'58 Complementary Triumph TR3 Motorcar

In rec.aviation.owning G.R. Patterson III wrote:


wrote:

For those that want to see the "official" procedure, you can find it at
http://www.britannia.org/mg/garage/d...?ArticleID=004

Man! And I thought I had it bad rebuilding the rear end of my old Ford! They do
this every few weeks?

Why do you think they call them "sports" cars?

Want to hear what you go through changing the rear axle u-joints on a
Triumph Spitfire, which I was never able to get to last more than about
a year?

--
Jim Pennino

Remove -spam-sux to reply.

wrote:

Want to hear what you go through changing the rear axle u-joints on a
Triumph Spitfire, which I was never able to get to last more than about
a year?

No. I own a '72 Triumph Bonneville which I hope to start working on next Summer.
I'll find out these things for myself, thank you very much! Though I hardly think
it can be a bad as the '66 Ducati I once had.

George Patterson
Love, n.: A form of temporary insanity afflicting the young. It is curable
either by marriage or by removal of the afflicted from the circumstances
under which he incurred the condition. It is sometimes fatal, but more
often to the physician than to the patient.

In G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Man! And I thought I had it bad rebuilding the rear end of my old Ford!
They do this every few weeks?

If they are doing it every few weeks, either they are doing it wrong or
there is some other problem that carb adjustment won't fix. Most
problems with dual SU carburetors are caused by people who don't
understand a dual SU setup. Unfortunately, the first thing such a
person usually does is to alter the adjustment in lieu of diagnosing the
problem. Then you wind up with a situation where, in addition to the
initial fault, you have maladjusted carbs to deal with as well.

It is important to note that these cars aren't exactly spring chickens
anymore and due to wear the carbs will most likely have issues which
cannot be solved simply by throwing a rebuild kit at them. Rebushing
the throttle shafts is not a simple task and there are several shops
which specialize in this work. 45 year old SU carbs can be made to work
well, but expect to send them out for a professional overhaul with new
throttle shafts and bushings first. One of the nice things about the
growing popularity of restoring these old british cars is that brand NEW
SU carbs are once again becoming available, which may be a good way to
go for a road car which won't be competing in concours competitions.

Also, somebody in this thread mentioned the SU fuel pump, which has been
a constant source of headache for many over the years, but there is
nothing wrong with the original design that a diode across the points
won't fix. For the non-purists among us, reproduction units utilizing
solid state circuitry are now available which should eliminate any
future problems with the fuel pump.

----------------------------------------------------
Del Rawlins-
Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email.
Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:
http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/bhfaq/

Don Tuite wrote in message . ..
Another random thought or two, starting with California aviation
history: For many years, the FBO at Santa Ynez had '58 Chevy
Biscaynes as their rental fleet. Maybe they bought them from a
Tijuana taxi company. I seem to recall that they went for $8/day in
1970. Gas was thirty cents a gallon.

They still have one of them, but not for rent any more. I suspect that
they were bought in a Government Surplus auction at Vandenberg AFB.

David Johnson

"David Johnson" wrote in message
m...
Don Tuite wrote in message
. ..
Another random thought or two, starting with California aviation
history: For many years, the FBO at Santa Ynez had '58 Chevy
Biscaynes as their rental fleet. Maybe they bought them from a
Tijuana taxi company. I seem to recall that they went for $8/day in
1970. Gas was thirty cents a gallon.

They still have one of them, but not for rent any more. I suspect that
they were bought in a Government Surplus auction at Vandenberg AFB.

David Johnson

I remember flying to airstrips in Idaho in the 70's. Many of them had '58
Chebby's parked there. They were retired state vehicles which, instead of
being auctioned off, were taken to remote airstrips and left for the use of
transients. You'd use one for a day or two, fill it with fuel, throw a
couple of bucks in the ashtray for maintenance and leave it for the next
guy.

Seems like another planet from this one.

Rich S.

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message ...
wrote in message
...
Jim Pennino, spender of way too may Sundays sitting on the tyres of
British road oilers

On the GT6 they made sitting on the tire to work on the engine real easy.
The entire bonnet tilted forward.

You can do that on an E-Type Jaguar as well. I have owned a '70 coupe
since new. The carburetors (Zenith Stromberg) finally gave me trouble
this year. Most of my problems have been (you guessed it) - electrical.
They were a lot of car for the money in those days. Can't say that
about the new ones (tho they are probably better in every way).

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Rich S. wrote:

I remember flying to airstrips in Idaho in the 70's. Many of them had '58
Chebby's parked there. They were retired state vehicles which, instead of
being auctioned off, were taken to remote airstrips and left for the use of
transients. You'd use one for a day or two, fill it with fuel, throw a
couple of bucks in the ashtray for maintenance and leave it for the next
guy.

Seems like another planet from this one.

Rich S.

I have found many free loaner cars lately. The one at Clearwater
Florida is/was a brand new Buick!

George Graham
RX-7 Powered Graham-EZ, N4449E
Homepage http://bfn.org/~ca266

"George A. Graham" wrote in message ...

I have found many free loaner cars lately. The one at Clearwater
Florida is/was a brand new Buick!

The folks at Garrett County MD let us take the airport beater. When we were
waiting around the airport for the weather to clear we decided to go get lunch.
The owner told us to just take her car instead of the "courtesy" car because
the A/C worked in hers.

"Jim Weir" wrote in message
...
My lady has just informed me that she would consider a complementary
Triumph TR3
to our classic '58 Cessna 182 a good idea. She's willing to cash in her
old
Chevy on the Triumph...oil leaks and all...for a TR-3 of that era.

Anybody got a lead on one of those old rascals?

Jim


Woooo weeee.....lots of negativity here concerning British cars...lol Some
of it is tongue in check, some is not. Take the negative with a grain of
salt, and consider that most of the problems stated have indeed happened,
but far less frequently than one is lead to believe.

I currently own a few British cars, most of them Triumph. The short list of
road worthy (although not necessarily on the road at this time): 3 1962
Triumph TR-4's, one silver, one red, one blue, one each of the following,
1962, 1965, 1967, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 Triumph Spitfires, stretching
the roadworthy bit on the 1965 a little. Other than that is a couple Jags,
only one is road worthy at this time, 1958 Jag Mk IX Saloon.

The carbs on these things should not be anything like the flaky nature
people are presenting here. I normally adjust on any given vehicle roughly
twice a year, at the major seasonal changes. Plugs do seem to get eaten up
pretty rapidly, with replacement in the 6000 mile range not uncommon. My
Powder Blue 1962 TR-4 has given me something over 130,000 trouble free miles
(no telling how many miles it had on it when I got the car) in the past 7
years with only normal maintenance, leaving me stranded on the side of the
road one time, bad points. The points had been telling me for weeks (hard
starts, rough idle) that I needed to replace them, I kept thinking "next
weekend". I converted it to electronic ignition right after that, since it
was my daily driver, and never had another issue. The carbs do get rebuilt
every three years or so, takes maybe two hours tops.

If you do get a TR-3, do yourself a big favor and make sure to get one with
overdrive. Without OD the car is a bit too "buzy" at highway speeds, and it
really is not fun on longer (say more than 30 minutes) runs. The OD turns
it into a very different ride.

Someone else mentioned Hemmings, that is a good source, but be prepared to
spend a bit more, most people who list there expect the car to fall in the
book value ranges. I have had good luck with things like
www.traderonline.com and www.autotrader.com and local swap sheets /
classified adds. Most of my cars were located within about 75 miles of my
house.

Someone else put the link of www.vtr.org up, there is some good info on
there concerning buying these cars and what to look for. Specifically
http://www.vtr.org/TR3/index.html is a place to start, with
http://www.vtr.org/buyers-guide/index.html being something to read also.

T!

Triumph_TR4 (at) hotmail (dot) com

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 18:24:18 GMT, "Token"
wrote:

Woooo weeee.....lots of negativity here concerning British cars...lol

To be fair then, consider the Renault Dauphin.

Don