In message <199406241818.MAA16509@triumph.cs.utah.edu> writes:
> Fellow SOL,
Snip
> So, last Friday, I drove out to Banning to have them (the cons) have a look
> at it. The suggestion was that I remove all the trim, and then the fenders,
> hood, trunk and have them dipped. The inmates could then sand the rest of
> the car down, and do the painting (plus the dipped bits). I would then take
> it all back home and assemble it.
It is my current understanding that if any of the dip is left on the panel and
painted over, it will become a source of rust and you will see rust bubbles in
a couple of years. It is also my inderstanding that it is extreamly difficult
to get out of folds such as the door bottoms, the bonnet front parts, etc. I
know a guy who had a TR4 dipped and saw rust bubbles where metal pannels joined
to create pockets about two years afterwards. I'm a fan of mechanical abration.
The instructions in Haynes seem pretty
> clear as to how to remove panels, but can anyone recommend a book that
> might go into more detail?
You should have a copy of the original factory manual. One problem is that the
manual was never really updated other than a suppliment to cover early TR3As.
The factory parts book and manual documents TR2s very well. The suppliment
provides some info from the time that Triumph went over to disk brakes. The
later TR3A owners have to adlib the later changes. Removing the wings doors
bonnet & boot lid is straight forward EXCEPT that many of the bolts will be
rusted in place. Your trial will be removing the rusted fasteners. Mine is
going back together with all new ones. You will need to remove the doord before
the front wings to get at some of the bolts, if memory serves.
Important things you will find:
Rust under the part of the wings that overlap the wheel wells. (They assembled
the body before painting =8^0 )
Rust on the inside of the front wings behind the splash panel and on the kick
panels. They did not paint behind the splash panel. They probably just put a
wand in & blindly sprayed a rust inhibiter that has long since given up. You
may need to get the wing repair kit that both Moss & TRF carries to replace the
lower rear wing. While you are at it you might want to pull the petrol tank and
get it and the area around the tank refinished.. The tank sits on felt pads.
There are felt pads between the tank and the hold down straps. These make
excellent sponges and water takes forever to dry in that area. Expect to find
bad rust where those pads contact metal. Your petrol tank will probably be
close to rust through. Some radiator places will boil out the petrol tank and
weld patches over pin holes or severly rusted spots. I replaced the pads with
rubber. The strip of rubber that Moss sells for mounting the MGB petrol tank is
perfect for going between the straps and petrol tank of a TR3. Oh while you are
there, look at the underside of the body over the rear wheel arches. The
factory sometimes didn't get good paint coverage there. The same is true of
under the scuttle behind the instrument panel (don't forget to remove the
interior trim from over the instrument panel, door & rear before painting). Oh
they also sometimes did not get very good paint coverage on the underside of the
front valence. Since no one reproduces the front valence, if yours is any good
you might want to do anything you can to protect it. You know, if your battery
box is badly rusted (the bottom half of mine was held to the top with glass
fibre only), this is a good time to get it replaced.
Also, are there any down sides to dipping body
> panels (except for cost)? There is a small amount of rust between the hood
> and the cross-member that runs along under the trailing edge of the hood,
> and to which it is welded. How should that rust be removed and treated?
I would sand blast it with #30 mesh sand. You can sand blast the areas where
sheetmetal bends or other reinforced areas of sheet metal. As Mr. Niquest
discovered, dont sand blast vast expanses of sheet metal. You can distort the
metal if it does not have corners or other reinforcement to give it strength.
Snip
to
> be repaired. Well, it turned out that it was OK. So, I began to look
> carefully at the wiring, and found that it was quite different from the
> wiring diagram.
SNIP
Guess what! The manual provides you with the early TR2 wiring diagram. Hayes
probably copied theirs from the factory manual. Well, they changed the wiring
at TS18913 Then at TS50000 they went from screw terminals to slide terminals on
the fuse box, and control box, and changed the starter motor.
Then on top of that who knows what has been done to the wiring over time. With
my bad case of shipwright's disease, I replaced the entire wiring harness when I
had a problem with all four turn signal lamps blinking when I wanted to turn
left or right. What initailly cured the problem was removing one of the wires
that was suposed to be there and providing power to the circuit. I had no idea
who had done what hacks in the past or what part of the insulation system might
be giving way so I decided to replace the whole thing for pice of mind.
>
> David McK. BIRD TR3A TS32922
>
TeriAnn with the once and future TS75519L
TeriAnn Wakeman Large format photographers look at the world
twakeman@apple.com upside down and backwards
LINK: TWAKEMAN
408-974-2344 TR3A - TS75519L,
MGBGT - GHD4U149572G, Land Rover 109 - 164000561
|