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TR2/3/3A Beginning the TR2 Bodywork

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Beauty, Eh!

Cheers
Tush
 
Hello John

True craftsmanship. Very nice job.

The credit for the multi part patch belongs to Tush. I watched his You Tube video of his repair to that area over and over to get an idea of the best way to attack it. He did it in several sections as well.

David
 
Week 57

For those of you following, I have not been slouching...too much...anyway. I am filling an ungodly number of extraneous holes in the rear fantail, and knocking out myriad dents and dimples. None of it is even slightly interesting, and it is taking, like, forever.

I'll have a decent update when I reach a decent task!

Until then....
 
Sounds Good.

I moved my 59 into the garage yesterday and moved the TR6 up to storage. Just need to move the 60 into storage next weekend to free up the other side of the garage and then I should be good to go through the winter months.

Cheers
Tush
 
I guess in Canada you have distinct work and driving seasons. I imagine you'll be getting a lot of good work done soon!
 
How about where you are at John, is it a comfortable 80 degrees yet? You probably get more work done on cars in the winter and fall with that summer Texas heat.
 
Hey Steve,

The weather has been great. Unfortunately, that's been resulting in me spending a lot of time out on the bike instead of working on the fantail. This week i went down to the Texas Hill Country and ran the three twisted sisters for a couple days. Much more fun than beating on rusty steel. It would be nice to run them in a TR2...!?!

 
Beautiful work! Look forward to the continuing saga..........
 
Thanks, Vick. I am now down to only one area of repair, the right lower quarter panel. After that it will be a matter of welding all the clean, bare panels back into a single unit. After the distance I've come, I'm really almost there, but it gets harder to motivate myself to repair any more rust. If I lived in Hawaii I'm sure I'd never get this done!

It's funny how different owners treat their equipment. I have owned 4 brand new cars in my life, and many, many very decent used cars. With every car I have owned, I spray LPS3 on all bare metal parts at every oil change, so they have remained completely rust-free for the decades I owned them, or at least no worse than the day I bought them. I cannot understand the mentality of owners who park cars on the back forty for decades, rotting away.

This will be the last back forty car I restore in my lifetime. My time is best spent on better specimens.
 
Sorry about your computer. Need to borrow a pressure washer?

The photos blew my mind thinking that someone would consider taking it on as a project. Did help to convince my wife that I got a deal on my car.
Even the gauges have broken glass.

David
 
CJD said:
Thanks, Vick. I am now down to only one area of repair, the right lower quarter panel. After that it will be a matter of welding all the clean, bare panels back into a single unit. After the distance I've come, I'm really almost there, but it gets harder to motivate myself to repair any more rust. If I lived in Hawaii I'm sure I'd never get this done!

It's funny how different owners treat their equipment. I have owned 4 brand new cars in my life, and many, many very decent used cars. With every car I have owned, I spray LPS3 on all bare metal parts at every oil change, so they have remained completely rust-free for the decades I owned them, or at least no worse than the day I bought them. I cannot understand the mentality of owners who park cars on the back forty for decades, rotting away.

This will be the last back forty car I restore in my lifetime. My time is best spent on better specimens.
Click to expand...

I acquired an MGTD barn find a month or so ago here on the island. The PO had it on blocks and was prepping to do some work on it (whatever that may have been). The car was last registered in 1985 and he put it on blocks about 15 years later, before he passed away. His wife, Rony, had left it alone to collect dust in the garage till she decided it was time to cut the memories loose. She had plenty of smiles talking about cruising the MG.
I've got it up and running again. Had to sort out the electrical and charging system, re-set the timing, balance the carbs, new T Stat and housing, complete overhaul on the braking system (still working on bleeding the system). Once I get it safety checked and registered I'm going to cruise by to show it to Rony. She's up in the late 80's now but she still may be up for a ride in the MG.
I've only owned 2 barn finds from original owners. The other is my 58 Chevy Apache. But I found that both owners were very emotionally attached to the vehicle and that they couldn't cut them loose and didn't have the money to keep them on the road. I was lucky enough to find to specimens that had wonderful stories attached to them. For me that's one of the beauties of bringing these old guys back to life.
 
Week 58

As all of you restorers know, there are milestones with every restoration. When you finally have everything apart. When you finally have all the parts cleaned and rebuilt. When you have the paint job completed.

Well, I reached a milestone today on the TR2. It is both the first of its kind I have ever reached, and it was by far the hardest milestone to achieve....one that could only be a part of a 60 year old Triumph restoration. And the milestone is that I am, finally, after more than a year of solid work, RUST FREE!!! Don't get me wrong, the body still has a long way to go, but I will no longer have any rust to contend with. All of the body parts are repaired. All of the un-fixable parts are purchased. I can now begin the reassembly of body parts that should never have to come apart again.

Anyway, to highlight the week's work, here come the details:



The body was loaded with umpteen thousand holes that were not present in the TR2 fantail. Some of these I understand, like the holes added to make removing the front spring bolt easier. Some were poked into the body by a zealous PO looking for seatbelt and roll cage mounts, while many others are a complete mystery. Both factory AND PO. Every one of these holes are too large to just fill weld, so each and every one required that I make a tiny patch to weld in.

UHGG.









Notice that many, like this one shown above, are so close to bulkheads that a normal grinder just won't fit. Hours with the die grinder with carbide burrs.





Wheel well holes.




Seat belt holes. I know....many are thinking, "how about just leaving those in for seat belts later?" Well, the lousy PO punched these in inconsistent and unusable locations. I think he/(she) was experimenting trying to find a location that "might" work.



Front spring bolt access. Same here...why not leave it for later access to the spring bolt? It was not in the TR2, so it will NOT be in the restored TR2. Once this car is assembled, I defy anyone to find evidence that it was not an original TR2 fantail. That, and I will not be here long enough to ever have to remove that bolt a second time!



Unknown...



Unknown...!



All 3 unknown...!!

Notice one even has a caged nut...for mounting something??





And...matching perforations on the port beam.



About midway through "shoring up the leaks."
 


That took 2 weeks...filling holes, that is. So, this week was spent on the last cheese grated quarter panel. It is really just a repeat of the previously reported panel, so....just enjoy the photo log without interruptions...





























(funny...the bike came more in focus than the work!?!)













































So...that's the week in pics.



Blast...as I leave you with my fantail in the air, I just noticed 10 more bloody holes! Bummer. One HAS to wonder how the factory found the need for so many extra holes in just a year and a half. At least it's not more rust!!
 
Fantastic John. Thanks once again for taking the time to document your efforts and share them with us. It's a joy to see your project coming together.

Cheers
Tush
 
Week 58.5


Thanks for the support, Dave. For the first time in, like, probably, 3 years I have gotten excited about the Triumph. I think it has to do with the fact that from here on out I am actually assembling, instead of disassembling. Huge difference mentally!

So, here we go....



This is the rear boxed section under the spare tire tub that I took apart a couple months ago. I was planning to wait to box it until the fantail was stabilized on the frame, but I realized the chance of this area warping is almost nill. So I am putting it together on the bench. Also, it would be a real bear trying to weld it laying under the car on my back.



If you look closely at the first pic, you will see that the vertical panel warped as I clamped/welded it to the bottom of hte boot and spare tub. Here I have, once again, used heat to shrink the panel to get rid of the waves. You can see here it will now go together well.





This is the bottom panel going into place. I will use the drill holes to hole weld it back in. Also, you will note from all the following pics that I am adding holes as necessary to replace the factory spot welds. If you have a spot welder, then I am jealous, as extra holes are not needed!



Bit blurry...but here is the very corner of the rear valence. I welded the corner, but soon learned it has to be open for the end panels to go in.





To weld in the bottom panel, I had to fashion this little angled tool, to reach in and hold the bottom panel against the valence while I welded.







Here it's about closed up, with the hole welds ground flat, so the finish will look just like a spot weld once the paint goes on.



Now it's time for the end caps. As with all the panels, the inside is getting a good coat of weldable primer. The factory didn't paint at all, but sprayed in waxoil after everything was assembled.



I used the rear caged nuts to pull the panel into position.







Notice how it bends to form around the taillight housing. Once again, holes are punched to aide the welds.
 




Now begins the body reassembly...huyah!

This is the frame I have been saving from Marv's donor car. My idea was to build the body on this frame, while it is still a roller, so then I could move it as necessary. But, as with most of the donor car, after it sat as an eyesore on my back porch for 3 years and I spent all this morning power spraying the dirt off...it turned out the frame is not straight. Bummer squared. It is not off a whole lot, like 3/8" on the diagonals, and 2 degrees of twist. But, if you remember, the TR2 frame is almost perfect. The worst out of square is less than 1/16". If I built on a warped frame, then all my panels would be off when I bolted the body to a straight one.

Out with the donor car...again.

And...









The TR2 original frame came out of the office, after 3 years in hibernation. This is not ideal, as I will now have to be very delicate as I work, so as not to mar the frame...but, I've done it before...



So, the goal at this point is to start building the body back up on the frame. If the frame is straight, then the resulting body would, theoretically, have to end up straight. First step is to pull out the manual...



Section on Body



First page. Here is a great little diagram of the frame, and it shows/tells exactly what pads, bolts/washers to use in mounting the body to the frame.



Here is the mounting kit I got from TRF...3 years ago!! This shows how plans change. I planned to do all the body work on the frame, but that was before the extent of the rust damage became apparent. Finally, time to open the kit. Inside you find:



Mounting bolts. They are the correct size, but they are not pointed like the original bolts. That will only be noticeable to the anal sort...like myself.





Round pads in 2 thicknesses. They were short 6 thin pads, and had 2 extra of the thick. Since 2 thin equate to a thick, in the end the kit was short by 2 thin pads. The extra thick pads took the place of 4 of the missing thin pads.



Aluminum spacer washers. There are 2 more than needed.



The large square pads. Just enough of these.



Pad strip roll. Now for the math...double thickness of this strip pad equals the thickness of the thin round pads. 2 thin round pads equates to the thickness of one thick round pad. And...the aluminum washer is equal to 2 thick pads. So, knowing this, I used the strip padding to cut out an equivalent thickness, round pads for the 2 thin that the kit was short.

Hope you follow all that?!?!



Any adhesive will work. I chose some black wx strip glue, available from any parts store. If is squeezes out it will be less noticeable.



In preparation, I am cutting out 4 round pads from the strip (to replace the missing 2 thin pads...if you're still keeping up?!)



Starting from the rear...and all the following info is right out of the manual, so you can follow along if you wish! One thin round on each rear frame mount.



4 square pads on each outrigger. I glued one down first. Then, once it was stuck well, I glued the second...and so on. Be sure to align the bolt holes perfectly as you go.



The middle strip pad.



This is the single thin round pad at the bolt hole in front of the middle strip pad.





The front strip pad. Note it goes up the front diagonal that supports the spring tower. It runs at a slight angle to the frame rails as it goes back.



On the diagonals...top is one thin, one aluminum, and one thick. Bottom is 2 thin and one aluminum. Notice this is where I placed the "home made" pads.



Front mount...book says 2 thin pads. I used a single "extra" thick, as an equivalent.



Here is the first brand spanking new body part I have touched during this ENTIRE build. The right inner sill...straight from the UK thanks to Rimmer Bros and a dynamite exchange rate. Thank you Brexit! I still get goose bumps every time I glance at a new...shiny...painted...clean...perfect part!

Sorry, I digress...



And the corresponding left inner sill. I searched for 3 years. Inner sills are, basically, expendable on these cars. There is no such thing as a good "used" inner sill. Just doesn't exist. It's a shame they are buried so deeply in the bodywork to replace!



Sorry, I just can't help myself...A NEW PART!!! It doesn't even matter to me that is will never show, it's a brand spanking new body part. Sorry...I'll go take a shower...
 


Now the new sills are bolted to the outriggers. Just slightly snug, as it may be necessary to adjust them a bit. The "cup" shaped mounting plate on the sill goes down...very important, as the floor will lay against it later.











Can you tell I really like my new inner sills??

Anyway, my son is home, so I have help setting the fantail onto the frame. Just thought I'd give an update until he got here.

See you Sunday...
 
John

every so often I have to just say WOW. Great work and a great thread. Thanks for this!
 
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