Never having taken a car down to its individual parts and then
reassembled it before, *THE* most stressful thing I did with my TR3 was
drive it for the first time after reassembly. As the time for the
initial drive approached I stressed out more and more thinking of all
the things that could go wrong such as the rear axle assembly to fall
off, the steering wheel to come off in my hands or somehow for the front
wheels to turn independently, or the front suspension to fall apart or a
wheel fall off or any number of things just to fall off, break or any
number of catastrophic failures. I have a very active vivid imagination.
The first drive came and about 3 blocks from the driveway a front
headlight rim fell off and promptly flattened under a tyre. That was the
only part that fell off.
But I did experience intermittent fuel flow problems which exercised my
AAA towing card a few times until I traced it down to an intermittent
fuel flow interruption at the fuel tank. I pulled the fuel tank after
draining it, removed the sender unit and looked down into a tank with
dirt, oak leaves, dead pill bugs and ear wigs.
When I rebuilt my TR I did not have a garage so I put up a steel pipe
frame and a tarp for a shelter and rebuilt the car on the dirt under a
big oak tree. When the fuel tank was taken off there was deep rust
under where the felt like padding sat against the tank. I sent the tank
out to be boiled out and to have patches welded on. Afterwords it sat
for a while on a pallet along the edge of the covered tarp area while I
worked on the body. Once the tank was cleaned out and reinstalled the
fuel system worked properly.
About 3 months into driving the car locally to try and build up some
confidence in the results of my work there was an unhealthy noise
starting to make itself noticeable at the front left corner. I pulled
over and looked for anything out of the ordinary. I touched the
knockoff and noticed it was hot. Another flatbed tow later the TR was
back home had I pulled the front wheel and started disassembling
things. A new front bearing had failed. It seems I had set the front
bearings up as to the instruction in the main part of the workshop
manual which was for front drum brake TRs and had not noticed that there
was a supplement in the back for disc brake TRs. I redid both sides to
the supplement specs and was off again.
And those were the sum of my TR's teething problems at the end of my
very first and hopefully very last total car rebuild. Though it still
took about a half year before I would trust my work enough to throw the
TR through tight mountain corners on the side of steep hills or drive
outside my 100 mile free towing range.
TeriAnn
** triumphs@autox.team.net **
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