Material between front fender and tub

[auggie]

When I removed the front fenders from my 60A I noticed that there was some type of adhesive or deteriorated rubber between the fender and where it mounts to the tub. I don't find anything like this mentioned in Moss/TRF, any ideas?

Thanks,
Auggie

 

[Mickey Richaud]

Probably a body shop/prior owner attempt to seal or keep the joint from rattling. Don't believe it should be there.

(But then I was off on the rear fender screws, so maybe others will chime in.)

Mickey

 

[CJD]

You know Auggie, I have that same question. The service manual specifically says, "steps should be taken to ensure all joints are water tight" in the body section for "wing" replacement. But, it gives no hint as to how to do that.

When mine came apart it also had some brittle old material in the seams. The original seams were NOT painted, as it appears the wings were attached when painting was done at the factory. In my restoration the seam area WILL be painted.

The only downside I see to not sealing the seams would be splashed water coming up and making the outer fender dirty...but then it will likely be raining and it would rinse away... The downside to sealing the seam would definitely be removing the fender later.

Hopefully someone will have more insight than I do...

John

 

[Darrell_Walker]

This is for my 4A, but the basic construction is the same. There was evidence of some type of sealer in the joints, though since most of the body panels were not original, it could have been added later. When I redid the body, I didn't use any, my theory being, like you, that the insides are being painted, and that I might want to disassemble later. Water thrown up from the wheels does seep up around the joints, but it doesn't seem to be a major problem. If I was going to use something, there is a 3M product that is kind of like modeling clay.

 

[TomMull]

Auggie, I believe that there was a factory seam sealer between the outer fender and the inner one (and most other similar joints). The factory used this quite liberally throughout the car. I use dum dum bodyshop seam compound. Tom

 

[JohnB]

Auggie'

I'm with John and Darrell on this.
When I seperated my inner fender from the body tub, for the first time since new, on my '54 TR2, I found the same material and also noticed the parts were unpainted beneath that compound. I simply removed the material, primed and painted with the thought of easier removal if necessary later.
I actually never drive on wet pavement anyway so that area never sees water.

 

[lbcs_r_fun]

Auggie'

I'm with John and Darrell on this.
When I seperated my inner fender from the body tub, for the first time since new, on my '54 TR2, I found the same material and also noticed the parts were unpainted beneath that compound. I simply removed the material, primed and painted with the thought of easier removal if necessary later.
I actually never drive on wet pavement anyway so that area never sees water.

<span style="font-size: 12pt">John: Are you the original owner of the TR2? The reason I ask, it has never been established that Triumph used any sealer or dumdum between bolt-on panels and the body tub, at least not on the sidescreen cars. Yet, from time to time we hear of this.
I believe that sealers actually work against you by trapping water and preventing these small areas to dry properly. </span>

 

[JohnB]

No I'm the second owner actually. But when I pulled the body panels apart I found the sealant. And when the sealant pulled away from the panels, there was only raw metal beneath, no primer and no paint.

Now I suppose the PO could have added the sealant, but why was the metal beneath unpainted. I doubt he would have cleaned the paint off.
And wouldn't the lack of any sealer allow any dirty water from the road
to migrate down the inside of the inner fenders and stain the engine compartment?

But I pehaps anything is possible when it comes to a PO.

 

[TomMull]

Auggie'

I'm with John and Darrell on this.
When I seperated my inner fender from the body tub, for the first time since new, on my '54 TR2, I found the same material and also noticed the parts were unpainted beneath that compound. I simply removed the material, primed and painted with the thought of easier removal if necessary later.
I actually never drive on wet pavement anyway so that area never sees water.

<span style="font-size: 12pt">John: Are you the original owner of the TR2? The reason I ask, it has never been established that Triumph used any sealer or dumdum between bolt-on panels and the body tub, at least not on the sidescreen cars. Yet, from time to time we hear of this.
I believe that sealers actually work against you by trapping water and preventing these small areas to dry properly. </span>

Bear with me if you would please, I'm not sure I understand what goes where here. The inner fender is welded to the tub, I believe. The outer fender is bolted to the inner, to the "A" post and to the front apron.
On my car (TS73116), which I bought in 1964 and I was familiar with the work done on it previously to that time, has compound (still a sticky) between all the bolt on panel joints. The right side outer fender, which was replaced shortly before I bought the car, had no sealer on the replacement and was quite rusty at that joint. The left fender, known to be original, had seam sealer with bare metal underneath (appears to have been painted after assembly and compound application) and no rust. The inner fenders, which I did not remove, has sealer that appears to have been added to the gaps (on the edges opposite the welds) between the outer fender and the firewall after welding. Same is true for the welded joints in the read apron, trunk floor and tirewell. Have you, or others, found this not to be the case?

 

[lbcs_r_fun]

The cars left Mulliners with the wings loosely bolted on and the interior fully trimmed. They arrived on temporary chassis. I have seen photos of this at BMIHT in Gaydon. The consensus is that Canley did not apply sealants. However, one of the pre-delivery checks was to determine if the cars were sealed properly. The details of this operation were never really explained. It has been suggested that some cars were sealed by dealers or POE service agents.

 

[BRSLimited]

TR4-TR6 had some kind of sealer between the fenders and body. I havn't seen evidence of it on the side screen cars though.

 

[Don Elliott]

I bought my 1958 TR3A brand new in May 1958. In 1987, when I dismantled it (TS 27489 LO) for restoration, all the fenders etc had dum-dum black tar-like sealer in all these joints and no paint (only primer) on the bare surfaces after I removed this tough and sticky sealer. I never put any sealer in those joins during or since the restoration and have driven it over 105,000 miles with about 5,000 of that in the rain. Since every panel was blasted, primed and painted (2 pack) with all these parts off the car, I have no rust in any of these joints.

 

[TomMull]

The cars left Mulliners with the wings loosely bolted on and the interior fully trimmed. They arrived on temporary chassis. I have seen photos of this at BMIHT in Gaydon. The consensus is that Canley did not apply sealants. However, one of the pre-delivery checks was to determine if the cars were sealed properly. The details of this operation were never really explained. It has been suggested that some cars were sealed by dealers or POE service agents.

Sorry to belabor this but these little conundrums are interesting to me. In may case at least, all of the sealer had been painted over indicating to me that they were sealed before the car was painted. I suppose it's possible that the dealer applied sealer and then resprayed with the original color but very highly unlikely. It also seems unlikely that dealers, or anyone would lift the bolt on panels to apply sealer and it doesn't appear that this sealer could have been applied any other way. Of course, this could have been built into the assembly process post Mulliners and pre-final paint. Tom

 

[Brinkerhoff]

What you guys need to find is some kind of warranty /service memo suggesting a reason this was applied ( I agree that it was ) in specific ( most likely) places. These weren't expensive cars when new , why would they add extra cost to them during build, if it didn't help sell it on the lot? The TR2 and TR3 were not as well engineered and bolted together as the MGA so the addition of caulk or sealant underneath the bolted on outer panels may have helped curtail squeeking . I don't see the effort put forth to prevent it from rusting , they just didn't care about that. No dealer would have taken the car down just to put caulk between the fenders and the body , then paint over it. My two cents.

 

[Don Elliott]

Some one asked for info regarding the bottle shown above. It the plastic reservoir jar for the liquid for the Trafalgar windscreen washers. The other type was produced by Tudor with a clear glass bottle. It was installed from when I took delivery of my 1958 TR3A brand new in May 1958.

 

[mgedit]

Looks just like the washer bottle on my 73 TR6 ... not much change over the years!