Tales from the workshop: MAJOR step forward: trial fitting the body!!

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Yes, a major step this week! The body is back on the chassis. But - tbh- only for a short period. For now it's trial fitting: the chassis took advantage of some major upgrades: mainly strengthening plates all over the place. Always tricky if all measurements were correctly... And then there's the matter of brake and fuel lines. The fuel line is routed like it used to go, but the brake pipes were routed following the contour(s) of the chassis. Much tidier, but with the odd chance that it's going to chafe the body.

Oh luck! All fitted first time around. Mind you, without the mounting kit parts: pieces of soft material, washers etc to line the body perfectly on the chassis. The kit is in the mail and will arrive today. So next week, it's off with the bolts. The body will be raised a few inches and then the washers etc will be installed - and counted etc. After that, the wings and doors will be in, aligning them perfectly.

After that, it's some work on teh body: small pinholes at various places need to be restored; eg under the battery tray and near the LH rear light where the LR rear wing touches the body.

Finally, on the pics there are two (LH and RH) blue, yet un-powered coated bracket. These are adaptors for the modern day Konis instead of the original Armstrong levers. Point is that we were not satisfied with the original lay-out of the brackets. The standard brackets only have a metal, holed lip on the frontside where it sits snug against the body. We added a lip on the back of the bracket as well. And the bracket protruded too far out, making the distance between the rear wheel and the edge of the bracket very small... so the guys in the shop ground the excess metal away, thus clearing the space between the inside of the tyre wall and the edge of the bracket. Finally, they made a back plate with two bolts that will be placed on the inside of the inner wing, with the bolts going through the wing, just to make sure that there's enough 'meat' to carry the bracket.

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Great to see! A couple of questions . . . Do you have an approx completion time, and what colour will the car be finished in?

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Originally Posted by magirus

Great to see! A couple of questions . . . Do you have an approx completion time, and what colour will the car be finished in?

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Time of completion depends on too many factors: e.g. what's the time slot at the painter's. How long will prep before painting take etc. The details always take lots of time because all those 'late jobs' are in plain sight of everybody who's interested and need to be perfect. Normally it's fair to calculate 1000 - 1200 hrs work. But that's not always continuous 'rythm'.

Colour-wise: the colour it once had: sort of saffron yellow; the original TR colour.

M


EDIT: btw, in my last pic you can see that there's a plinth under the hardtop's rear window. That plinth has tiny holes and needs to be welded up. Easier a quicker is cutting out the plinth and replacing it. Sadly, that part is not available. So if someone happens to have a lead towards a supplier...

Thanks for the info, that's a lot of hours going in there!

Is that the final position for the bracket for the shocker? It looks a long way back from the radius arm.

This is like an advent calendar - great to open, great to read, and looking forward to the next instalment!


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Originally Posted by oldoakknives

Is that the final position for the bracket for the shocker? It looks a long way back from the radius arm.

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There's a 'cup' / receiver for the lower part of the shock behind the drum brake. In reality, the location and movement of the new shock are not different from the position of the old one. I will try to take a more clear pic of the set up later this morning and post it here.

Mind you, these kit are on the market since the early days of the TR6. The Armstrong's design was already used pre-war. My TR has them too. Simply because there's no room for an upgrade to modern shocks.

Menno

EDIT: took some pics a few minutes ago

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