Nasties within the engine.

Ok, so while changing the engine bearings I noticed that the camshaft lobes looked a little iffy. So decided to remove the cam and followers. Very nasty (see below). Four of the lobes had worn almost completely away. Astonishing given that the car whizzed around Spa and Le Mans.

So have chosen to replace both camshaft and followers. Going to use the MK I triumph 2500 PI camshaft as it has a large lobe separation and reasonable lift. This will help what I have planned for the engine, but more of that later.

Heading off.

Ok so as the camshaft had to come out I also had to take the head off. I knew that he head had been off in 1988 but not since so as ever there was a worry about whether it would come off cleanly.
Firstly I removed the nuts holding the rocker gear down and removed it. I then removed the pushrods and kept them in order push through a piece of card.

Close examination of the rocker tips (see above) showed bad wear so will need some new gear. Next I undid the bolts holding the water pump housing to the head, these came undone easily and with some encouragement from a copper faced hammer the pump housing came off. Finally the nuts holding the head down were removed in the spiral pattern shown in the brown book. I then tapped around the edge of the head with the same hammer to loosen the head and lifted it off with the engine crane. The bores of the engine looked good, no sign of a wear ridge (see below).

Beginning the reassembly

Ok so a few months have gone by since my last post. Have not stood still though. 

Firstly the chassis has been completely stripped. Pretty much everything came off easily. Except the rear shock conversions which were tough to remove. Also discovered that the brake pipes were already copper, one less thing to buy. 

Last to be removed was the engine which was lifted out with a crane. 

The engine was checked over and timing chain and big end and main bearings changed. Also renewed the front and rear crank seals. 

Then the old chassis was cut in half (nasty) with the front half being retained for exchange with CTM who will make the new chassis.  

                                                                        -0-

New chassis was picked up from CTM at the beginning of December. Chose to have the chassis left in acid etch primer as am not sure about powder coating which can hide corrosion and cannot be repaired. See pictures of lovely new chassis below. 

Note it includes all the appropriate reinforcements that overcome known weaknesses in the Triumph chassis design (B, C, D and E in the image above). Colin at CTM is a great chap and his workshop in Southampton is a must visit. 

Once setup on jack stands the chassis was coated in two pack epoxymastic paint  which provides a tough yet pliable finish. Over this I painted smoothrite to make it look pretty. 

Rust rust rust

So now I can see the chassis in its true glory?

Lots of patches. Most worrying are the trailing arm mounts. Both have been plated and one is only attached to the central chassis on 3 sides!

So started the big lift.
Couple of precautions:

1) don't climb under the car!
2) Brace the doors (so the car doesn't fold in half). In my case I have used the doors (which will not be opened while th car is off the chassis!). You can also use braces that bolt between the A and B-posts


Set up with 4 X 2 Tonne bottle jacks at the front and back of the sill on each side. I used some pieces of 2X4 wood between the bottle jacks and the sill to protect the sills.
Then slowly lift the body from the chassis. Each time the bottle jacks are fully up then I supported the body on jack stands and placed concrete blocks under the jacks to raise them

Eventually it was possible to put two pieces of timber through the wheel arches and use these to support the car i continued to raise it on the jacks

Now, one mistake... Should have backed the car into the garage as you need to lift the car further to allow the chassis out backwards from the car..
Eventually it did get high enough (720 mm at the sill! with the distributor and heater tap assembly removed to give a little more clearance).

Now I needed to manoeuvre the chassis into the nextdoor garage. This isn't that easy as it is very hard to steer the wheels without the steering wheel. However a simple trick makes it easy, place 2 old car magazines under each from wheel. This reduces the friction between the wheels and ground and makes it easy to steer them.

Bumpers

OK, so the final major attachment points between the chassis and body have to be attacked from under the car..
Remember safety first here and make sure the car is well supported. I put the front up on ramps and the rear on decent axle stands (on the chassis).

Starting from the front, the bumpers are attached to the chassis and body so need to be detached.
This is done by undoing the bolts under the front valence. I removed the anti-roll bar at this stage as I think it may interfere with the separation.

Next I had to remove the rear shock attachments to the body (I have a telescopic rear shock conversion). One side was easy, while the other wouldn't budge so I had to unbolt the whole body mounting

Then the handbrake cable. This means removing the split pins and clevis pins at the back of brake drums. Then the attachment of the handbrake cable from the trailing arm (secured by a nut, see hole in the figure below).

Finally there are 2 mountings each side for the rear bumper behind the  rear valence as well as one final bolt each side between the rear of the chassis and the boot floor.

The last of these attachments was the hardest. It is tricky to access without removing the rear wing and in my case was completely rusted up. The nut and head of the bolt was also completely rounded off.

Luckily as I was going to replace the chassis I had the luxury of being able to use an angle grinder to cut the chassis so I could grind the head off the bolt.

The last two connections between the chassis and body remaining are the spare wheel hook (I didn't have one of these....Or even the bar across the chassis that it attaches to. this obviously wouldn't help the rigidity of the chassis!!!) and the rear fuel pipes (X2)

Begining to unbolt the body from the chassis.

So the next step is to begin to unbolt the chassis. After asking around on various news groups I was pointed to the Moss/Rimmer catalogue for a diagram which shows all the attachment points between chassis an body.
However this diagram is not perfect as some attachments (most importantly the seatbelt anchor bolts) are missing and as the picture only shows the chassis you still need to find the positions in the body.

So I thought I would photograph as far as possible the mounting points.

1) Next to the radiator
2) By the front wheel arch (opposite the distributor)
3) Foor by the A post
4) In the footwell by the fire wall (no picture as my car didn't have this bolt in the floor, although the bolt and spacer was present in the chassis it looks like it was cut when the new floor was installed and was so rusted into the chassis it was left.!)
5) Floor by the sill in the middle of the door aperture
6) Floor by the hand brake
7) Floor (Dash support)
8) Seat belt stalk
9) Parcel shelf? behind the seats

Luckily for me all the bolts came out easily, although  (2) was tight so had to coat in home made "bolt-eaze" (10% Acetone 90% Automatic transmission fluid).

disconnecting stuff from the engine II

So making good progress.. Time to do the other side of the engine.

 Starting with:
1) wire to the temperature sender (essential that you label the wires on this side, I use masking tape and permanent marker pen.)
2) Alternator and Coil feed wires
3) Oil pressure sensor wire
4) Oil pressure pipe
5) Fuel return pipe
6) Brake pipes X 2, Clutch pipe
7) Tacho Cable
8) Fuel feed (don't undo this until you have drained the tank
9) Choke cable

disconnecting stuff from the engine I

OK so time to start disconnecting stuff.
Decided to begin with the engine, drivers side.
First things first, I disconnected the battery for safety.
Then, looking at the engine:

Need to disconnect:
1) heater pipes X2 (before you do this drain the cooling system)
2) Steering (at the rack so will need to remove the plenum (7))
3) Speedo cable (at the gearbox, will need to remove gearbox cover, see later)
4) Servo vacuum hose
5) Throttle cable
6) Choke cable
8) Radiator cowl
9) Battery cable
10) Heater valve cable

Begining to unbolt the chassis

Wrote a list of things to undo before seperation while on holiday:

Brake pipes X 2
Clutch Pipe
Speedo and tacho cable
Fuel pipe and fuel return pipe (at front and back)
Accelerator, choke and heater cables
Coil, alternator, starter, radiator fan, oil and temperature sender wires
Oil pressure pipe
Steering lower joint
Heater pipes (X2)
Handbrake cable
rear shocks (got a dodgy telescopic conversion!)
Silencers
Chassis to body bolts (see Moss catalogue)
Front and rear bumpers
boot lid and bonnet (to reduce weight)
Seats (to reduce weight)
Gearbox cover and overdrive wires

Hope this is all!
Tim

OK so I bought a 1972 CP series Triumph TR6 in 2010.
The car was in reasonable order. Floors and sills had been replaced alongside a few other bits of body welding.

The engine was in pretty good fettle with only 20K miles since a rebuild (albeit in the 1980s) and with a bit of tweaking ran pretty well. Only pressing issue was a noisy gearbox which was replaced once it lunched itself on the way back from the Goodwood revival in 2011.
Since then the car has been a real blast, taking us to the 2013 Spa classic (including spirited track laps), 2014 Le mans Classic (less spirited driving VV wet), holiday in cornwall and several other blasts..

However the car has always had a guilty secret, namely a very patched chassis. these include patches in all the known rust spots as well as a strange lack of a rear cross brace and lower "tee shirt".
I have always known that one day I would have to bite the bullet and replace and it looks like winter 2014-15 is the right time.

This Blog aims to document the chassis replacement process. It is my first time at doing this (I have done a spitifre chassis removal in the distant past!) and so will document mistakes as well as triumphs (no pun intended).  

The work will be carried out in a 2 1/2 car garage with standard tools. I have already taken the liberty of ordering a pucker new chassis from CTM engineering...

So let the game begin!