• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A TR3 BODY NUMBERS

Share this page

George,

Took some pics of mine late last night and will post when I get home at 3:10 EST. I'm pretty sure the EB plate was on top with the numbers only plate directly below. They used two different sized -fat- round head flat screwdriver type screws for each plate. Need a very thin screw driver to fit either one. Almost looks like the screw that holds the fender bead on but smaller. Both plates on my car were spray painted rustoleum hunter green by the PO but it's nice to know one is brass and should clean up nice when I get around to doing the engine compartment.
 
Ugly as it is here's what they look like on my car. I tried some paint thinner on the bottom plate to see if it was brass underneath and sure enough it is.

tr3shots1017.jpg
 
I remember back in the Stone Age when I took shop in grades 7 & 8 we did something like this with copper. I think we made candy dishes. Anyhow I remember the trick was we heated the copper a bit then dipped it in a mild acid. This made the copper pliable enough that we could dish it out and make all sorts of shapes (we used small dowels about 3/16" diameter cut on an angle to push out the copper). I think we were even able to make "bass relief" pictures this way. Once you pushed out the material a bit it got work hardened and you had to repeat the heat acid process again. If I remember well it took many cycles to make a dish and a couple to make the bass relief.

I imagine you might find some info on the web that explains it. Only don't look for embossing but look for tooling copper or brass. It was not rocket science (I had to wait 8 years before they taught us that) just took time.
 
Well now, this gets more interesting all the time. Were the plates always painted, or were some just left brass? That's what my Mulliners is, just plain brass, and if it's been cleaned, whoever did it did a really good job. Don't have the other plate.

And another question no one has addressed, I understand that there is no way to check the correlation between the Mulliners and your Triumph plate or commission number, is that correct?

Fred
 
The top plate (the EB plate) should be painted body colour. It was put on by the manufacturer who put the bodies together and painted the bodies (including that top plate) before they were sent to S-T for final assembly. The lower plate (just numbers) was installed at the factory during final assembly, therefore it was never painted. My TR3A arrived like that when I bought it brand new in 1958.
 
[ QUOTE ]
...I understand that there is no way to check the correlation between the Mulliners and your Triumph plate or commission number, is that correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

It may not be possible to be exact, but there is a relationship. For example, my TS47905L has EB48439.
 
I think you may have something there. My early 58 TS31073L has EB31195, a difference of 122, while your later car has a logically bigger difference of 534. After the discussion here, I had kind of decided that since my Mulliners is a nice brass, not painted, that maybe it wasn't the one that belonged with the car, but now I'm not so sure.

Fred
 
The bodies were assembled, painted and stored in one factory. Then they were trucked to S-T and selected for assembly according to some decision like "we need to make 25 red TRs" because the demand was higher for that colour and the dealers were asking the factory to build more red ones. So the red ones got built and the assembly was not done in sequence.
 
Sorry, Let me be the one to throw off the curve.

1959
TS54794LO - EB53183

Mulliner #1058324 remove the 10 and it's all about the 50's.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
The bodies were assembled, painted and stored in one factory. Then they were trucked to S-T and selected for assembly according to some decision like "we need to make 25 red TRs" because the demand was higher for that colour and the dealers were asking the factory to build more red ones. So the red ones got built and the assembly was not done in sequence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don,

Out of curiosity was it the complete body minus the doors, trunk lid, hood, and fenders. Or were they all attached and then bolted on the frame as a complete unit?
 
[ QUOTE ]
...Or were they all attached and then bolted on the frame as a complete unit?

[/ QUOTE ]

From the pics I have seen of the assembly process I think they delivered a complete body including wings & doors.

I didn't mean to imply that there was a direct arithmetic relationship between the commission number and body number -- there were complete bodies that went elsewhere and a selection process at the assembly point that was clearly not FIFO so the relationship was approximate at best.
 
George,

I was hoping there might have been some simple arthmetic to the numbers until I saw the differences in the numbers on your car and what Don said made sense. B.T.W. saw your build and it looks great. Wish I had a Mario in my area!
 
Hello,
I have a TR3 of march 1957. His commission number is TS16434L and engine number t816722e.
Do you know how I can find the body number EB... and the other number with 6 or 7 digits. The are both on a plate over the battery.
Many thanks,
Bernard
 
Back
Top