Triumph Sports Cars

I have the body tub on the rotissarie now and was enjoying taking the sawsal to the body some and flipping it over with very little effort. I'm seeing areas of the body I couldn't see before, like stress cracks where the seat rail was installed. May weld on tabs of metal to mount rails to the frame for better support.

I will take some photo's and post them soon for others to see. I even still have a grin on my face when working on this project.

Making the rotissarie was well worth it.

Calvin

Hey Calvin,

Thanks for the hard work on my new rotisserie. You did a great custom job. When you have her broken in and ready for me to pick up, I'll send the shipper!

Keep the grin going, it's like mental therapy, and I need it about every other day.

I took the grand kids for a little spin in our private development this past weekend and it was great sharing the excitement.

Maybe we should start a movement, "Take a Child for a Ride" and build interest in our sport, hobby, illness for the future.


Just being a kid at heart!

Don,

These photos need to be entered in the having fun with our British car contest. The smiles you all have show how much fun ah I mean illness your having. Also notice the 6-pack emblem on the windshield! (Are you a member?)

Looks like a very nice private development you live in. (Sweet!)

Maybe we should start a movement, "Take a Child for a Ride" and build interest in our sport, hobby, illness for the future.

I'm in agreement with this illness, it's way better than myspace.com or video games that most kids are involved in these days. Get them out and show them a more productive illness addiction and adrenalin rush with eye hand coordination. :-)

Your very welcome on your new rotisserie :-)




I have found that with this project, I don't have the time for the hunting in the recycle yards for parts that I would like. So the shopping spree has been on the net probably 80% of the time.

OK posting of photo's for others to see.

These are the tools needed for car restoration at home that I use. I'm able to do everything myself without help moving stuff around engine, body, frame and lifting.

1. 2 ton break down engine lift.

2. H frame body lift with straps at 4 ends with eye bolt in the center. Has lift bar that is used with engine lift (in black on the cement by the red one for the engine lift).

3. Newly made body rotisserie,(Don W has his name one this one hehe).

4. Several furniture dollies 1000lbs (roll around LS1 w/transmission attached with little effort) to move body when not on the rotisserie or frame.

5. Engine stand not shown.









The rotisserie and body does fit in the one car garage at 17' long and can close the garage door.

Different views. Rotisserie looks like big engine stand on the ends of body.

It was 101 degrees when I took these photos. Was sweating a little.












My home is setup with a breeze way 1 car drive through that we installed a garage door opener on. In this court yard there is a one car garage facing a 2 car garage in the back. It's about 30' between the two garages. Its a sweet setup for me because I can keep all this closed off to my neighbors except one next door that we are good friends with.

Gota love this winch to rotate the body 360* with very little effort at all.


Rear bolted up using the original body to frame pads and washers.


Front bolted up same way.



Photo showing mods to trunk area for the 19 gal gas tank. I couldn't see this before sitting on the frame or the dollies.


Need to clean up all the tub to bare metal and will probably use Lizard skin ceramic coating or undercoating in the right areas.

Some body cuts for more header clearance in the engine compartment on both sides. Will weld in 45* sheet metal back in these areas.
Driver side.

Passenger side. Still need to reconstruct passenger side foot well area.



Driver side foot well. Did this welding while body was on the frame. Very hard on me and my Knees,ribs trying to do this(Note all the clean up on the frame from welding, did not want extra work repainting). This pain I went through drove me to build the rotisserie. Tons easier to see and access all areas of the body tub.

What was found because of body tub on rotisserie.

This photo shows the welded bolt and tab that is for the driver side (door side in the back under body side view) seat rail slider. Shows the stress that the body has with how it bolts up for the seat slider. Had 3 bolts on the passenger side break from rust at the time of taking everything apart. I was able to remove two of the three. One left gave me the idea to do something better.




This photo shows where thsese bolts line up to the frame. The extra gusset plate that was welded shows where the bolt was. Will drill through the gusset plate for frame mounting seat rail. Will weld on center section of frame another mounting plate for other back side of slider mount.

The two holes in the frame where the bolts would protrude into frame on the front side of the slider, will weld fill in or weld in washer and re-drill for bolt size so in the end results all four will be frame mounted for rigidity. Body in this area will not stress fracture again. Will take off all bolt and tabs that the factory installed. Will be able to use air craft nuts + antiseize paste under the frame. Also just another place for the body to mount to the frame using a rubber mount between body and frame.

I guess this car has been hit in the front end. This photo show someone tried to fix the latch for the hood rod that holds the hood up for the engine compartment. Need to re-do this.

Underside photo of hood latch in fender well passenger side. Can see the undercoating that has come off.


Shows the drive shaft area of the 2" of sheet metal added for drive shaft clearance.



Drive shaft tunnel is kind of oval shaped for the clearance.

Calvin,

Don't forget to re-spray MY rotisserie after you're done with it!

Thanks for the reminder on the photo contest, I forgot!

S-Pack was from days gone by, before the conversion, although I still post from time to time.
(that's how all this illness started, at a 6-Pack National Meet, sucked a valve, smashed a piston, bent a rod, so I dropped in a V8)

Keep those pictures and progress posted, you do great work and provide motivation for us all!

Anyone heard or seen this mag???????

Don,

On re-spray should it be blue?? :-) rotisserie in midnight blue should match OK.

Kind of the same thing happened to me, when doing this resto and ran into a frozen 6 engine. I still have it setup on the engine stand wondering if I can get the head off. The crank won't turn, probably rings are rusted to the cylinder walls. Was very bummed out until re-programing the brain for a V8 :-) . This was when the big illness started.

Since you posted the Triumph World Magazine, went into the website and checked it out. Have you subscribed to the mag yourself?. It looks to be related to the UK area but I'm sure it has a wealth of info.

Noticed the license plate wraped under the bumper on the photo above and the 5.0 emblem instead of TR6. Hmmm that plate is from BC not the UK interesting.

Calvin

Your ride is going to be so solid! You'll be able to pass it down to your boys with pride.

Midnight Blue is a great color, just don't nick it up!

The Triumph World Mag was different and I had never seen it before. I did not subscribe as I was looking for possible readers on the forum to see if it's worth it?

Speaking of BC, our friend and road warrior, Ken Heibert and Katie from Canada are out on the Highways again this week, Toronto to Townsend, TN for 6-pack
National, then maybe back to spend time in my garage and a brew before heading back home.

Hey, I got another TR6!


Keep up the solid work!

Triumph World magazine. Great publication; I have every issue starting from the first.

Matter of fact, my ride - bowtie6 - was featured in the Jan/Feb 2008 and March 2008 issues. Two articles were ran including quite a few pictures. They were kind enough to send me a very nice set of spanners...

joe
www.bowtie6.com

Congrats, Joe

I'll have to see if I can get a few back issues( Jan/Feb, March 08) before I sub.

How's the TR running? I have not seen recent updates from you on the 6-Pack forums.
(hot cam on the 3.4, etc.)

bowtie6 is running better than ever.

The whole cam upgrade was certainly worth the trouble. In addition to the cam, the intake was altered substantially and it has a much better breathing capability. Power is very, very nice as well as torque. Bottom line, the whole setup is working very nicely.

joe

I second the congrats, Joe

Your resto should be in the magazines. I would also like to see the back issues on your ride. I did get the sub (Triumph World) just the other day myself to check it out.

And always thank you, Don for your ongoing support.

Posted in the body section on removal of undercoating a while back. So below are some photos of removal of undercoating.

These 2 ice cream buckets full of undercoating (1/2 half of the body tub) came off using a 1" wide putty knife using the portable torch. Waving the torch about 4" away from fender well (Right on the coating) surface to warm the coating, not to hot to melt, pealed off 6" sections with very little effort. Took about 1 1/2 hours to do half the body tub.


For half the body tub, it took almost a full bottle of gas. Had to keep the torch lit while pealing off the coating which had the torch on for 1 1/2 hours.


Used this stripping wheel on an angle grinder which removed the paint, primer down to metal fairly easy, but very dusty work.


Cleaned the front fender well the same day of removal of coating. Spent about 3 hours taking of the coating and cleaning down to metal front and back fender wells.

Photo of rear fender well.


Photo of rocker panel after heating coating and using putty knife to remove.


Ok didn't go refill the torch bottle up, so pulled out the 2500 psi pressure washer and did the other half of the body tub. Took me 5 hours to do and the clean up was also fun. A better and higher than 2500 psi probably would have been much faster. Once started went to the end + did the whole body tub to relieve some of the oil and tar.


The foot wells are close to being done. Weld and grind, weld some more and grind some more to get the finish desired. Also welded in the 45 degree sections for header clearance.

Photo of the foot wells from inside the passanger compartment. Left myself good room for the throtle pedal.


Used a drop cloth so this could be seen better.


Will need to do the fine prep and get all the little tiny holes filled, surface smoothed out but coming along OK.


Next will be soda blasting and maybe some abrasive blasting soon. I will need to make some kind of booth out of a pop up 10X10 shade tent. The fun begins always with a smile.


Signing out for now,
Calvin

Boy that engine bay shot brings back memories!

By the way, after the 6-Pack Nationals in TN, we had some visitors from Toronto and it provide a great feeling having TWO TR6 V8 in the garage at the same time.

I told Debi to grab the keys and hide them, but Ken and Katie could only stay the night.

Maybe someday soon we can try stuffing 3 V8 TR's in that garage of yours.

Ken & Katie look like they always have a great time on the road "Great folks".

OK Don, gotta tell me whats on that set of 1000lbs dollies on the garage floor. Could that be new differential setup you are going to put in your six, Vet or...??

Looks like Vet IRS, nice setup. I remember you posting somewhere on this site about it.





Put the body tub back on the frame and engine in to check for clearance, header, trans area. One header needs a little more room, passanger side head needs more room from the firewall. I'm glad I checked before spaying primer. Re-do work in always fun. Used a body panel dent stud welder to slide hammer some dents out. Very easy tool to use. Took some dents out of the rear lower coul section with little effort + right in front of the windshield where something dropped on it.

Just keep posting those pics of having fun, a great motivator for me and others.

Hey, with a small garage, everything is on wheeles, tools, spare parts, event the ice chest is on piano dollies. Move it out to clear space to work, then move it back when your done.

I had the stock differential go south on me, but it was my own fault.

The stock differential can't take burn outs....for very long!

That's a 1984 C4 rear IRS that I pick up and was going to modify for the TR6. But the C4 would need to be cut about 12" and she cleaned up so nice!
(rebuilt, new brakes, new calipers,new ring gear, seal, new fiber spring)

I could not bring myself to use the torch! So I went for the Nissan 300z R200 differential and decided to reduce my showing off with smoke!

It's for sale if you know of anyone that wants an IRS setup for their hot rod.


Here is a shot of the first outing of the TR6V8. I did not even wait to install the hood or exhaust. Just Headers, Down Pipes and and 3' section of exhaust pipe. I could not even hear myself thing. It was GREAT!


With over 3000 hits on your thread, people are watching and waiting,..........so get back to work!