Sunday 24 March 2024

FHC resto nr. 158; Interior refurbishing

In my previous post I mentioned that I had managed to acquire a few rattle cans of RAL 9005 (Jet Black) Vinylkote, supplied by Rawlins Paints. And this is needed to refurbish some of the plastic interior parts.


But first all parts needed a good clean. With the first stage being a good scrubbing with warm water, dish-washing liquid and an old but still functional electronic tooth brush. This was to remove most of the dirt that had accumulated over the years. Next stage being the final paint preparations, cleaning and degreasing all the surfaces with a Vinylkleen solution (1 part Vinylkleen and 3 parts water). Quite amazing to see how much dirt the Vinylkleen solution still removed from some of the cleaned surfaces! Actually so much that some of the black plastic parts probably don’t need a new coating;

Early A post trim WKC481PAA / WKC491PAA


Steering column shroud XKC593 / XKC594

And with some of the later (grey) parts also cleaned properly, it was time to get one of the Vinylkote rattle cans out and cover the boring grey or weathered surfaces with a few layers of jet black coating.


At the time of me typing these words the freshly coated parts are still drying. But first impression is that the quality and finish of the used coating is still to the same level as when I first used it on the interior of ‘t Kreng in the mid 90’s. Detail pictures of the finish hopefully in one of the coming posts!

Sunday 17 March 2024

FHC resto nr. 157; Slowly starting again after winter


It’s been far too long since my last report on this subject. Well on any TR7 related subject actually! But I haven’t been completely idle on things TR7 over the last few months.
To start with I had to search through my spares again. This time to look for another rear screen, as on closer inspection the chosen one had badly corroded heating wires. Luckily I found one that turned out to be much better in that area.


Next problem area (still) are the mounting holes for the rear parcel shelf. But as soon as the weather improves and I have enough time that should be rectified, together with fitting the newly chosen rear screen.
And while trawling through my spare parts I thought it might be a good idea to use the opportunity to sort out some more stuff; various electrical stuff this time. Plenty of spares left, but with three 40+ years old cars one never knows when something fails.



Back to the interior. Thanks to Russ I am now in the possession of an early US spec steering wheel. For no obvious reason I always liked the steel of these. Probably because they shout 70’s. So when this one was advertised I couldn’t ignore it. In the pictures Russ sent to me, it looked like there were some tiny blemishes. But after a few hours of cleaning with hot water, dish-washing liquid and some brushes, it came out pretty nice. As new actually! A trip to a friend’s workshop, to use his blasting cabinet for the centre pad’s steel mounting plate, certainly helped with the finishing touches. Together with some new fasteners that is;



But that immediately leads to another problem, what steering wheel to choose for this car? As I also have this Moto Lita steering wheel which I ordered earlier in the cars restoration. Also very 70’s. Choices! Luckily the last one can also be used as a replacement in ‘t Kreng or my Defender.


And thanks to a recent trip to England I finally managed to get black (RAL 9005) vinyl paint (Rawlins Vinylkote) The joys of Brexit, as a result of which they didn’t deliver outside the UK anymore! But I can now start to rejuvenate some of the interior parts. So more cleaning to be done in the following weeks.



More interior parts to follow!

Monday 25 December 2023

FHC resto nr. 156; Rear parcel shelf & rear screen

It’s been a while since my last update on this car, about time to continue where I left! The rear of the interior to be precise. When I dismantled the car almost 10 years ago I found out the board material of the original three compartment parcel shelf was well beyond repair and only fit for the bin. So a GRP replacement was ordered and recovered.

Fast forward more than nine years and it is time for the final preparations of the parcel shelf: Drilling the various mounting holes. As you can only screw up that job just once, I ran a few extra measuring sessions for the various mounting points on the car’s body. Also fitted the hard foam support blocks I removed from the original shelf. One measuring session remaining, for the shelfs lower mounting edge. Mainly due to the way this part was fitted to the car, using drill screws. As a result of this the four holes for the lower edge are all over the place. So I will probably drill new large diameter holes in the body’s mounting brackets, and use spire nuts. This should give some room to manoeuvre.



And that’s where the weather intervened with long periods of strong winds and lots of rain during the short spells of spare time I have. Not ideal when the shed’s gate is the main supplier of light and the wind is blowing straight in. So I switched my attention the sound insulation pad (WKC 3340) that is fitted to the rear of the parcel shelf. Sadly somewhere in a previous life this was attacked by mice. So unfit to be re-used, but more than adequate to act as a template to create a new item. The original pad is shown at the top, the reproduced one below. For this I used 8 mm thick black high density EPDM rubber with a slightly profiled surface.


As you can see the mounting holes still need transferring as do the slits to negotiate the flanges on top of the rear inner wings. But that has to wait till I can go to the shed for at least a few hours. Hopefully somewhere in the coming two weeks!

Final job for this post was selecting the rear screens and mounting seal. Turned out the items that came from the car were in pretty good condition!




As you can see from the pictures above the rubber seal is in very good condition. It just needs a good clean before it can be fitted.

Saturday 23 December 2023

Seasonal Greetings

Christmas and the year 2024 are almost upon us.
Time to wish you all a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! See what 2024 will bring!