October 12th 2017

Some more engine work, changed No.2 injector again, another new spark plug, head tightened down, and tappets re-set. Running very well. Very pleased.

The bonnet has been taken out of storage and re-united. The 1st line up and trial fitting is pretty good. Thankfully we had put some pilot holes on the brackets and bonnet to assist, otherwise, I'm sure it would have taken ages to get any where near where it should be. A bit more fiddling and fettling to do, to get it to line up properly, but a very good start.

October 15th 2017

Just thought I would come and give you a hand !

October 19th-22nd 2017 - nearly there !

Lots of finishing work carried out, with Paul's help. Mainly checking all areas for loose bolts/nuts, fitting the splash panels etc. Seat belt reels have been secured with additional bolts through the mounting plates to stop them turning. We ? - well Paul found quite a few loose bolts ! Hands up, my fault for not getting into the habit of tightening everything regardless of whether you intend to go back to it or not. It's so easy to forget. Thank goodness for another pair of eyes. So in short, all the the underneath and all 4 corners are now complete. Just the engine bay to double check and re-fit/finish off the interior. Jobs left are getting fewer. The horn doesn't work for some reason. Not sure why yet, but has to be something simple. The carpets, seats and hood have yet to be fitted and the boot interior needs to be done. The spare wheel needs to be painted and then fitted with it's tyre. Not sure where I will get the hood fitted yet, but I will get this done externally. It will probably be a black mohair with sliver studs. Here she is, as of 22nd October. Hoping to get her MOT'd within next week or so.

25th-27th October 2017

Spent some long evenings with Paul getting the seat mounting brackets to fit (Mazda MX5 seats). The brackets aren't made properly.They fit the seat mounts, but don't line up with the floor holes.I had the same problem when I fitted these to my TR6. I think many others have also had the same issue. Why can't they be made properly ? Anyway after some fettling and some re-drilling and enlarging the holes we manged to get them to fit. Then re-marked the positional marks with a punch, otherwise when you come to paint them they will be lost. Then painted them up and fitted to the floor. We bent the front of seat brackets upward a bit to provide a flatter plane and put some spacers on the studs to raise the seats a bit. That's a personal choice. Test fit the seats, then tighten down the brackets into the correct positions. The drivers seat is a very tight fit as you have to line the seat up to miss the speedo drive housing at the front and clear the inside of the B post when moving the seat backwards. The passenger seat is easier as you don't have the same restrictions. Next we made a template for the rear carpets so that we could hole punch the rear carpets to fit over the seat bracket studs. The carpets will be fitted over the top of the mounting brackets as it looks a lot neater than fitting the brackets on top of the carpets.

We also found out why the horn didn't work. Me the muppet ! had extended the horn wires from the offside front to the nearside of the engine bay so as to mount the horns together. In doing so I had put the negative and positive wires together and thought I had separated them with insulators,but they were touching ! Unfortunately I had to dismantle the front cowling etc, to find the fault. All sorted and working now and I've just got to put everything back together again.

28th October 2017

A long, but good day today. Everything put back together, then onto the carpets and seats. All went well. The following pictures speak for themselves.

A few more jobs to do and one problem found. We found a small weep from a brake line on the rear n/s at the chassis "T" connection. So that will need to be sorted. Other jobs. Fit the "P" rubbers on the windscreen. Fit different windscreen wiper arms. Well the correct one's for a TR5. I've currently got TR6 one's and of course the wiper motor just isn't up to the job. I didn't even know there was a difference, but there is, in the springs. The boot needs to be fitted out, but after we sort out the brake line next week, then It's MOT time !!!