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TR7 BFH #5

To: Triumphs@autox.team.net, british-cars@autox.team.net,
Subject: TR7 BFH #5
From: Eganb@aol.com
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 08:44:13 EDT
The ongoing saga of the TR7 Bearings From Hell.

Well, I may have lucked out.  I took my crank to T.Hoff in Raleigh.  I 
thought maybe this was a good place when I saw a collection of good-looking 
Chevelle SuperSports, GTO's and a fancy dune buggy.  

Real nice guy named Brad helped me.  The shop was clean, well lit, very 
orderly, and finished jobs where in thick plastic bags waiting for customer 
pickup.  All that was missing was a blond receptionist with a beehive hairdo. 
 Brad took me back to see the machine that grinds cranks -- an enormous beast 
that looked like something out of the industrial age -- runs in the 
neighborhood of $150,000?  

I got a real comfortable feeling with the place.  After inspecting the crank, 
Brad didn't think there would be a problem grinding and polishing it.  As for 
the nicks, he asked if I wanted them to keep grinding until they were all 
gone -- he indicated that a small indentation wouldn't be a problem if they 
ground less.  I told him to use his judgement.  

As to the grooves and ridges that were on the mains, but not on the rods, he 
suggested two problems.  One, that the crankcase made be warped, and the 
journals not lined up.  He told me to take a straight edge and lay it across 
the bottom of the journals and see if it "rocked," indicating that they 
weren't lined up.  I did and there wasn't any rocking I could notice.

His second thought was that the main caps had just been tightened down too 
tight -- and indeed when I took them off they were REALLY tight.  I had to 
use a cheater bar to get them off.  He thought they should torqued about 60 
lbs. or so, and I'll check my book to make sure before reassembling, but they 
sure felt like they were tightened a lot more than that. 

Anyway, assuming they don't have any problems, the regrind will cost $65 and 
should be ready today/tomorrow.

I'm trying to get some pictures up on the web so y'all can advise further.  

In the meantime I'm off to take pictures of a Rest Home for Studebakers in 
Snow Camp, NC for the paper I write for.  Should be interesting...  

Bruce
1980 Inca Yellow TR7 5-speed convertible
Chapel Hill, NC

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