You want stories? Buckle Up!
snip>
A few stories every now and again about past experiences would be a great
help to those of us who are newer owners/members.
By the way, I got my TR2 up to 105mph at the weekend on the flat - now that
is a buzz!!!!!!!
Mark
1954 TR2
TS3379
Top down and loving it!
unsnip<
In 1972, at age 18, a buddy and I decided to take his '60 3A from
Northern NJ to Frankfort NY to visit a friend who had relocated. It was
early February, and bitterly cold. He had only purchased the car a few
weeks ago, and had done minimal tech review. ( hey what did we know?)
The car had over 210,000 miles, and still had the original engine- no
rebore, maybe 1 valve job. ( DPO- Mr. Tete Tetens of Hackensack NJ ) the car
burned an even mixture of gas and oil, but still went OK. We loaded up and
hit the highway, and I soon noticed my buddy was having a helluva time
keeping the car on the road. He said the steering was really lame, with a
lot of play in the wheel and possible alignment problems as well. I had read
the TR3 service book indicating the steering could be tightened up by
'simply' removing a few shims from the shimpack in the steering box. We
pulled off the highway, laid down in the snow and discovered how nicely the
ball bearings and gear oil could fall out of the steering box ( the bearing
cages were toast). We took a few shims out, and pretended to refill the
oil, and back on the road again. Now, the car was wildly undriveable; after
the trip was over I discovered the steering shaft 'split' coupling was
nearly disconnected, so most of the play we noticed was in the shaft, not
the steering box. We pressed on, regardless.
The car had an original top and ill fitting curtains, providing a
generous flow of arctic air to keep one refreshed, and to dissipate the
increasing volume of exhaust in the cabin. As frostbite is a major concern
in most TR3's, we stopped at the local hardware store and bought a roll of
'Mystic' tape ( Duct tape was still a figment of Mr. Duct's imagination) and
set to closing up those nasty gaps. Sadly, it was extremely cold, and every
breath you took formed a cloud of vapor, which conveniently condensed on
every surface we tried (unsuccessfully ) to tape up. We retired to a bar
for a bit of refreshment, and then planned to enter the car and tape it up
quickly without breathing, to avoid the adhesion problems we experienced
earlier. ( So You try and have a few beers and then tape up some crappy
curtains in the freezing cold while holding you breath!) It worked to some
degree, but a couple of extra jackets and hats did the trick.
It was about 11 pm in upstate New York when I noticed an 18 wheeler
following very closely, flashing his lights and being a general nuisance.
At the time I had no idea what was on his mind, but later decided that he
objected to the shower of sparks that came from under the car whenever the
emergency brake cable ( the crossover) bounced on the ground. Seems one of
the clevis pins had gone away, but no worries. I could see the sparks in
the mirror, but figured it was normal. We decided we could try to out run
him, despite the onset of some light snow. Fortunately, we did.
The exhaust got louder as we neared our destination, and at about 2
AM, we were just in time to catch the eye of a local gendarme, who was
probably irritated by last call at Donut World. He pulled us over, and
demanded we both get out of our now securely taped up car. I would've
welcomed a night in a warm jail cell by this time, but he forced us to move
on. A few miles further, the headpipe tore out the muffler's front section,
so we had no trouble staying awake from then on.
After awakening the next morning at our buddies house, we set out
to find a muffler for this here furrin' car. I think we ended up with
something from a Massey Ferguson tractor, but what the hell- it was a
tractor motor.... We fought all day trying to install this wretched
thing,tore out the tunnel, rolled around in the snow, using my buddies
terrific selection of cheap-o tools, and eventually had some form of
exhaust system, good enuf....
During the test drive, we found the clutch had gotten a bit close to
the floor,, and a quick fliuf check indicated the clutch was not our friend
anywmore. Strangely, the firewall below the master cyl. was dripping with
semi viscous fluif, and Aha! we discovered the hard line had shaken itself
to death underneath one of those little clamps that is supposed to prevent
this type of problem. Driving w/o a clutch was not on the agenda,, so we
went back to the Auto parts and Tractor guy who assured us the hard lines
were most certainly metric and there was no way he could help us. Ingenuity
prevailed, and I bought a flexible rubber brake line of approximately the
right diameter, clipped off the ends and attempted to make a repair of the
existing leaky line. We cut out the broken section, and had to forcibly jam
the rubber line into position. little did we know, that the sharp ends of
the hard line I had cut had peeled a little bit of the rubber ID off, which
had gone off to float around in the clutch hydraulics. We bled the clutch,
and all seamed OK. Another test drive seemed to indicate success, but at a
traffic light, the clutch suddenly seemed very hard to depress- at least
quickly. Under moderate foot pressure, it would allow you to gradually
depress the clutch, and upon release of the pedal, it would slowly crawl
back, and the off we'd go. You had to plan about 5-10 seconds ahead if you
expected to drive along with the rest of the cars. It was absolutely
hilarious, especially if you brought the engine up to 4,000 and let the
clutch out. Wahoo! I pulled off the rubber line, and removed the swarf..
All was well.
The next day, we went through the tape up ritual, and headed for
home. By comparison, it was an uneventful trip, until I felt a strange
wumpa-wumpa coming from one of the rear retread snow tires at about 70 mph.
Remember this car now had almost no useful steering, so the instability
caused by the blowout caused me to shoot wildly across many lanes of the
NYS Thruway, with my buddy trying to instruct me on the fine art of
'counter-steering'. Despite both of us yanking on the steering wheel, and
several quarts of adrenaline in our veins, the car won out and did an
elegant 180, while we watched the scenery whizzing by in the wrong
direction at about 50 mph. Fortunately we smashed into a the large
roadside snow bank, ( going backwards) which damaged a few things, lights,
spare tire cover, ripped the back window, etc. but nothing serious. We
changed the tire in about 10 seconds and dug out of the snow bank in less,
and got back underway without the help of passing motorists.. The last 100
or so miles was uneventful. We both agreed to tell our parents absolutely
nothing, to prevent the likely tirades about
" them damn Foreign cars", as we were raised with Detroit iron. Upon
arriving home, my buddy found a letter indicating his insurance had been
cancelled, prior to the trip. You can only get away with this stuff when
you are 18.
How was your trip?
Bob Westerdale
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