Hi,
When last I wrote I'd finished pulling out the drivetrain.
What a fun experience that was.
Over the past few weeks I've moved on to the removal
of all interior and exterior trim, the heater/fan, the
steering, disassembled all the doors, and fitted a temporary dolly
to the front of the car so I can roll it around the body shop.
Tips and tales from the interior/heater/fan/steering:
1. Even though the dash pad appears to be glued in place,
there are a few nuts hiding here and there. Watch out
or you may destroy what is left of your dash pad.
2. Pulling the steering wheel was fun. Is there any way
other than a gear puller? This seems potentially dangerous
to me with respect to scarring the exterior of the steering
wheel, but I managed not to scar things. It also seems that
this can only be done with the steering column fully free of the
rack since you'll have to detach the upper (under dash) steering
column mount to pull everything back and get enough room for
the fingers of the gear puller.
3. Removing the lower end of the steering column from the
rubber coupler assembly was a real joy. I wound up
disassembling the rubber coupler assembly so I was left
with just the splined "T" section that attaches to the
lower end of the steering column. Then I used a steering
wheel puller to pull this splined "T" section off the
steering column splines. What a pain.
4. While working on the heater/fan I was wondering if it
was actually possible to remove these without removing
the drivetrain. It sure doesn't look likt it. Is this
one of those unique design choices we've all come to love?
5. Dessicated (as in mumified without the wrapping) mice
can sometimes be found hiding around/behind the heater/fan
area. Do not let one's wife clean in this area prior to
your inspecting it for such "issues". 8-)
Door disassembly:
1. Only one piece of advice here. Beg/borrow/steal a copy of
the Triumph 2000 Body Work Training Manual (or something
like that). I think there is a copy in the library.
Follow the "approved" disassembly/assembly steps found there.
You'll go mad trying to get everything apart otherwise.
The exterior trim:
1. Regardless of how careful you are, your perfect "2000" boot lid
badge will become a "200" badge. Whoever designed this would
have been better served by using threaded retainers than the
usual Triumph push on variety. I always wanted an excuse to
try some casting/plating. Maybe now is the time.
2. Most exterior chrome can be relatively easily removed with a
stiff, narrow putty knife and a lot of time and patience.
All of the pieces at the rear of the car (i.e. anything behind
the rear doors) comes off relatively easily with a little
gently prying. On my car, which was resprayed so this may
not apply generally, these pieces were held in place not only
by clips, but also by a thick black putty compound. This
made things so a little slower.
Don't just try to pry out the lower finishers on the top
front end of the rear wings. These finishers not only have
the little clips, but also retaining pins into the top of
the wing. These retaining pins are of the same variety used
to hold the various badges in place.
3. The chrome running along over the top edge of the door is
somewhat challenging to remove. What worked best for me
was a small (1/4" wide?) flat bladed screwdriver and the
putty knife again. The general process is to "roll" the
bottom edge of the chrome off of the rail its attached to.
Get the lower edge of the chrome detached fully (or mostly so)
before trying to remove the top edge -- you don't want to
be bending the chrome away from the car as you work.
The most difficult part of the process for me was in the
area of the doors (i.e. most of it). What I did was work
from inside the car, holding the screwdriver roughly
parallel to the ground, with the blade against the bottom
edge of the chrome, I would slap the end of the screwdriver
with my palm. This usually quickly detached the bottom edge
for an inch or two without distorting the trim.
4. The chrome that runs under the side windows isn't too bad
to remove once you give up the idea of saving the little
plastic clips that hold it in place. Figure that you'll
need to get a new set. Pry the crhome away with from the
body with a putty knife.
5. The chrome over the windows at the top of the doors is
held on with metal clips. As with the trim in (3),
you can remove this with a carefull upward prying motion.
It (in my case) popped off the clips relatively easily
and wasn't anywhere near as difficult as the trim in (3).
Fun dolly fabrication:
I'm _completely_ disassembling my car and sending a _bare_ shell
off to the body shop. Since I'll need to be able to roll it
around on something I spent some time fabricating a temporary
dolly that bolts up to the front suspension mounting points.
[aside: the reason for this is so that I can work in parallel on
the cleaning/repainting of the suspension and so that the suspension
doesn't get in the way of the body shop's cleaning up the underside]
I started by thinking I could use some 4"x4" lumber to make the
necessary pieces, but I quickly found that the spacing front-to-back
of the suspension mounting points was greater than 4". This
pushed me into using 6"X? lumber.
In order to get the height of the car right (the chassis bends upward
forward of the firewall) I needed to come up with about 10" of
height in my dolly. I also wanted to avoid piecing up the assembly
since this would prove somewhat weaker and/or require a whole lot
of carriage bolts and the like.
With measurements in hand I jumped into the truck and headed off
to the lumber yard. Its a good thing I took the truck because
when I went out into the yard to get a 4' piece of 6"x12" beam
the guy working the yard gave me a slightly split 8' section.
He didn't want the bother of cutting the piece down and getting
rid of the damaged sections. 8' of 6"x12" beam is *quite*
heavy!
After I got it back home I managed to cut the section I need.
(note: plan ahead -- your average power tool doesn't have anywhere
near enough capacity to cut a 6x12!) I bored eight holes through
it with a 3/8" "electrical installer bit" (18" long) and attached
two 600lb rated machinery casters to one side with 3/8"x4" lag
bolts. The whole assembly was then bolted up to the stock mounting
points using 3/8"x12" bolts. I couldn't get 3/8"x13" bolts so I had
to countersink the heads of these bolts to get enough thread through
the mounts and into the nuts.
I'm seriously considering removing this and redrilling the through
holes to 1/2" so that there is a little room for the wood to
expand/contract. I don't want any surprises due to mother nature.
This dolly works _really_ well and only took a few hours to put together.
I wouldn't go to the expense (~US$100) for just a day or two of use, but
the shell will be on this for a few months and it will be pushed
into and out of the shop, spray booth and storage lot. This design seems
to be a far better choice than loosely sitting the shell on generic dollys
that it could then fall off of.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!
Next I'll be removing the rear suspension and fabricating a
dolly for that. Then the shell goes off to the body shop
and I'll start on the mechanical rebuild.
I've got about 9 months to show #1. Is anyone giving odds
on my making the show?
--Mike
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