The TR3 body tub is finally home. The interior, inluding boot & engine bay has
final colour and its freshly undercoated. Yesterday I started trying to figgure
out how to get it back together. First thing I did was drop the new boot mat in.
Sorry, dosn't fit properly. Hmmm maybe the mat that TRF was selling at
Triumphfest was for pre-TS6000 cars. Well the rubber floor mats fit. I have the
new wiring harness strung out in the car. It was fun trying to decide which
holes in the bulkhead are for stringing which parts of the harness goes through.
I went to mount the new voltage regulatorand found my self puzzled over the
mounting holes. I should have taken pictures. I pulled out the instrument pannel
and wondered if it looked this bad before storrage or if it went down hill while
being storred.
It seems I spent a lot of Sunday looking through nooks & crannies all over the
house and storrage shed to see what parts I have & what their condition is. Its
amazing but so many of the parts I took off the TR before restoration now looks
much too ratty or warn to put back on. Especially on a newly painted body next
to new parts I got to replace old worn ones that were on their last legs. I
have this terrable feeling that I will be spending 4/5ths of my rebuilding the
TR time pondering over things like which hole does this part fit through, or how
does this assembly go together, or how is that routed. The one thing that seems
to be missing is a restorer's guide on where things belong.
I don't suppose that someone has a post TS60000 TR3A thy would like to store
over at my place? Even a pre-TS60000 would help. Next Triumph Travelers
meeting, I'm coming with a flashlight and note pad. Not knowing exactly where
all those parts go is going to cost me a LOT of time. When I get a car going
(both the MGBGT and Land Rover are down), I will need to drop by someone's house
and absorb the spirit of a TR3.
Meanwhile, the Land Rover's clutch master cylinder has become an air injection
system. It is sitting about waiting for an aid shippment from Merseyside Land
Rover Services Ltd. in Liverpool to arrive. I'm going to convert the brakes to
duel line power assisted system at the same time. Shipfitters diesese?
Sorry Larry, but I currently have no way to return the trailer I borrowed.
Hopefully Chris will come by & get it. But if not it will be high priority when
the LR is up & running.
The MGBGT has been down on a project that has taken W A Y too long. It
burnt an exhaust valve last March or so. The head got rebuilt with new hardened
intake & exhaust seats, new exhaust valves and new guides. As the head was going
back on I had a relapse of ship fitter's disease. As a result, I replaced the
bent leaking petrol tank and installed a TR6 fuel filler cap. I also replaced
the front calipers & pads along with the rear wheel cylinders and shoes. The
pads & shoes were due. One piston was frozen on each caliper, and one of the
rear wheel cylinders was a smaller one from a roadster. I was putting the carbs
back on & noticed they needed rebushing big time. I sent the carbs off to the
Roadster Factory for a rebuild. Since the Moss catalogue said there was only
one SU used in '68 and it was only used in '68 I specified what I wanted by
number to make sure the wrong part wasn't returned. After I got these
beautifully rebuilt & rebushed carbs back and went to mount them I discovered
that there were really two types of SU used in '68 & I had the wrong intake
manifold to use the others & pass SMOG. I returned them to The Roadster Factory
with an Opps letter. I received the proper ones late last week and put them on
Saturday before the TR came home. Thats when I decided to convert to a single 12
volt battery. One of the 6 volt batteries was dead and not taking a charge.
Once I obtained a 12 volt battery & got it installed I noticed the fuel pump
wasn't. Hmm. Made sure there was power going to it & everything was hooked up.
Next I took the Net's advice and beat it with my knock off hammer. Faced with
force the pump immediatly agreed to function.
I tried to fire it up and discovered it would only fire for a brief time with
ether sprayed into the carbs. About that time, the TR arrived on the back of a
tow truck and stole my attention for the rest of the weekend.
Three cars & none work. I was afraid this was going to happen eventually.
Striving against the evil forces of Entropy,
TeriAnn
TeriAnn Wakeman One of these days, I'll be old enough that
twakeman@apple.com people will stop calling me crazy and start
LINK: TWAKEMAN calling me eccentric.
408-974-2344 TR3A - TS75519L, MGBGT - GHD4U149572G, 109 - 164000561
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