds (I

use the electric angle grinder) and in are-

as that are going to receive public scruti-

ny, clean up the back side as well. In fact

I feel it is the sign of a true craftsman, if

the repair is not visible on either side of

the repaired panel. Below you can see

that a good coat of primer should cover

any sins that remain.

The back side is almost as nice.

The next photo shows how many tack

welds I used to locate a much larger patch

on the rear of the same fender. After I

reached this point I then started to

“connect the dots” keeping the welds be-

tween ¼ - ½ inch in length each time,

again moving around and letting the work

cool between welds. What you see here

can easily take 2-3 hours to complete,

because there is a lot of waiting around for

the metal to cool, before making further

tacks. I usually do a series of 4 tacks.

One on each side of the patch and then I

wait for them to cool, before doing anoth-

er round. I try my best to distribute them

evenly each time so as to keep the patch

properly centered on the panel. This is

the only way I’ve found to reduce heat

related warping to a minimum. A hammer

and dolly is also useful to work out minor

warping as it occurs and also to keep the

patch properly aligned and centered.

Tip: I’ve seen multiple welding tips

telling people to keep a small gap around

the patch so that the weld can penetrate

properly. I think that is true of thicker

material, but I’ve found that when working

with the thin material our fenders are

made of, that a gap more often increases

the risk of warping because it requires

more filler wire which generates more heat

and there is also an increased possibility

of blow through. I use a tight fit, no gap at

all if I can help it. With the proper heat

and wire speed settings on my MIG it has

worked well.

The eagle eyed readers will notice

that in the picture above there is a cluster

of small rust holes, to the right, on the

rear edge of the fender lip. Although it

was a small area, it was significantly more

difficult to shape because of the compound

curve on the fender lip. After two tries at

it and the application of the processes

already described, you see the result be-

low.

This panel experienced a little warp-

ing, most of which I was able to remove

with careful hammer and dolly work. I’ll

probably work it over a little more before

welding it to the car, because my goal for

this project is to produce metal repairs

that can be painted without filler. If I left

it as it is now, it would be acceptable to

most people and a very thin skim coat of

body filler would be all that was required

to take care of the remaining weld pits

and one or two low spots. The main thing

is that the panel is once again structurally

solid and all the rust is totally gone.

Tip: I have sandblasted every panel

that I could remove from the car. First to

help determine the extent of any rust

damage and then again on any repaired

areas, because it helps to blend the tex-

ture of the grinding marks with the sur-

rounding metal and it gives a great sur-

face for paint to adhere to.

In addition to inserting patches I’ve

also replaced parts of panels at their edg-

es, like the mounting tabs on the front of

the nose cone and fender lips which are

easily damaged in the disassembly pro-

cess. In my case the spot welded tabs on

the nose cone skin, from my donor car,

had been badly rusted, no doubt the result

of being located at the very front of the

car and being subject to a harsh environ-

ment of flying rocks, road salt and other

debris etc. It also helped with the plug

welding later that the new tabs, that I

fabricated, were made of slightly thicker

material than the originals. For reference

the next picture shows the nose cone skin

panel that will be the subject of the next

few operations.

The patch, welded into place

The patch after grinding the welds smooth

The back side of the patch with a coat of

primer on the front side

Tack welding a larger patch

Patch finished, and the small cluster of rust

holes repaired


Spring 2014

In this case it was important to retain

the holes created by the spot weld cutters,

because I needed to use these to align the

panels for final assembly. First I reassem-

bled the nose cone skin to its supporting

framework, clamping everything to ensure

it aligned properly. Below you can see

that the tab, after initial paint removal

with a grinding disc, is pretty rusty and as

a result is too weak to reuse, but it aligns

well with its support framework under-

neath.

I replaced one mounting tab at a

time. For each I clamped a piece of new

sheet metal from behind and used the

original tab as a template, drilling holes all

the way through with the spot weld cutter

and marking the outer shape with a sharp-

ie pen.

Next I cut out the new tab...

... And test fitted the patch while cut-

ting the original away. Finally, I clamped

everything including the new patch to-

gether again to ensure that the alignment

was correct. Note the small hole in the

centre is one of a number used to secure

the black plastic grill trim.

It was then a relatively simple task to

weld the new tab onto the old nose cone

skin, using the same techniques men-

tioned previously. The end result is

shown below.

And there we have it. Once the rest

of the paint was removed from the panels

and they were fully sandblasted, it all

looked good as new and ready to be weld-

ed back together.

I especially like that I saved a couple

of original body panels of the same vin-

tage as the original car. These are parts

that are very costly to replace and would

otherwise have gone to the scrap heap. It

doesn’t hurt at all that I saved a ton of

cash in the process.

Next time: I finally tackle the bent

chassis leg which, as I found out, is not a

repair for the faint of heart.

Make Your Own Foot Well

Vents

By Gary Klein

If you are a member of the Wedge

Mail List, you might recall a thread I start-

ed this past January where I invited any-

one who had foot well vents in their

Wedge to comment on how they liked

them. Well my request brought lots of

comments, all positive, and I even re-

ceived a few offers to sell me a set of OEM

vent doors. It also just happened that at

the same time, perhaps due to the List

discussion, a pair of OEM vents went for

sale on EBay and eventually sold for $149!

While I admit the original design is nice, I

did not want to spend that kind of money

for the privilege of owning foot well vent

and so I decided that aftermarket doors

would be in my Wedge’s future, that is,

until another idea surfaced. In the follow-

ing article, I’m going to show you how to

manufacture a set of adjustable foot well

door vents that are easy to make, without

the need for any special tools, and the

best part, for next to nothing!

I cannot take credit for the idea be-

cause during the time of the List discus-

sion, I received an off-list reply from a

member who suggested that I could build

a sliding louver. His suggestion started

me thinking which resulted in the design I

am going to describe. I determined that a

simple sliding door assembly could be fab-

ricated and riveted to the same holes in

the foot well that held the installed vent

blanking plate. I understand that Triumph

installed the blanking plates on North

American cars that were equipped with air

conditioning. I already had a large piece

of aluminum to use for the project as well

as most of the other materials that I

thought I would need so I expected that

my final cost could be very low, if it my

The nose panel, removed at the spot welds,

with it’s supporting frame clamped into place

The mounting tab, weakened from rust, and

subsequently unusable

Drilling new sheet metal, using the old tab as a

template

Cutting out a new tab with the aviation

scissors

The patch, test fit and aligned, with the old tab

cut out

The end result, welded and ground smooth


Spring 2014

idea worked. And so, the design and

manufacturing process started.

To start, the foot well trim panels

need to be removed. The panels are held

in the car by a dash support bracket, two

screws, the door weather stripping and

some glue along the rearward edge. Start

removing the two screws and then pull the

door seal away from the body in the trim

panel are. Next carefully release the vinyl

from the glue that holds it to the body.

Finally, loosen the bolts on the dash sup-

port bracket to pull out the panel. The

bracket fits very snuggly against the body

and I found that I had to gently pry the

bracket away from the car body to remove

the panel. When the trim panel has been

removed, re-tighten the support bracket

bolts. With the vent installed, you cannot

reinstall the trim panel under the bracket

as I’ll describe later.

Next I drilled out the rivets on the

driver’s vent blanking plate and removed

it. I decided that my vent assembly

should probably not be any taller than

blanking plate’s height so using the

blanking plate as a guide, I made a rec-

tangular cardboard template of an end-

plate that was the same height, but about

twice as wide as the original vent blanking

plate. This “vent door” endplate’s length

had to be at least twice as long as the

sliding door was wide, plus a little more

for mounting and sealing. The door world

be sandwiched between two endplates and

when the door slid rearwards to open the

vent, the door would slide into a pocket,

formed by the two endplates.

Once I had a cardboard template, I

took it into the foot well and it was imme-

diately apparent that a structural bend in

the car’s steel body would interfere with

the length of the endplates. The bend

prohibited the template from laying flat

against the sidewall in the foot well. How-

ever, if I made a spacer the shape of the

original blanking plate and fitted my spac-

er between the car body and the outer-

most template, the assembly would lay

flat against the side of the car and create

a better fit for the final assembly and trim

panel. A spacer of about 1/4” (6 mm)

would do the trick and I had some thin

plywood that I cut to the size of the blank-

ing plate for the task.

A friend of mine has a metal shear

that I used to make nice, clean cuts of the

aluminum parts. While you do not need a

shear, you will need to make straight,

smooth cuts on the door’s edges and one

long edge of each of the rail pieces. I’ll

talk about the rail pieces in a moment.

The outer edges of the vent endplates are

not that critical because a ragged edge will

be hidden by the interior trim. Figure 1

shows all the parts I cut to make one vent

and the edges that need to be smooth are

highlighted in RED. Figure 2 shows the

dimensions for all the parts.

As I mentioned, the door will be sand-

wiched between the two endplates. The

endplates have a square, 3” (76 mm) hole

that is centered vertically but offset to-

wards the front edge, as shown in Figure

2. The door measures 3 13/16” (92 mm)

square and is placed between a pair of

horizontal rails that facilitate sliding and

will keep the door aligned when it is

opened and closed. The rails are then

sandwiched between the two endplates

along the top and bottom edges.

Ideally, the rails would be cut from

material that is thicker than the door to

prevent the door from binding. However,

I only had one thickness of aluminum so I

cut four strips for rails and used two strips

to form each rail. I aligned one strip on

top of the other when placing the pair be-

tween the endplates. This design creates

a gap between the endplates around the

door but the clearance can be taken up by

gluing hobby felt around each edge of one

side of the door. Any color felt can be

used because it will be invisible from in-

side the car. When assembled, the felt is

slightly squeezed between the endplates,

creating a seal and a little friction to elimi-

nate any door rattles as well as to help

hold the door in the desired position. The

entire assembly will be held together and

attached to the car by four rivets that use

the same holes that held the vent blanking

plate.

After cutting, I started with the door

and used a file to remove burrs and make

all edges smooth. Next, I glued some felt

around the edges on one side of the door

as shown in Figure 3.

Cut aluminum pieces, with smoothed pieces

highlighted in red


Spring 2014

Referring to this figure (figure 3), the

door will slide left to right so I cut the felt

a little wider on leading and trailing edges

as these felted edges might wear in opera-

tion. The door also needs a knob for

opening and closing. You can use any

knob you have but I settled on a very sim-

ple design that consisted of a 2 inch, #10

machine screw (51 mm #5 metric ma-

chine screw) that is inserted into a

11/2" (38 mm) length of 1/4" (6.3 mm)

diameter copper tubing. This is the same

tubing used for connecting a refrigerator

to a water supply. I drilled a hole in the

door for the bolt, which is centered verti-

cally and about 3/8" (9.5 mm) from what

will be the front edge of the door. To as-

semble, I installed the copper sleeve on

the bolt, followed by the first nut, tighten-

ing it up to the copper sleeve. Then the

screw went into the door with a second

nut on the other side and I tighten the

nuts together. I also applied a drop of

thread locker as I don’t want the knob to

come unscrewed. Finally, I painted inner

side face of my door black, door and knob,

as shown in Figure 4.

The endplates and wood spacer need

a vent hole cut in them. Aligning one

edge of the vent blanking plate to one

edge of an endplate, I marked on the end-

plate the location of the four mounting

holes (Figure 2) and then I measured and

marked the location of the vent hole on

the same side of the endplate. Since a

vent opening had to be cut in both end-

plates and the wood spacer, I placed the

wood spacer between the two endplates in

order to protect the wood while I cut the

vent hole through all three parts at one

time. I aligned the front edges of all piec-

es and held everything together with my

vice. I also used one small clamp on each

long side to keep the parts together when

I needed reposition the assembly in the

vice between cutting/drilling operations.

The tools I used to cut the vent hole

were a drill and coping saw. I started by

drilling a hole just inside each corner of

the marked vent hole. The drilled hole

was just large enough to pass the blade of

my coping saw and then I carefully cut

along the lines of the vent square to each

corner. Taking everything apart, I then

used a file to clean up the burrs and re-

move the sharp edges around the vent

hole so that the door felt would not catch

and fray. Essentially, I filed smooth any

edge that touched the felt, to include one

long edge of each rail strip as shown in

Figure 1.

With the vent hole cut and all edges

filed smooth, drilling the four rivet mount-

ing holes in all parts was next. To begin, I

again used cellophane tape to hold two

strips together to form a rail, placing the

smooth edge of the strips toward the cen-

ter of the endplate. I then taped that rail

assembly to an endplate. Before taping

the second rail assembly in position, this is

the time to set the gap between the rails

and the felted door. To make the adjust-

ment, I taped together the last two strips

with their sooth edges positioned on the

same side. l then placed the door and

second rail on the endplate, and very

slightly pinched the door with the loose

rail. I then adjusted the rail to find a posi-

tion where the door slid smoothly. Finding

that position, I taped the second rail in

place and carefully removed the door

without moving the rail assemblies. The

wood spacer was then placed over the

rails and finally the second endplate over

the spacer. Everything was held together

with the clamps and vice as before and I

drilled the four mounting holes.

With all parts completed, it was time

to install the assembly. The parts in this

design must be held in alignment to

mount the pieces to the car so I again

used cellophane tape like before to hold

everything together in position for the

riveting process. The assembly is held to

the car with four 3/16” (4.76 mm) alumi-

num rivets that have a grip range of 1/2" – 5/8” (12.7 – 15.9 mm). Before installation,

the four holes in the car’s foot well had to

be slightly enlarged because the original

blanking plate was held by 1/8” rivets. I

could not find 1/8” rivets with a long grip

range in my area. Smaller rivets are

available online but there is a high mini-

mum quantity to purchase and then

there’s shipping. So consequently, I opted

for the 3/16” (4.76 mm) aluminum rivets

and I drilled the car’s mounting holes.

I found that mounting the assembly

to the car was a little fiddly as the four

mounting holes I had drilled in the alumi-

num pieces and wood spacer were off ever

so slightly relative to the holes in the

body. I ended up slightly elongating the

vent assembly mounting holes vertically,

performing a procedure that would make a

machinist cringe. You know what I mean;

I used my drill with a 3/16” (4.76 mm) drill

bit and slowly wiggled the drill off center,

up and down, to enlarge the holes. That

did the trick and the rivets went in

smoothly and up flush through all the

pieces of the vent assembly and the car’s

side panel. Squeezing the rivet gun’s han-

dles in the confines of the foot well and

pedals was a challenge but I was able to

make four good connections the first time.

The as fitted assembly is shown in Figure

5.

Reattaching the trim panel was next

and since the hole in my vent is smaller

than the factory vent, I could not just buy

a new set of kick panel trim with the cor-

rect size vent holes so I needed to cut my

solid trim panel to make a smaller, square

hole. Locating the correct location of the

hole and performing the modification was

tricky but proved not to be difficult. My

advice - just be careful and think before

you cut.

With the vent assembly attached to

the car, I opened the door to the point

where the vent knob was in the very mid-

dle of the vent hole. I then held the trim

in the correct installed orientation, as well

as I could with one hand, while placing a

finger of my other hand on the backside of

the trim panel to note the location of

where the knob hit the back of the trim

panel. I then removed the panel while

carefully keeping my finger on that point.

Using this point as a guide, I cut an ap-

proximately 1” (25 mm) square hole

around this point and then temporarily

mounted the trim panel in position.


Spring 2014

Cutting the hole afforded clearance

for the knob so that the trim could be

placed in the correct position for me to

determine where the edges of the vent

hole fell on the trim’s backside. With the

trim panel in place, I measured the dis-

tance from the four edges of the hole I

had just cut in the trim panel to the edges

of the vent opening in the aluminum end-

plate behind it. Note: I DID NOT CUT the

final square in the backboard material in

one pass. I cut away half of the back-

board material and then I re-measured,

followed by a second and final cut of the

panel backboard. ONE FURTHER CAU-

TION: After cutting the initial square hole,

pull the vinyl trim out of the way, remov-

ing it from the backboard in the area you

will be cutting BEFORE you cut the back-

board. You do not want accidentally cut

the vinyl because you will need to create

some tabs with the vinyl in the area of the

vent hole. When the backboard cutting

was finished and I had the correct size

vent hole, I put the vinyl back in place

over the backboard and made diagonal

cuts in the vinyl from the center of the

vent hole to each corner of the square

opening. I then pulled the vinyl tabs

through the hole and glued them to the

back side of the backing board. I partially

cut one of my tabs by accident; however,

since I was cutting on my original panel

for this article, I still have a new interior

trim panel that I can modify. So my ad-

vice is to be careful, otherwise, you will be

buying a new trim panel.

Before gluing the tabs, I did another

trial fit and I did not like the way the rear-

ward edge of the trim backboard laid

against the body as the vent assembly

caused it to protrude about a 1/4” (6 mm)

into the foot well area. I trimmed my

backboard, taking 1” (25 mm) on the rear

facing edge. Again, remove the vinyl from

the backboard in this area BEFORE you

make any cuts.

To finish the trim panel, I needed to

glue the vent hole tabs and to re-attach

the vinyl edges to the edges of the back-

board. I used a craft glue my wife likes to

use, which is called, E-6000. This glue

holds very well on the vinyl fabric’s back-

ing and backboard material. It dries clear,

but does take 24 hours to dry. NFI but

you can get E-6000 at craft stores or Wal-

Mart but you may already have a favorite

glue you can use.

The completed assembly with trim

pane mounted in the car is shown in Fig-

ure 6. Originally, the trim panel was held

under the dash bracket but since we add-

ed the wood spacer and vent assembly,

the trim’s top edge will no longer fit under

the dash bracket. I was able to use the

two original screw mounting holes but I

added a third at the front of the trim panel

far enough forward so not to interfere with

the door’s operation. You can see the

added screw just behind the knob in the

photo.

I quickly installed the trim panel to

take the photo for this article and as you

can see, I have not installed my new car-

pet. Since the panel will have to be re-

moved to install the carpet, I did not re-

glue the vinyl flap, located on the left edge

of the trim panel in Figure 6, to the car

body. When it is finally glued in place, the

wrinkles you see can be pulled out.

What did the vents cost me? As I

mentioned, I only had to purchase the

long rivets and they cost $2.99 plus tax at

Ace Hardware for a package of 10. If I

had needed to buy sheeting material, I

was able to price steel sheeting at my

local Lowe’s DIY but they did not have

aluminum. Lowe’s sells the steel sheets

for about $7 each and the sheets ap-

peared to be large enough to make one

vent. However, I think that aluminum is

an easier material to work with and it will

not rust so I looked online and found a

sheet of aluminum large enough for 1 vent

that sells for under $10. So in the end,

other than your time, you could have your

own pair of foot well vents for under $25!

I cannot wait until the summer driving

season and try them out.

Shoebox and Gizmo to the

Rescue

By Paul Martorella

After rebuilding my 1980 TR7 in late

2011, I passed the CA smog check

prompting the technician to comment

“hold on to this, your car is running as

clean as a new car”. Fast forward to Janu-

ary 2014 (it never feels like two years

have gone by when you get that notice for

“Test Only” again) but what’s to worry I

have a clean running TR7 except now I

failed due to running too rich.

I would not have known this by any

normal means but there would be nothing

normal about this time or so it seemed. So

now I have a problem, to figure out what

is causing my car to run rich. I adjusted

what I thought might be causing the issue,

did the re-test and failed again for the

same reason.

Enter Michael Hart. I remember read-

ing about Michael’s assistance to the gen-

tleman in Nevada and reached out to Mi-

chael to begin what would be an auto life

line for me and probably a weekend nui-

sance for Michael although he never made

me feel like it was.

So, after researching, I took the oxy-

gen sensor off and did the blow torch test

to which it responded correctly, now what?

As I pondered this I began to do what

most of us weekend mechanics do,

thought about what parts I could replace

but Michael had a better idea and after

explaining the “closed loop” system to me

he suggested I check a few more areas of

concern. Michael emailed me the wiring

diagram and I began a more logical pro-

cess of checking my connections to the

idle position switch, temperature switch,

AFM and ECU. About this time Michael

sent me the “shoebox” and Jim TenCate’s

“Gizmo”. I was so impressed with the tools

and the directions I planned my weekend

around a thorough check of my system.

The hook up was easy and now the

test showed a number of issues, although

the oxygen sensor checked out ok it was

not, and I was not in “closed loop”. I also

noticed that the idle position switch was

always on, thanks to the light on the

“shoebox box” (this was a simple fix and

one I believe had been an issues from the

day my car left the plant). Finally I had

some funny readings from the AFM that

showed up on the shoebox and the

“Gizmo”. Again with Michael’s assistance I

was able to examine and clean the AFM

reassemble and be ready for Smog Test 2.

This time I was confident and slapped

down my money, watched as the techni-

cian went “by the book” examining every

hose, etc… completed his test and said

your car is running very clean but you

have failed again since your idle is a little


Spring 2014

over the limit. I went back the following

day with the idle speed corrected and now

my car is again legal.

I cannot thank Michael Hart enough

for his patience and knowledge, thanks to

all who have contributed to the creation of

these tools. I am certain that without

Michael’s knowledge and the tools I would

have been buying parts with little under-

standing or visibility of the results. Thanks

again for getting me back on the road and

the education!

Member Cars—Brent Owen’s

1977 TR7 Coupe

I recently noticed that my TR7 has

just clicked over and I’ve put 13,000 miles

on my car since its’ ground up restoration

three years ago. I made many perfor-

mance modifications, plus re-engineered all

the stupid things that British Leyland did

wrong. It runs like a scalded ape, and han-

dles and stops great, plus everything except

for the A/C works (I haven't tackled it yet).

It's strange to say, but the TR7 is the

most reliable car in my fleet right now which

includes: '95 Mercedes E320, '87 Mercedes

300E, '69 Triumph Herald Convertible, '62

Spitfire race car, '63 Buick LeSabre 2 door

coupe, and a '06 VW Golf (son's car), and

soon a '71 280 SEL with 40k orig. miles.

Attached are some photos of my TR7.

Some were taken over that last couple of

years prior to a 450 mile "Gumball Rally"

type run I do in Georgia every year. Last

year my son and I ran the TR7 as a Taxi,

complete with lighted "Taxi" sign on top, as

well as TAXI and rate signs on the doors,

and we dressed up as chauffeurs. We had a

lot of fun and got some 2nd and 3rd looks

along the way!

Show You Belong to the TWOA

TWOA members can express their

support of our Club by displaying the

TWOA logo on their Wedge’s windscreen.

The Club has a limited quantity of full col-

or, vinyl windscreen decals of the TWOA

logo.

We are selling them near our cost and

you can get yours by ordering from the

TWOA website. Go to the Club website

and click on the Members Only area, then

click on Regalia.

Stickers are priced at US $1.50 for

the first, $1 for each additional sticker

with a limit of 3 per member at this time.

Alternatively, send a check, your name

and address to Gary Klein, at the return

address of this newsletter.

Fixing the Inertia switch

By Clay Thompson

Tools required:

Small flat screwdriver

Regular size Phillips head screwdriver

Needle nose pliers

320 grid sandpaper or equivalent

Dielectric grease

This tutorial assumes that you have

the switch out already. (Note below, that

the stem has the mushroom missing.)

Viewing the end of the switch with

contacts (below), you will see that one

side has two holes, while the other has

one hole with a beveled locking pin.

Using a small screwdriver, wedge the

outer casing away from the locking pin

and slide out the internal parts.


Spring 2014

In the photo above you will see two

long clips and a large ball bearing. At first

I thought the ball made contact with the

two clips to make the switch work, but

that is incorrect. Clean the ball, the ends

of the clips, and the plastic housing, then

set this aside with the ball bearing stuck to

the magnet.

Now To work on the activation part.

Take the outside housing and pull up on

the reset knob until the mushroom cap

pulls off. Remove the plunger from the

inside of the housing or pick it up off the

ground if it fell out. You will see that there

is a brass ring that goes around the plung-

er. Clean the tarnish and corrosion off the

brass ring with out harming the plastic

cone.

Once cleaned, put the parts together

and check to see how well the clips con-

tact the brass band on the plunger, like I

did in the photo above. Mine did not fit

well, so I took the needle nose pliers and

carefully bent the contact tips so they

would contact more area on the brass ring

on the plunger. Next coat the contacts

and the brass ring with a LIGHT coating of

dielectric grease.

To reinstall the cap, feed the Philips

head screwdriver into the hole in the

housing. Then slide the plunger onto the

end of the Philips head screwdriver. As-

semble all the parts and align the locking

pin to the hole in the housing, as shown in

the photo above.

Continue pushing the unit back to-

gether until the lock pin on the end of the

plastic hits home, and locks into the metal

shell.

It was suggested to that I make an

umbrella for the plunger head by cutting a

hole in the top of a 35mm film canister lid

and slipping it on the top of the plunger.

Would you believe that I didn’t have one

since I always used 120/200 film! Now

install the mushroom head.

Test the connection with a test light.

Twist the plunger while watching the test

light to make sure that the collar makes

good contact with the ends of the pins.

Shake it once to make sure that the ball

bearing will knock the plunger loose or up.

This will break the contact. Just push the

plunger back down to restore the circuit.

Be sure to install the unit with the plunger

in the up position.

TWOA Renewal Process

By Gary Klein, TWOA Treasurer/

Membership Chair

TWOA memberships run from January

through December so the renewal season

has just ended. The fact that you’ve re-

ceived this newsletter means that in our

records, you are good through at least

2014. I took on the job in December 2012

so this was my second season, having

taking over from Joe Worsley, who had

been the Treasurer/Membership Chair for

several years.

In my time as your Membership Chair,

I’ve noticed some occasional confusion

regarding the process so I thought that a

short explanation may help clear up any

questions. If you should ever have a

membership question, do not hesitate to

send me an email or give me a ring

(before 9PM EST, please). My contact

information can be found in this newsletter

in the Board of Director inset, found at the

beginning of this newsletter.

I encourage members to provide and

keep me up to date with their email ad-

dress because I send an email heads-up

announcement in early December to all

members whose membership expires that

month. If someone in that group has not

renewed, then I send additional reminders

in January and again in February if neces-

sary, to let the member know that their

membership has expired. Finally, I will

send a post card in the middle of February

as the last notice.

Recipients of all hard copy newsletters

may have noticed that their newsletter,

printed on the address side, there is a

statement that indicates the year in which

their membership expires. If I have a

hardcopy recipient’s email address then

they will also receive the January and if

necessary, the February email reminders.

All hardcopy recipients who have not re-

newed by mid-February, they too will re-

ceive a last notice post card.

In both cases, any member who has

not renewed prior to the date Dave Elsber-

ry sends the newsletter to the printer, that

member is marked Inactive in our data-

base and will not receive the March news-

letter.

I hope that clears up any mystery

regarding our progress. Please renew

early and for as long as you can. Over

200 renewals came due last December so

anything you can do to help with the pro-

cess is appreciated.


Spring 2014

The TWOA Website Password

will change on May 1st

The new password, will be:

TheShape40

Photo Submissions

By Tony Rhodes

I found some old photos of mine.

From about 2001. Shot on my first digi-

tal camera. It was a 2 megapixel cam-

era! My new camera is 36MP! The 2MP

camera took surprisingly great pictures.

The low res pix, were obtained from

somewhere else.

These photos are of JK Shirley’s

TR7V8 rally car. I believe it may have

been one of Buffum’s cars. This car was

wrecked later that year, and was rebuilt

in a new shell for the following season.

It was retired after that. It was the Last

TR7/8 rallying in the east. I think there

is still one being campaigned out west. I

included pix of the crash and the

wrecked car. It STILL moved under its

own power after the crash!

I can’t find my original files, partic-

ularly the one of the car at speed in

B&W. I have the original color picture

somewhere. I have to find it. You can

see the blurred wheels where the car is

going over a rather bumpy dirt road!

Issue 26, March 2014, Spring Edition

Mail Checks payable to Triumph Wedge Owners Association

Mail to: Gary Klein, 8153 Quarterfield Farms Dr, Severn, MD 21144-2746, USA

ONE YEAR MEMBERSHIP: US & CANADIAN $20.00 US FUNDS, OVERSEAS $25.00 US FUNDS

( I encourage 2 years - makes less work for me! THANKS!)

RENEWAL_______ NEW MEMBER________

NAME___________________________________

ADDRESS________________________________

________________________________________

PHONE____________________EMAIL :____________________________

SOME INFO ON YOUR CAR (if not already provided): Auto___ 4 SPEED ____ 5 SPEED ____

Year:____ Coupe____ Convertible____ Color_______ Color Code ________ Build Date _______

Vehicle ID # ___________________________________________ (windshield, drivers side door)

ARE YOU OPEN TO RECEIVING NEWSLETTER BY EMAIL YES______ NO______

MAY WE ADD YOUR EMAIL TO OUR COMMUNICATIONS LIST YES ______ NO _______

8153 Quarterfield Farms Dr

Severn, MD 21144-2746

USA

Triumph Wedge

Owners Association

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