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Triumph TR3 - Control Head Rebuild

Dear Control (Head) Freaks,

A year ago, I posted some questions about my non-cancelling turnsignal function on the steering contol head on my '61 TR3A. After receiving information from Don Elliott (and a great article with photos), I put off the job and made do with the emergency "manual" cancelling method--my finger.

No more. Partly for functionality and partly for improved aesthetics, I popped for a new steering control head from TRF during their recent sale. It's now neatly installed and looks as great as it works, but it took a bit of doing. In the hope that it may help someone, here's what I encountered:

Pulling the wire harness up through the stator tube when removing the old control head was a snap. Putting the new wire back down the tube was not. I had attached a "string" to the end of the old wires so that I could pull the new one back down the tube. Clearly, I did not appreciate the force necessary to pull the new wire back down the stator tube, and the string broke. Instead, I ran a length of electrical primary wire down the tube, then wrapped an inch-long length of wire around wire behind the first bullet connector on the new harness. Between pushing the wire in from the steering wheel and having my son pull the wire at the steering box in short, coordinated "bursts", it went in rather easily. The instructions with the control head suggest you can push the wire in from the steering wheel position. Don't believe it. Yes, I sprayed silicone in the tube. Still, it's quite a tight fit.

The problem with the TRF control head unit was that the flange plate held by the three grub screws was binding badly when the steering wheel was turned. It was very difficult to turn it by hand. To make a long story short, the metal collar with the projection tab that contacts the turnsignal cancelling pins was much too tight on the plastic shaft of the control head on which it should turn. Added to that, both the metal collar and the plastic shaft were out of round so that the binding was particularly severe at one point in the rotation.

The solution was to separate the parts by removing the three set scews on the flange (accessed through the back of the control head) and enlarge the inside diameter of the metal collar with some emery cloth, then polish it up. I used a vernier gauge to find the high spots on the inside of the collar and the outside of the plastic shaft, and then sanded those down until they turned freely. After adding a little lithium grease, it works smooth as silk, and the turn signal cancelling is a revelation.

Before figuring all this out, I disassembled the old control head to see exactly what was going on in there. Now, that was a thrill. I carefully cleaned an amazing amount of greasy gunk (which actually helped keep the small pieces from flying all over) and learned much as I could by taking it completely apart and then reassembling it. That's how I learned where the TRF unit was binding. Now I have a well-functioning spare. The key here is to go slowly, make a few notes to show position and work over a towel to catch small pieces.

Bottomline: Don't install your new control head until you verify that the stator tube flange is rotating smoothly on the control head. If it's not, it will cause the contol head to bind and twist the stator tube each time you turn the wheel, and it's much easier to deal with on the workbench than on the car.

Amazing what a little turn signal cancelling will do for your outlook on life.

Regards to all,

Bill Stagg
1961 TR3A
Bill Stagg

This thread was discussed on 29/11/2003

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