tr7triumph.com

Early Saturday morning I set off for the National at the British motor museum with excitement. It has been over a decade since I last went to the National which was then at Billing. I get 10 miles down the road and the car stalls - I coast into a driveway, scratching my head looking under the bonnet with no obvious clue as to the problem. So I turn the key and engine fires up and off we go again. A few more miles and it happens again.
I then found that I could not release the bonnet lock ! Wedge re started, I head back home. I manage after a lot of cussing to get the bonnet open and strip the carbs. The float bowls had 10mm or so of rusty crud in the bottom. Could have planted potato's in them ! So i dug out the crap, cleaned the bowls and blew compressed air through the carbs and put them back together. So this is rusty fuel tank syndrome ! I had been driving the 7 for about 2500 miles in the past year after recommisioning it from a 9 year rest. I realised that I had never thought to fit an in line filter in all the years of ownership, so rectified this. So a new plan was hatched to get to Gaydon on Sunday.
to be continued..........

Well come on Paul, don't keep us in suspension, did you make it?

You can't possibly be on your original fuel tank , unless cleaned out & seriously treated, they must all be gone by now. From memory we all had them fail, rusting out from the inside, at between 18 & 20 years old. I guess those who replaced theirs with a new genuine tank, without extra treatment, could expect another round of rusty tanks about now.

I got an extra 10 years from my original, by repairing & treating it, but had to fit a new tank about 8 years ago, when the pick up & gage fitting started weeping at the tank. A sudden increase in fuel consumption from 8 to 14L/100Km gave me an idea I had a problem. Smart aren't I.

I found that Morey's upper cylinder lubricant is preferentially dissolved in water. It turns any water in the tank into an oily sludge. Although it would not be much help for the valve gear in this form, I expect it would no longer cause rust in the tank either.

I should know if it has stopped tank internal rust. I'll let you know in about another 10 years or so.

Hasbeen

Hi Paul,
Well that was an eventful weekend wasn't it! not only did you not make it on Saturday I didn't quite get there on the Sunday having managed to lock up the gearbox on the M40 which then lock the back wheels and send me into a near 360 spin.
Quite exciting and the skid marks were quite impressive too!

Wow ! Were the skid marks more impressive on the M40 or in your pants? ! Wish my travails were as exciting.
I take it you and the drivers around you came out otherwise unscathed ?

Well done for getting there Paul. Ian, I'm glad you got out of your situation unscathed. I was told that you were seen on the hard shoulder of the M40 but couldn't have imagined it was quite such an awful problem.

We had a misfire which has been an occasional problem for a couple of years now. It looks like I've finally traced it to a short in the electric fan wiring as we did a further 300 or 400 miles without a hiccup.

I'll have a video of the entire Sunday show and tour of the museum on YouTube soon. If all goes to plan it will be up there in 4K for those with a large size smart television or 4K video projector. But even computers will be able to run it in at least HD. Some nice TR7s on show.

Hi John, as your film includes shots in the museum, will you be making a DVD of the Weekend?
Regards Rex

Great video, John ! There is also a few shots of our cars appro. 19 mins. in on -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSe2XQk7Qf4
Steph of ' idriveaclassic ' has some interesting video's of the less glamorous end of the classic world - the cars that really need some attention.