Finally...

Victory!...the steering wheel has come off. So I finally gave in to the fact that maybe the steering wheel doesn't feel like coming off the steering column and have taken the approach of removing the steering wheel with the steering column together. (I need to post a picture of my steering wheel triumph.)

To remove the steering wheel column I had to disconnect the wires for the turn signal and horn, which turned out to be a considerable number of wires. Then I unscrewed the bolts attaching the column to the axle (the Haynes manual was very useful on instructing how to do this) and then unscrewed the bolts holding the steering column mount under the dash. This was way easier than trying to pull off the steering wheel.

The windshield still will not budge from it's passenger side mount. I picked up a bolt loosening product at Lowe's, that claims to be able to eat through a styrofoam cup, and applied it the windshield mount but it still refuses to budge. With the steering column, this is the major roadblock to removing the body.

The wiring that remains to be removed are the wiring that goes to parts of the engine. I want to make sure I get this right, so I'll need to take some time documenting and taking pictures, which I haven't felt like doing just yet. I'm still worn out from all the wiring labeling/documenting I have done so far. Maybe I'll work on this this weekend.

To do before attempting to remove the body:
- remove windshield
- remove remaining wiring
- doors (?)
- build body rig to store body

Three to go...

The body is almost ready to come off the car but there's three more tasks remaining. As usual, the steering wheel refuses to come off. Then there is the mount holding the windshield in place, and lastly, wiring, a tiresome process.

At the hardware store last week, I found a faucet puller that looks like a steering wheel puller, but the clamps that grip underneath the metal are thinner. Good news is that the clamps slip in to the spot where previous pullers failed. Bad news is that the clamps were too weak from the force of pulling and started to bend. Back to the drawing board for what feels like to be the fiftieth time.

Even with the amount of WD-40, liquid wrench, and this ultra liquid wrench that can only be ordered online, the windshield mount refuses to come off. The driver-side windshield came off without a hitch after a few bolts were unscrewed, but the passenger-side windshield is proving to be as stubborn as the steering wheel. One possible explanation for this is that located above the passenger windshield mount is the antenna mount. So it is possible that rain water has gotten into the windshield mount and rusted the bracket to the mount.

The wiring is not as much a riddle as the other two remaining items, but it's painfully boring and tedious work. Label each wire, affix label, take a picture, draw a diagram, repeat over and over again. The last amount of wiring to disconnect and document go to the steering wheel and different areas on the engine. One day I just need to sit down and grind through this process to be done with it. I can only imagine the pain of putting the wires back on the car.

So minus these three items which don't sound like much but are actually pretty time consuming, the body should be ready to come off after unbolting a few body bolts. Also, there is the side project of making a body rig to store the body in the one-car garage and give us an easy way to roll the body out into the driveway when we want to work on the chassis. The car restoration books and television shows definitely make this whole disassembly process seem way easier than it actually is.

It's tricky

Last weekend, we drained the brake fluid, took out the brake line, and removed the pedal. In addition, we removed the starter solenoid, voltage current regulator and what I believe is the horn relay, so the body is looking quite bare now. I spent a decent amount of time labeling all the wires with masking tape, now the trick is pulling the wires out of the body without tearing off the tape labels.

A few months ago, we abandoned efforts of taking off the windshield finding that simply unscrewing the nut at the bottom of the base was not enough. Chris looked up how to remove the windshield online (thank goodness for the internet) and figured out that we need to also remove the clamps that held the base stakes to the body of the car. We were able to remove the driver side clamp completely, but the passenger side clamp would not budge. The windshield does lift off of the body now, enough to the point where we noticed some cancerous rust on the driver side (holes through the body right underneath the windshield). Add this to the rust list, and the rust list has gotten pretty sizeable. The $350 I'm spending on welding classes at a local high school is looking more and more worth it.

On a side note, I learned that running shoes are not the best welding shoes. On Monday, we started practicing Arc welding. Arc welding sprays sparks everywhere and everywhere also included the tops of my running shoes. Every now and then a spark would melt completely through my shoe and give me a pinpoint burn on the top of my foot. This left a few freckles on my running shoe and more noticeably on my sock. I should probably invest in a pair of steel toe boots, that may be a good idea.

If this weekend stays warm, I'm hoping to take off the windshield fully and be ready to FINALLY take the body off. I spent $20 at Home Depot this past weekend buying 2x4's so I can build a rolling body rig for when the body comes off. Instructions on how to build a body rig yourself can be found on Andre's 1968 Triumph GT6 MK1's site. This definitely solves the issue of where to put the body in a one car garage.

Slow go

Today it was 60 degrees in New England! So I got a chance to work on the car some more. Before we did that, Chris got free shelves from a co-worker, which we set up in the garage. We finally organized the Triumph parts that have accumulated in numerous boxes and laid across the garage floor.

As for the car, Chris drained the clutch fluid and removed the clutch pedal from the car. He also took off the master cylinder, but left the slave clutch cylinder on the transmission, since it wouldn't be in our way when we tried to remove the body. Meanwhile, I removed the windshield wiper motor and WD-40-ed the heck out of the convertible top hinges and finally got the thing to collapse and open properly.

What's left to remove before the body can come off:
- brake line, fluid, pedal, etc.
- gas pedal
- some sort of air block under the dash
- steering wheel, shaft, mount
- wiring mounts attached to the body

...slowly getting there.

How to remove the headlights off a 1968 triumph

I could not find how to remove the headlight rims from the Triumph - neither in the Haynes Trumph Spitfire auto repair manual nor online - so I've decided to post my lesson learned here.

The headlight rims are snapped into place with a ledge behind it at 12:00. Using a flat head screw driver, carefully pry off the headlight rim from the thin, rubber ring, starting at the bottom-most part of rim. Be careful not to scratch the chrome headlight. The bottom part of the headlight should pop off and you should be able to lift the headlight over the ledge at 12:00 and the headlight should come off.

Sounds easy when you know how to do it, but i had tried screwing off the lid, prying but stopped because I thought I would scratch the rim, and checking the underside of the hood to see if I there were screws holding the limbs on.

After removing the headlight, be careful not to remove the screws that adjust direction of the light. These should be left on and the headlights can be removed without taking out these screws off. Luckily, Chris read the Haynes page with this helpful hint.

Caulk, cabinet plywood, and screws.

Answer: Caulk, cabinet plywood, and screws...

Question: ...what are things this Triumph's battery box has in common with the bathroom aisle at Home depot...

While taking off the steering wheel, I noticed foam hanging out underneath where the battery box would sit under the hood. After looking closer at it, it looks that the previous owner had cut out a rectangular piece of cabinet plywood and used caulk and screws to hold it in place over the badly rusted battery box. The foam was used to fill the gap between the plywood and original battery box bottom.

After using utility knife to cut out as much caulk as possible (there was a ton of caulk), I ended up using a crowbar to pry the plywood off. The original battery box is in super bad shape. It is rusted on 40% of its edges and some of the metal easily broke off. Good thing I just signed up for an introductory course to welding at a local vocational high school, looks like I'll definitely be putting that to use.

MA winters are frigid.....

Massachusetts winters are absolutely frigid. For health and sanity purposes, I set my outside temperature threshold to 45 degrees. 45 degrees and above is an appropriate temperature to work on the car. Anything below, I'm staying indoors, which is why I have not updated this blog since November.

Today was the first day in months that I worked on the car. A high of 48 degrees satisfied my requirement in being outside. We started working on where we had left off - removing the steering wheel.

Chris had borrowed a different type of steering wheel puller from a friend that appeared it would do the trick. The puller clamped is suppose to clamp right behind the steering wheel with ends shaped like metal hooks. However, the metal hooks were too wide to squeeze underneath the Triumphs steering wheel. There was not a large enough gap to fit the clamps.

So, we decide to fashion clamp extenders out of scrap metal Chris had around the house. The idea was to jam these metal pieces behind the steering wheel and clamp the steering wheel puller to the metal pieces. We even grinded the metal pieces so that they would have better contact with the steering wheel puller. Though every time we tried to tighten the puller and pull the steering wheel out, the metal pieces would eventually fly off from the amount of pressure applied.

Taking off the steering wheel with the shaft is looking to be more and more tempting...