Here's My Latest Update:
Last autumn, I decided that the winter would be a good time to do some frame
reapirs to the TR6. 2 (count them ... two) frames were collected for the
project. Reality and cold weather made the project of transplanting the
body to a new frame seem a little too ambitious...
Then came Auto Rust Technicians of Cranston RI (right next to Lang's Bowlarama,
no less). A TR friend had his TR250 fixed there, so it seemed like a good
possibility. Two weeks later I drove my car home, albeit applying a lot of
left steering lock to keep the car going in a straight line. Oh brother,
seemed like major alignment problems.
I decided to replace the rear swing arm bushings and springs along with the
u-joints and hydraulics, then do an alignment. This job took slightly longer
than I had planned, but I did get the job done in reasonable time.
I finished up last Friday night (8-apr-94), and took the car for a spin. The
steering was much better! I had fudged the alignment by removing some shims
on one side, and apparently I had identified the alignment problem. I'll put
it on an aligment machine to be sure, but I think it is currently very close to
spot on. Everything seemed to be working quite nicely. I was very proud of
my accomplishment.
One note: I installed a set of "competition grade" springs that I had acquired
over the course of last summer. I would not recommend the type of springs that
I
got. The ride height is wrong. I would appreciate any feedback from this list
regarding stiffer rear springs for TR6, by the way. Right now, my car is
rather high in the back (by at least an inch or so), and it feels slightly
strange to drive a TR6 with a "hot-rod" stance (high in the back, low in the
front.) Also note, these springs did not come from any of the "major" TR6
suppliers.
Saturday my TR friend Jeff Creel called for some minor assistance with his car.
I figureed that I would "impress him" by driving over in the TR. On the way
over, I was accelerating up a hill and I had to slow down for a truck up ahead.
I lifted from the gas, and I was surprised by a rather loud gear/bearing noise
from the back of the car. At first I thought I had a bad u-joint, but I'm not
positive now. In fact, I think I spun the pinion bearing(s) in the diff. The
reason that I came to this conclusion is that the noise only appears when I
lift from the accelerator at speeds > 15 MPH. There is no noise under load.
Now I'm bumming. If I need another differential, or if I need to rebuild this
one, I'll be off of the road for a while. Darn. I'll be checking it all out
tonite (barring TAX complications!) looking for obvious broken, loose things,
but I think I have a differential problem.
Any TR6 folks out there care to share their TR6 rear-suspension etc. problems
with the list? Any things I should be looking for?
Sorry for the long-winded report, it's kind of slow here today.
regards,
rml
p.s. the "competition springs" are coming out 'till I figure out a better
solution WRT ride height etc. I would really appreciate technical advice/
support on this issue.
p.p.s. For OFATP, folks from the states need to file income tax statements
prior to midnight on 15-Apr, hence my reference to TAX complications. Of course,
I have not filed my tax statements yet!
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