TR6 Vent Grille - Metal/Chrome alternatives to pla

[Crawford]

Hi,

 

For various reasons, i am considering replacing the vent lid and hinge etc on my 71' TR6 with the grille fitted on later models.

 

Problem is, i don't like the plastic much. Whilst washing my old man's sovereign (Daimler), i noticed that the grille on it was chrome.

 

Does anyone know of such things for TRs? My initial catalogue and internet searches have yielded little.

 

Help, as ever, appreciated!

 

Crawf

[foster461]

I wonder why you think that open "go ahead, dump a gallon of water into the plenum and down the inner wing" grill is better than the metal lid with the rubber seal ?. I have actually been pondering the opposite, how to retrofit the lid on a 74.5 !.

 

Stan

[Richard Crawley]

Agree with Stan. At least with the earlier flap you can close it & keep the water out; you won't get much out of the heater with it shut though!

[Crawford]

The reason for considering the change was that i have speakers mounted in the front kidney panels; the back of these either fouls against the heater, or the lever to open the air-intake flap.

 

Given that daimler manage to keep water out, i thought i too ought to be able to.

 

Nonetheless, i think the better thing to do might be to simply remove the lever, keep the flap, and operate by hand.

[Richard Crawley]

The reason for considering the change was that i have speakers mounted in the front kidney panels; the back of these either fouls against the heater, or the lever to open the air-intake flap.

What speakers do you have? I don't have any problems with the Pioneer units I'm using.

 

The problem with the open grill is that it leaves the plenum constantly exposed to rain water. This travels to each end of the plenum, down a short rubber tube & directly into the void between the bulkhead side panel & outer wing. The drain slots between the inner & outer cills silt up so the water has nowhere to go until it rots it’s way out. At least with the flap you can shut it during a deluge but if you blank it off completely, you’ll get practically nothing out of the heater as it needs a free flow of air into the plenum for it to work efficiently.

[Crawford]

My Speakers are 13cm Pioneer TS-E136C, which i thought we be a pretty straight swop with the set of 13cm Blaupunkt speakers which were there previously (one of which was blown).

 

Of course, life isn't that easy, as these have subsantially larger rear cones. Hence the lack of space.

[Richard Crawley]

My Speakers are 13cm Pioneer TS-E136C

Mine Pioneer speakers are TS-1001. They are quite old (around 10 years) but were reasonably high spec at the time & are as new; they sound pretty good as well, even by today's standards.

 

I can't really hear that much over the din the 6 makes so they are only really usefull for passing the time at traffic lights!

[Crawford]

Certainly can't hear much with the roof down, but were nice over the winter when i had the hardtop on. Make motorway miles a little more interesting!

[jemgee]

Other alternative is Revington air scoop as designed for TR4 rally cars - pic on page 131 of Roger Williams book How to improveTR5,250 and 6

[foster461]

It looks like all the parts for the early vent cover are still available so I was thinking of having a go at retrofitting the metal vent to replace the cheap plastic grille. I noticed there is an angled piece visible when I look down the vent that was probably where the hinge for the lid was attached but I cant find a drawing of how it all looks and how the metal rod wends its way into the car. I wonder if someone with a metal vent could describe how it works and maybe post a picture taken down the gullet ?.

 

The parts from moss include the vent lid, a spring, a rubber seal and a metal rod assembly.

 

Stan

[Richard Crawley]

Stan

The angled piece is not associated with the hinge lid, it’s job is to deflect water entering the plenum down towards the base & prevent it from directly entering the top of the heater unit which pokes up into the bottom of the plenum; all very crude.

 

Before you rush to buy the vent lid assy. Make sure you can actually retro fit it; you need 3 holes with 3/16 UNF weldnuts underneath at the rear of the plenum opening in order to attach the vent lid hinge to the car. There should also be 2 spot welded brackets on the front inside face of the plenum; the long edge of the spring clips behind these with the pointy bits clipping into the holes in the bracket on the underside of the vent lid. You could retro fit these bits I suppose bit it will be very fiddly trying to weld them inside the plenum & then there’s the damage to the paintwork!

 

You also need the actuating lever underneath the dash – part of the metal dashboard panel & not available separately as far as I know; otherwise you won’t be able to operate the lid from inside the car. Does the Moss kit include the plastic knob for the actuating lever? These were like hens teeth years ago as they broke so easily; not essential but it hurts your fingers without it. There should also be a clamp to adjust the operating length of the rod assy. where it passes through the actuating lever; similar to the one used on the end of the bonnet & heater cables.

 

This probably all sounds a bit confusing & I fear a digital picture would not actually show any detail as it's all too far dawn inside the plenum but the BL parts book & manual have some good sketches so looking at those should make sense of it.

[jonlar]

Hi Richard, many thanks for that information, ours is a CR car with the plastic grille and we'd certainly prefer the manually opening closing flap, and an excellent bit of lateral thinking in the first place Stan - "That's another fine mess you've got me into Stanley" - sound familiar?

[foster461]

Thanks for the info, the parts from Moss in the US are very inexpensive so it wont do any harm to aquire them for experimentation. I'm hoping my experience at the front of the car is going to be similar to the rear where I found several holes and brackets that only make sense if you have fuel injection. I dont see the plastic knob on the Moss pictures but one of the other suppliers (Vicoria British) seems to list something. VB are not known for high quality but they are often the last resort for a knoff off part while you search for the real thing.

 

In my case the plan B would be to fit the lid in place of the grille with the rubber seal. ie screw it down to the same brackets. I never use the heater. But if possible I'd like to get the metal vent working.

 

Stan

[foster461]

For a start here are some photos of the parts from Moss and the 1974 grille/plenum arrangement with the grille removed. As you can see we have holes but no captive nuts (I think that can be solved with nuts and bolts and washers) and I see no sign of any clips on the front wall for attaching the spring although again I would see that as a solvable problem too using bolts or rivets to attach a fabricated bracket/clip. It would be very helpful to get a look at that front mounting for the spring..

 

http://www.rollingcat.com/vent.htm

 

 

Stan

[Richard Crawley]

Hi stan

Looking at your pics; the cross brackets are not required for the vent flap but the rest of it doesn’t look any different. You have the 3 holes but, as you say, not the nuts on the underside. With very limited access, I wish you good luck with trying to use loose nuts & washers on the underside; I would go for gluing the nuts in place with epoxy but even that is going to be tricky on the centre one!

 

For the front spring retaining clips, I will try & get the digi camera down inside the plenum far enough to get a useable pic for you; if not I will take some measurements & make a sketch. The clips are nothing more than bent bits of tin, you could easily make them in 5 minutes flat & if you’re not bothered about seeing the rivet heads on the bulkhead, you could quite easily pop rivet them in place but I would use steel rivets rather than aluminium.

 

You probably won’t see the plastic knob on the Moss list (as I said, hen’s teeth) but it does appear in the BL parts book. It’s not critical as you can’t normally see it & probably only concours judges will know it’s supposed to be there. What’s more important is you have the lever it’s supposed to fix to & I’m not sure if a RHD metal dash will have it.

 

The rubber grommet is the smallest size used on the car, only around 10 mm I think with a miniscule hole for the 3mm rod – there are others of this size on the car. Also looking at your pics, you don’t seem to have the actuating rod clamp; this is the same as that used on the heater actuator.

 

Re ‘screwing it permanently down’; an open plenum is also essential to allow fresh air to the vents but that may not be quite so important if you have the top down all the time; where exactly is Dunstable anyway? & what’s the weather like there?

[foster461]

Thanks again Richard, I was mistaken about the knob availability, what I thought was a knob in the Victoria British picture is something they are calling a "trunnion and screw" and I think that is the clamp you are describing.

 

On the interior I do do see bracket on the RHS that looks lost. I am pretty sure that is the bracket that supports the rod but I dont think it is complete so a snapshot of that area would also be very helpful if you can get to it..

 

where exactly is Dunstable anyway? & what’s the weather like there?

 

Dunstable, MA is in northern Massachusetts, about 30 miles north and slightly west of Boston. The closest large town is Nashua, NH, Dunstable is just a small village of maybe 2500 people. No town sewer, garbage collection or water. Volunteer fire brigade. Very New England and a wonderful place to live.

 

We get severe winters from December though the end of March where it is just too cold and too much snow to even think about driving a TR. I drive a Toyota Sequoia with 4wd and good ground clearance because it is not unusual to get a couple of feet of snow in a few hours during January and February. It gets very cold, we go for days below freezing and it will get as cold as -10 or -20 F for a couple of weeks. Over the Winter we may get a foot of snow every week and by March we are running out of places to plow it. And if you think this sounds grim, I know we have some Canadian friends in this forum, we get most of this bad weather from them so it has probably warmed up from absolute zero before it gets here.

 

It starts to get warmer by April, and by May we are getting into TR weather. Summers are generally good all the way through to mid to late October when it is time to start putting the TR to bed. We get a few weeks in the summer where it is hot and humid like this last couple of weeks where it is almost too hot to be out in an open car. I drive the TR from May to the end of Oct on any day when no rain is forecast. The soft top is mostly waterproof but after putting all that work into the body I just cant bring myself to let water pour into the plenum so before I will venture out for more than sunny day trips I want to fix the vent so I can seal it if I’m off on a trip and it is raining.. There are quite a few TR and British car events here but they are all several days drive to get to the even the closest ones on the east coast and the mid west.

 

Stan

[Richard Crawley]

where exactly is Dunstable anyway? & what’s the weather like there?

Stan

Blimey & I though we were having a **** summer!

 

The inside of the plenum proved impossible to photograph, even using mirrors as they say; so I am making a sketch which I hope you will be able to understand. Have got a pic of the lever in position unfder the dash but even that took several attempts; hope to post both sometime today.

[Richard Crawley]

Stan

having some trouble trying to post; In the pic you can see the actuating lever with knob fitted, pivoted inside the bracket on the metal dash. At the top centre you can just see the actuating rod & the clamp (trunion).

[Richard Crawley]

does this work?

[Richard Crawley]

Try again

[Richard Crawley]

Stan

Can't get any sense out of this; the pic posted easy enough but I cant get the file size of the sketch down to give decent resolution. If you want the sketch, let me know your personal 'E' address & I will send a decent copt.

[foster461]

Thanks Richard, the picture is perfect. I'll PM you an email address fro the sketch. Not trying to hide, just trying to keep away from the spammers..

 

Stan

[jemgee]

Thanks to the picture from Richard I now know that I am missing the plastic knob on the under dash lever. No wonder it hurts trying to open or close the vent from the inside. I just leave the vent up apart from washing the car when I push it closed and open it again from the top.

[Richard Crawley]

No wonder it hurts trying to open or close the vent from the inside.

Most of the originals broke in the first couple of years of the cars life, they are made of a hard plastic which may even be bakelite! I managed to get hold of an original at the Bristol show many years ago when it was still held in the docks but as far as I know they are now unavailable; as you say, most don’t even know they are supposed to be there! It does hurt your fingers a bit without it though.

 

Just in case any or you are starting to wonder, I am serious not a serious concours bof, I just have a eye for detail!

[jonlar]

Just in case any or you are starting to wonder, I am serious not a serious concours bof, I just have a eye for detail!

Came to that conclusion a while ago, Richard, but you do like things 'right' and 'as per the book' - intended as a compliment!, and you usually have the official answers or know where to find them.