Hangs head in shame...

In all of the excitement of trying to get this ornament started, I had forgotten that it is a v8, and as such, it likes drinking. The noise that I had heard was a very dry facet fuel pump. Thanks Paul! Oh, and by the way, for no good reason at all, the indicators have now decided to fanny. Great.

What's that chuffin' noise?

After another break last weekend, and all day wasted trying to fix the car doors on the 75, I thought I might just see if the old girl would start. She did, no problems at all. I let her run for a while to get nice and warm. For some reason, there was no green leaking although it was nearly dark so I couldn't see a great deal in the engine bay. I let off a bit of choke and it still ran ... bit more ... excellent! She is ticking over beautifully. Higher revs always result in backfires but it is soundin better than ever. Sounds a little fast though so I need to get the tacho going to make sure of the tickover speed.

Due to the darkness, I killed the engine. It was then that I decided to have another go just to see. What's that chuffin' noise? It sounds like the fuel pump is about to explode! So why has that suddenly decided to play up?!

Catch Up ii

Alright alright, I am getting slacker with the updates so this is for Anonymous (Paul?). Thus, latest news is that due to the cold and my ever increasing lack of interest, I have rarely been in the garage other than to get the odd box of Christmas lager. Two weekends ago, it started nearly first time but was still spluttering very badly and shooting flame up Rosemary Road at any more than 3000 revs.

It was at this point that I armed myself with downloaded images of SU carbs, a scredriver and a Simon. We twiddled the mixture screw right down until the engine died and twiddled a quarter turn until it started again. The plugs were removed and cleaned for the 86th time.

The result was a much better sounding engine that when slightly warm (can't tell how warm as none of the instruments work), ticked over nicely at about 800rpm (probably as the tacho don't work either). At low revs all is well. At higher revs, you still don't want to be standing behind it, unless you have a marshmallow on a fork.

Next? If it starts and runs ok this weekend, it will be insurance and MOT time. The pre MOT To Do List includes: drivers seat screwed down properly, dials working, oil flush and change. The post MOT To Do List will probably be very long.

Oh, and I still have a green leak. F knows where that is coming from. Looks like it's the port on the head. So does that mean a buggered manifold gasket that I didn't change? Or something more serious?

Catch Up

Catch up time then as I haven't reported much recently...

I reinstalled the carbs that Stu had kindly stripped for me and started her up. Things still not very good, but at least it started and sounded better than the last time. Since then, we have gone backwards again - it appears that backwards is the only direction that this s.o.c. likes to go in.

I now have a water leak. A collection of green is pooling on the inlet manifold gasket. There are no splits in any of the hoses so it was decided that the metal pipe (who designed this?!?!) that runs under the manifold must have split somewhere. Nope. Bugger all wrong with it. It's rusty but not poorly.

There was a lot of rusting around the end that goes to the heater so I decided to undo the two bolts. Snap! Coooocccckkkkk! The end of the bolt is now out. I am waiting for Rimmers to deliver a gasket and another bolt before attempting to reconnect the manifold. I am hoping that I have fixed the problem!

Et Voila!

Once again, a big thank you to Lionel as the black dashboard is now in. Doesn't it look pretty! There are no longer any wires sticking out, these are behind a switch. All is now black - the carpets and the plastic bits. The instrument panel must have been knocked during the proocess as none of the dials work. I am hoping that the big plug has fallen out. The finale is a quick vacuum, clean the dash properly and then seat installation. Unfortunately, the engine still wasn't playing very nicely. It would appear that I have a TR7 again as 4 of the cylinders were a bit shy. It was decided that one of the carbs was stuck so off they came to be destucked by Stewart/Stuart. A couple of pictures follow, including the pit crew having a piss take fag break!

Going backwards

Unfortunately, not the car. It was pushed out of the garage on Sunday for some more trmming and things. It took several hours for Lionel and I to cut chunks out of the rear backboard thing so as to fit the plastic hood cover things. This of course included removing the hood several times. They look nice though and have really helped to tart up the trim.

Lionel also helped in getting some more electricity things done which included putting in place an in line fuse for the fuel pump and fitting the fan to a proper TR switch in the centre switch panel. I now have the black centre consoles properly in place and they look great against the new carpet. The new fan on a switch is a "rear demist" switch out of the teabag, it looks much better than having wires sticking out of the dash.

Talking of dashboards, it's gotta come out now as everything else is black! Guru Ed promised that he would assist on this one as he has done this job several times before.

As for the engine, it might be time to call upon Master Guru Guy again as the bugger has stopped starting and started to stop! I had the plugs out (again) but to no avail. I really have no idea wtf is going on here. An MOT was iminent. Not any more. Bugger!

What no update?

Very very sorry to be so slack with regards to Beast updates over the last couple of weeks. It has started perfectly (until this last weekend where it wouldn't fecking start again). But fear not, as there has been some progress elsewhere. I'll let you work it out. To paraphrase the great Tony Hart, here is the gallery ...