Project TR7 part 8: A Detroit treasure helps save our British barn find

Detroit is an amazing town for old car fanatics.

Ferndale Radiator, a quintessential Detroit shop, is located just north of the city limits. Lazy, billowing orange flames from a pair of blowtorches, visible from the outside through fogged windows caked with decades of radiator crud, soot and dust, burn all day long near a giant vat of unknown acid. They're almost the only light in a dark shop where Mel Koykka makes his weird, wild radiator magic, like a scene straight out of "Mad Max":

It's an early Monday morning in suburban Detroit, not yet 9, and I've stopped to see Mel on my way into work. In my arms, I carry a 40-year-old radiator and I'm still some distance from Mel. Maybe half of the world's population would recognize that the part I'm carrying as a radiator. Far fewer still would know what it does. An even smaller percentage would know what vehicle it came off.

But Mel? Sitting at his cluttered desk, in a dim light? Well, there's a reason he's the king of cooling around these parts.

"TR7," he says confidently, before I've said much more than hello.

Mel gets radiators sent to him from all over the country for every kind of vehicle, from the brass era until now. I asked Mel, whose family has been fixing radiators in the same spot for nearly a century, to inspect Project: TR7's radiator, and if the core is clogged or damaged, to replace it with the most efficient core he's got.

Mel repaired a lot of TR7 radiators from the mid-'70s to the mid-'90s. And someone in Wisconsin, where the TR lived for 39 of its 40 years, saw Project: TR7's radiator during that time, too. Mel showed me where a few small repairs had been made, and he said the core had been replaced. So, it turns out the car has indeed had some work done to it.

Mel hasn't seen a TR7 radiator in years. But not only did he recognize Project: TR7's radiator, he even had an obscure part for it. There's a port on the side of the tank where the air-conditioner fan probe lives in a rubber grommet. Mel turns around, opens the middle drawer of a battered old wooden desk, roots around for a moment, and then pulls from it a ziplock bag that contains two new old stock rubber grommets, parts only ever used on TR7s.

I started that big job by taking the hood off the car for better access to the engine bay. Then I went to work. It took me roughly three hours to remove the heavy, power-sucking York compressor for the air conditioner, the air pump and its manifold, the intake and carburetors, and the entire exhaust system from the manifold to the tailpipe. It's here where I found the more evidence Project: TR7 had seen maintenance.

The car appears to have had its catalytic converter replaced, along with the center and rear mufflers. The replacement exhaust system, with its generic hangers, was clearly the work of a muffler shop and was done to a decent standard. But it's rusty and it doesn't look right, so out to the recycling it went.

The exhaust manifold came off the head without much trouble, though one bolt tore some aluminum threads from the head, and a helicoil will go there.

Even before I first touched a wrench to the TR, I configured my own head to the reality that getting the car's cylinder head off would likely be the toughest job of the whole project. I am not wrong. I suspected the cylinder head studs were going to be troublesome, and they will be.

Using a special tool -- basically a long double-nut type device made in England -- three studs came out without much fuss. Two studs snapped clean off right at the surface of the head. But I have The Head Honcho at the ready, a special tool built by members of the Triumph Wedge Owners Association, designed to solve these problems.

The next job is to see if the Head Honcho really works as advertised. If doesn't it, Project: TR7, with its new brakes and suspension, might sit another 10 years before it sees another brave soul invest blood, sweat and tears into it.

Project: TR7, Part 15 -- Loose ends tied, this car is complete

Project: TR7, part 14 -- Applying craftsmanship

Project TR7 part 13: Paging Joe Lucas

Project TR7 part 12: The devil is in the details

Project TR7 part 11: Shifting priorities

Project: TR7 part 10 -- The big bill comes due

Project TR7 part 9: The Head Honcho solves one problem but leaves behind another

Project TR7 part 7: A complete brake job

Project TR7 part 6: Off with its head! (just not today)

Project TR7 part 5: Suspension surgery begins

Project TR7 part 4: It's alive!

Project TR7 part 3: Setting the baseline