WWWedge Ezine
It's here to help you
Current readers: 245 December 24 1998, Year 1, no. 13
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The purpose of this newsletter is to give (technical) information
about the British classic cars Triumph TR7 and TR8.
To make this newsletter a success, I need your HELP:
o Let me know if this newsletter contains the information you're
looking for.
o Let me know if you want to write a feature article.
o Let me know if you have suggestions, improvements, etc.
o Let me know if you find this newsletter useful and practical, and
if there is anything you would like to see covered.
For comments, articles, etc. send an e-mail to
workshop@voskotan.demon.nl
WEBSITE at http://www.team.net/TR8/mp/html/ezine.html
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THE WEDGE TEAM
The WWWedge website is entirely maintained by volunteers.
Johan Vorsterman van Oijen is responsible for the design and the
daily updates. Mark Elbers is fully occupied with the Registry pages.
Eric Teunissen is responsible for the TR Scale Models pages.
The WWWedge Ezine newsletter is moderated by yours truly (Johan
Vorsterman van Oijen) and my native language isn't English.
But I'll do my utmost to create readable articles.
To save me from the biggest spelling mistakes, David Parnham (an
Englishman in Holland) will check the Wedge Ezine. Great huh?
To get started, the WWWedge Ezine newsletter is heavily based on
the Wedge Tips collected by Philip Johnstone from Australia.
Another source is the TR7/8 mailing list. I will extracts threads
from this list and publish them in this newsletter.
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INTRODUCTION
One year of distributing this WWWedge Ezine. How do you like it so
far? I was thinking about a questionaire but naaahhh, with Xmas and
New Year coming, who's gonna read this magazine ( :-D ).
I have a couple of interesting figures;
My goal was to reach an audience of 20 readers, well with this Ezine
edition there are 245!!! Never expected that. I have subscribers from
the USA (of course), England, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands,
Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Scotland, Spain and the
Seychelles Islands.
I even have subscribers who do NOT own a TR7 or TR8. Remarkable!
As the subscriber database grew, my mailing software became a
problem. It just couldn't handle the amount of messages. Also my
provider didn't cooperate the way I wanted it. I hope the
problem will be fixed with the latest software I'm going to use.
The last few months I had little time to write some tech articles but
I do promise you for the next year a couple of interesting subjects.
I know of two of my subscribers that they are restoring their cars
from scratch. I wish both the best of luck and hope to see the
results (and of course an interesting article) next year!
Happy Holidays, Xmas, New Year and keep those wedges on the road!
Johan Vorsterman van Oijen (Netherlands)
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TOPICS
o Tropical Surprise
o 5.0 litre engine?
o About my experiences with a wedge
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WWWedge Gallery:
Paul MacDonald from Canada send me nice picture of his wedge.
Just got a picture of my car scanned and thought I would send it
along. It was the display for our local club at our Classic and
Sporting Car (mostly British) show , just outside Ottawa Canada this
last summer.
Of course it won best club display in the popular judging but the
real question was would any of the other clubs have a display next
year after being so badly beaten!!
Regards, Paul MacDonald
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In the previous Ezine I had an article written by Tim Buja (USA),
subject 'Repairing TR7/8 Temperature Gauge Variations Caused By
Electrical Load'. The schematic came out very bad so here's a
corrected version.
The following schematic is 68 characters wide. For best results,
view it in a monospaced font like Courier. A proportional font will
not line things up correctly.
__POSITIVE___BATTERY____NEGATIVE_____BATTERY TO___
| TERMINAL TERMINAL BODY GROUND |
| |
| ___________OTHER ELECTRICAL LOADS___________ |
| | (FANS, LIGHTS, ETC) \ |
| | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \ |
| |. . \| ENGINE TO
T--F--ballast--o-coil-"A"--coil "B"-o--coil "C"----B--BODY GROUND_
| . resistor | /| . STRAP |
| . |___calibration____/ | . |
| . . . . . resistor .|. . . . . . temp |
| . . . . . . . . . . . |______________sending________E
| unit |
| |
|__STARTER SOLENOID_________ALTERNATOR____________________________|
BATTERY TERMINAL
point "T" is the tap block on the battery-to-starter solenoid cable,
point "F" is the fuse & relay panel, point "B" is the body,
point "E" is the engine
Thanks to Tim Buja.
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TROPICAL SURPRISE
I got this message from a guy living at the Seychelles Islands! What?
Where? So I was curious, my geographic knowledge is not bad but the
Seychelles, where would they be.
Of course I have collected some information through the internet. The
Seychelles are located in Eastern Africa (northeast of Madagascar)
and consists of a group of islands in the Indian Ocean.
The size in total is about 2.5 times the size of Washington DC. Like
the guy says to me; tropical marine, humid, cooler season during
southeast monsoon (May till September), warmer season during
northwest monsoon (March to May). The offical language nowadays is
Creole and English/French. I thought you might liked a bit of
background ;-D
By Sandy Quan-Yat-Koon
Thanks for the reply. I bought my TR7 locally about five months ago.
It still has it's original 2.0 litre engine which works quite well,
considering it's age (1981 version).
I made contact with the Rimmer Brothers via the internet for spare
parts. I try to import spare parts and accessories monthly. I am now
thinking of getting the MK2 body styling kit, however the delivery
cost is more expensive than the kit itself.
Anyway my TR7 is the only one in the Seychelles (a real head turner).
There are however some other vintage cars, for example there is an
MGB, a stag, a dolomite. The problem overhere is spare parts. Most of
the other car owners don't have contacts like I do, and they have to
make do with Japanese parts modified to fit their needs, sometimes
they even have to change the whole engine (install Japanese engines),
which is a real shame.
Actually When I bought the car it was black in colour, but the paint
job was not good due to the fact that it was not in use for quite
some time and the previous owner had it covered with a car cover. As
you might have seen it is sunny here all year long (I mean really
hot) and this caused the car cover to melt into the paint job.
Therefore I had it resprayed to metallic black. The side stickers
were made locally by a friend of mine. I bought a new hood from
Rimmer Brothers. The mirrors are motorcycle ones (but they fit
okay). I bought the rear spoiler locally, I do not know which make,
but i could check if you are really interested. The wheels and rims
were also bought locally, they are 13". They tyre however is 205/60,
I had to fit in spacers as they made contact with the body. I also
fitted in Two air scoops on the hood to circulate air in the engine.
I bought the TR7 from an Italian guy, therefore I guess it's imported
from Italy. That same guy also has an Alpha Romeo
Spider(convertible).
My convertible is ideal overhere because I can drive top down
nearly everyday.
Sandy Quan-Yat-Koon
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5.0 litre engine?
Another remarkable message I received.
From: John M. Farrier
I am currently rebuilding my TR8 and am in the middle of creating a
5.0 litre motor out of the old 3.5 unit ,would you be interested in
details as it progresses? I am shooting for a good drivable street
motor with around 300hp.
Well of course (btw. these are the words of your moderator again).
That would be very interesting, imagine a 5.0 litre engine in your
car? Would that be a beast or not? But it would not be the record!!
Remember the story of Dave Rich in Ezine no. 4? He's put a 5.7
Corvette engine into his car.
The interesting part of John's 5.0 TR8 would be the process and
progress. Hopefully we can feature this through this Ezine. Give John
some advice, comments, etc.
Here's some more things John said to me:
I am still in the early stages of this project and although I've done
alot of research, I still have some possible conflicts in building
such a motor that I won't get resolved until the motor is installed
in the car and running. When I am finished I would be delighted to
write a step by step story of the project with all parts and sources
listed for other interested TR8 owners.
To date I have restored a TR7 (financially a waste of time), and a
Spitfire 1500 that was a very enjoyable project. The motor on the
spitfire was very fun to build, the head is ported and polished, has
high comp pistons, performance cam, motor balanced, clearances
"blueprinted", and it's topped off with a set of dual Webber 40DCOE
carbs. It has been a very competitive autocrosser and a very fun
driver.
I Purchased the TR8 last spring as a project car for only $1500.00.
What does a $1500.00 TR8 look like? Well, it ran pretty well and the
motor seemed very good. it has 82000 mi on it, the body is straight
with no rust or damage, but the top, interior and paint as well as
suspension are shot.
However, at such a low entry price I can afford to rebuild the car to
a very high standard and still not break the bank. To date I have
acquired a good 1964 Buick 300 crankshaft and a set of aluminum
Buick 300 cylinder heads for this project. The buick crank is needed
to increase the stroke. and the 300 heads are used because they have
larger inlet and exhaust ports. I have ported, polished and matched
the ports on these heads and have purchased a set of "BIG" valves as
well as tapered guides and hardened seats from Rimmer Bros.
I am currently waiting for a set of Crane double valve springs and
retainers to finish out the heads. At the moment I am removing the
3.5L from the TR8.
Future plans include replacing the cylinder liners with buick 300
liners, installing Chevy 305 flat topped pistons in a .040" oversize,
narrowed Chevy 327 rods and then a special rear main oil seal kit and
flywheel from D&D machine a buick-rover specialist in Michigan. Early
calculations show I should get a full 5 Litres out of this and about
10.5 to 11.0 comp ratio. With a good Crane 228 or 238 cam, good
carbeuration and exhaust should give us an easy 300HP! That should
be a nice step up from the 135hp in a stock unit.
I will send you a more complete and better written story when able.
John Farrier
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We have just released a Triumph version of the long standing MG BBS.
Both are linked at http://www.british-cars.co.uk/
We would like to exchange links if you are interested.
With best regards,
Mike Plumstead
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Fax: +44 (0)1689 860330 Email: mxp@mxp.co.uk MG enthusiasts:
http://www.mgcars.org.uk - one of the UK's top 20 sites Cars events:
http://www.cars.co.uk/ - acknowledged by AOL as the best resource
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ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES WITH A WEDGE
This story came in from Stephen Smith.
1979 TR7
Mileage 67,000
2nd owner
Location Colorado USA
Purchased the TR7 about 3 years ago for a project and for a vehicle
for teenage son to drive when he reached driving age. I also wanted
a fun car to commute to Silverton, Colorado via Red Mountain Pass
(the Million Dollar Highway).
Since we bought the car we redid the interior and painted it (photos
attached ). The car had a few wiring problems that we fixed. Faulty
grounding leads to interesting on/off combinations. Example of
depressing the cigarette lighter to turn on the instrument panel
lights. A new fan clutch was needed and a few adjustments here and
there. We have found that the car does much better if it is driven
everyday. A week or two of being idle usually means some small repair
job somewhere but it is an incredible car to drive. It was made for
the winding Red Mountain Pass.
Hard to resist putting the top down, even in the winter, when going
through the pass. I have owned other similar cars (Porsche 914, Fiat
X1/9, MGA, Camaro, Mustang) but overall the TR7 would be my choice.
I will soon loss the car to my son. But it has fun for us fixing up
something for him to be proud of. The World Wide Wedge website was a
useful tool in our endeavor. The TR7 should prove to be a fairly
economical and reliable form of transportation. And as my son says,
it should be a "babe magnet"!
As for me losing the car, there is hope I have a 13 year old
daughter that has me looking for another project!
Attached are a couple of photos.
Thanks
Stephen Smith
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Howdy, you had expressed interest in buying one of the TR8 Sales
Brochure Posters if I where to produce them.
Originally I felt it would cost about $40.00 each to produce them on
my Epson Printer.
Well the GOOD news is that I have signed the Pre-press authorization
on Thursday 12/3/98 to produce the poster on a four color printing
press. The 2 foot x 3 foot Poster should be printed next week!!!!!
AND Only $25.00 plus $5.00 S&H (postage and sturdy mailing tube).
Additional posters are $20.00ea. (one for office and one for the
garage or Den?) with no additional S&H.
UPDATE 12/1/98: The demand was enough for me to produce the Poster
on a four color printing press. Due to a work assignment I won't be
able to send any out until mid April 1999.
If you want more info e-mail me for info on how to get one in April,
Thanks for your interest!!!
The Poster is $25.00 plus $5.00 shipping and discounts for more than
one.
Bill Sweeting (TR8CCA Memberships/Mailing List)
Email : bsweeting@aol.com
TR8CCA Website : http://team.net/TR8/tr8cca/
Bill Sweeting and Have a Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!
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WWWedge Gallery:
TR8 FHC
Thanks for the interest you expressed in the TR, to answer your
questions no, the body was not restored as it was already in
exceptional condition. The colour is silver and whilst carrying out
the mechanical restoration I did take the opportunity to repaint the
engine bay.
The engine was taken from a 1986 SDI Vandan Plas which I purchased as
a donor vehicle and had completed 71,000 miles. Exhaust manifolds are
genuine TR8 and carboration is via twin SU's.
I have all receipts for the vehicle including original bill of sale
and FSH - hope this is useful.
Regards
Mark
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THE INFAMOUS WEDGE TIPS
Turn Indicators
Hard to Hear Indicators
If the flasher unit is hard to hear, a particular problem with
convertibles, it will be useful to fit a buzzer in the circuit. An
ideal unit is a 12 V device available from electrical component
stores. If you require the buzzer to operate in cadence with the ON
period of the indicators then you will require two units to be wired
in parallel with the instrument telltails. A simpler approach is use
only one unit wired across the existing flasher breaker. This will
then operate in the OFF period of the main indicator. Installation
is very simple with no soldering or cable joints required. Remove
the leads to the flasher unit and then re-attach them with the buzzer
leads trapped inside the sockets. Tape the buzzer to the nearby
wiring harness. If the sound level is too high simply put some tape
over the unit.
Philip
Windscreen Wipers
Wipers
The typical BL wiper system uses that helical coil (cable) and gear
boxes, driven by a crank in the wiper motor. I've never seen a TR7
with wipers that parked properly, but you might look inside the wiper
gear box for a clue. If I remember correctly (some years ago now)
there is a switch in there that is activated by an arm which is spot
welded onto the end of the helical coil (cable). On mine this arm is
broken off, and at the time when I was investigating this part of my
TR7 anatomy the cost of replacing it did not justify. One day I will
rebuild it and a new cable is first on the list. You might take this
opportunity to grease the cable and gear boxes as I will bet that
what grease is left in there resembles 4 week old chocolate pudding.
(Mmmm Yummy) inside.
BTW: a cable from almost any BL car will do as a replacement, just
make sure it is long enough and you can cut it to fit.
Mark Elbers
Wiper cancelling
My story about the wipers not returning to the down position. I have
had this problem for nearly a decade, just wound up timing the shut
off when the wipers were in the down position. However, late this
winter I had a problem with blowing a fuse every time I turned the
car on. In tracing for possible shorts, I opened up the wiper motor
and wiggled the wires looking for a short. Finding none, I put it
back together. I did find the short, and, when I next used the
wipers, THEY SHUT OFF IN THE DOWN POSITION! TA-DA! After ten years!
So, what the heck, if your wipers don't shut off in the down position
when you turn the stalk lever off, take the cover off and clean the
wires to your wiper motor. It worked for me!
Gary
Wipers
I have also had "very intermittent" problems with my wipers.
Occasionally, when I switch them off, they just carry on going !!!!
I once got them to stop and park ok, quite by accident!! I happened
to turn off the engine and then back on again (I was parked). It
worked, I tried it several times, it still worked. I suspect the
relay is acting up, but haven't got around to checking it out yet.
Don't try this while driving!!!!
Paul
Wipers
What I call the park wire, is really a switched power feed. This
switch is controlled by the position of the wipers. It is a limit
switch, much like those on the headlights. With the main wiper
switch in the off position, the low-speed winding is connected to the
park wire, which the limit switch normally connects to 12V. When the
wipers come down, the limit switch is supposed to ground out the park
wire, causing the wipers to stop only when they reach their lowest
point. If the wipers continue when switched off, either the limit
switch is fused or the wiper motor is not actuating the limit switch
for some reason. In my case it is the latter. You can check this by
removing the plastic cover over the wiper motor and jiggling the
limit switch with the main wiper switch in the off position, and the
ignition switch on.
Jody
Wipers - now parking
From the 1975 (first printing!) of the geniune BL shop manual the
electrical operation of the wipers is described.
The connector to the wipe/wash switch consists of five (5)
connections. The solid green one (I do remember that much) is the
voltage source (+12). The other four wires go to the three positions
of the wiper switch and to the washer switch. The connection between
the +12 and the washer switch is made when the stalk is pressed in,
of course pretty simple. In order to understand the other three
wires, a description of the electrical operation of the wiper motor
is needed.
There are three brushes on the wiper motor. One is the connection to
earth. The other two are the high speed and the normal speed voltage
sources. As long as voltage is applied to either of the voltage
source brushes and there is a good ground connection the motor will
operate. In order to make parking the wipers easier, a limit switch
is present at the end of the slider that moves the helical cable.
The switch is normally closed, with the slider activating the switch
causing it to open when the slider is at the end of its travel and
the wipers are in the parked position. One side of the limit switch
is connected to +12, and the other side runs to the stalk switch.
OK. When the stalk is in the off position, the low speed brush is
connected to the limit switch. The motor is run until the switch is
opened by the slider when the wipers are in the park position
(sometimes longer if the chocolate pudding feeds the switch :-). In
the normal (low speed) position, the low speed brush is connected to
+12 at the stalk switch. The motor will operate continuously since
the source of +12 is constant. In the high speed position supplies
+12 to the high speed brush. No magic here. Now to answer your
question about the temporary position labelled "1". Activation of
the stalk to this position should connect +12 to the low speed brush
as long as the stalk is held in the "1" position. By releasing the
stalk, the park circuit comes into play again, supplying +12 to the
low speed brush until the slider reaches the park position.
Please note that this is a description of very early 7's. I don't
expect that it would change, but you never know.
Jim
Lowest position of wiper stalk
OK. When the stalk is in the off position, the low speed brush is
connected to the limit switch. Now to answer the question about the
temporary position labelled "1". Activation of the stalk to this
position should connect +12 to the low speed brush as long as the
stalk is held in the "1" position.
Having had the fortune of taking my wiper switch completely apart
last week, I see nothing (as I stated above), that by pulling the
wiper switch lever down, would connect either winding brush to
anything! My Bentley manual also said that the momentary position
connects the low-speed winding to 12 V, but the switch just doesn't
work this way. I described the workings of my switch two weeks ago,
but since I can't believe that this is the only car with this switch,
I'll show it again for those who might remember what the inside of
their switches look like.
There are four electrical contacts in the main part of the switch
(i.e. excluding the washer circuit), and apparently, four lever
positions. In each position a little roller connects two of the
contacts together. I leave out the lever assembly as I couldn't make
an ascii drawing that made any sense.
plastic stop -o
0- ??? (lever fully down)
park circuit (limit switch) -o
0- off
low speed winding -o
0- wipe slow
+12 V -o
0- wipe fast (lever fully up)
high speed winding -o
for fast wipe - + 12 V connected to high speed winding - this is good
for slow wipe - +12 V connected to low speed winding - OK to turn off
- low speed winding connected to park circuit - looks right push
lever down (for momentary slow wipe) - connect park circuit to
NOTHING!
The switch does not appear to be missing a contact where the plastic
stop is. I can only fathom one possibility. With the park circuit
grounded out through the limit switch, it is actually holding the
motor in place, not just neglecting to supply power. If it is
ungrounded momentarily, the wiper motor might move slightly to its
natural resting position (perhaps with a spring I don't have) which
is off the limit switch. This means that if you went back to the off
position, the park circuit would now be on, and you'd get exactly
one wipe AFTER releasing the lever. Does this sound familiar to
anybody? What's strange is that the Bentley manual specifically
states that this lowest position connects the low speed winding to
+12 V.
Does anybody else have wipers where the lowest lever position does
absolutely nothing? As a matter of fact, since it cuts all power to
the winding, if I swing the lever there from either low or high speed
the wipers just stop where they are without parking. This is not
surprising from the way the switch is laid out, but still an odd way
for a switch to function (try it on yours!). For those where this
position DOES work, does anybody know how the connection that drives
the motor is made?
Another BL mystery,
Jody Levine
Lowest position of wiper stalk
From your diagram, I cannot see either how this type of switch could
possibly connect +12 V to the low speed winding in the fully down
position. Perhaps the mist position was an option on some other
models that used this same switch design. (?) I was interested to
hear at the British car day in Bowie this summer that one of the
restoration vendors said that it is not uncommon to find that some
pieces of standard equipment were never installed on some cars.
It seems that the folks at BL just put whatever they felt like onto
the cars at any given day. This might account for the fact that this
switch really belongs to some other model.
In looking through my manual (of which I believe the Bentley manual
is a reprint), it looks like the wipe/wash/trafficator switch is all
one unit and the steering wheel must be removed to service it. Is it
possible to take apart the switch without removing the steering
wheel? I have heard that the wheel is quite difficult to remove.
Jim Babcock
Wiper Switch (intermittent position)
I took my wiper switch apart a few years ago in an effort to figure
out why the washer motor wasn't working. When I put it back
together, the intermittent wiper circuit didn't work. (It worked OK
before I took the switch apart.) I found that the copper coloured
spring that returns the stalk from the intermittent (fully down)
position back to the off position must be carefully positioned in the
switch during reassembly. This is because since the spring is used
as the momentary electrical contact to connect +12 V to the low speed
brush via one of the other contacts in the switch.
When I took the switch apart, the force of the springs in the switch
shot all of the internal parts across the room, so it wasn't readily
apparent where things had to go upon reassembly. I can't remember
exactly what the switch looks like internally, so all I can tell you
is that one leg of the spring will press against the +12 V internal
contact, and the other leg will contact the low speed internal
contact only when the stalk is moved down to the fully down position
(squeezing the legs together.)
The "O" at the top of the spring will fit over a small (plastic?) pin
on one of the sides of the switch housing. I seem to remember that I
had to insert the spring legs between the internal contacts, and give
the "O" a half twist to get everything to line up correctly and
develop the proper tension to make the stalk return to the off
position. It will be difficult to reassemble the switch due to the
tension from this spring and the spring that holds the maintained
contact "slug" in place. It took me a number of times to get the
switch back together. Good Luck!
Tim Buja
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WWWedge Ezine is a free email newsletter for anyone who is interested
in the classic car Triumph TR7 and TR8.
Please note: the list of subscribers will not be shared with anyone.
The information is used to distribute the newsletter. This newsletter
is not SPAM. It's sent to you based on your subscription.
Advice, articles and opinions are offered 'as is'. The publisher
cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.
The newsletter may be freely copied and/or distributed in its
entirety.
(c) 1998, The World Wide Wedge (http://www.team.net/TR8/)
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