Switching Gears.....

[M_Pied_Lourd]

Pretty Cold out in the garage these days so I thought I would take a break from the chassis and work on the body a little bit. How do you ward of the cold do you ask....with a nice hot heat gun of course!

Here are a few pics of tonights adventure.

At least there is metal

PS. Don't know what's up with that little cutout....

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

 

[prb51]

Radio antennae wire

 

[M_Pied_Lourd]

Unfortunatley, it is on both sides ....

Good guess though..

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

 

[TexasKnucklehead]

Don't know, looks familar though...

 

[Banjo]

My TR2 has a big ol' speaker hole in that panal on the right hand side. Intrestingly enough in the "How To Restore Triumph TR2, TR3 & TR3A" book, the author points out a hole like that in one of the pictures (Page 44), and mentions how it will need to be repaired. A hole EXACTLY like the one in mine, and Exactly like I've seen in other early TR2s.. It was factory! Deleted fairly early on I suspect. My theory is it went away about the same time they started putting the vent in the cowel. I've only ever seen that hole in cars without the cowel vent.

 

[bgbassplyr]

Unfortunatley, it is on both sides ....

Good guess though..

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

Right and left hand drive may have dictated ant. placement opposite the steering wheel.

 

[prb51]

My radio ant was thru that hole but never looked on the driver side...also had a factory cutout for speaker on passenger side.

 

[tdskip]

Ah, now the fun stuff Tush!

Looks pretty good there actually compared to many I've seen. And by that, I of course, mean mine. LOL.

Is that patch solid enough to be left alone? Going with the Eastwood products again in there?

 

[M_Pied_Lourd]

Skip,

Not sure what I am going to do yet...I will wait until I see the bigger picture.

Having said that, I really like how the truck bed liner worked in the wheel wells and inner fenders of my 6. I may just use the rust encapsulator followed by paint and then a quick scuff before applying the Duplicolor bed liner.

Will let you know.

Regardless, I am getting to the point where I am excited and a little nervous when I walk by the MIG everyday.....Might finally get that unpacked in the next couple of weeks and will start practicing on the old tub.

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

 

[tdskip]

Regardless, I am getting to the point where I am excited and a little nervous when I walk by the MIG everyday.....Might finally get that unpacked in the next couple of weeks and will start practicing on the old tub.

Do it! Nothing to do but just start. Hiring an experienced welder to coach via Craigslist is a great way to get started too.

 

[apbos]

Ben
I think it carried on until the at least the early TR3a's. Statler has one. I read the same thing you did and it is my opinion that this was made for factory ordered cars equiped with a radio and speakers. i will leave my hole in and fill it with a speaker.

P.S. I might have a set of windtones for you. I've just got to sort the sets I have to make sure I've got a working high & low horn.

Paul

 

[TR3driver]

I think it carried on until the at least the early TR3a's.

TS39781LO also had it. But it's normally covered by the carpet panel, so not normally visible unless there is a speaker in it.

The hole is huge by modern standards (remember, those old 50's speakers were much larger), so I was unable to source a full-range driver to fit the hole. I solved the problem by making a ring of masonite that would mount to the hole (which even has notches for clip nuts) and mounting the speaker to the masonite.

I vaguely recall that the early TR2 horns were different than the later TR2-3/A/B horns. If not (or if you don't care), I have several sets that I could probably be persuaded to part with

. PM me if you're interested.

 

[Banjo]

Good possibility on that Randall, Thanks. working or not, no big deal, I can get them working unless they're really bad. I'll have to check to see if later horns will work. The mounting position did change slightly. My Radiator suppourt rods are different from TR3s too.
Also intresting on the speaker hole. I'd only ever seen it on a very few TRs, and only TR2s. Now I'm curious about what the criteria was to decide if it was there or not as it dosen't seem to be straight across the board.
One of the TR2s I saw it on was a long door that was extremely original. the panal over it did not have a hole or a speaker in it, and exactly matched the rest of the original interior (that car was a time capsule!) and there was no other evidence of a radio ever being installed. I had originally wondered it haden't been part of some kind of ventalation system prior to the cowel vent, but your pics and info blow that idea out of the water.
Hmmmm.... I may never know.

 

[TR3driver]

The really strange part is that none of the US-bound cars had factory-installed radios, they were all dealer installed, and apparently mostly used a central mounted speaker. I've never seen an original speaker mounted in the hole in the kick panel.

 

[prb51]

True, I've never seen one either but have that same oval cutout in the passenger footwell that has always been described as a speaker cutout. The driver side is full sheet metal.
Who knows?

 

[TR4nut]

You mean like this one?

Those UK based radios were quite large setups, the mounting alone took up a lot of room, radio unit was mounted on the cubby lid:

More nifty reference pics are here, courtesy of a previous Britishcarforum poster:
TR3 radio setup

 

[Banjo]

AH HA! there it is! Thanks Randy, and "WillE" and I see Randall has been there too. Excellent reference pics and info. all nicely saved in my TR2 file.
Tucked Randalls' diagram of the dealer installed unit in there too. Thanks.
I've actually seen that unit on the trans tunnel, but never the Radiomobil setup. Plenty of them hacked into the glove box door.....
HEY! wait a minute! my glove box door has a big Radio hole cut in it! I always assumed some meathead had done that. I wonder if mine originally had that Radiomobile unit in it. I never had that amp under the dash though. more research required... Was that unit England only? or were some imported early on?

 

[M_Pied_Lourd]

According to my BMIHT Certificate my car came from the factory with a Radio installed.....Unfortunately, it is long gone. I asked the PO (2nd owner) who owned the car prior to me since 1967 and he doesn't remember it either....

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

 

[Don Elliott]

My 1958 TR3A (TS 27489 LO) came with a hole for the speaker over on the RHS of the footwell. The front fender came with a convex metal plug painted body colour on the top of the RHS front fender for mounting an antenna. In 1962 or so, I put a radio, antenna and speaker in my TR and after a week or two, when I couldn't hear it because it was way over on the far RHS, I decided to remove it. It was worth nothing but the extra weight etc. was increasing my rally times.

The same original metal plug is back in the hole in the fender where I had the antenna installed.

When I did my restoration from 1987 to 1990, I cut a piece of sheetmetal and blanked off the speaker hole to cut down on draughts that used to come through there. Not original, but no concours judge ever saw it. Notice the rain trough above where the hole was. I added my phone number if my TR ever gets stolen, the new owner will hopefully give it back to me.