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The start of something big. Frame off restoration

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spent the morning at a west marine talking with some fiberglass boat guys while I was going to pick up some resin and matting... Well, I got 3 different opinions on the best way to fix it >_< One guy said to cut the door similar to what I was planning, and to rejoin the halves with glass and resin. One guy said to grind off the gelcoat on the B-pillar and build out the b-pillar with layers of glass and resin to fill in the gap, and the last guy said to do more or less the same thing, but to build out the back edge door and the door skin to fit the gap.

Sooo... I have 3 opinions, I'm disreguarding the build out the B-pillar option because I think it would be the most noticeable from the outside of the car, but building out the rear of the door to fill the gap might be better than cutting the door in 2. Anyone reading this have any experience with fiberglass work and have an opinion? >_<
 
I got some marine hardware that I was waiting for a long long time in the mail today, hooray ! I was able to mount the top trim on the rear deck / hood cover and the B pillars. They are supposed to be leather/vinyl covered, but I dont have any of the original covers, so will have to either make some myself, or have an upholstery shop cover them for me. The B pillar caps were the only fiberglass pieces missing from the whole original Vintage Motor Works Hunter body, but Thomas made me a pair from the original molds. He used white gelcoat so they dont match the brown of the rest of the body, but since they'll be covered eventually, it's no big deal.

I need to make a decision. The original kit used MG-T series door latches on the doors, but I've read a lot of horror stories on the MG forums about MG-T series doors popping open at speed and doing a lot of damage to the cars. On the MG forums a huge number of people recommend adding a marine anti-rattle catch to the door so it cant accidentally pop open. Well, part of the marine hardware I bought was also a pair of anti-rattle catches, they match the latches that are used on the rear but of a different type, and I'm thinking that I may forgo the MG-T latches entierly and just use the anti-rattle latches as the door latches. They look nice, and if I mount them on the inside of the door up at the top, the 'latch' will be in the same location, but these anti-rattle catches can have safety pins put through them, and take a whole lot less space. With how skinny the car is, it'll be one less thing for my legs to hit on the interior.

I'm 95% sure that I'm going to just use the rattle catch latch and not the MG-T reproduction latches I bought last year. Does anyone see a reason to use them, other than that the original kit used them?

IMG_1794.JPG


Here's the anti-rattle catch, and the MGT latch

DSCN0039.JPG
 
Justin..as this car will truly be a custom one off or maybe 2 off.. I would go the safer route. You got to much time in this project to have the door fly open. I got to say that this project has me running to my PC everyday just to see if you have posted any thing . I love it.
 
justin_mercier said:
Sooo... I have 3 opinions, I'm disreguarding the build out the B-pillar option because I think it would be the most noticeable from the outside of the car, but building out the rear of the door to fill the gap might be better than cutting the door in 2. Anyone reading this have any experience with fiberglass work and have an opinion? >_<
Click to expand...

HI Justin,

I would extend the back of the door. Cutting it in half will make it extra work and more difficult. I'd use a piece of wood cut to the shape you want but a bit smaller and use it as a form. Attach it to the door then lay the fiberglass over it. The you can sand the fiber glass to shape. Have some cutouts in the wood for the door latch ect.

Alternately if the shape of the door where it meets the pillar is complex with all kinds of molding for the latch then cut the door off at about where the back of the door meets the sides and extend it there. Make sure to keep the door back whole as you'll re use it. Use some metal to hold the door back to the sides at the point where you want it and then lay the fiberglass over the metal. The metal can be screwed into the door to hold it in place. Sand it and fill it when fiberglasing is done and it'll look original.

Sorry explanation is not very clear, but I hope you get the drift.

The nice thing about fiberglass is it's easy to work with and if you mess it up, just cut it off and start over.
 
rooster said:
HI Justin,

I would extend the back of the door. Cutting it in half will make it extra work and more difficult. I'd use a piece of wood cut to the shape you want but a bit smaller and use it as a form. Attach it to the door then lay the fiberglass over it. The you can sand the fiber glass to shape. Have some cutouts in the wood for the door latch ect.
...
The nice thing about fiberglass is it's easy to work with and if you mess it up, just cut it off and start over.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I think I'm going to do. Shim as I can, I cant get the gap any better, partly because the doors themselves are a bit warped (they're too flat) If they werent pretty solid fiberglass, I could use the turnbuckle trick used on MGTD doors to pull them back into shape, but MG doors are more flexible, being a metal skin over a wooden frame. I can tell how much the doors flattened out and warped over the 30 years because the top cap pieces for the tops of the doors are still curved just as they should be. Right now my goal is to finish wiring this thing, so even without a passenger door i can fire it up and have it move on its own power. Haven't had a whole lot of time in the garage these last couple of weeks though, ugh!
 
I was hoping to go to 'British by the Sea' for the first time this year, but my nephew is getting married in Montana that weekend.
 
Here's the throttle cable linkage. I had originally built the little clamp mount to figure out the position to weld a bar to the pedal, but I think I'm going to just keep using the clamp without welding, as it makes the throttle response and pedal position adjustable.

throttle.jpg
 
We have lift off ! Need to button up a bit more wiring still, and need to fill the engine with coolant (just have the radiator filled atm, but with the way the front of the car is, i dont have access to the thermostat cap to remove it and pour in more there... Should I run the engine till the thermostat opens and then keep pouring in more? or what should I do to get coolant in the rest of the engine?

Also, apparently I have a problem, because the front carb is leaking gas out the bottom. So in addition to needing to put fluid in the break and clutch hydraulics, fix the gas pedal so it reaches wide open throttle, and putting the interior in, I need to figure out why the front carb is leaking too >_<

 
Hrm, I hope i didn't damage anything too badly =/

I ran the engine for 2 or 3 minutes and kept pouring coolant into the rad when the level dropped, and I squeezed the top radiator hose occasionally to try to burp it, i think in total I had about 1.5 gallons of coolant into the system (I have no heater system & pipes on this, so I dont know how much it should take to fill it up in total). Oil pressure looked good, around where Al told me it should be at 60 psi or so idling.

I then turned the engine off, and it kept running, dieseling because it got too hot I figure. I immediately turned the fuel shut off that I have in front of the carbs, but it ran for another minute or two after that before it ran out of fuel in the carbs. After this, I saw what looked like small amounts of coolant on top of the engine.

So what do I do now to make sure I didn't blow a head gasket or something while running the engine to get the Tstat to open?

Kinda bummed...
 
I've been told that I'm over reacting and that 5 minutes isn't enough to do any damage. The run-on is likely caused by the timing being too advanced, as the previous owner who had the engine rebuilt told me it was set very far advanced, just short of pinging. The coolant on the top of the engine i'm told is more likely because running with the radiator cap off, some boiled over / spilled over and got sucked into the cooling fan and blown back onto the engine. Probably too early to panic.

Another person told me that I can use the heater pipe at the top rear of the engine block to bleed/burp the cooling system, and also use it as a point to fill and make sure fluid is in the engine even if the Tstat hasn't opened yet. So tonight i'm going to go fire it up again and cross my fingers for the best.
 
How close are you Justin? I'm excited to see the Hathaway at the Day of Triumph!
 
Wiring is done cept for the spedo and tach, engine is running, albiet timing is off. No brake or clutch fluid in the lines yet. I'm redoing my throttle linkage to the gas pedal at the moment because I was not getting to full wide open throttle with the pedal all the way down. Ran the engine for 10 mins last night to test the E-fan auto on circuit, looks like i had a tiny drip of coolant at the thermostat neck, but nothing major. Don't know if I'll be driving it there, but assuming I can get a trailer (like I was originally planning on for british by the sea) I should have it there. Sometimes I swear everything takes 40x as long to do as you plan for it to take.
 
I hear you on that - I planned to have my "3" back on the road after my winter maintenance in May and didn't make it until the last weekend of June.
 
Hey Justin, just saw a picture of a Hathaway on another site. It made me wonder how yours was coming.
 
Hey, it's coming slow. Life keeps getting in the way =( The great bathroom disaster of 2013 consumed most of a month tearing apart my ceiling / floor under the upstairs bathroom after a pipe gave out and dumped a tub of water on the livingroom, then there was the 'my truck frame failed' and dealing with Toyota to get my frame replaced under warranty, and then getting rear ended in my rental, and dealing with all of that. My status unfortunately, essentially hasnt changed one bit since my last post on 7-15 =(

That said, you're welcome to swing by and look it over and have a drink or something if you'd like, i'll PM you my cell if you want to swing by to say hi, and to panic and scream at my disaster of a garage (or disaster of a livingroom, i'm still unboxing and putting everything back in the living room too !)
 
So I also just realized that the day before yesterday was the 2 year mark since the start of the project. What a long strange trip it's been. What originally was going to just be a "refresh the mechanical stuff while i put everything on a replacement frame" job followed by new paint and cosmetics has certainly turned into something completely different >_<
 
Do not be discouraged, I among many others, I believe, have been following your progress and are looking forward to one of the the best "one of's" in the history of Triumph. You have gone above the "while I'm here I might as well" disease and are on the track for one of the most memorable cars ever made...............we all look forward to the finished product.
Cheers
Gordon..........an owner of a plain jane TR3A
 
So someone on another forum poked me that I haven't posed on this one in a long time. So here's a little preview of some up and coming work for the TR6 Hunter roadster...

bw35.jpg


The footwell is too small for my feet, I cant drive it with 3 pedals, so... I'm going with two pedals, and parts from another triumph to make the conversion.
 
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