Lotus Elan, range rover, TR7, Streetka, mx5, minor,

Taxed the TR last night, this evening I got it out gave it wash and took it for a short drive, all seems well so its going to work tomorrow and if that is ok its penultimate MOT.

Took the range rover to work today and the steering has gone very lumpy, just when you think you are getting on top of things something else comes along and kicks you in the nuts....

The steering box feels terrible all grauchy and lumpy, I suspect a bearing has failed. Options are:
Repair the current one, as the bearings run directly on the shafts this is unlikely to work.
Buy a new one, I can't afford the £800 let alone the following divorce!
Get a re-con one, likely to be ones like mine with new bearings shoved in and charged £200+
Get a secondhand one, my preferred route at least if it goes wrong it won't have cost me much and its easy enough to change.

Hood sewn up, also stiched up part of the steering wheel which had come undone.

Had to move the range rover to get the TR out, steering box seems to be deteriorating fast, now leaking quite heavily.

Decided to fix the Range Rover today, pulled it out of the garage and parked it in the street while I made some space, came back to find some unpleasant piece of work had done this.





Of course they left their name and adress, like hell they did! So before I even start I'm on ebay parting with £30 for x new one.

Got stuck into the box change, all came appart easily enough, most of the bolts were still shiny silver, all in it took about 90 minutes,
New box is pretty rusty but bone dry, we'll see how it goes but all is well so far and it drives fine.

Old one was a right state and the pittman arm was actually loose even though the nut was tight.


Lifting that up and down did my dodgy shoulder no good so packed up for the day afterwards.

Othet news my son Andrew was 17 yesterday so he's now learning to drive, need to finish all the niggles on the minor before he passes his test! (He'll learn in the Focus as my employer insures it for him).

Mirror turned up.fof Range Rover,



Fitted easily enough but the electric adjustment doesent work, just about to moan to the seller and realised neither does the passenger one. As its only me who drives it the last time I used them was ages ago, fuse is OK so I suspect one of the switches is at fault. For now adjusted it manually, until I get the time to dig deeper.

Thoght about getting the minor back from its lock up so I could start on fome of the odd jobs today but the weather put paid to that.

Bit more on the tr tonight, fitted the blos variable mixer, no great problems idles nicely but no chance to drive it yet.I have also bought a throttle body which I intend to use as a mixer by pass when running on petrol.

Also bought the minor home so I can finish all the odd jobs off, so far all I have done is replaced the vw bus mirror with a beetle one which looks much better.

Not seen one go that bad, usually seems to be the rear end which goes really badly, the body on ours doesn't seem too bad though there were some areas of surface corrosion on the front inner wings.

Today was spent on ka, firstly cleaned up the rusty spots on the bottom of the doors.




The rust has got into the clinch flange, but the door inner is fine, for now I have cleaned it all up, treated it, and painted it with epoxy, when its top coated I will treat it with wax which hopefully will keep the rust at bay for a few more years.



I then changed the rear twist beam bushes, I made a puller from a TR7 fan hub, a piece of propshaft tube, an old alternator pulley and some studding.


First attempt simply snapped the M12 stud. So I heated the axle with a blowlamp for a good 10 minutes tighted the puller as much as I darred then belted the puller with a lump hammer to start it moving, they then came out easily enough, puller pulled the new ones in easily enough.






Old ones were definitely past it




But it still has the knocking noise, given it made the knock when I started the engine  today, I have now changed every piece of rubber in the suspension and it seems to come with heavy vertical loads so I think it could be the gearbox mount. Good news is the new bushes have sharpened up the steering and directional stability.

Been too hot and had a bit of an all day session yesterday so a bit worse for wear.

Been using the TR every day, drives much better on the Blos lpg mixer, couple of minor issues though, the wipers have packed up because the thread has stripped where the cable tube fits to the motor. The speedo has also stopped because the cable has broken (not a major issue as you can drive any speed from 15mph up in top gear and its 320rpm per 10mph), new cable has arrived but I am waiting for the wiper motor ferrule.

On the minor the brake fluid leak is from the seals where the plastic remote reservoir fittings push into the master cylinder, they are only a year old, I have ordered some new ones from just kampers (VW master cylinder).

On the KA my daughter has hit a pot hole and trashed a rear wheel and tyre, will be picking up a set of 4 as spares on wednesday, Otherwise appart from the clonk it seems to be working well.

They keep me out of trouble, tonight i fitted this to the TR.



We now have functioning wipers again, it was supringly easy, undo the 1 screw holding the wiper motor, unplug the electrical connection , remove the wipers, and just pull the motor out complete with the inner cable, undo the 5 screws holding the motor gearbox cover on, slide the faoled part out, pop the new one on and put it back together (greasing the cable and turning wiper shafts 180 degrees so the unworn part is used).

On the minor I fitted the new grommets to the remote reservoir connections (much more effort to push on) and all seems well.
I also pulled the leaking rear hub, no obvious reason it all looks perfect, after pressing the bearing out it feels a bit notchy (you have to push it out using the centre race) , so need to wait for a new one to arrive before it can go back together with a new seal.

Spent an hour on the lathe this evening, firstly turned up a blanking plug for the original and now unused fuel pick up on the minor.



Then started on the distributor, plan is to fit a A+ electronic distributor, the A series uses a sleeve  ( to the right below) which bolts in,  the A+ does away with this and goes straight into a smaller hole in the block, fortunatelly the inside diameter is the same as the hole in the A+ Block, they also use a different drive slot.  The A+ Distrubtor Also Sits Lower Level With The Face Of The block.



The drive slot is easily fixed by using a A+ drive gear, for the sleeve the top flange needs turning off and then it needs fixing to the distributor with a grub screw, I also turned a taper into the base to make assembly easier.





Just need to make a clamp and wiring harness now.