[TR] Whisk(e)y and steering

[Brian Jones]

Dave - you are right. That'll teach me to listen to NPR. Whisky is  
from from Scotland or Canada. Canada's Scottish heritage is probably  
the reason.

http://www.miss-charming.com/bartender/bourbon.htm

Also, regarding capitalisation, the one writing guide to hand has it  
'Scotch whisky', but 'scotch' when on its own.

Straying to Triumphs: I am working on my steering column. It started  
with repairing the steering wheel, which was badly cracked at 3 and 9  
o'clock. It's been one of those jobs that became a 'while I'm here, I  
should....'  so I've re-bushed the column, and have installed new  
felts and stiffened the bracket on the back side of the firewall with  
a plate. All is now solid.

I mention this because I had had believed the rubber couplings in the  
steering column were in decent shape. What I could see of them looked  
sound.....but when I started to undo the bolts, the upper coupling  
pretty much fell apart. It was split from the backside (the backside  
when the car's wheels are straight), almost all the way through. I  
don't think the split would have been easy to spot even if it had  
been on the 'top side' while the rubber was compressed. Goodness  
knows what could have happened if that had completely failed at speed?

Just a thought for anyone that has not checked their couplings in  
years /never...jack up the front of the car and loosen the four bolts  
at a coupling (only loosen, no need to remove, as they are a bitc# to  
get back in) examine the coupling now it is no longer squeezed by the  
shaft adaptors. Move a front wheel slightly to examine all sides of  
the coupling. Hopefully you won't find the deterioration I did, but  
if so, you'll be glad to know.

The original job - the steering wheel - has turned out really well. I  
opened up the cracks in the rim with a dremel tool, and used PC-7  
epoxy to rebuild the damaged areas. I found PC-7 took twice as long  
to cure as it said 'on the tin' but once cured, it is a dense, solid  
material that makes a sound repair. The pack of PC-7 that is like a  
double film-tube that the big-box-stores carry was plenty for my  
several repairs. Patience in sanding the epoxy to shape pays off. To  
refinish the rim of the wheel, I used a clear, bonding-promoting  
primer, followed by a sand-able primer (2 coats), followed by an  
epoxy gloss black paint (3 coats) to finish. The gloss epoxy paint  
claims a highly durable finish. Time will tell, but right now, the  
wheel looks terrific and as good as I could have hoped for.

Eastwood offer kits for steering wheel repair: http:// 
www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=2571&itemType=PRODUCT ($41, or $11  
cheaper without instructions). I just went to my local store... spent  
less and saved shipping.

On fitting the bolts for the rubber coupling, the holes in the  
coupling are set a little wider apart than the holes in the adaptors.  
You can get the first three bolts in place with ease, but then the  
fourth must be almost 1/2" out of alignment. I had been struggling  
with a c-clamp to compress the rubber to align the bolt with no  
success. A quick interrogation of the archives told me to use a large  
circlip (hose clamp). Bingo, job done.

Also, the couplings that I could find have recesses countersunk in  
the bolt holes (2 on on side and 2 on the other). This may be for the  
TR6. The TR4 needs no recesses, but that coupling is not available  
that I could find. I resolved this by orienting the coupling to bolt  
heads on the non-countersunk side, and the adaptor's foot to the  
coupling's recessed side.

Brian
1962 TR4


I beg to differ.  I just looked at my Seagram's (Canadian) bottle and  
it says
"Whisky.