What first ?

[penlost]

So , I have driven 'Gitty' around on school runs and shopping trips. She has performed well, pretty smooth and probably just needs the revs adjusting (which I have been taught how to already!) as it stalls every now and then. I am now wondering what to tackle first, what would you recommend?

These are the things that stand out as a novice ready to go:

- The front two tyres are misshapen (steering wheel vibrates between 50-60) so I plan to swap them with the back and change them at some point.
- The front two footwells get wet. Not sure why yet but it has been a week solid of rain - massive amounts of Somerset rain in which the car has stood and been driven in. I now have made space in my garage so plan on investigating if it was just the rain finding its way though, or something else.
- The brakes screech, although they work well its annoying. Not sure how I would tackle this one yet.
- There are a few cosmetic jobs I could do to get into it, the car stereo could do with being swapped out for a new one and one speaker does not work. Turrets could do with sanding down and painting. Nothing major, but elbow grease required!
- I would like to swap the wheels out for alloys at some point.


How do you decide what to tackle first? Its obviously an ongoing thing and I looking forward to getting started but figure that you have to get the correct balance of safety/mechanical/cosmetic stuff to do do. Any advice welcome !

[sonscar]

Don't bother swapping the tyres , buy some new ones.I found TRs to be very sensitive to balance and wheel centerings.Whilst the wheels are off inspect the brakes and remedy any maladies there found,if there are any.Clean the disc surfaces with abrasive(search for the one to use as I forget),and fit some quality pads.Cosmetics are second to driving pleasure and safety in my humble opinion.Good luck and enjoy.Steve..

[andyf]

Remove the front disc pads and smear a little copper ease onto the backs of them, then refit. That will probably cure the brake squeal which is Bl**dy annoying.

[REPLIC8]

Replace all the tyres, even new budget ones will be much better and safer than old ones. Probably a good clean up of the front brakes will cure the squealing. Before you adjust the idle/tickover check and top up the oil in the dashpots, makes a big difference.

[John_C]

I'd put money on the wheel wobble being nothing to do with the tyres but your idea to swap the back to the front is a good starting point. Many TR7s suffer from what we call the persistent wheel wobble and no one single answer has been found. It seems certain that many different minor problems cause this wobble but having all four wheels tracked and balanced is the next thing to do. If you can find someone who can balance the wheels on the car then please let us all know as that seems to be a common cure.

Please also come back to us if topping up the SU carb dashpots with oil doesn't solve the stalling issue. If the distributor is standard and therefore still has points rather then electronic ignition then the dwell angle setting is the next port of call. Should be 39 degrees (43.33%) and easily adjusted if necessary. Plus or minus 1 degree is recommended but I find the points do open up very quickly in our cars - mine would go out to the point of not ticking over within 1000 miles (but my car is highly tweaked which seems to make a big difference).

Water in the footwells can be caused by all manner of maladies but the first place to look is the door seals as these are a common point of failure causing water ingress.

Turret tops need sorting - take them back to bare metal and Hammerite them. Others will not agree with this but I have heard of cars with suspension turrets that have come away and smashed into the engine. Whilst this is not going to happen iminently on your car it makes sense to stop any rot before it can take hold. A proper paint job can always be done later once you're certain it's all been cured.

Enjoy your new car and congratulations on becoming a TR7 owner.

[FI Spyder]

New tires fixed my rather violent 50-60 mph wheel wobble it had when I bought the car. They were balanced off the car as I had taken the alloys off to get new tires. I won't allow air guns around them so make sure I do that myself with torque wrench. Steel wheels are more easily bent. Changed it to silky smooth. I now (8 years later) have a mild shimmy at 65 mph, will get wheels rebalanced to see if that cuts it down as I can't see any play in the mechanisms but might be some microscopic play somewhere that requires micro inspection with a bright light. I did have a couple 4 wheel skids stopping and avoiding a couple of opposing cars that had driven in front of me then stopped in my path and would like to get them shaved but I don't think any one does that around here.

Hard brake pads can cause brake squeal, softer ones less so. There is a red silicone made specifically for putting on the anti squeal shims you can try. I don't recommend using something not formulated for the job you don't want anything migrating to the operating surface. Also you can chamfer the leading and trailing edges of the brake pads at 45 degrees may help. I do have a slight squeal when applying brakes backing up which happened after putting on some cross drilled slotted discs that were given to me that I can't get out but it's not a big problem as it's slight and only happens sometimes.

[j.johnson23]

look at mgf alloys.they fit straight on.You will probably get some with decent tyres.
Door seals can cause flooding in the footwells but so can a leaking windscreen.
Try and keep the car dry,the steel they are made from only has to smell water and it starts rusting,its a good idea to look at rustproofing-will save you money i the long run.
And most importantly,USE IT EVERY OPPORTUNITY YOU GET!

[penlost]

Thank you all, this is all VERY helpful!

It was a lovely sunny day here so had the top off and it at least started to dry out the very wet footwells. I also had a chance for a deeper inspection and overall I am impressed with how sound the car is. The door seals look like they very obviously need changing so will put that on the list in the hope that it will solve the water problem. I will also work out how to get underneath the black strip to check under the windscreen, but no obvious signs at the moment.

I checked the dashpots and they were nicely filled with oil. It was a bit better today but engine still idled very slow at times so tweaked it up a bit which helped.

I am going to take your advise and replace the tyres, but toying with the idea of putting some Keepax alloys on the car, buying them and refurbishing them myself. Will keep a look out on eBay.

So, I think next will be to try some of your suggestions to stop those squeaky brakes. VERY annoying !

I had a lovely run out in the sun today, roof down and finally have sound after wiring up the speakers

[sonscar]

When you get some alloys look up spigot rings/centerings rings or whatever the current terminology is.If the wheel centres do not exactly fit the hub it cn cause the wobble,It was the final piece in the puzzle to cure mine.Steve

[John_C]

Penlost, there's a very simple way to stop any water getting in under the base cover of the windscreen and that is to put a line of black electrical tape along the top from the glass to the panel. It can look very neat if done properly and even if there isn't a leak under there it's a very effective way of ensuring no water is ever going to get in behind the cover panel and rot that section of the bulkhead behind it. I had to replace that very section 18 years ago so I learned my lesson and I've had it sealed off ever since. I would expect the source of your leak to be the door seals as that is the most common cause.

I might actually give a pair of new steel wheels a try on my car to eliminate the remainder of the wobble. I've got it down to minimal by going through everything else so it's worth a try. I'd like a set of the Keepax alloys myself but they weren't an option on the 1977 cars so that's out.

[TR Tony]

All good advice from everyone here, but just a couple of other pointers for you to work through.

Poor idle can be a vacuum leak, so check the breather hoses to the carbs & the pipe from the airbox to the top of the manifold.

Wet footwells can be caused by water leaking in through the engine bay, if there is rust damage where the inner wings meet the bulkhead. Check this join carefully both sides, although it's difficult to see properly on the battery side as it is hidden by the tray. Even if there is no problem here, it's worth a smear of Waxoil along the join each side.

Good luck with it all & let's hope it stops raining enough for you to enjoy some top down motoring

[penlost]

Another Friday is coming round and tomorrow I would like to tackle the squeaking brakes. I am going to take the suggestion to put a small amount of copperease on the back of the brake pads and give it all a good clean out. Once done, i will change the front tyres for the misshapen ones.

Question - been looking in the Haynes manual and it looks fairly straightforward to do. Complete newbie here! One thing I am not sure about is making sure the reservoir chamber does not rise too much. It looses me at that point! Any tips/explicit instructions?

The water leak - almost defiantly door seals. So I will be on the hunt for new ones of those soon.

Enjoying myself

[andyf]

Hi Penlost, the reservoir rising will only occur if you have to push the brake pistons back into the caliper to get new (thicker) pads in. If you are just taking out your existing pads and putting them back you should not need to touch the pistons so the reservoir will stay as it is, no problem.

[penlost]

Thanks Andy,

I had time to strip down one side on Friday. I managed to get one brake pad out but the other was stuck fast in there. I might be doing something wrong but couldn't shift it - might be what the squeaking noise is ? I may run it into a garage just to get them cleaned up.

[FI Spyder]

Pads should be in there loose. Sounds like some serious corrosion? Piston might be stuck too. Although mine looked pretty good I took the calipers out and put in new seals. The pistons were corroded (pitted) a bit but not were it counted so cleaned them up, put in new seals and put them back together. It's hard to do anything proper on a daily driver, I always like to leave these things for winter projects and do them proper.