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

So with the wiring done i added some rubber backed felt and put the console back together



Also fitted the connector to the tps an re-fitted it.




Threres still a few things to tidy up inside, chief among them seat backs where the cloth has come unstuck and is baggy,
Took the drivers one off easy enough just 5 screws.







There is a new much bigger issue though, there seems to be a fault with the transmission, from cold it won't change out of 1st gear for the first half a mile or so once it does its perfect. Apparantly this is the plunger in the governor sticking which is likely to be due to debris finding its way into there. It can be changed with the trans in the car but the transfer box has to come off first. I was pretty cut up about it yesterday but am coming to terms with it now, it won't take too long to get appart now all the issues with exhsust etc have been sorted out. In the meantime I have adjusted the kickdown which was right at the bottom of the pedal, this could help, and plan to use it a bit in the vein hope it might clear it's self.

In other things today I sotrted out the steering on the KA, it's never felt right to me and the wheel was not straight ahead, we had had a local tyre place check i but it came back the same, so today i got the string out. Two 8ft planks with 4mm holes drilled an identical distance appart, each stood on axle stands at each end of the car.



String between them set equidistant (side to side on each axle)from the centre of the wheel then just measure from the string to the rim, with the steering wheel straight ahead (I had checked it is in the centre of the rack travel) the right hand was 10mm toe out, the left 8mm toe in, so overall 2mm toe out, it's supposed to be 1.4mm to toe in. Clearly they had only adjusted one side, one adjuster was free the other virtualy seized, with some penetrating oil and lots of phaffing around measuring and re-measuring I managed to set it up correctly.

Took it for a drive and is vastly improved much more stable and less torque steer.

Finally had a go a pushing the ding out ofvthe wing, unfortunatelly it is very closely double skinned in the area, managed to push most of it out but its far from perfect, might have to fill and paint it eventually, at least it's a tiny panel, one pro aerosol will do it easily.

Had a chat with Ashcroft, they confirmed that it is almost certainly the governor sticking which is an achilees heel for these transmissions, probably some sort of contamination. They offered to fix it at Luton but with the current restrictions I agreed to fit the parts myself and they would supply them FOC.

Probably be a couple of weeks as I have other things to do which fit in easier with grabbing a few minutes here and there while working from home and it can still be driven in the meantime.

So here is his cup holder fitted, apparantly this is the prototype, the final one will be made from a more robust material.



We also fitted a centre brake light, fro ebay we bought a led strip meant for mopeds, it can do indicators and sidelights but we are only using the brake function, a couple of bits of bent alloy which slide under the screen rubber and we had this.



From the outside.

been using the range rover quite a bit, the not changing up from 1st is down to a couple of hundred yards from home now so I plan to keep using it for a while longer, it has developed a couple of other minor issues though, it's leaking from the transfer box sump bolts, I was a bit sceptical whether it would leak, the procedure in the manual which uses these for the lifting fixture and says put them back in with fresh sealer (to a hole which is bound to still have oily residues), still its an easy one to do on the car, just 8 bolts to drop the sump off. Today the speedo has stopped working, I suspect the cable ahs snapped at the gearbox end, it didn't look brilliant when I took it out, a bit fiddly but not too major a job, in the meantime google works fine.

On the minor I have tidied up one bit I really rushed originally, the right hand gutter looked like the north sea, so half an hour spent gently straightening it out then a light going over with some flexi filler and brushing on a primer / topcoat seems to have it looking much better.

The main thing I have been doing is the car port roof, it is a wooden frame covered with poly tunnel plastic, but over the years the plastic has got damaged (loads of ivy growing over it) and it leaks in several places, I have been given a load of polycarbonate so I have been replacing the roof with this, but also have found quite a few rotten areas, so working through all the old timber I can find around the place It has been cut out an replaced, plus the drianage improved.

For the last week or so only small jobs on the cars, on the range rover the transmission seems to be shifting fine now so that's ond job off the list, on saturdat we went back to plank up the trunks of the tree, Andrew splashed out a whole £70 on a factory re-furb 50cc Titan chain saw (chinese made) as his 30cc stihl isn't really powerfull enough, it did a stirling job and after a couple of hour we had the back of the Range Rover full of planks.





While he was doing this I took some time to touch in all the stone chips and paint damage on the Range Rover with a small brush, when it's had a few days to harden I will polish the most obvious ones back but even now it looks much better. I also crawled underneath to take a look, the transfer box leak seems to have almost dried up (just damp now no drips), and the exhaust seems to be leaking at the extra joint I had to add in to make it fit, some paste should do it, the joint to the muffler was also loose so I tightened that up. Hopefully this week I will seal the exhaust and fit the speedo cable.

On the Minor I started welding a new top edge on the 'new' bootlid, used a series of strips about 6 inches long to maintain the shape and double curvature.




Plan is to start on the bottom next, making my own repair sections for the skin as I go then split the inner and to allow me to treat any rust in between and repair the inner.

Spent luñchtime doing a few dirty jobs.

Firstly ground back the welds on the minor bootlid.




Still a few bits which I missed but generally came out well, onto the bottom now.

Also cleaned up the surface rust on tbe range rover footwell.




No serious rust so I cleaned it up with a knoted wire wheel and treated with converter, once dry it got a coat of epoxy primer, also found out where the water was getting in, there was a twinkle of light to the front wheel through one of the welds, obviously I missed it with sealer 4 years ago, so that was re-sealed as well.


That though caused the grinder to pack up, I guess these brushes will be the problem.




Found a pair of old washing machine ones as on the right in the photo below, after some filing I ended up with one that fitted on the left.





With those fitted I finished off cleaning up the cracks in the spoiler with it off I could also clean the back, hopefully I can start the repairs tomorrow.



Final thing was to cut the rusty bit out of the TR, I'll butt weld a new piece in when I get the chance.

I certainly did, I wasn't looking forward to taking it all apart at all, it seems the additive that Ashcroft gave me did the trick, having driven it more I've also realised the lock up never really worked on the original transmission either, bit of a double edged sword though because its not as smooth a drive with the torque converter locked as it was with it slipping, might improve the fuel consumption though (it was doing around 14mpg), at least fuel's cheap at the moment.

I can't recommend Ashcroft enough after this as it often been said its what a company does when something goes wrong which separates the good from the bad and they have been brilliant.

Today I finished a few odss and ends off on the range rover, waxed the floor I had painted yeterday,




In this weather the wax hardened in about 10 minutes!

Then I got sidetracked on the passenger door, the fit is terrible.




It's never going to be brilliant as the front and back doors are different shapes. These with the panels all painted off the shell were renound for appauling panel fit, the average door gap is around 10mm. After a bit of fiddling around and elongating the striker pin hole slightly I got it to this.




Far from perfect but about as good as it's going to get without major reworking and all the doors growing by 2 or 3mm in length.




After that I replaced this.








Its called a multi function unit in the cluster, one thing it does is voltage stabalisation and my fuel and temp gauges fluctuate by an 1/8 of travel randomly, its only held in by a couple of screws and seems to have fixed it, also threaded the new speeďo cable through the dash and connected it, just the crawling around underneath bit left to do.

On saturday I lost the keys for the range rover, I have spare set but no tab for the immoboliser, so I pulled the lower dash and bridged out the circuits it was cut into. Come sunday I found the keys in the garden (must have dropped out of my pocket when I took my boots off) so I had to put the car back together. One thing led to another and I ended up re-doing large parts of the immoboliser and LPG system to get tidier routings and rid of coiled bunches of excess wire.


That done I also noticed the oil pressure light wasn't working, turns out the terminal had dropped off the switch, so a new one is on it's way.

On the TR I made the first section of the inner arch.




Not the pretiest but it fits realy well so I decided not to risk distorting it trying to get a better finish, hopefully get a chance to weld it in in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately the a angle grinder failed in a spectacular way with sparks pouring out of it, one segment of the commutator is loose so that's in the bin and a cheapie from argos bought for the moment, not sure what is a good make nowadays, so many of the old favourites seem to have gone downhill.