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The start of something big. Frame off restoration

DNK said:
Hey, you just one-upd Paul. If they work, I bet Paul's on em like, well, you know! :jester:

My Safari doesn't have them and when I knocked off the driver's side with a 16'; 2X6 I went with one that does . It's smaller but I like the blinkers in em.

Hah, I wouldn't call it one-upping Paul. The ones he has are undoubtedly better quality of manufacture and parts. If Vitaloni made their baby turbo mirror with sidelights / blinkers, I'd be all over them!

These are from CIPA, manufacturer of cheap quality, low cost replacement parts >_<
 
The AMCO reproduction center console I ordered arrived today. I got mine with an autometer clock instead of a smiths gauge clock, because the originals used a Kintzle clock that looks more like the autometer. My eastwood internal frame coating kit also arrived this morning (as did some touchup paint from paintscratch.com for my TR7)

The console looks well made, and while costly, I've always absolutely loved the look of the original AMCO center-console with clock. I may add a quick fabricated metal brace under the rear console part just to give it a little more lateral stiffness, but that may not be needed once it's sitting over the driveshaft tunnel.

The colors for the front and back section are the same, it's just a trick of the lighting, the flash and the texture of the plastic that makes them look different in these photos.

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This weekend I took a road trip and picked up another TR6 body tub (with quarter panels) The tub is in about the same overall condition as my current one, but the rust damage is in different spots, so I am planning on salvaging as much good sheet metal from both tubs to get the best one that I can. The one that I just picked up I may even just be able to use the whole passenger side floor pan, which would be nice.

Thankfully the weather was gorgeous this weekend. I rented a U-haul 6x12 trailer to carry the tub the 300 miles round trip to my house.

I forgot to get photos of it hanging from the garage ceiling at Alex and Janet Thompson's house, but they've got a gorgeous garage for their TR6 and GT6

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Right now it's just sitting on dolleys in my driveway until I get a better place for it
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This sunday I then went and did the Eastwood internal frame coating. I found that 4 of the internal frame coating kit is just about perfect for a TR6 frame, it's a good thing I ordered one more can than I thought that I was going to need, my guestimate was 3 cans.

The eastwood kit is nice, coming with an 18 inch long nozzle extension that sprays all around in 5 directions at the tip. This is however pretty messy. You spray a ton of it all over inside, and it drips and runs out of all the holes, and gets all over everything! That said... getting all over everything is a good thing when spraying down the inside of your frame, it does however mean that I'll need to buy a couple rattle cans of paint to make the frame neat and pretty again =) Also, if any of you plan on using this kit, I recommend getting your frame outside before you do it as well, as the paint drips all over whatever is underneath, in this case my garage floor. That said, I was happy with the product, it seems well designed, and that it covers very well. Now that the frame is done inside and out (except for some touch-up to repaint the overspray) when we get some warm weather in the 70s I will break out the urethane foam and fill in the frame cavities, stiffening it up and sound deadening it.

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Aren't you concerned about trapping water in the frame rails by using the urethane foam?

Jim
 
That tub doesn't look all that bad at least what's left and what your pictures show. Any idea why it was parted out (frame rot?)?

Scott
 
JImEgan said:
Aren't you concerned about trapping water in the frame rails by using the urethane foam?

Jim

This is closed a cell urethane foam that's used for automotive purposes, it does not absorb water, and is used for sealing frames and uni-body chassis in industry today.
 
HerronScott said:
That tub doesn't look all that bad at least what's left and what your pictures show. Any idea why it was parted out (frame rot?)?

Scott

Floor pans, rockers, lower rear valance, some of the rear deck and other places is rusty, many of the similar locations as on mine. The fenders on this are in worse shape than the ones that came off mine, mainly up front around the headlights is all rusted out.

Pretty sure the frame was shot on this, and it was purchased by the previous owners as a parts car, and then disassembled into parts.

I should be able to salvage quite a bit for my restoration from it however =)
 
Justin - did the Eastwood kit come in an aerosol form or did you need a compressor?

What was the specific product you used? Doesn't sound like you had to heat it first.
 
This is the exact product that I used

https://www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle.html

They've got a little video there as well. It's aerosol, with a long spray nozzle, and really quite easy to use. The only complaint that I have with it... it's really darned expensive ! But I figure spending 100 bucks now and having the frame last even longer is well worth it. Hopefully after the work that I've done with the frame, it will out last me, and I'll never worry about it again.
 
Thanks Justin.

This is interesting, appears to be a different approach to the problem. Not saying it is bad/worse/better, just different. Conventional approach is to soak the area in rust converter and then seal it. This appears/claims to do both in one step.

Our friends in the UK would then shoot cavity wax into this, which in a dry state might be overkill but hey, who wants to do this twice?
 
DNK said:
Tom, that stuff looks interesting,doesn't it?

Yes, I'd probably shoot cavity wax in there anyway (especially if I was putting foam in). It has become SOP for me to shoot cavity wax into all the cars as part of normal maintenance/waking them up.

I've been using the Eastwood Heavy Duty AntiRust which is a mess to work with and smells awful for about 4 months.

The TR7/8 sills are begging for this sort of thing Don... I've done mine and the lower door panels. You?
 
There is no such thing as one upping in this hobby. We learn from each other every day. If I'd have seen those first, they'd be on my car right now. I'm the guy with the LED light mounted to the roll bar, so I want to be seen as much as you do.
 
After a lot of talking with various people on various forums, I'm going to stick with rear drums for now, knowing that I can always swap them out later. I'll be going with 7/8" rear cylinders, and I'm deciding on wilwood fronts or Toyota fronts.

In the mean time I've been rebuilding my front suspension. I'm not done yet, as I'm waiting to hear back from MMS, as a bunch of the nuts provided were the wrong thread size (coarse thread instead of fine thread) even though the bolts were the right thread. The ball joint nuts are the wrong size, and the trunnion pins neither have a castle nut, nor the right thread to use the original castle nut, nor are drilled for a cotter pin, so i cant just get a different castle nut for the thread size of the trunnion pin provided. 3 of the 4 bolts per side for the vertical link assembly were the wrong length as well, one is too long and I can cut it short, but the other two arent long enough. Needless to say, after waiting over 2 months to get the stainless hardware, I'm a bit frustrated to be having such a huge number of wrong parts... and I've only touched the front suspension kit, not having looked at the rear suspension kit, body mounting kit, body fender kit, or engine kit yet.


I've assembled what I can for the time being, and may just finish assembling the suspension using the non-stainless hardware that I've got in the mean time. I re-chased each hole with a tap as well to make sure all the threads were clean, put some antisieze on each bolt and torqued them all to spec.

Here's some before and after shots.

Before.
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Cleaning the upper fulcrum threads

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Upper and lower arms, with spring pan and ball joint attached.
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So... I learned that you cant use external spring compressors on the front end of a TR6. As you can see here, not only does the turret interfere with the compressor, but the compressor doesnt let you pull the upper control arms down so that you can mate the ball joint and the vertical link.

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A quick trip to the hardware store, a 2 foot piece of 5/8 all thread, 4 nuts, 3 big washers, and ... a hammer head to use as a 'bottom' plate under the spring plate, and I had myself a functional internal spring compressor that let me attach the A arms

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I got the springs, trunions, vertical links with associated parts all assembled. Next up is inserting the shocks, and then putting the new wheel bearings in my front hubs.
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Well, I had more time tonight and it was warm (almost too warm) so I went back out in the garage and installed the shocks. Just using TRFs stock from shocks. I really didn't see the point in spending so much on adjustable shocks when everyone says "and keep them on the softest setting possible" about them all right now unless you're competing. Changing shocks is easy, so if I want a change down the road I can do it.

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I also inserted the new bearings and races into my front hubs, as well as the new wheel studs. I did make a mistake when installing the studs though. I used an old wheel nut and an impact air wrench to pull the stud splines through, but I forgot to use a good washer to prevent the nut from galling the face of the hub. It's relatively minor, but it annoys me that I did it.

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I just need my new rotors to arrive, and I'll put the dust shield and hubs on, stick my front wheels on, and lower it off the jack stands in the front, to feel like i've made real progress =D
 
I'm using Good Parts uprated and lowered springs (amongst many other good parts parts. Given the fatigue in my old springs, this will actually probably leave my ride height the same as it previously was.

Typos are fine, though your last one made me hungry! =D
 
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