Now it's ticking, what a bomb!

[Hasbeen]

Yes that's right, the thing now has a tick.

It sounds for all the world like a tappet taping, the frequency is about right, but it is far too soft/light to be that. The fact that I just added an extra spacer behind the fuel pump makes that a suspect, & the noise did seem to be from that area.

I waved the thing at 3 people who's automotive expertise I respect. 2 thought blown gasket, electrical spark, fuel pump, but decided it had to be a tappet. The third agreed, too light for a tappet, so blown gasket or fuel pump.

I thought I could feel the tapping from the fuel pump, but the inlet manifold had a similar feel. I really don't have enough hearing left to trace a tapping by the sound.

I would have checked the valve clearances, but the engine builder glued the cam cover down. God I'd love to take all gasket cement, throw it in the tip, & make people assemble things properly.

Decided to go see the Triumph guru, pick up a cam cover gasket, & ask him. If it's Triumph he knows, or at least so I thought.

No, he had never heard anything like it, damn. He did a search with his sexy stethoscope thingy, & after considerable listening pronounced I was right, it was the fuel pump. Of course he, his foreman, & the engine builder agreed, they had never heard a fuel pump make a noise like this.

None of them could even imagine how a fuel pump could make a noise like this. So I think I have a diagnosis, But I'm still no closer to a cure. Any suggestions anywhere.

Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. I have decided to get my new/old balancer home & working as first priority. We are entering the wet season, I need to replace my hard aging front tyres before that, & I'll have to balance them. That water pump will just have to tick for a while, unless one of you knows more than my guru, & can point me in the right direction.

Hasbeen

[Workshop Help]

Tag! I'm 'it'. That extra fuel pump spacer is giving a tad bit of clearance as the lobe rotates toward the pump arm. 'Click!' 'Click!' 'Click!' Just for fun, why did you install the spacer?

Personally, I still like the reassuring constant whine of my electric fuel pump. As long as the whine is sounding, I know the fuel system is healthy. I also do not miss the oil leakage from the mechanical pump and do appreciate the extra room provided by the pump not being there.

Mildred Hargis

[Cobber]

<font size="2"><font face="Comic Sans MS">Would this tick be in time with the radio interference?
It's unlikely but just an outside thought, that if it is in time with the radio interference could it be the high tension system arcing or shorting out somewhere? Seeing as though you have a new ignition system and some new found radio interference, it has me wondering.</font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="size2">


"Keep calm, relax, focus on the problem & PULL THE BLOODY TRIGGER"

80'Triumph TR7, 73'Land Rover (Ford 351. V8),
'89 Ford Fairlane
'98 MG-F, 69'Ford F250.
76' Ford F100

[Hasbeen]

I don't think that is possible Mildred, the travel on the arm is long, & these pumps have had the cam follower arm broken when installed on a 7 with just a thin gasket, But I'll check it with a depth gauge.

As it is so long since I've looked inside one of these, [now you can't buy overhaul kits of valves & diaphragm], I wonder if clearance could be generated between the arm & the diaphragm linkage? I'll have to check that too.

I've also wondered if one of the valves could be loose, moving in it's hole. I'm pretty sure the arm could not foul the spacer.

I doubt it Cobber. I'm pretty sure I heard the tick while I was still mucking around with the old ignition system wiring, looking for a possible fault in them. It is just not fair that age pinches our memory as well as our hearing & our sight.

Hasbeen

[Cobber]

<font size="2"><font face="Comic Sans MS">No worries it was just a thought that popped into my suspicious mind.</font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="size2">


"Keep calm, relax, focus on the problem & PULL THE BLOODY TRIGGER"

80'Triumph TR7, 73'Land Rover (Ford 351. V8),
'89 Ford Fairlane
'98 MG-F, 69'Ford F250.
76' Ford F100

[John Clancy]

The cam/valve buckets can warp over time and when that happens you start to get a tick, tick, tick. Seems to me like it's a strong contender and very easy to fix. I check them by holding two buckets together to see if they sit dead straight up against each other and if not then one of them is warped.

<center><b>[url="http://www.triumphdvd.co.uk"]Triumph TR7 and other car documentaries on DVD here[/url]</b></center>

[Hasbeen]

John do you know if a worn cam follower bucket bore would have the same effect?

The reason for my engine rebuild was a cracked head. The head repair people pronounced it beyond economic repair.

A replacement head got the full works. Valves, guides, seat inserts, follower buckets & springs. The only thing from the old head fitted was the camshaft & spring caps.

I did see the worn/warped cam followers in a mates Dolly sprint engine he was doing up just a couple of months back, so I know what you mean, although I had no idea they would tick. Ironically, I gave him my spare fuel pump at that time, so I can't use it to check if a different pump stops my tick.

Hasbeen

[John Clancy]

I haven't seen worn bores but I'm sure that can happen too. Most likely it's a bucket and they certainly do cause a tick, tick, tick. I had it several times after I first did the [very] high lift cam and it took several head shells to work out what it actually was. Heads were cheap back in those days and it was actually valuable training which set me up for long term TR7 ownership. Six years ago the head was off again (after 18 years I had a suspected blown gasket but it wasn't) and there were a couple of slightly misshapen buckets but not enough to cause a tick. Replaced 'em all though just to be sure.

<center><b>[url="http://www.triumphdvd.co.uk"]Triumph TR7 and other car documentaries on DVD here[/url]</b></center>

[nick]

Try one of these. I've had mixed success with it but it's cheap enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Diagnos ... B005GRGR7C

[img][IMG]http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt234/nickmi/TR7%201975/Yellow.jpg[/img]
nick
'79 TR7 DHC
'76 TR7 FHC

[Hasbeen]

Diagnosis confirmed, the tick was the fuel pump.

Went to bring the wheel balancer home today. Borrowed a box trailer from a friend, who needed it back no later than lunch time, for a job of his own.

As the only road legal car I now have, with a tow bar is the 7, it had to go fetch it's balancer. The 7 is actually a very good tow car, for things that are not too heavy, & don't put too much weight on the tow ball.

Everything went well until I headed off to return the trailer. Less than half a kilometer down the road, & the thing just died. This time however it died with the rev counter still registering. Must be fuel. So now a problem, I have to get my mates trailer back to him within the hour.

I grabbed an empty plastic one liter AFT bottle, with a pouring spout that slides out the top, & sealed all that with thread tape. Adapted this to some fuel hose, fitted to the pipe that feeds the carbs, & blanked off the hose from the fuel pump, in case it started pumping again.

The bottle was a neat wedge fit between the raised glass panes of my 2 pane glass sunroof, almost like it was made for the job. In 20 minutes I was on my way, with a new gravity feed fuel system, & returned the trailer.

Family duties this afternoon mean I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find what happened to the pump.

Ironically I recently gave my spare fuel pump to a mate restoring a Dolly Sprint. He called this afternoon, very pleased with himself, to say he had fired up it's new engine for the first time, about the same time as mine stopped. Guess what? It's flooding due to too high pump pressure too.

Hasbeen

[fastman]

Hasbeen. That sounds like a picture of "resourcefulness"! Did you drain the gas from the tank side of the pump to fill the bottle? I don't think I'd be that quick on my feet. Did you return home the same way?

[Hasbeen]

No Fastman, I have a stock of petrol at home for mowers generators chain saws etc.

Yes I did make it home on the one liter, a 7 kilometer round trip, but there was not much left in my gravity tank. I did have extra fuel on board, but did not want to have to take top off the bottle, incase it did not seal again.

Hasbeen

[Workshop Help]

Okay, so it's dead. The next step is to answer the age old question from the ancient mists of time itself. What kind of new pump does our hero and man among men want?

The choices fall into two categories; mechanical or electrical. Now, we have all been educated on the pros and cons of each. So, let the blood bath of brilliant opinions torrent over the global web to shower down on our poor friends noggin.

I'll start it off: !!!ELECTRIC!!!

Like this one.



Mildred Hargis

[FI Spyder]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Hasbeen</i>


I grabbed an empty plastic one liter AFT bottle, with a pouring spout that slides out the top, & sealed all that with thread tape. Adapted this to some fuel hose, fitted to the pipe that feeds the carbs, & blanked off the hose from the fuel pump, in case it started pumping again.

The bottle was a neat wedge fit between the raised glass panes of my 2 pane glass sunroof, almost like it was made for the job. In 20 minutes I was on my way, with a new gravity feed fuel system, & returned the trailer.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Sounds like something out of Road Warrior. Ingenuity is alive and well in Australia.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[Hasbeen]

Well now it has me totally foxed. I refilled my gravity system this morning, connected a clear hose to the pump discharge into a 5 liter bottle, fired the thing up, & the pump worked. It was free discharge, no back pressure, but it was pumping. It was also still ticking.

Pulled it off, & found nothing. The valves work as they should, the diaphragm is fine, no dirt on the strainer, a clean bill of health. When the lever is at full extension there is some gap in the connection between it & the diaphragm connection. The lever has to move about 7 degrees or so, to take up the slack, & does so with a small tapping sound. Could this be my ticking. Perhaps having the pump shimmed slightly too far off the block brought this slack into play.

I removed one gasket, 17 thou thick, before refitting the pump. I'm becoming paranoid about fitting the pump, after my mate bending the lever on his, it is just so hard to be sure you have the lever on the cam. I guess I'll find out when I try to fire it up.

My attention turned to the inline filter, on the suction side of the pump. It is quite discoloured, & the fuel level in it was lower than usual. I have seen these things silt up & cause a car fuel starvation, then run for another fairly long period after standing overnight. It has not done many miles, but has been there a while I think, [can't find a record of fitting]. Perhaps that is my problem.

I have never been all that happy sucking through these things, they give less trouble when on the blow side I have found. Yes I know they protect the pump on the suction side, but with a brand new tank, I decided to take a chance, reroute the plumbing, & fit a new filter on the discharge side of the pump.

That was when the thunder & lightening started as a reasonably severe thunderstorm rolled in. I shut the shed & came down to the house.

That was when the phone went. My stallion is out of his little paddock, down the bottom accosting a neighbor's mare over the fence. Well my experience is that it is usually the mare accosting the stallion in fact. What ever, the lady owner is on her way to get the stallion away from her treasured mare, & will I come & get him?

On the way down to get him, I see a large brown shape a bit off the track in the long grass. It is my eldest daughters first pony, a really lovely old girl now no longer with us. She was 28 I think, so not unexpected. We got her as a 6 month old foal, so part of the family really.

So now home, wet & bedraggled, but better after a shower. The stallion is in his paddock, the 7 is still minus a fuel system, I have not even looked at the wheel balancer, & tomorrow I'll have to fire up the tractor, & dig a hole to bury a small horse. Until you've done it, you can't imagine just how big a hole that takes.

We need the rain, but I hope the promised storms stay away, digging holes in the rain is no fun.

Never a dull moment around here. I'll let you know when I get back to the ticking bomb.

Hasbeen