A Peek Into The Body Shop

Tillie's  tub and body panels went straight from the media blaster to the body shop.  John, my body / paint guy, didn't waste any time getting epoxy primer sprayed on the bare metal.  The next order of business was looking at the new floors and rockers and coming up with a plan of attack.  That plan started with cutting the car in half.  Others have used this method, and Roger Williams also mentions doing this in his book ,How to restore Triumph TR5/250 & TR6, so I wasn't surprised at John's decision.  Here are some pixs I snapped.


The inner and outer rockers need to be welded together.

 End caps have to be welded in place...


A lot of fitting and adjusting


 John's speciality is restoring Chevrolet Camaros, so he hasn't had much experience with Triumphs, but he was very pleased with the quality / fit of the British Heritage replacement panels.



This is not the job for a impatient person.....a bunch of putting together, taking apart and adjusting, then putting it back together! 





The front half of the car has some serious issues, so the decision was made to order replacement wheel arches for both sides.


 Passenger side



 Driver side

Once the rear half of the car had the floors rough fitted, the process was repeated for the front half.

I have to laugh....at one time I thought I could replace the floors and rockers ! HA !  A good body man is a combination craftsman and artist, and as I watch this process, my admiration for John's skill keeps growing !

Blast Off....The Paint

Roy, my media blaster, called November 1st and advised that the body tub and all the various body panels were done, so I grabbed my camera, rented a dozen packing blankets from U-Haul, and headed out to Roy's place. Here are some pixs of the body panels:

Both rear wings (fenders) looked pretty good....no major problems.



The front fenders have some small holes, but my body man assured me they are repairable.



I was a little disappointed to find evidence of crash damage repair on the bonnet (hood)...hopefully nothing that can't be fixed, but it had looked so nice with the paint still in place.  :-(


The front part of the bonnet has a lot of these little dents that I'm told are signs of repair.


 Not to mention this bent lip along the front edge.



Both doors are nice and solid with just a few minor dings to be fixed.



The boot (trunk) lid was almost perfect, just 4 holes to be filled from a luggage rack sometime in Tillie's past.




John, my body guy, has a trailer and offered to meet me at Roy's and haul the body tub to his shop. Here's what we saw when looking at the tub.






Closer examination shows the ugly part !




I wasn't real surprised at the holes, after all, this is a 40 year old car that spent it's life in the midwest. I'll be buying some new metal parts, but John assures me Tillie is fixable, and he's seen much worse brought back to life !