Flintstone's Car

Cut the front floor out today, before starting the sills, as I needed to look at the chassis rails and outriggers. The front out rigger position was still connected to the original chassis rail, shown in this picture, and a new rail had been made 20mm or so to the left of the original to allow for the tunel mods also shown in this picture. Although there is lots of rust on these, its only surface rust.


Replacement outrigger in position, shows the old and new chassis rails a little bit clearer than the first picture.

Floor in position, edges still need a little work, but this will do until the sills are replaced.
The upturned flange near the large lump in the tunnel, replicates what I found under the rust.
The right hand edge of the floor has been cut and joined above the rear outrigger, and below the seat mount pan, so when the turned back flange on the seat mount is replaced the join will be invisible as it will be between 2 flanges.


I had a better look at the sills, and they have got to go. The inner sill is rusted though for the first 40cm, and the middle in sections underneath - pity really as the outer sill looks good along its entire length.

Sill work tomorrow.

Front Finished

First job was to fabricate and fit 2 simple brackets for the oil cooler - here's the drivers side done.


Next job was to fit the top panel (at last), first it needed some work to make it fit the Stag radiator surround and air intake.

The 2 large ribs running front to back were in the way of the curved support rail. I had worried about what to do with these for a time, as heating and hammering them flat would probably have distorted the panel. In the end I cut a slot in them parallel to the length, and gently hammered them closed, when the slot closed up, I cut another and so on until the ribs were flat where required. A simple weld and grind back soon had them in shape.

The next issue was the support rail then fouling the large "dimple" in the panel, a few small hammer blows fixed this, and here is the top of the panel modified and fitted in place.

View from the windscreen area, the 2 large rectangular holes visible by the curved support panel hold captive nuts for the Stag radiator

And finally a view of the front all finished, again lots and lots of spot welds.


Thats about 15" of the car fixed in 3 months, at this rate the remaining 160 inches will take 30 months !

I still need the Stag lower radiator support, but thats easily welded in later. No one has stock of this, so I may commission one from Radford Panels or Earlpart.

Next I am going to finish fixing the passenger front inner wing, while I contemplate the best way to proceed with the roof.

Battery Box

While I have been away working the battery box panel arrived that I had been waiting for. It was finally supplied by Radford Panels, as I had given up on the other sources not having stock. Originally this came as one piece, being the rear, top and bottom of the battery box. Unfortunately the new panel came without the bottom of the box, so I folded some metal to suit, got busy with the spot welder, and here is the result a finished battery box.

Fitting to the car was simple after I had cut out the radiator support panel to suit.

Although I have spot welded this back in, there are 2 rivets for authenticity, and I will add others after (when) the shell is painted.

The headlamp stiffener panel had to be shortened to suit the stag battery box.


Just oil cooler brackets to fabricate now and the headlamp closing panel can be permanently fitted.

Started to work on the rusty gutters and cut this section out.

Made this panel up to fit - first did the flange - not quite at 90 degrees - more like 70, then used a metal stretcher to curve it to suit.

And here we are fitted in place


and from above


Need to complete the gutter repairs so I can do the roof transplant. I am not sure if I will use the old "trim rail" welded back on to the gutter insert, or if I will make a new one.

That's it for today

Hannibal Lecter

We will come to the good Doctor in a minute, spent the morning fabricating and then welding into the car a series of re-inforcing bars, 4 running front to back, parallel with the sills, and 5 left to right, complete with triangulation to stiffen up the car pending surgery.

Left the drivers side doors in place to check for sag or movement, and can still refit the passenger side doors if required.

Then roof removal, reminded me of the Doctor removing the cranium in the Brain eating scene.

There is extensive rust arount the rear tailgate aperture too, and this will require parts from the other roof that I have.


Next job repair all the rain gutters as large areas are like this


Then I can look to fitting the replacement roof.

The Stag has the starter motor on the opposite side to the Standard engine, but when I inspected the wiring loom there are no signs of modification, it looks like the factory had special modified looms made for all the Stag engined conversions that they made.

Its worth noting from the recent pictures on the forum of the Del Lines modified cars, he did not modify the front of the car to take the stag radiator or air intake, unlike this car which has similar arrangements to the other known factory converted cars.

Thats it now for about 2 weeks as work commitments will probably prevent me working on the cars for a while.

Convertible Estate

9 hours driving to North Cornwall and back, 1.5 hours with a hacksaw and a screwdriver and this was the result, alfresco motoring in a 2500 estate



Its surprising how much the shell moves and wobbles with out the roof.

And here is how we transported it - got lots of strange looks on the M5


The roof, although the wrong colour (its primrose) is perfect down the driver's side, and the rear. It has a small 10mm corrosion hole at the front, and sadly on the passenger side 3 areas 10 - 15cm long which need repair. Most of the cant rails are good too.

However much much better than the existing roof which has rusted completely down both sides and the rear.

The flexibility of the donor car, has confirmed my thoughts of creating an internal birdcage of angle iron in the estate before the transplant.

The difficulties of storing this roof, may move the transplant forward in my plans.

Watch this space

Wing and a Prayer

Here is the wing, its a secondhand original wing, with some rust in the usual places, but I can use it if necessary, I still think the estate deserves a new one, but I can use this to fit the wheel arch repair sections. Here is a view of the back of it, with the flanges cleaned up ready for fitting.


I pray it fits, and it does. As a bonus its even the correct colour !


Trial fit of the wheel arch repair panel - it doesn't fit very well

The curve and shape is wrong in 4 areas. It doesn't follow the curve of the wheel arch around the lip, and its depth on the flange is wrong.

So I cut it up, down the main curve, reshaped it where necessary, and tack welded it back together. So you can see it now fits


Here it is ready for seam welding, about 13 mm cut out of it, and reshaped. Ready for refitting.


Work stops here for the night, and indeed the estate won't see any more work until the weekend, its the turn of the 5 now.

I shall discuss the wheel arch repair section with my supplier, as I don't want to have to rework the other 3 sections, as none of them look like they will fit. I suspect I have been given incorrect parts by mistake as the other items that I have from them are super.

Stripping

Decided to strip the car out today, as there is soon to be some serious welding in the floor pan areas, etc, and I wanted to remove any fire risk.

After removing the interior, I wanted to check the replacement doors, to ensure they fitted correctly after the sills were replaced. The existing doors have rusted at the bottom, with the result that the door frame rubbers push the bottom of the doors out, as shown here.


I put the good blue doors on, but the bottom door gap is like this.
Upon measurement the door is 5mm shorter than the original, and tapers down from the top. Also the top right of the window frame also slightly fouls the B post.
Now I know that I can correct this when I reskin these doors - indeed the doorskins are 5mm wider than this door, but I now have to consider if I need to repair the old doors, which at least fit properly. Seems not all Triumph doors are the same.


View of rusty hole in floor near passenger inner sill


Some good news. I had always assumed the car had 86000 miles on the clock, with the instruments out I can see it is 36000. (pity the engine has seized). This accords with the lack of wear on the original tyres, and the disk brakes. This at least settles the decision on the transmission strip down. At this mileage I won't rebuild it, but simply remove the various diff and transmission sumps, clean them out and put new oil in. Some money saved! No wonder the diffs have so little backlash and the bearings feel good, its barely run in. If I can get the engine apart, this probably only needs rings and bearings and a hone of the bores.


Rust behind the front sill cover plate, showing the internal structure of the sill.


Modified pedal box assembly - note the second arm attaching to the main pedal, with the servo fork and clevis pin attached.


Another internal modification I had not noticed before , although its not too clear, there is a "hump" beaten into the transmission tunnel in front of the handbrake. Like all the other modifications no attempt at rust proofing, its obvious they didn't think this car would be around for long.


Modified pedal box removed, you can see the additional plate welded into the box, to relocate the servo, (from under the original area of the brake light switch) to its new position where the clutch master cylinder would have been. A car with the FF modifications could never be a manual, as there is simply no room for a clutch master cylinder.


This view inside the car shows the original Saloon Servo hole to the right and up of the new servo. It was left like this, not filled and open to the engine bay, with only the new servo partially blocking the hole. I think I will fill this with a plate upon rebuild.

The reverse view from the engine bay.

And 2 pictures of the servo, with the pump that varies the vacuum pressure to make the ABS work. Again no labels or manufacturers plates on any of this.



Front wing removal reveals this

And this

I have some arch repair panels which I got from Earlparts, which will fit here. I also have a better wing (which just has 2 frilly areas, and is repairable if I don't find a NOS), so I will trial fit that, and then adjust the arch repair panels to suit. I have left the large under bonnet flange attached as the replacement wing does not have this.

I also need to fix this damage above the plenum, before the new wing is finally fitted, and one other small hole just above the wheel arch.

Many thanks also to Dave for the NOS Driver's side wing, which will "fit a treat" when I get to that side of the car.