Monday, 29 June 2009

Thanks be to Paul

Following various messages of encouragement on here and elsewhere, I decided to give the Beast a last chance. On Saturday, I approached Paul in the hope that he had a spare distributor lying around. He had, but it was one with points as opposed to electronic ignition. Fear not, a trip to Bewdley to his mate Pete was called for

Pete just happened to have a box of Lucas distributors lying around , all in various states of (dis)repair. We transferred the potentially buggered innards of my dis with those from one of the others. I also borrowed one of those ballast resistor box things too. 2 hours later, time to put the plan into action.

Cock! The gear on the oil pump had moved and the dis wouldn't go in. A temporary blip though as Paul created a oil pump mover tool thing from a huge bolt and an angle grinder. The dis was put in. The cables were recrimped and reconnected to the coil and resistor. all connected. The key was turned ... COOOOOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! At this point, you may have worked out that all was not well. We waggled and pulled and disconnected and reconnected but to no avail. That's it then. The Beast is going back on eBay for as much as I can get.

It was at this point that Paul decided to fit the points dis ...

Lager! The Beast lives!

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

I Surrender

An update for all those of you who still bother to read this sorry tale: it's still fucked! I have tested the spark using some glow end cap things. I have sparks. I then tested the spark with a spark strength tester thing that looks a bit like a compass. The spark strength tester thing suggested the spark was too weak. So, what produces the spark? The coil. It can't be the distributor as that just distributes the spark surely? I purchased a new coil. Typically, it made fuck all difference. That was about 2 weeks ago. I have been nowhere near the sack of crap since. I can't be arsed. I loathe and detest it. No wonder TR7's are universally ridiculed. No wonder Rover went down the shitter. I raise the white flag in surrender.

Thursday, 4 June 2009

Hammerite


The under arches and under body are now nicely Hammerited. It was very rusty in places. There was also alot of filler. I am getting a bit of deja vu from 20 years ago. I hope the MOT man doesn't poke the bottom too hard with his scredriver!