Rusty Floors

December 2009
Well of course the fire made me wonder how many more holes were in the floor ! I can't say the previous owner didn't warn me.   He told me the floors had rusted through and that he had them fixed. ( I have the receipt.)  But again, I can only blame myself. I saw new metal under the carpet and figured all was good.  An experienced Triumph buyer would have put the car up on a lift for a closer look !  The vendor who did the floor repair just slapped some new tin over the rusty floors and called it good.  SIGH !!

Here are some pixs of the problem.

Here was the fix !!

Hello TRF, send me new floors, inner and outer rocker panels.

It Was Just a Small Fire......

November 2009
I was using a heat gun and scraper to remove the undercoating / gunk from inside the fenders and the front "tub" where the fenders attach. There are small crevices that the scraper won't fit in, so I was carefully using a propane torch to burn the undercoating , and then I could use a wire brush to remove the remains.
All was going well until I saw flames inside the passenger side of the car !!  I'd like to say I didn't panic, but truth be told, I was pretty excited....not in a good way.  Thankfully the carpet that was burning was flame resistant, and burned slowly, giving me time to get my fire extinguisher on the job....WHEW, this scared the pants off me !
It turned out the rocker panel I was using the torch on had a big old rust hole that allowed the flame to reach the interior carpet!

 Well, the passenger side carpet was ruined, and the interior of the car was covered in soot from the flames.
The only course of action was to start taking apart the interior and cleaning things up the best I could.

Bad Case of "WIIT" (While I'm In There)

Fall 2009
I kept pulling parts off the engine bay and front suspension, being careful to label the big parts and bag/label the small parts. I placed an order to Good Parts for the front bushing kit and to TSI (Ted Schumacher) for all the smaller parts like trunion rebuild kits, etc.

The front fenders came off, and a lot of time was spent cleaning off the under coating so I could determine their condition

Oh, did I mention the wiring harness ?   Not good....

Gosh, I wonder if this accelerator control rod is supposed to be curvy ?   NOT !

Where to start ?

The summer of 2009 was a time of learning for me.  I wasn't comfortable driving the Six, since I didn't know what all would require attention, so I spent most of the summer reading older threads in the 6-Pack forum, and trying to "fix" and cleanup smaller items on the car.

By the fall of 2009, my plan was to rebuild the front suspension and clean up / repaint the engine bay.

Finally, a little bit of bare metal !

The engine bay renovation was  quickly getting out of control ! 

Ah what the heck, I'll just pull off some more parts off the engine, that way I'll have more room to work !!

6-Pack to the rescue

 6-Pack, a.k.a. The TR6/250 Car Club of America, is the most knowledgeable group of folks anyone could find when it comes to the Triumph TR6.  Once I realized "Tillie" was going to need a lot of attention, I spent the best $30.00 of this whole project and joined the Pack.
The on-line forum is chocked full of good advise going back several years. Questions are not treated with flaming answers, but in a polite, professional manner. The advise I got from the Pack convinced me I could indeed work on my car myself, that a whole slew of cottage industry specialists / vendors are available, and the folks on the forum have "been there, done that" for most any question that might come up.

So, with just a bit of trepidation, I began to dig in, thinking I could do a "rolling renovation" starting with the front half of the car.

I want to mention two of the 6-Pack gang who have gone way above and beyond when it comes to documenting all the work that has gone into their cars.

  

 "Brosky"...www.74TR6.com

"Bobby D"....tr6.danielsonfamily.org

Both these guys take the time to photo document any work that is done on their cars and present it in a way that even a novice like me can understand. On top of that, their work is all done to a very high standard, giving us new folks something to strive for !

Thanks guys !!

Reality sets in

I was still basking in the glow of TR6 ownership when I found the web site for the TR6/250 car club of America. After an hour of reading past and present forum threads, my TR6 ownership glow was getting quite dim. It seems I had been oblivious to quite a few problem areas on my new purchase !

Oh well, what are a few hidden spots of rust......

What's that you say, the engine bay paint should match the exterior paint ?

But don't those shiny carbs and the fancy valve cover count for something?

Cleaning the engine bay left the interior carpeting soaking wet.....I lifted out the battery to find a big hole had rusted through the battery tray, which is right above the transmission, hence a direct path to the interior.
I was still in denial about the severity of the car's condition, and created a temporary fix for the battery tray.

In the meantime family members were enjoying short rides in my Little British Car....

Daughter, Aleda, home for a visit from graduate school, trying on Tillie.    

 Son-in-law, Jit-Tat, is originally from Malaysia which still has a lot of it's British colony roots.So  the words "boot" and "bonnet" are meaningful to him when talking about cars !

How it all began....

The purpose of this blog is to record the restoration of my 1974 Triumph TR6...eventually named "Tillie" (CF14608U), but first a little history.....
During the summer of 1965 , I was attending a family reunion, and an older cousin  arrived in a new Triumph TR4A.  We went for a top down ride, and the TR seed was planted in my teenage mind.  By the time I was old enough to buy my own car, the TR6 had just been introduced, and I can remember reading the Road and Track test and thinking this car was the one for me!  Other events, however, conspired against me, and my first TR6 purchase was delayed 40 years !
Fast forward to June 2009, my wife and I are attending a British car show, and come upon a beautiful red TR6 that was for sale. She takes a tag with the owners phone number, and 3 days later I'm the proud owner of CF14608U !!
Unfortunately, I didn't have a clue about buying an old British sports car, and I soon found out that beauty was truly only skin deep !

Happy new TR6 Couple:

My neighbor Tom, age 80, and his brother Bob, age 90, were both fascinated with my little British car.

Our 90 year old friend Bob had been an Army mechanic during WWII.  He was in Europe and helped keep General Patton's tanks and trucks rolling !

DISCLAIMER !!

This is not a "how to blog"....I am not a professional mechanic, and working on automobiles can be dangerous.  Viewers are warned that if they try to perform any of the procedures recorded in this blog, they do so at their own risk, and no liability will be attached either to myself or any of the companies that provided services recorded here.