TR4/4A My TR4A finally arrived!

[Sarastro]

Shipped from Ohio, and arrived earlier this week.

Yesterday I removed the engine from the passenger compartment (how many people get to say that?!) and checked out the car in some detail. The rocker panels are rusted through, the clutch slave cylinder leaks, the drivetrain is covered in about a half inch of sludge, the paint is hopeless, the interior is trashed, the rubber body seals are all cracked, all the chrome is pitted, the rear carburetor is leaking gasoline, the tires are shot, and the radiator is so beat up you'd wonder how air could get through it at all. In short, it's BEAUTIFUL!!

 

[Gliderman8]

A diamond in the rough. You should have seen what I started with..... Yours is a lot better!
Have fun with the resto.

 

[Mickey Richaud]

Just read your post to my wife and told her that this sums up the British car experience!

And your car looks great!

Enjoy!

 

[NutmegCT]

Hey - it could be worse!

View attachment 45536

(Seriously - congrats on the new family member! Now that the engine is out of the passenger seat, the fun begins!)

 

[M_Pied_Lourd]

Let the Fun begin!

Cheers
Tush

 

[fpstude]

Your description sounds so much worse than it looks! I look forward to following your progress.

 

[Sarastro]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm really looking forward to this.

Part of the subtext is that I have a disabled wife (Parkinson's disease) who has reached the point where I can't leave her alone. So, if I want to have some fun, I need to find things to do around home. Add to that the nostalgia component, since my first car was a TR4A, I don't think I could do better.

Still, with all its warts, the car is in running condition, with good compression, no oil smoke, and as far as I can tell from just moving it in the driveway a bit, a good transmission. I'm thinking that I'll get it working well enough to drive, and then I can drive it a bit and get some sense of what it needs. I'm not going to do a concours level restoration; just get it mechanically solid and good looking.

My site for documenting the restoration will probably be https://www.nonlintec.com/tr4a; I haven't set it up yet. In any case, all of my albums are accessible from https://www.nonlintec.com/albums/. I'll post something when I have started the site.

 

[Rut]

Steve,
That looks great! I'm really looking forward to following your progress and watching your solutions.
Rut

 

[malbaby]

Good luck with your TR.
My wife also has a health problem, but nothing compared to Parkinson's.
When you say around the home, do you mean only inside, or does that include your workshop.
We have a medical alert system whereby I can be summoned inside our home from my workshop, by her pressing of a button which is on a chain around her neck.

 

[glemon]

The car looks much better than my TR250 when I started, looks really straight with nice panel gaps, trunk looks like it lines up and close well. Mine doesn't, and I have looked at a number of 4, 4a and 250s that have the same issue.

 

[Sarastro]

Good luck with your TR.
My wife also has a health problem, but nothing compared to Parkinson's.
When you say around the home, do you mean only inside, or does that include your workshop.
We have a medical alert system whereby I can be summoned inside our home from my workshop, by her pressing of a button which is on a chain around her neck.

I got one of those for her, too. The pendant actually works as a phone, so she presses a button and can call me automatically and tell me what's going on. I do work in my shop and office (which is detached from the house) but I don't leave home without her. I can't hover over her perpetually; this arrangement seems to work. We also have the usual outfitting of the house--grab bars everywhere, a couple walkers and a wheelchair, and a stair lift. Parkinson's sucks.

Anyway, I'm pleasantly surprised by the interest in my folly--err--Triumph. I started setting up the web site, using the links I gave above.

 

[mgf]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm really looking forward to this.

Part of the subtext is that I have a disabled wife (Parkinson's disease) who has reached the point where I can't leave her alone. So, if I want to have some fun, I need to find things to do around home.

Steve,

I am very emphatic to your situation. I lost my youngest daughter in 2014 to a cancerous, stage 4, brain tumor. She was 52 years old & we had her for 7 1/2 months after learning about it. Some things are difficult to understand on this side.

Looking forward to monitoring your progress.

mgf