That was a different TR3A and some 35 years ago. Lots of lessons learned, but not so painful. The car itself was a beater that I only paid $150 for (and had to pull out of the backyard it had sunken into). The engine was severely worn out, carried basically no oil pressure at hot idle even with straight 40 weight oil in it; so I started collecting parts to rebuild a spare engine (one of 3 that Dad had gotten with a pile of spare parts for his TR3A). My disposable income back then was only about $50/month, so I was definitely scouting for cheap parts; but the resulting engine (with 87mm liners, 3/4 race cam, TR4A exhaust valves and a cheap header also from Warshawski's) sure pulled strong. It didn't like to idle low, and loped a bit even at 1500 rpm; but somewhere around 3000 rpm it would come "on cam" and away we would go! Eventually broke both the rear axle & the OD gearbox but it sure was fun while it lasted. That was when I learned the hard way that a TR4 axle is wider than a TR3
Anyway, I brought the car with me to CA when I moved out here, but didn't have time or money to work on it much. I moved into an apartment building on the side of a fairly steep hill; which we (roommate & I) had gotten cheap because they were planning to convert to condos . 3 story building, with parking both under the building and in an overflow parking lot on the uphill side. The hill was so steep that the overflow parking lot was about the same level as the 3rd floor of the building! I parked the TR in the back of the overflow and more or less forgot about it until a year or so later when they told us to move out. So, I hopped in the TR and headed for my assigned parking spot in the underground garage, which would be more convenient for topping up fluids and so on.
About halfway down the hill, I discovered that I had no brakes! Apparently the hard brake line that runs to the rear axle had gotten damaged enough to scrape off the terne coating, and over time the bare steel had corroded through. Plus the handbrake cable had broken some time before, so it was useless.
I of course did everything I could think of to slow the car down; ground into 1st and shut the engine off plus dragging my left foot on the ground. Had it down pretty slow by the time I ran out of garage; I honestly thought the front wheels would hit the curb and bounce back. Unfortunately it didn't work that way, the car jumped the curb and banged the wall hard enough to force the front apron back into the radiator. Not much I could do at that point (although in retrospect I should have taken out a loan and hired a tow truck) so I put it back into the overflow parking lot and asked the apartment manager if I could leave it there for a month. He said "Sure, no problem".
4 weeks later I returned to find nothing but a spot of oil on the concrete! I went to look for the apartment manager, but apparently the day I wrecked the car was also his last day on the job. And the very first thing the new condo manager had done was to order "that junk" to be towed away! With some digging, I located the tow company that took it; but back then they were only required to hold cars for 20 days and it had already gone to the crusher. Oh well!
I do have hopes of duplicating that engine's performance someday Real Soon Now, got all the parts on hand but it seems that life keeps conspiring to keep it on the back burner. Right now I'm trying to rearrange the garage so I can remove the old workbench and put the new one in it's place, which will hopefully give me some room to work; and I think one of the front tires on the TR3 is coming apart internally so I need to do something about that this week. Then, since the original engine in the TR3 seems to be doing pretty good, I will hopefully get back to doing the rear axle for it (which isn't doing so good), and likely after that I'll tackle the gearbox for Stag #2 so I can get it out of the way. If the TR is still running by then, I'll likely start to work on Stag #1 (which will also be up for sale once it's back to being reliable transportation, ie never.) So it goes.
Long as I'm quoting Vonnegut :
"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been.
But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes."
Hey there Guest!
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