A HEAD OF STEAM
Chris had never done a coolant change himself – now he’s wondering why he was so worried about it
1980 TRIUMPH TR7 FHC
In my update right at the end of last year, I signed off 2020, not by hoping for more car shows to go to or dry days in which to enjoy my TR7 without a massive clean-up mission afterwards, but that the wiring work done by Robsport had cured it of its battery drain issue.
Well, I’m pleased to inform everyone that… I’m still in the dark on that one. The battery needs to be connected in order for me to find out if the battery is being drained, and living in the hope of punctuating the monotonous (albeit necessary) stayat-home routine with essential trips to the shops in the TR7, I’ve always left the cap on the battery isolator unscrewed so I don’t need to worry about it starting when I want to use it. I’ll experiment eventually, but in the meantime I’ve changed the coolant.
Old hands may scoff at this admission, but I’ve never done this myself until now. I have, of course, paid others to do it in line with maintenance schedules, but I’ve always seen it as something that I couldn’t trust myself to do properly. Much of that notion stems from my first classic being a mid-engined Toyota MR2, which had a lot of plumbing between the radiator and the 4A-GE twin-cam – and plenty of potential for air locks.
However, with time on my hands and having already done an oil change, I felt I should give it a go.
I read the Haynes manual’s entry several times over and asked Robsport mechanic, Ben, for advice. He explained that the process is straightforward so long as I remember to undo the block tap bung on the side of the engine.
Emptying the old coolant was easy enough. I removed the aforementioned bung and then the hose that attached to the lowest point of the radiator. The coolant followed freely but I poked the inside of the engine with a screwdriver regardless as Ben told me that sediment can build up here. With the system empty, it was simply a case of replacing the bung (having first fitted a fresh washer) and re-attaching the coolant hose. I then topped the system up with fresh coolant via the overflow reservoir.
To test that I’d done the job properly and hadn’t introduced any air locks, I gingerly drove to a shop in a nearby village, giving the 2.0-litre fourpot time to come up to temperature and so its owner could get some milk for a celebratory brew. The temperature needle stayed resolutely in the middle of its gauge and the system hasn’t required any top-ups since. Go me!
By the time this issue has gone to press Boris will have already revealed his road map out of coronavirus restrictions. And just as we might have some certainty on when he can all enjoy car shows again, I might know for sure if the battery drain issue has been cured by my next update.