1970 Triumph TR6 PI Running Report

Sean - Looks a solid car with a load of loose ends - still it looks like you are progressing nicely with them - nice thing here with this car is that just about everything that you need is available off the shelf (unlike some of my projects - but things are increasingly improving on that front) - any chance of you posting a few pics of the TR on here ? - Chris 

I agree with Teaboy on this. Copy and paste is one thing, just a link to another forum is ...well,... errr... like you kissing your Sister and then going and telling all your mates about this hot girl you snogged...., it doesn’t count 🤣🤣

Ps. Some photos might help me change my mind...Oops, of your car,of your car 🤣🤣

Thanks Chris, I look forward to you having a closer look when you come to size up the other job 

It is a bit too easy to get parts actually, far too easy to spend a fortune very quickly, fortunately the previous owners have mostly got there first and all the big budget stuff is done.

So, not wanting to be accused of cheating I'll give you all a bit more details here.

As stated above its a 1970 car, April 1970 to be precise from the BMIHT certificate that came with it. That makes it an early one. It was only the second one I looked at but it appealed to me because I like White, as mentioned above it's had loads spent on it, and I keep finding more things as I get to know it better. Previous owner had sadly passed away not long after buying it. He'd bought loads of new stuff for it but had not managed to see it finished. Two of his friends took on its completion on behalf of his Widow so that she could sell it finished. Whilst both were car types neither were Marque geeks and didn't know much about the car beyond what they put in the advert, and that it had been in Scandinavia and recently returned passing through someone else's hands before being bought by their mate. Long story short a deal was struck and car and factory Hardtop were mine. Have some pics:-







I quickly joined the TR Register and the TR6 registrar was able to fill in quite a bit of its history as its been known to the club since 1979. It seems it went to Sweden in 1997 (windows are still etched with its Swedish registration), later was reported in Norway where its stayed until about 3 years ago when it came home. The club are now helping me recover its original registration.

Whilst in good condition it has a long list of what I would describe as irritants, rather than paste them all here if you want to get a feel for what's coming in future updates take a look on the link above but I'll talk about them as I get to them here.

That I suppose brings us up to date and on to last weekend's tinkering which in turn linked in to the previous weekend's. My son and I had attended to the poorly adjusted brakes by freeing up one adjuster and replacing the irredeemably seized other one and had set forth on his first proper jolly behind the wheel. Previous rough running issues appeared to have been resolved and it was pulling strongly. That was until climbing out of Commondale onto the Moor top near where we live it all went quiet. It was at this point that I regretted setting forth in a T-Shirt as the wind whipped in from the Sea bring squalls of rain with it, oh and it turns out there's no mobile signal there! Anyway thanks to the kindness of strangers I was soon in the local Pub where recovery was arranged and soon arrived to carry us home.

After warming up thoughts turned to fixing it. Symptoms were more or less total lack of any electrical functions, apart from the side & headlights. Staring at the wiring diagram led me to conclude that the lights and ignition circuits shared the same feed as far as the Ignition switch, if lights were working the supply must be OK at least as far as the switch. So my plan of attack would start there. As this is an early car the switch is in the dash, and not as accessible as later cars which have a Steering lock. This means to gain reasonable access the H Frame needs to come out. This is a vinyl trimmed casting whose job it is to tie the Dashboard metalwork to the Chassis improving the rigidity of the body and reducing Scuttle shake, except it wasn't actually fastened to the dash! That will be the rattle behind the dash then I thought. 

Switch out and all wires still attached so my trusty multimeter was brought out and as expected the switch wasn't switching anymore. It showed some signs of distress with one terminal being loose and another showing signs of overheating, picture below. As final proof I bypassed the switch and everything sprang to life. So out with the laptop and a new switch ordered which arrived promptly to allow a permanent fix the following weekend.


Replacement switch came without a lock barrel, I could've paid more for one with one but as every lock is currently different I plan to eventually get a matched set of locks so went for the cheaper option. Swapping the lock barrel is a case of inserting something in a hole in the side of the switch and the barrel pops out. Switch was soon replaced and back on the car and was satisfyingly secure the original having rather annoyingly wanted to turn when the key was turned. 

Before closing up the dash I attended to the unconnected Heater earth. That highlighted the fact that the switch had been wired up back to front giving full speed on position one and low speed when fully out. Trivial matter of swapping the connections over and another job sorted. H frame replaced, this time with bolts and that was about as far as I got as with impeccable timing the heavens opened so that eliminated any chance of a quick celebratory blast out.

More updates as they happen.

Thanks

Sean
  

Looks lovely - great colour combo & the seats really suit it!

Cheers

Matt

Thanks Matt, seats are from a MX5, it's a very common upgrade. PO has spent a lot of money on the interior, it was Red from new but came to him with a Black interior so he set to putting it back to a more original combination. There was a Red hood cover on offer at extra money but I declined that.

They've been retrimmed in Leather, I have the name of the chap who did them in the file that came with the car if you need it.

Thanks

Sean

That looks really nice.

Same here, jealous! always fancied one but they have always been out of my price range

That’s very nice and I can imagine sounds the same.