> What do I look for in a good collector car policy?
One of the most important things is an "agreed value" policy as opposed to
"stated value". With the former, you & the insurance company agree up front
what the car is worth and that's what you'll be paid in case of a total
loss. With the latter, you state what you think the car is worth and pay
insurance on that amount, but in case of a loss, the insurance company gets
to argue that it's worth less than that.
I just went through this with my 59 TR3A ... the ins co would have valued it
at $8800, more or less irregardless of it's condition. Had it been a nice,
recent restoration it would have been worth far more and I would have had a
legal battle on my hands.
Also check carefully the usage restrictions in the policy; and whether they
can cancel retroactively, ie refuse to pay a claim if you were not using the
car according to their restrictions. This practice is illegal in
California, I believe, but may still be happening in other states. You
don't want to be caught arguing over whether stopping for a hamburger on the
way to a show counts as a "non-collector" activity.
> What should I do with my engine.
Assuming your gasket changes include head gasket, front and rear seals, and
a thorough cleaning and inspection of rocker shaft, pistons, cylinder walls,
bearings, etc. I'd probably just plan on changing the rod, main and thrust
bearings. Probably worth changing the front & rear seals on the
transmission, too. Anything else would be only after inspection shows it to
be questionable. Oh yeah, you might consider changing the shifter shaft
seals too, since they'll be old and hard by now. Note that Herman van den
Akker says the shifter seals being sold today don't fit right, and need a
spacer behind them to seal properly.
> should I consider using this as a
> good opportunity to replace the wiring with Dan Master's updated
> harness to avoid problems in the future?
Tough call, IMO. Assuming cost, time and originality are not concerns (only
one of 3 has ever not been a concern to me), I'd probably go for the uprated
harness. Or at least adding a bunch of fuses to the original harness,
Triumph seems to have been awfully stingy with them. But do estimate the
cost first. Someone recently said it took them over 40 hours to install and
that sounds reasonable to me. If you're paying a shop $60/hour to do the
work, it could wind up costing an appreciable portion of the value of the
car !
YMMV
Randall
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