Aaahhh the eternal Triumph solution; heat and hammers. I can see it now. The
hissing of the torch, the frenzied tapping, the muffled thud of hammer
meeting thumb...
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey J. Barteet [mailto:barteet@barteet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 2:17 PM
To: Triumphs@Autox.team.net daily digest
Subject: Surrey Tops and Ring Gear Removal
Just wanted to respond to a couple of items I have a little experience
with.
I 'converted' my original soft top TR4 to a surrey top by removing the
rear aluminum trim cap that goes around the rear of the cockpit and
removing the two rubber plugs on the top of the windshield frame.
There are a series of studs in the rear section that fit the car body in
holes that are already present under the trim cap.
The foldable top does fit in the boot, as mentioned. The hard center
section doesn't of course.
I purchased two surrey tops for about $1000 each 2 years ago. I sold one
of them for what I paid for it to a gentleman from Vancouver I believe.
I placed an ad on the triumph register want ads and bought the other on
eBay. While I was hawking over the one on eBay, with less than 5 minutes
to go in the auction and me with the high bid, I received an email from a
gentleman offering to sell me his for the same amount. I had been wanting
a surrey top since I bought my TR4, I figured I'd just go for both of 'em
as one deal or the other would certainly not work out. I wound up with
both. It's feast or famine.
There were center sections made from aluminum and steel, but I've never
determined what the story was behind which cars got aluminum and which
cars got steel. Anybody got a line on that?
As for the TR6 ring gear. I just did this the other night. The secret is
heat. After removing the ring gear retainers, heat the ring gear evenly
with some kind of torch. I used one of those light duty ones that screw to
the top of a propane bottle that I had used to sweat some copper pipes.
You DON'T want to make it glow or anything, just get it hot to the touch
and then GENTLY tap from the other side of the ring gear with a big drift
and a nice, heavy hammer.
That worked for me at least. YMMV as they say....
-jeffrey
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