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Stuart R

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  1. Stuart R
    Here's an attempt to re-create a thread I wrote on the old TSSC forum, concerning the (ongoing) restoration of my Herald. This seems the best place to put it now...
     
    The story starts with with my 1966 12/50 Convertible, which I bought as a second car in 1998. Maybe I should have steered away from a non-standard build, but I didn’t realise that no such model existed. It did have a proper convertible rear tub and was in better condition than the other genuine 1200 convertible I was looking to buy. Anyway, we had a few adventures in this car; Stafford 1999 and Norfolk’s MOT in 1999 and 2000. Repairs had to be made to keep it on the road, so I set up accounts with Rimmers and TRGB but after two or three years of fun, it failed the MOT due to serious corrosion. A friend and I stripped the car down one Easter Holiday to start the restoration. Progress was slow but got even slower after a Rimmers flyer dropped through the door in late 2002.
    On the back pages, amongst the restoration projects, I spotted a Triumph that I recognised instantly from my childhood. It was purchased new by a neighbour of ours, so spent a lot of time opposite our front window. Eventually, my Grandfather owned the car and when he gave up driving, sold it onto my other Grandfather. When he gave up driving in the late 1980’s he left it with his local garage to dispose of. I assumed that it was either scrapped or left to rust away in the yard, so was very pleased to see it still in existence. The bodywork was rough, but the interior still good (apart from one of Grandad’s pipe burns to the seat!) A price was agreed with Rimmers for the car and delivery to my house by recovery truck in early 2003.
     

     
    I had visions of a quick patch-up to get an MOT so I could attend the TSSC Norfolk MOT event that September. I even imagined that I could work quick enough to have both Heralds on the road by the end of the year. How wrong could I have been?
    My old 12/50 was still in pieces in the garage, so this was (and still is) a driveway restoration for fair weather days only. I built a small car port over the car to help keep the rain away, but the roof run-off isn’t good enough so when it starts raining I know I have 15 minutes before the rain water gathers in pools and starts to drip through the plastic.
     
    Here’s a rough timeline of work done. I’ve taken plenty of photos and a few notes and diagrams jotted down in a notebook. Sadly,I’ve failed to keep track of the photo dates in my notebook. Not a disaster, but I wish I’d kept such information....
     
    2003
    Friend from work lends me MIG welder, big bottle of gas and another friend comes up and gets me started; helping me replace O/S door step and seat belt mount. That’s all really, my own welding is pretty poor and I’m disappointed.
     
    2004
    Grind away base of O/S rear wing by B post to reveal lots of rot extending into kick panel under rear seat. Not much left of bottom of B post either. Remove body mounting bracket here. Note extent of rust in rear wheelarch and order outer wing repair patch and inner arch as well. Hope to get that all done by the Summer! For some reason think it is time to grind off O/S/F outrigger.
     

     
    2005
    Remove rear ¼ valance and see how rotten main body is around rear wheelarch. Start grinding away inner wheelarch.
     
    2006 & 2007
    No photos, which suggests nothing was done. The borrowed welder had given up and I bought my own along with an auto-darkening visor, that helped improve things. I think I put a new kitchen in during 2006...
     
    2008
    A flurry of activity...
    Repaired bottom of O/S B post and surrounding floor. Repaired holes left in chassis when I removed front outrigger. Made repairs to O/S/R wheelarch, after having parts to do this sitting on shelf for four years! Getting much more confident with the welder but forgot to keep an eye on heat distortion. Have bulge in rear wing and much filler needed in repaired skin at B post. But I see progress and no holes! Large patch added to O/S/F floor pan. Can see evidence of previous repairs, but looks solid enough for now. Small holes patched in complicated curves in door frame by bottom of A post and boot floor. Start attacking O/S/R outrigger; grinding off and repairing chassis rail where it had holed. Removed flaking bottom of driver’s door skin and welded in new repair panel as well as repairs to door base. Yet again things get too hot and door skin tries to flatten out rather than follow nice curves. Small bit of filler helps, but looking at it now in 2016, I can see the profile at the door base is much flatter than it should be.
     



     
    2009
    Finally weld on front outrigger that was removed in 2004! Weld on O/S B post body mount. Attach rear outrigger but realise it doesn’t fit. I made some mistakes with height of B-post floor, adjusted body mount flanges to suit and now it’s all too low. Grind away new B post mount and start again....
    Repair holes in boot floor on both sides where boot outriggers attach. Looked solid from above but the metal is hidden under a ¼” of body sealer! Confident enough to do these bits on a warm evening after work, so must be finding the welding easier.
     

     
    Replace rotten boot outriggers after making first plea for help on TSSC forum. Find everyone to be very friendly and helpful. Everything lines up nicely. Used wooden props under rear over-rider tubes to stop boot floor sagging, but doing everything in sloping driveway isn’t the best way....
    Make repairs to boot floor side under fuel tank (Tank removed years ago) and start taking a look at the nearside of the car, which is a lot worse!
     


     
    2010
    Repairs made to base of N/S B post and surrounding floor as well as N/S/R wheelarch. Bit more confident with my method here, but still don’t manage to get the factory spot welds where outer arch and wing meet. The inner arch has a return much wider than the wing, so I MIG these overlapped parts together and then grind the inner one in down to smooth the welds and match the depth of the wing return. It was dusk as I did this and yet again, got carried away and things got hot. Didn’t notice the distortion in the rear wing until clearing-up. When will I learn? !
     





     
    Boot stay re-attached to rear wing as it snapped off. Obviously the fuel tank , when in situ, takes the weight of the boot lid.
    Realise that I should by a new car cover. Old one had torn and so I threw it away, leaving car under leaky “car port” but exposed for a year or two. Spare wheel well full of water, nice set screws bought as part of body attachment kit are now very rusty and front of roof bubbling-up nicely.
     
    2011
    Another year of achievement! N/S/F outrigger removed, repairs made to surrounding chassis. Then complete N/S/F floor replaced along with repairs to very flaky bulkhead base. Was quite surprised at the amount of work required on the new floor pan to make it fit; had to cut into it, add small curved sections and then bend it up, as well as extending it to reach under the A post.
     

     
    Before that I had replaced all of the complicated curves at bottom of A post replaced, using my 12/50 Convertible (still hiding in garage) as a reference for cardboard patterns. Not an exact replica, but better looking than the weld-over repair section available for the bottom of the door frame. There were not many clues left as most of the A post base as well as subsequent repairs had rotted away.
     



     
    For a bit of light relief, removed the courtesy light switches, straightened out bent pins, cleaned and lubricated as the original ones seem hard to get. Light comes on (for what good it does) every time now. Replaced rotten rubber gearbox mounts also.
    Rear tub body mount attached and this time looked a good fit when rear outrigger was replaced. Bit of a loss to know what references to use when re-fitting these chassis parts as I had no solid metal to use as reference points on this side, however it does seem to be fitting together in the right places.
     

     
    Have taken more care on this side to re-attach valances etc when measuring-up to ensure that new panels end up in the right place.
    A friend at our local TSSC meet has sold me a nice second-hand fuel tank and I have given that a couple of coats of black Hammerite. However, bringing the project up-to-date, I’ve chipped a lot of that paint off over Christmas whilst trying to fit the tank. Still can’t get the drain plug to line up in the large boot floor hole, so I wonder if I have made this hole in the wrong place. Things might fit if I unscrewed the drain plug, but that’s when the bottom of the tank came away on the original one!
    Hope this little write-up is of interest and not too boring. This year (as every year) I really want to see the car finished. It won’t be concours, but I hope to have a lot of jollies out and about and support more local TSSC activities.
     
    So by the end of 2011, I thought this was the list of remaining jobs:
     
    Two new front wings to fit along with D plates and indicator panel repairs.
     
    Two new cross tube ends to be welded on and flappy fibreglass front valance to be re-attached.
     
    Add door step panels to repaired floorpan and replace rubber seals.
    Service brakes, suspension and steering.
     
    Fit new windscreen –but only going to subject myself to that pain if it fails the MOT.
     
    Finish sanding and repainting rusty wheels then add new tyres.
     
    Refit fuel tank add new fuel and bake pipes.
     
    The car was sold as a “Good Runner”, so I’m hoping the engine and transmission is still in reasonable order. I make some basic checks to ensure that nothing has seized and then run the engine once a year - it’s nice to hear it. Don’t think I can expect too much though, I found a previous owner had entered this car on the Drive Archive website and reported it to be “Very Tired”.
     
    Hopefully once MOT’d, I have a colleague at work who is happy to repaint it, but maybe he will need to straighten out some of my overheated bulges in the bodywork first!
     
    Back to 2016 now and that's a lengthy first post. Will continue in a new entry....stay tuned....
     
     
    (and this is the end of my script, so why does this rogue thumbnail keep appearing?)
  2. Stuart R
    2012
    I thought I’d write a few more lines about what has been going on lately. I started writing this at Easter, but am now revisiting this in August! Over the Jubilee season, I felt that the car had been lurking in the drive for long enough and I needed to get it solid enough for a summer MOT and maybe return to the detailed bodywork and painting and later.
     

     
    This summer, I’ve been re-fitting the seats and some interior trim. It’s amazing how that made the project look like it was progressing. I was tempted for a short spin round the block, if it had MOT and insurance! Getting the interior sorted cleared a bit of space in the garage, so I could get to my box of front wings which were next to go on.
     

     
    Many restoration books talk about protecting glass from the sparks when angle grinding. I can feel quite a bit of grit embedded in some of the door glass, not sure if this is from my repairs or someone else’s. What was quite surprising is the amount of metal dust that has built up inside the car, even as far up as the sun visors. Serves as a good reminder to keep wearing a face mask!
     

     
    Having completed the welding on the nearside outer chassis rail, I decided that it would be good to get the car off the axle stands, the engine running and reposition the car to make parking a little easier in our shared driveway.
     
    I’ve sourced a fuel pipe kit from an Internet seller and have had a brake pipe kit in stock for some time. The fuel kit pipe kit was easy enough to fit but I think I need to find some more snap-in clips for the pipework under the boot floor, where it was previously held in place with cable ties. I had only intended to replace the fractured front-rear brake hose to regain some stopping power, but as I tried to bleed the rear brakes, I realised that the rear bleed valves were seized and already very rounded. It seemed a good time to fit the rear new rear brake cylinders and flexi hoses that I had also bought previously. All seems to be OK but the long pipe along the chassis does seem a little too long, it sags under the main rail and also the pipe clips under the rear spring have disintegrated.
    I tried to fit the new fuel tank over Christmas, but couldn’t get it to fit. I realised that the only way to get it in place is to remove the drain plug. Nervously, I wedged the tank between my knees and attacked the drain plug gently with my biggest adjustable spanner. Fortunately, it unscrewed fairly easily with no damage to the bottom of the tank. The only difficulty since is getting a fuel-tight seal on the drain plug. Two replacement fibre washers have still dripped and they don’t fit as snugly as the original one. For the short term, I have resorted to some PTFE tape around the plug thread. Not sure if this is an official fix. The pick up pipe had become blocked with mud after this garden activity, so removed it for cleaning and revealed the complex mechanics behind the main/reserve selector(!)
     

     
    Can’t fit the tank in permanently yet as still need to attach rear tub bolts and rubber pads to chassis and fit the over-riders. Getting the over-riders off many years ago was a real trial of patience. The long bolts has seized in the captive nuts attached inside the over-rider. Despite days of soaking with WD40, attempts to loosen the bolts just mangled and split the inner brackets of the over-riders. Only option was to spend days with offcuts of a hacksaw blade to chop the bolt heads off inside the boot! To re-attach the over-riders, I have welded some nuts to some thin plates that hang loosely inside the over-rider. Still tricky to fit, but hopefully will work and I am to add a bit of grease to the threads to aid future dis-assembly.
     

     
    Many of my repairs have remained unpainted inside the vehicle, so have spent time rubbing down welds, treating with Jenolite, seam sealing and painting.
     

     
    Although finished in grey, not blue, this also makes things look more complete and the sealant helps fill the small gaps that I couldn’t reach with the welder. Now I have tried using seam sealer products, I wonder if I have gone overboard with some of my welding. I used a continuous bead of short welds to attach the outer wheelarches where maybe I could have used a short blast of MIG in place of the factory spot welds and used the modern sealants for gap sealing and waterproofing.
     

     
    The car is currently sitting on wheels borrowed from the 12/50 in the garage, so I took the original set to work to try to clean up. I’d spent a few evenings in the garden wire-brushing the old Hammerite and rust away but thought I’d give the factory shot-blaster a go. Spent three hours on the first wheel and four hours on the next and on inspection afterwards, they are still not ready for a repaint, much more time and patience is needed. With a new job on the horizon (with no access to a shot blaster) I think it’s time to hand these over to an expert! (A note from 2016 - the sound of the angle grinder/wire brush caused a bit of ill-feeling with a neighbour with complaints about 'years of noise'. This kind of DIY work is messy and noisy an sometimes not welcome in the leafy suburbs).
     
    So over the Jubilee weekend, I was hoping to make a start at front wing replacement, but the rain had stopped that.
     
    By July, I managed to separate one wing from the bonnet assembly. To minimise the risk of damage to the bonnet from the angle grinder, I opted to use a hacksaw to remove the bulk of the wing and then finally separate he bonnet and wing flanges by using an offcut of hacksaw blade to saw through each spot weld. I spent much time sawing through each weld, but some welds popped apart easily when I inserted a paint-stripper blade between them.
     


     
    Later, when removing the outer arch, I found a better way was to hacksaw through the upper flange each side of the spot weld, trying not to damage the metal below. Then I could simply twist the remaining strip of metal, and the spot weld would fracture easily and could then be ground flat. I used this on the off side wing and it left less damage to the bonnet flange.
     

     
    With the wing removed, I found a number of holes in the outer wheelarch, so I also purchased new arches. These do seem to follow the curve of the remaining inner arch quite well but need to find a good compromise between fitting both the inner arch AND the wing’s arch. I have also got to re-shape the front edge of this arch to get a decent fit against the D plate behind the sidelamp and indicator –it just doesn’t seem to have the right shape to follow the curve on the valance below. There is little left of the metalwork below the light and nothing at all left of the old D plate to make a comparison.
     

     
    Fortunately, the old 12/50 in the garage offers an example of how things fit, although on closer inspection, I can see that its front wing is not original either, so hope it is a good example to work from. I have seen other users on the internet who have done some major surgery on these modified 13/60 wings with cutting, welding and much filling. I really don’t want to go that far!
     
    That brings things up to date. Yet again, I’ve missed the goal of a summer MOT, didn’t make it to Stafford and am unlikely to get it to the Norfolk Mile of Triumphs. I can see progress though; last year, there was no passenger floor but now visitors are offered a ride up and down the drive –with no jokes about Fred Flinstone!
     

     
    You may be able to spot the old TSSC sticker in the rear window and an Agreed Value Insurance sticker in the windscreen, so this car must have belonged to a club member at some point. If anyone can fill in any details of its past, I'd love to hear from them.
     
    2013
    Back again! A cold, wet Spring means that nothing much has happened over the last few months. Maybe this explains why no-one is writing much!
     

     
    Still concerned about the poor fit of my replacement font wheelarch, so with a few sunny days, had a tidy of the garage and set-to on something a bit different to try and make some positive progress.
     
    Last summer, (or maybe the one before?) I won the on-line auction for a NOS front valance, so thought I'd try it for size and use this to help line-up the cross-tube repair ends that I bought many years ago.
     
    The Project Manager made a supervisory visit at this point!
     

     
    Armed myself with some chassis alignment drawings and thought that maybe I could calculate the position of the cross-tube end mounting hole with respect to the bulkhead mounting bolt or chassis side rail. This is probably quite easy if the chassis is off the car and there is no running gear in the way.
     
    After a trial fit of the new valance, it's becoming apparent that the car must have had a shunt at the front at some point, which may explain why it is sporting a fibreglass valance.
     
    With the valance mounted, I fitted the over-riders and they just about fit in the gaps. However, when looking along the nose of the car, I can see the two over-riders sit at different angles, the quality of welding on their mounting brackets seems to differ on each side.
     
    My cross-tube does look quite rusty and looks like it will need complete replacement in a few years. If I attempted it now, I'm sure I would open another can of worms and the Herald would stay off the road for another year. Not a good plan. I decided the best option was fit the valance and attempt to weld the repair ends in the right place for the valance I have, rather than the positions dictated by the drawings!
     
    The supplied ends look of good quality but were rather long; if I was to use the full length, I would need to start removing the over-rider brackets first, so I removed 100mm from each repair tube. Checking first that the ends were cut square, it was easy enough to score a line in the paint with some calipers and cut round this with a hacksaw to ensure the shortened tube still had a square-cut end.
     
    I then used a length of timber and a Square to mark the middle of the position where the valance mounting bracket should be.
     
    I then had to cut the rusty remnants of the old cross tube away. I chose a point where I still had enough room to get welding clamps attached, but hopefully be welding onto (fairly) good metal. One problem I had was deciding how to cut a square line in the old tube with no reference to work to. I tried a clumsy method by cutting a hole in a sheet of scrap metal, sliding it along the tube and holding it perpendicular to the tube with a Square. It was hard to hold everything in place, so I opted to score around the edge of a Jubilee clip tightened over the tube. This seemed to work OK and I had a reasonable pair of edges aligned for butt welding. Painted some rust converter inside the tube as far as I could reach to try and hold-off the deterioration.
     



     
    So, by the end of 2012, the list has got smaller:
     
    Repair passenger door skin.
    "Adjust" and fit nearside wheelarch and attach to wing
    Replace offside wing, wheelarch and fabricate indicator panel.
    Fit side valances.
     
    Then time to check the running gear and get it to see the MOT man!
     
    Easy! ?
     
     
    2013
    It's been a busy month since I last posted -have forgotten how much I have done and did think I had reported on some of it.
    I finally finished off the near-side wing by plug welding the outer wheelarch and D-plate into place. Had to bend the replacement arch panel an awful lot to make it fit and am still not very happy with the bonnet/passenger door alignment. Have not welded the arch fully to the wing so hopefully have a bit of wriggle room to get this right later.
     
    Spent a rainy few days, gently sawing through the flange of the off-side wing then twisting the remaining metal strip to break the spot weld. I've never had much success with the spot weld drill and am concerned that the angle grinder may catch and buckle the bonnet. This method seems to require minimal tidying afterwards, although when the hacksaw blade slips it puts a good scratch in the paint above!
     
    A bit of rust treatment was needed on the remaining flange and then I set about trying the new wing for size. I was keen to try harder on this side to get the correct 'step' between the bonnet and wing. The 5mm difference is hard to spot with the chrome strip trim in place, but any error here is very easy to spot once the bonnet is down.
    To get this step involves some modification to the new wing. I was nervous about attempting this on the other side but now I realise it is an essential part of the process. The re-enforcing strip needs to be dealt with first before you can make any attempt to clamp-up the wing to the bonnet to check for the fit.
     
    Firstly, (if you've bought the same wings I have) you need to make 2 cuts in this strip, one V shaped to pull the strip away from the wing and a second cut (bent and filled with a V-shaped offcut) to get the right shape. It's not the tidiest job in the world and is hard to clean up with my big grinder -but I've learned that a bit of seam sealer is a marvellous way of smoothing around these hard-to-reach corners!
     

     
    I bought this at a reduced price from a trader at Stafford many years ago. I was told that it was slightly mis-shapen at the front and would require a bit of filler. I just looked at the deep scratches on it and assumed that was all. It turns out that the curve under the headlamp was too short, there was no way that the wing would meet-up with the indicator panel, especially once I tried to fit the D plate inside!
     
    I made some cereal-packet patterns from the wing on the other side to help convince myself that the new wing was defintely wonky, before resorting to some drastic surgery!
     

     
    I did this as a careful bit of butt welding, so it was easy to see good weld penetration on the other side. On the inside, I smoothed the welds as best I could with the grinder and added paint and seam sealer to try to keep the grot out of the join. I ground the welds flush on the outside and added a skim of filler, with a final coat of primer it looks presentable, but will need another go with the filler before I go for a proper re-spray.
     
    The inner indicator panel had been patched in the past and most of the original metal underneath had vanished. Again, more careful butt welding here; on this side I made sure I got the complicated curves right around the engine grille before welding the bulk of the panel in place. As usual, forgot that I was welding close to an 'open end' and blew some holes at the edge of the panel around the grille. As ever, any attempts to fill this hole just blows another one! I made this curved area over-sized so I could cut it back (see dotted line) afterwards.
     

     
    More similar repairs followed around the headlamp. I had thought that these could wait for after the MOT, but figured I should do them while the headlamp and wiring was safely out of the way.
     

     
    Oddly enough, I had no drama fitting the inner wheelarch on this side, there is a small discrepancy between the wing and wheelarch edges but only 5mm at the max, which I could easily bring-in by folding the arch edges with pliers. The general shape looks good, but I still can't get a fit around the door that looks as good as the original wing.
     
    As a break from welding, I put a wire-brush to the NOS front valance to remove the surface rust and applied some filler-primer, I'm sure this would be a good temporary match if I had a Saffron Yellow car! Will need to see how good two coats of filler primer are; I could still see my wire brush marks through the first coat and don't have a more delicate method of sanding here.
     
    To reach another milestone, refitted some shiny bits. The headlamps' peaked hoods are a bit pitted, but still look much better that two big holes!!
     

     
    I'm waiting for some new 'bullet' electrical connectors to arrive. I've cleaned all the brass ends on the light fittings but all the couplers have disintegrated inside, causing the lights to be a bit erratic. Have also had to make and attached some more wiring supports under the bonnet to stop the headlight looms getting wedged in the grille.
     
    A friend popped round a couple of weekends ago and assisted with the front brakes. It took the best part of a day to get the job done; renewed all the pistons but two were seized and it took a few ingenious methods with G-clamps, timber and a small tyre compressor to free-up the old ones!
     
    Have started on the repair of the nearside door, I have a lower doorskin repair panel to fit. But first, the bottom of the frame is pretty rotten so am trying to rebuild it in small sections -that will be another story.
     
    Having no difficulty in starting the car, but it won't idle anymore, lots of fuel oozing from the carburettor, but fortunately a new gasket set arrived in the post this morning.
     
    Wheels are due back from the powder-coaters tomorrow.
    Looks like after 10 years, it is slowly coming together.
     

  3. Stuart R
    2013
    Rain again! Got very wet changing the oil this week, so gave up working in the drive earlier this week and put finger to keyboard...
     
    More progress over the last few months and it's looking like there's a good chance that we may make it Stafford in a Triumph.
     
    My last big hurdle was to get the passenger door repaired. The bottom of the doorskin looked like it had been previoulsy repaired, but there were now many holes in the bottom of the door frame as well. It seemed as if the splooge of body filler was holding the bottom of the door together.
     

     
    I had purchased some thinner steel that I used around the front indicators -nice and bendy. However, when I tried to hammer all the curves in the correct place, it became obvious that progress would be very difficult to make a single-piece repair for the complex curves at the front of the door.
     

     
    Many years ago, on the driver's door, I added two L-shaped patches to the door frame, although these looked a
    reasonable repair at the time, they left very obvious bumps in the skin once it was fitted. I decided to take more care this time and so I would make small repair patches with simple curves that could be made in the vice, making each oversized. I tried to cut-out only a small part of the door frame at each time, then trim the oversized repair to match-up neatly with what remained.
     



     
    This took many days to achieve with some gentle andle grinding to remove the worst of the beads. At least the curve of the rear frame repair were a little more straightforward and only needed one patch with the edge hammered over to meet the curve of the door frame.
     

     
    For the final frame repair, I acquired some angled steel, kindly cut down to size by a colleague in the company's machine shop.
     

     
    For the first time, I was able to make good use of my butt-welding clamps. I bought them early in the restoration, but never found a use for them as the MIG always blew through the thin metal close to any air gap. I filed some larger slots in the positions occupied by the clamps which then gave me around a millimetre gap to fill with weld, which seemed to work well with minimal burn-through.
     

     
    Despite the 1mm 'expansion gap' and doing a succession of individual welds, moving the welding torch from one end to the other and allowing things to cool, there is still some distortion, but nothing that couldn't be straightened with the hammer. Once I was happy with the repair, seam sealer and a stone chip paint were applied to the inside of the door frame.
     

     
    The skin repair was not so successful. I've had the repair panels for a long time. Again, a lack of experience means that I've incorrectly rebuilt the driver's door a long while ago. The profile of this door is rather flat where it was easy to see on the passenger door, I needed to try and keep a 5mm bow between the centre and edges of the door skin (but who is to say this is correct?!) I had removed the rusty door skin and trimmed the repair panel down a few mm to get a nice close fit of the joggled repair panel. The before and after pictures don't look too bad from a distance, but I had some real difficulties welding this and gave up early on this and smothered the results with a bit more filler than I'd like.
     

     
    On the last door, I had a real problem with the door skin sinking as I welded, which left a bit of a dip in the repaired panel. At Stoneleigh, this Spring, I purchased a set of Cleco pins, which I used to hold the repair panel tight against the door skin. This seemed to work quite well, although looking back, I think I should have not clamped the bottom of the skin to the door frame before welding as there is still a definite kink at the repair point. I was keen to clamp everything up to maintain the correct door dimensions, but really, I think the repair would have been better if I had left the skin to rest where it wanted and then weld it before tightening it around the frame.
     

     
    I used a stout piece of extruded aluminium with a 5mm packer at each end as a gauge to try and maintain the curvature of the door. I also cut a small wood block to ensure the middle of this curve remained proud and fastened this in place with a self-tapper via one of the door trim fixing holes.
     

     
    The trouble begain with the welding. I'd given the area of repair a good go over with the wire brush attachment, as the repair panel appears to be galvanised (it has survived 10 years in the garage without rusting). For the first tack welds, I made a single weld each side of the Cleco pin, however as the weld cooled, there was a 'ping' and the joint failed. The weld was not penetrating into the repair panel, even though I'd earthed the welder to a wire-brushed part of the lower repair panel. I didn't want to increase the welder's power setting for fear of causing more heat distortion, but it did help the weld penetrate better, but still created a messy weld. My only thoughts here are that there is something about the galvanised repair panel, or that I didn't clean the underside of the original door skin thoroughly enough and the old sound deadening coating gave off fumes, reacting with the weld.
     

     
    Anyway, it's all covered with filer now as I needed to get on. Have also had two sills in the garage for a long time and these were beginning to rust under the red primer. I sanded these back to bare metal and had to add some rust treatment where the surface was getting marked. Spent the best part of a day trying to drill and file the elongated fixing holes in the sills and add suitable holes to the bottom of the door steps. Two coats of filler primer have not hidden the rust damage and I still need to strip and repaint the underside, but they look smart enough in grey from a distance!
     
    Also purchased a carburettor service kit and spent an afternoon on the kitchen table adding the variuos O rings and giving it a good scrub. The carb fitted to my car certainly looked like the Solex B30 PSEI that should be fitted, but I could find no identifying marks on the float chamber where eveybody said they are. Indeed they are on the float chamber, but very hard to spot as the stamped letters are very feint.
     

     
    Anyway, the best bit of this rather door-based update is that last week, I took the car just round the corner to my local MOT station. It failed on a worn track rod end and a blocked windscreen washer (embarrassing!) which I was able to put right back at home (I had previoulsy bought two track rod ends) and returned to collect a certificate within a few hours.
     
    The MOT Examiner was impressed with my DIY welding efforts but did have to issue an advisory on the doors as they are a little diffcult to oprn and close as the door gaps now seem tighter than ever. I need to deal with this ASAP as I keep finding small shavings of the striker plate on the door step!
     

     
    Having purchased a new set of tyres, I'm keen to get the wheel alignment checked as I've possibly messed about with the settings by fitting new track rod ends and rear outriggers that hold the rear tie-rods. I've had a go at Pete's How to Do it section but despite a garage full of stuff am struggling to find the 68Kg to load the front seats with!! Did take it to a local tyre centre today where a helpful chap gave me a computerised printout of the alignment, but they told me in advance that they cannot alter the rear alignment as their technicians cannot make
    any adjustments that are more complicated than turning a cam with a spanner. Inserting or removing shims is something they are not prepared to do. The print-out did suggest that one wheel was parallel -which is a start, I guess!
     
    Have changed the oil this week and so far clocked up 11 miles! With such large distances travelled, the clutch has
    started playting up again and the new fluid I put in has turned a gloomy shade of brown. More investigations are required and a slave cylinder repair kit arrived in the post this morning.
     
    Need to work on curing the A post leaks as my new passenger floor has got very wet this afternoon. Definitely want this sorted before I fit my new carpets.
     
    I'm sure there'll be more to add, but for now, I'm chuffed enough to be driving around in the car! Here's my late Grandfather, at the wheel of the same car in our drive in the mid 1980's.
     

     
    2013, a few weeks later....
     
    We made it!
     
    A 250 mile round trip to Stafford. The car's first major outing since 2003. Just over 3 hours each way via A roads at around 55 mph where we could.
     
    Lacking a bit of pull on the hills and still sounding a bit 'tappety' (I checked valve clearances twice, but I've not much experience here). At least we didn't need to use the AA card and didn't cause any embarassing queues.
     
    Repair kits to both clutch cylinders but fluid still oozing out from master all over the bulkhead and a few notchy gear changes. Fortunately, found a nice N.O.S Girling unit in Bingley Hall. A job for tomorrow...
     


     
    2016
     
    So that's brought us up to date. We've been spotted around and about at TSSC Herts & Beds Events and Triumph Fest 2014. But reading this has reminded me there is still an awful lot to do 3 MOT passes later.
     
    I'm embarrassed to say the car is still currently in a mixture of faded Wedgwood paint and grey primer, with surface rust appearing. Door gaps are still too tight and getting tighter as the rubber mounts deform. I must try and carry on what I started and smarten the car up.
     
    I have made a small repair panel for the 12/50, so after 14 years in the garage that is now underway too.
     
    Thanks for reading!
     
    Apologies for the small images, they were lifted from the old forum pages and saved into a word document, I may be able to dig out the originals another time.
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