Day of Triumph (Brookline, MA)

Below are some pictures from New England Triumphs' Day of Triumph car show in Brookline, MA. Sadly, there was only one Spitfire MKIII at the show, but other Triumph models were well represented.

Spitfire MKIII


Spitfire GT6


Racing-modified Spitfire

TR3

TR6

2009 pictures added

I finally got around to posting pictures of the Triumph in 2009. The sad thing is, after flipping through the pictures, it does not look like much has changed with the Triumph. If you look closely, you can see the slight differences, but taking off the bonnet looks like more of an achievement than taking out the steering column...oh well.

Small tasks.. but progress

Updating on progress from two weekends ago...(I've been getting lazy about keeping track of my progress on this site)

Only spending about an hour on the car, we removed the brake caliper and anti-roll bar. (The picture shows the mounting of the anti-roll bar.) Both parts came off fairly easily as the bolts were in better condition than most bolts on the car. Even though we tried to drain all of the brake fluid before unscrewing the brake lines, brake fluid still leaked out on to the garage floor.

Apparently kitty litter works well to absorb spilled fluids on garage floors, but I didn't bother since there's already a decent amount of fluid already on the floor from the engine oil and radiator fluid. (An engine oil bin can only cover and collect so much of the fluids that may come from somewhere under the engine.) Instead, I just lay these playset foam panel pieces that someone was throwing out at the dump and place them over whatever spot I'm working on to work through it.

Also, I have finally drawn out plans for the body rig. It took a lot of measuring and re-measuring to create the dimensions of the body rig, but since it's mostly a box shape with a higher cross beam to compensate the rear suspension of the spitfire, it should be pretty easy to readjust and add cross beams wherever support is needed.

Triumph Links:
Restoration of a 1974 Triumph TR6: http://74tr6.com/
This site has lots of great pictures from restoring a 1974 Triumph TR6 and links to local New England businesses that may be useful for restoration.

Triumph TR3A with a Toyota transmission: http://triumph.daveola.com/Album/
Great pictures and includes How-To instructions for various projects including installing a Toyota transmission.

Rusted bolts are my worst enemies

It's been hard to work on the Triumph with the rainy weather that has been hitting the northeast. Plus, being away on weekends for vacation has not helped make progress on the Triumph.

Since I last updated, I have been working on removing the front suspension units. With seven bolts for each front wheel, this should have been a straightforward task, but exactly one bolt on each wheel refuses to budge. It looks like the bolts are solidly rusted to the extent where the mounting area around each bolt has warped and the bolts appear to be fused on. I'm hoping a couple more soakings of B'laster will do the trick, but I'm not fairly confident given the look of things.

Focusing my efforts elsewhere to try and make some progress, I unbolted the heater unit from the inside of the car. This was fairly simple to do, only four bolts (not rusted, thank goodness) held the unit in place. The awful part came next.

After Chris had physically removed the heater unit, the hole left in the car body revealed that a few furry creatures has once made home there. The hole was filled with seeds, droppings, and nesting materials and the fans blades in the heater unit were jammed with acorn shells. I guess I should be used to this now, but just the thought of rodents will creep me out.

I've been working on removing the front suspension to prolong starting the task of taking the body off and building a body rig, but while it's nice out, I should probably get moving on the task. A lot of measuring and planning (to build the body rig) will be required for this next task, which is something I'm not quite wanting to do.