Well listers, its been an interesting couple of weeks. I've made tremendous
strides working on my TR4. Thats the good news, the bad news is I've
spent a LOT of money!!
I've now got the outer rockers and inner sills repaired, front upper and
lower valance has been welded in place and all of the undercoating has
been removed from the wheel wells and from inside the body tub. PPO
apparently decided the car should be undercoated both outside and inside!
I haven't done the floor board yet but thats going to happen soon. The
body tub is now off the frame and setting on 40" tall 4x4 stilts. There is one
stilt under each point where the tub would mount to the frame. I've cross
braced the stilts so I can safely work under it but as an added precaution
I've got chains running from the tub to the ceiling joists. It seems to be a
nice stable arrangement. I put it up on stilts because I plan on cleaning the
underside of the tub, make some welding repairs in various places and
straighten a few small dings and dents. Once I'm done with that part I'm
going to drop the tub onto a wooden cart that I made and then take it over
to the local sand blaster and have him hit some of the areas that have
surface rust. Mainly in the wheel wells and the floorboards.
The frame is almost totally dismantled. I've got the RH front suspension
left to take off and it will be a bare frame. Surprisingly the frame is in
overall
excellent condition. So far I can find no rust problems at all. I do have a
few broken bolts that I have to drill out and retap but thats the extend of
the frame problems.
The front suspension is another story. The LH lower front wishbone arm is
wasted. Where the arm connects to the frame, the bushing had froze on the
stud and ended up wearing through the nylon and a good chunk of the
cast iron on the arm is worn away. Its now a nice oblong hole. So I'm
going to have to borrow parts from my future TR3A project for the time
being. Later I'll look for replacements. I can't imagine how badly this car
must have handled before I got it.
Oh yea, Spring compressor. I forgot that I need a spring compressor when
I started in on the front suspension dismantling but I managed to make a
nifty one from a piece of 3/4 x 10 all thread. I had save some previous posts
from other listers. The only thing that caused me a problem was not having
something for the bottom side of the threaded rod to press against the
underside of the spring mount. I ended up using a cast iron spring shackle
mount that I had removed from my dodge pickup frame!! How does that
saying go, "necessity is the mother of invention". All I can say is it
worked!!!
The leaf spring on the LH side of the car was also in terrible shape. The
front end of the spring where the eye bolt passes through was actually
broken off. The only thing holding the spring on in front was the fact that
the front curved part of the spring was still there. The top and rear portion
of the curve was broken off. As a matter of fact, as soon as I loosened the
shackle bolts on the rear end the spring fell to the ground! Going to have
to do some searching for a replacement there. I'm not sure if the TR3A leaf
springs are the same or not. Guess I need to check my parts books!!
I'm also a little unsure as to how good my drive shaft is. Where the yoke
slides up and done on the splined end of the drive shaft it feels like there is
a little slop there. I'll be pulling it a part to see what kind of shape its
really
in. I'm hoping for the best here but I doubt that my luck is that good!
Tomorrow morning I'll be removing the RH front suspension and then
monday morning the frame is going to the sand blasters. He should have it
done by the time I get back in town next friday. One question I do have is
when he's finished sandblasting the frame what method is used to get all of
the sand out of the frame cavities? I was looking it over this evening and
sure looks like sand can get in there easily with no real means of easily
getting it back out. Am I missing something here or am I right?
Sometime tomorrow I should have my Web page updated to show some of
the progress.
Brad (Lincoln Nebraska 402-464-1502)
My Web Site Http://www.141.com/triumphs (updated 12/3/98)
1964 Spitfire4 BFC25720L -- 1973 Spitfire 1500 FM3353U
1962 TR4 CT288L -- 1959 TR3A TS41311L
1951 Dodge Truck B-3-B-108
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