The resurection of the Once and Future TR3A has begain.
For those of you who are newish, I used to drive a TR3A. Then in early '89
I took her off the road to do a little sprucing up. The original plan was
to rebuild the front suspension, and engine, replace the interior and deal
with a few spots of rust. An estimated four to five month project. The
term shipfitter's disease was first coined on the British car mail list to
describe what happened to this project. It seems like every time I took
something off, a disaster was under it. The previous owner had wire
brushed the rust, fiberglassed over it then painted over that. It quickly
became apparent that there were ugly suprises under the paint so I made the
decision to strip it to find them all. Along the way I decided to go from
its Chevy white to her factory original signal red.
On the body I had to replace the bonnet because it had the wrong one
installed and would not fit properly. I replaced the boot lid because it
had a lot of rust through under fiberglass. Both doors were also replaced.
They had lots of rust through along the bottom and the fronts had cracks
3/4 of the way around the hinges. The lower rear section was replaced on
the front wings, as was the bottom foot of the dogleg behind the doors.
The floor pans, inner and outer sills were replaced as was the very badly
rusted rear valence. In addition there were 6 or 7 sections of the tub
that were cut out and had new metal welded in. Rust through pits in the
boot were welded shut.
The petrol tank was boiled out and had a couple of rusting through holes
patched.
I had the engine rebuilt. I left the transmission and rear end alone
since The rear recieved a new ring and pinion and the transmission was
rebuilt the year before I started sprucing up th car.
The front suspension was interesting. The springs were different length
and both sides had the spacer installed. Both trunions were badly worn and
the arm holding the nut was broken off one. Tie rod ends had seen better
days.
It went back together with new comptition front springs, SPAX shocks, new
tie rod ends, trunions and urathane bushings.
The rear shocks were there for looks only. When I disconnected the levers
they plopped. There was no resistance to hold the levers to the level
position. I had Apple Hydrolics rebuild them with the heavy duty valves.
The brake system was replaced. All new cylinders, all new stainless steel
brake and clutch lines, rebuilt front calipers.
The wiring harness was replaced, along with the regulator, and generator.
Well I'm into my 9th year on this little sprucing up. Counting two years
that the project was on hold due to a lack of funds. I'm doing the project
without a garage and without pavement. Admittadly there were lots of times
I could not face going out and laying in the mud, or dealing with the cold
& rain. There were times when I just had to walk away for a while. And I
did fall into this groupd of Land Rover owners who convinced me that it was
more fun to go off in the Land Rover and join them camping.
But over the years I kept coming back to the project of the Once and Future
TR3A. I've learned a lot. This is my first time doing something like
this. I hope I have learned to make this my last time. I can understand
why the majority of cars that get disassembled never get reassembled.
Somewhere along the line I got to the point where it was time to start the
resurection process.
Stage 1 Ringing out the electrical system.
The first time I applied power and started going through the electrics I
found a few minor problems. I had the front turn signals reversed and the
wiper motor was on all the time. I suspect The motor has an internal
problem from my disassembling and reassembling it. The motor was
disconnected for later examination. I did get some smoke as I was checking
out the lights. A front parking light connection got grounded. I had to
open up part of the harness to look at the true extent of the problem but
only had to replace the one wire. The overdrive solinoid did not work.
Removing the dust, spiders & such out of the solinoid did the job.
Stage 2 the hydrolic system
I poured fluid into the system and had to tighten two connections a little more.
I blead the system.
Stage 3 The fuel system
I poured a gallon of petrol into the tank and used the primer lever on the
fuel pup to pump fuel into the system. I made two discoverys. One I had
used the wrong fittings on the fuel pump and fuel tank (My old ones were
years gone). Also, the front rubber tubing was one size too big and were
not sealing.
I replaced all the fittings and used the next size smaller rubber tubing.
The system pumped up OK
Stage 3 Oil pressure
I removed the spark plugs and sprayed some light oil into the cylinders.
I pulled the valve cover and poured a little oil down each of the push rods
to lube the cam lobes. I hit the starter button and nothing happened...A
little checking turned up a bad starter solinoid. The following weekend
with a new starter solinoid I tried this again. It took a LOT of turning
but I finally got pressure. subsequent checks showed that I needed to
tighten the connections to the oil cooler. Can you tell that I did not want
to apply too much torque to the fittings and strip them?
Stage 4 firing up the engine
I replaced the plugs, adjusted the idle needles, sprayed some either into
each of the four DCOE venturies and went for it. I noticed that under
compression the starter motor didn't want to turn and there were sparks. I
decided that this would be a good time to tighten the nut holding the cable
to the starter motor. I gave it another try and the engine fired right up.
I quickly adjusted down the idle and inspected the car while the engine
was warming up.
The glass over the oil guage popped out. I evidently did not tighten it
enough when I had it apart cleaning the guage face. The linkage fell off.
I purposly did not tighten that one since I knew I was going to have to
adjust the length.
Oil pressure was reading 50 pounds. The water temp guage was pinned to
cold when the electric fan came on. The fan stayed on for a couple of
minutes then smoked. I decided that it was time to shut down.
I replace the glass on the oil pressure guage, removed the water
temperature guage and mailed it off to get rebuilt. I suspect that I got
water in the "sealed" fan motor as it set out over the years. I just
purchased a new electric fan to replace the burnt out one. The old one had
been on the car for almost two years before I started my little project and
sat out for several years.
I expect to have a weekend free near the end of May. I expect to have the
fan and rebuilt water temperature guage installed that weekend so I can
start on the next step... driving her around the loop in the driveway and
possibly out on the road. If enough of everything works, my next step will
be to go to my local DCOE expert and have him properly adjust everything
If I'm not carefull, I will need to find a name for her other than "The
once and Future TR3A"
TeriAnn Wakeman For personal mail, please start subject line
Santa Cruz California with TW. I belong to 4 high volume mail lists
twakeman@scruznet.com and do not read a lot of threads..Thanks
A citizen of the internet community since 1986
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