Bordfunker

Thanks for the heads up Colin, think I might to give that a go, as you can’t go wrong for under a tenner! Karl

Wayne, their panels are certainly very good quality and my car seems determined to give me every opportunity to try as many of them as possible! I bought some new body mounting brackets a few months back from a supplier which rhymes with haddocks, and they are fine, but nowhere near as substantial as the Chic Doig ones attached to the new repair section. The same goes for their replacement chassis outriggers which I am sure have added a couple of extra Kg to my car. Karl

A heater valve and two heater flap sealing pads! Karl

Colin that block looks much nicer with a coat of satin black. At least the TR7 is new enough to have multi block connectors behind the dash unlike the the older Triumphs. Karl

Ignoring foot related puns for a moment, I received a delivery from Chic Doig this afternoon. I only ordered it yesterday afternoon, so well impressed with the speed of that service. Very fleet of foot you might say! This is for the passenger side which I was dreading having to finish, but this should make that exercise a lot easier, and I note how much more substantial the body mounting brackets are than the ones I bought separately, and not from Chic Doig. Karl

I’m putting my foot down now, no more puns! Karl

He is a heel sometimes. Karl

An MOT fail! Karl

Colin, that sounds a lot like mine chassis wise, air coated in under seal! At least the suspension on mine wasn’t coated in the stuff as well. I ordered a repair panel from Chic Doig for the passenger side today, as I’ve given up on making my own now that I know you can buy them ready made. Karl

Doug, they probably suspect you of trying to hide something! Though I do think that, 'excessive under seal' is a charge which could have been levelled at my car, given how much 'solid' steel has turned out to be under seal! Karl

I had hoped to get back into the garage last weekend, but managed to pick up a cold from my boss! I wouldn't mind so much but I felt fine by Monday morning, what a waste of a weekend! However with the cold now gone, Mrs B off to the north for the weekend, no more excuses, time to get into the garage and actually do some work. Nothing for it but to finish up the chassis welding, which with yesterday's lovely weather was a complete joy with the garage door open, however I didn't bother taking any pics of the chassis welding, as if you've seen one bit of chassis welding on a Herald, you've seen them all. I did however take pics of all the other stuff, some of which those of a delicate nature may find distressing. The 'other stuff' was the underside of the bulkhead area, which was covered in a thick coating of under seal, which I attacked with a wire brush in the angle grinder, over a period of several hours, which left me with this..... ...it also left me with a whole load of black gritty dust all over the garage, which left me feeling grateful for having a worn a mask and goggles, even if I do end up looking like a minion! As expected the driver's side looked to be in better shape than the passenger side, with much less surface pitting... ....however removal of the under seal removed some horrors. This is the rearmost chassis mount on the driver's side of the bulkhead, which had looked perfectly serviceable, but which turns out to have significant rot. Cue that sinking feeling. Worse still is that the double skinned section behind the mounting point has started to rot out like the passenger side! Removal of the under seal over the forward chassis attachment revealed more tin worm.... .....as well a holing of the mounting itself. I then decided to take a peak behind the mounting itself...... .......I really wish I hadn't! Removal of the mill board alongside the accelerator peddle revealed the full extent of the rot. Oh dear, deja vu all over again! And I've still to finish the repairs to the passenger side! At least now I know that Chic Doig make a replacement section for this area, so rather than attempting to fabricate my own, I'll take the sensible route on the driver's side. With all the paint and under seal stripped off, nothing else to do but give both sides a coat of the FE 123 rust stopper. I couldn't find a paintbrush for the FE 123, so tried a mini roller, which worked far better, with fewer drips and runs, and was much faster. It's always depressing to find rot where you thought there wasn't any, but I figure now is the best time to find, when everything is accessible, and I don't have to face the prospect of undoing my own previous repairs. Karl

Colin, I was thinking a nice gloss black as I figure a gloss finish is easier to clean the muck off that matt. Karl

Nice job on the lower windscreen surround Collin, that looks spot on. What colour are you going with for the block? Karl

Colin that definitely looks like something I’d paint the shed with, not a car! I’ve used paint from the club on my Herald, and can vouch for the fact that it goes on very nicely even with my amateur efforts. Karl

It's been a few weeks since I last posted, mainly due to picking up a virus which took weeks to shift, and left we with a serious mojo deficit when it came to working on the car. This wasn't helped by discovering that one of the chassis welds had cracked, leaving me with concerns for the rest of the welds, therefore I then spent a couple of weeks practising my welding to ensure that I was happy that my welds were consistently strong. All of which has meant only starting to make progress on the car again this weekend, focussing on grinding back the existing welds to check for cracks, before re-welding all the joints on the chassis. At least with all the practice my welding has improved, and bouncing up and down on the freshly welded chassis has caused no further cracking. I've still got the front driver's corner of the chassis to finish, after which I'll give the chassis a thorough degrease, followed by a coat of epoxy primer. The aim after that is to drop the gearbox and check the condition of the clutch, as well as the condition of the rear engine oil seal, as I figure now is the easiest time for me to do this. Karl

I checked my Herald tub, which is currently off the car but braced, and got the same as Stuart 123cm. I think part of the problem is that the bootlid can flex, throwing it out of square, at which points it catches the edges of the boot opening. Karl

Colin, that cardboard pipe looks the same as that used in air cooled VWs from the fan housing to the cylinder head cooling shrouds, and there are plenty of VWs out there with shiny new metal ones which means you should be able to source something a little more substantial and a bit more attractive fairly easily. https://www.vwheritage.com/028129087al-aluminium-corrugated-air-intake-hose-vw-spare The TR looks very nice, the convertible look always suited the 7 best. Karl

That looks pretty good from the photos. Hopefully you don’t find anything too frightening. Karl

Does your light switch have 3 positions: Off External lights on but not internal External and internal or something like that, it’s been a few months since my lights have actually worked. I was tearing my hair out trying to work out why my dial didn’t illuminate until Pete pointed out that there were more than 2 positions for the light switch! Karl

Following on from yesterday's update which chronicled Saturday's activities, on Sunday I sorted out the missing section of wheel arch. This is pretty much where I started out. Given the position of the piece that needed to be removed I wasn't going to attempt cutting it out with an angle grinder, so went for a more controlled approach drilling out the edge of the area to be removed. Which then allowed me to fold the flap down and cut it out with a junior hacksaw. Note the rust between the inner wheel arch and outer lip. If I was being really anal I could drill out the spot welds, split the wing away from the inner arch and clean it all up, but instead I think I will simply douse everything in rust stopper as the rust appears to be surface only and not structural. I did clean up the area under the repair patch, before trying the repair patch for size. This was after about 15 minutes of tweaking with files and flap discs, slowly adjusting the fit, allowing me to clamp it up ready for welding. Given how thin the metal is on the Herald I used a stitch technique for the welding, pulsing the welder rather than applying a continuous bead, as this reduces the chance of blow through, and only doing about an inch at a time, before cooling the area down with compressed air from the air compressor. As you can see I also plug welded the repair section to the inner lip of the wheel arch, which, without Halfords weld through primer, worked perfectly this time. This was then cooled and cleaned up with a 40 grit flap disc in the angle grinder, leaving me with this. Overall much happier with that than the B-pillar repair section as the fit is much flusher overall, and will need little in the way of filler to tidy it all up. That pretty much finishes up the welding on the rear passenger side of the car, and leaves me feeling more confident about returning to the welding on the bulkhead, which I can't put off any longer. Karl

Thanks Paul, that or chunk of copper is on my shopping list. Karl

Given the current weather I haven't been as keen as I normally would be to get in the garage and carry on welding, so have limited myself to a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday, so as not to end up a shrivelled dehydrated smudge on the garage floor. So I started off where I left off last week, namely the repair panel between the B-pillar and the rear arch on the passenger side, which I had completed most of the welding on last week, but not quite all. This is where I left it last week. You can see the horrible seam weld that I had to use when the Halfords weld through primer proved that it wasn't! This got a tidy up with the angle grinder, both the seam at the top, and the joint with the remains of the rear wing. Overall much neater, but I still need to straighten up the top seam, but at least this will be covered by the sill. However, being me I got a little too ambitious in grinding back the lower seam, and managed to grind through it, which I then compounded by blowing through while trying to weld it! Oh well it's all practise, and within 5 minutes was fixed. I've still got a bit of a lip between the repair panel and the rear wing, which I have managed to get down to around 0.5mm, which I can then cover with a thin skim of filler, much better than the 5mm of filler that was there previously if nothing more, and at least the panel is now solid steel. I also seam welded the joint between the panel and rear arch. I've managed to build in a slight step towards the rear of the panel where it meets the arch, but again nothing that can't be fixed with a skim of filler. So not perfect, which is annoying, but I'm treating this as a learning curve, so things can only get better right? Karl

Wrong Mig! That's Mig 29 UB, absolutely useless to weld with.

That’s scary, thank goodness it happened at low speed. Is it back home now or at a garage? Karl

Phil, many thanks for the kind words and encouragement. Your chassis is looking very tidy, and although it's a nuisance having to strip and replace all the out riggers, it does at least leave you knowing that the backbone of the car is solid for another 30 years. Colin, I would definitely advocate getting a MiG welder and learning to weld. It does take time to practise, and can be infuriating when it not's going well, but does get easier and rapidly repays the investment in kit when you have a car like mine! I did actually get the repair section welded up on Sunday, despite the best efforts of Halfords Weld Through primer, which I can assure you is not, as I found out to my chagrin. I had very neatly plug welded all the holes that I had drilled, leaving some of the best plug welds I have ever done, and was very pleased with them, only to find that after removing the clamps, that the weld through primer had stopped the weld from bonding to the panel behind. I tried drilling the welds out, but have you ever tried drilling weld? In the end gave up and seam welded it all in. Still some clean up to do, but it's definitely on it's way. I'll post some pics next week. Karl