Triumph T R Restore Project

[MasterDon]

Hey fellas! Now as most of you know I am restoring a Triumph these days and I've had lots of requests to start a project thread so here goes.I have already uploaded some pics to the "Abandoned cars" thread so I"ll just cut paste them here for everyones convenience.Hopefully this thread will guide you on how to do a classic car restoration and also will act as my journal helping me to keep track of things.

If any of you have any questions about this or any other cars,restoration tips in general please do not hesitate to ask here or PM me.I"ll answer them the best I can.

BUT first a brief history about the car in question.Only about 4000 TR2s have ever been produced and less than half of that survives currently.So it is a very sought after car fetching £30000-£60000 depending on the condition.It is the very first car to be offered with disc brakes as standard and has a optional electric overdrive.Mine is a TR2 'shortdoor'.

Edited February 17, 2013 by MasterDon

[MasterDon]

So here's the bugger in question.Don't run away screaming just yet because it's not bad as it looks. My father had the good sense to remove most the mechanical and body trim bits and store them safely before letting it rust.Almost all of it is usable.Thanks dad!

And here she is woken up after a 20 year slumber ready to rumble.Rust bucket indeed!

Edited August 28, 2012 by MasterDon

[Pericles]

You get the thing back to this condition and I will promise you a shoot with a sexy model and the car.

[MasterDon]

You get the thing back to this condition and I will promise you a shoot with a sexy model and the car.

it'll be even better than this...easy peasy...you saw the condition my MG A was in before I was done with it.

[Komisiripala]

Wow! That is a beauty!! Good luck with the build!

[Reckless]

wow thats great news keep up the good work MD! and dont forget to give us buggers a ride when its restored! good luck mate!

[MasterDon]

Before you start any restoration project I recommend reading up about the the make and model as much as you can.Luckily Triumph and the TR2 has a very vast following all around the world and reading material is plenty.Apart from the Triumph related books and magazines I already had I've taken to ordering parts catalogues from the spare parts manufacturers from the UK,USA and Canada,Not only do they help in obtaining the parts and assessing the cost but they provide useful insights and tips when restoring that particular model...Moss motors,Rimmer brothers,Victoria british are the leading parts suppliers fro Triumph and MG,I tend to rely mostly on Moss Motors,They are a bit expensive but their product quality is good and they always deliver on time.

[MasterDon]

Rust Removal

Removing the rust from the body is considered one the major headaches in restoring classic cars,atleast luckily for me the british are not that bad at rusting up compared to their italian counter parts.I was offered their sandblaster by a leading container trailer manufacturing company to blast away the rust.but I opted not to sand blast my body. Because those blasters tend to dent the metal quite badly so in the end the painter fellow will have to apply exsessive amounts of "cataloy" to cover it all up.

Instead I borrowed a couple of blokes from my building sites and bought 4 cheap chinese angle grinders and set them to work.Why 4 grinders you ask?Well those grinders tend to heat up pretty quickly,anything over five minutes of continious use is not recommended at all.So by having two griders per guy you can use one while the other cools down.Make sure you buy those grinders with atleast 6 months warrenty because with even very careful use they tend to break very easily.Alcorbronz has grinders from 5000 upwards and they have a very good after sales service and repair the grinder for free within six months of purchase.Highly recommended.

So use these grinders with the steel brush attachment to reach the shiny bare metal and apply an even primer coat over it.It took those two guys nearly 20 days of daily work to remove all the rust from the body parts.For hard to reach places I'm afraid it's still the sand paper and elbow grease method used.I've refrained from using and rust removers or rust converters,because the reviews I've had from the people who've used them tend to be mixed at best.

[NadriquE]

all the best on the restoration man like reck said hope u'll remember us

[MasterDon]

Removing the body tub from the chassis.

Removing the body from the chassis is quite straight forward for this car.I just dismantled the steering column and then just lossend the half dozen14mm bolts fastning the tub to the chassis frame.Don't force loosen them,keep the screw thread intact.WD40 is your friend.

But there are a few VERY IMPOTANT things to do before you attempt to do this.

First you need to brace the body tub.Coveribles have no support from the top,And when seperated from the chassis they tend to collapse from the middle due to the loss of rigidity thus creating major problems when you try to re-attach the body to the chassis again.The bolt holes will surely be miss aligned and on severe cases the body tub would be badly crumpled up.SO Bracing means you weld a few big steel pipes to the tub linking the front and the back giving it some rigidity.Like shown in the picture below.This is not a bad idea for normal hard top cars aswell,I know the classic VW "Beetle" tends to buckle and warp when detached from the chasssis.

here is a much clearer pic I've taken from the net.

I also recommend taking as many pictures as you can,Every bolt you had to remove,every nut.because once you've decided to seperate the tub from the ladder frame you're sort of passing a point of no return.And trust me those pictures will come in handy when you try to put it all back together.

Edited August 28, 2012 by MasterDon

[nexus]

good luck and all the best with your restoration project MD.

[BLu3HaZe]

Hey MD, best of luck on the project! Great to see something interesting for a change.

I'm not too knowledgeable on classic cars but that body looks really thin and probably be even less after all the rust is gone? How is it going to be fixed? I had such an issue with a bike and wasn't sure what to do.

Btw, will you be keeping that engine or putting in another?

[CyRaX]

Yummy, hats off to you MD. All the very best. Im too planning (hopefuly) on a restoration of a small jap into a monster when time and money allows me to. Would be great if you'd be able to help me out :)

[MasterDon]

Hey MD, best of luck on the project! Great to see something interesting for a change.

I'm not too knowledgeable on classic cars but that body looks really thin and probably be even less after all the rust is gone? How is it going to be fixed? I had such an issue with a bike and wasn't sure what to do.

Btw, will you be keeping that engine or putting in another?

Thank you.

Thin?That's the original 18 guage metal mate,believe me there is still a lot of meat left in there after the rust is gone...There are only a few areas that have rusted through and is unusable like the floorboards and the dickey floor.Those have been fabricated anew by my tinker using 20 guage sheet metal..

LOL what did you think?That I'd put a bloody 2c engine in this?....Ofcourse the original engine will be rebuilt and put back in again with a bigger bore and bigger pistons.I wouldn't have spent over 200k bringing down engine parts if I didn't intend to keep the original engine.

Edited April 7, 2012 by MasterDon

[BLu3HaZe]

Thin?That's the original 18 guage metal mate,believe me there is still a lot of meat left in there after the rust is gone...There are only a few areas that have rusted through and is unusable like the floorboards and the dickey floor.Those have been fabricated anew by my tinker using 20 guage sheet metal..

Ah, so maybe the pictures just make it look so. Triumph hasn't skimped on that part unlike BLMC I see. Must make things easier when less things to fabricate, and those parts which you mentioned as rusted through are the flat areas which could collect more moisture by the sound of it?

So what do you think, would do for some rusty tubes?

LOL what did you think?That I'd put a bloody 2c engine in this?....Ofcourse the original engine will be rebuilt and put back in again with a bigger bore and bigger pistons.I wouldn't have spent over 200k bringing down engine parts if I didn't intend to keep the original engine.

Nooo... I was thinking more along the lines of that V8 you had, provided there is enough space to squeeze that monster in. Then again, you prefer originality even within I believe. Yet that'd be a different monster incase, by any wild chance, you do fit the Rover inside it

[rameez]

don,

all done by you when it comes to painting or is there some guy to help you out?. I am interested in the paint and tinkering factor because i am also considering a small scale restroing of my car.

Edited April 7, 2012 by rameez

[H.C]

All the best mate!.

[MasterDon]

Ah, so maybe the pictures just make it look so. Triumph hasn't skimped on that part unlike BLMC I see. Must make things easier when less things to fabricate, and those parts which you mentioned as rusted through are the flat areas which could collect more moisture by the sound of it?

So what do you think, would do for some rusty tubes?

Nooo... I was thinking more along the lines of that V8 you had, provided there is enough space to squeeze that monster in. Then again, you prefer originality even within I believe. Yet that'd be a different monster incase, by any wild chance, you do fit the Rover inside it

This is 1954 car dude.British Leyland didn't exist back then and Triumph(Standard Mo.Co) was still a stand alone company,but the Leyland monster did eventually get it's claws on Triumph,hence the godawful TR7...

The V8's are for another project.Never even thought of putting them in the TR.That would be blasphemy.

don,

all done by you when it comes to painting or is there some guy to help you out?. I am interested in the paint and tinkering factor because i am also considering a small scale restroing of my car.

Although I fancy myself as a decent amateur auto painter.I have left this to the pros...The tinkering is done by a specialist too.but I do own all the necessary equipment... Compressor,weld machine,Oxygen bottle,spray guns etc etc

The only reason I'm refraining from doing the painting on this is that this car needs to be in better than show room condition when finished,in other words,it has to be perfect...and my skills are not up to that standard yet.If it was a less err "important' car I would have done it myself...so go for it.it's not hard as it looks,but choose either painting OR tinkering,not both,otherwise you'll end up master of none....sourcing the equipment will be an expensive affair though,unless you can borrow from someone or rent.

Edited April 7, 2012 by MasterDon

[nexus]

out of curiosity MD how many triumph TR2's we have here

[MasterDon]

out of curiosity MD how many triumph TR2's we have here

AFAIK 4 including mine.The Akbarallys have one EL 6006,then there's one with Riley W and another red one which shows up for the CCC events,can't remember the owners name.

Edited February 11, 2014 by MasterDon

[madmax]

I couldn't find your old thread, so I'll post this here

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/auto-blog/Jeep-concept-trucks

[sol_tion]

Hi Guys,

Shanthi Gunaratne of Browns fame had one which he modified in the seventies for racing. There was also a Sinhalese actor (comedian) who had an excellent red color one in the seventies. I know he has passed away. I wonder where that car is. If you need any technical help in your project, contact Shanthi, he will help you out.

Best of luck in your project.

Regards.

[JadeyBlitzen]

MD you should ditch the chinese powertools and go for a brand like makita or Bosch. They'll work happily all day and when you are done with them you can pass them on to your children. thats how good they are. chinese ones are good for small one off jobs when you are on a tight budget. in the long run the jap and german powertools are more cost effective.

Is that double wisbone I'm seeing on the front end? seems like it'll be a hoot to drive.

[Ripper]

MD

Since you have a compressor and if its' over 4cfm or so... you can use pneumatic grinders instead of electric ones.

Those babies don't heat up, lightweight so it's a lot easy to operate for long hours. And best of all, they are relatively cheap

[Ripper]

MD you should ditch the chinese powertools and go for a brand like makita or Bosch. They'll work happily all day and when you are done with them you can pass them on to your children. thats how good they are. chinese ones are good for small one off jobs when you are on a tight budget. in the long run the jap and german powertools are more cost effective.

Is that double wisbone I'm seeing on the front end? seems like it'll be a hoot to drive.

machang...on chinese power tools...you do get the cheaper variant and the more expensive better quality variants.

I've got a hand drill, jig saw, circular saw...all chinese brands.

For DIY usage, it's more than enough. And they do last a lot longer than one or two projects. My hand drill for instance if over 5 years old with somewhat regular usage.

If you have a good compressor, converting to air tools is another alternative cos air tools are pretty cheap. Even really good branded ones.

All you need is a decent compressor