Stephen Peca wrote:
>
> I'm actually surprised by the number of people who thought I was a little
> crazy driving ten hours from Duluth in November. Oh well, I know I had
> fun.
Stephen, just the fact you bought a TR3 makes you a little crazy,
driving ten hours in cold weather in a roadster with no heat is just
'icing on the cake'. (But, it's a wonderful sort of crazy, IMO the kind
the world needs more of.)
Welcome to the club !
I certainly can't top your story, but my first TR3 was only gotten home
after two days of standing ankle-deep in snow, trying to make it run,
followed by a 2-hour tow with me in the TR, and 20F air blowing up my
pants leg through the holes in the floor. To add insult to injury, the
reason it wouldn't run is because we had started out by swapping the
distributor cap and wires with my Dad's (running) TR3, which had had the
distributor installed turned 180 degrees, and 'fixed' by swapping wires
around !
> Anyway, the heater valve under the hood was open. I think what may have
> happened was (almost) overall electrical failure. The seller pointed out a
> rats nest of wiring and connections and said "if there's a problem, this is
> likely where it will be". So, my first task is to re-build all those
> connections.
You might want to consider just replacing the wiring harness (around
$200 at the 'big 3'), depending on how bad it is. Triumph was very
stingy with fuses, so electrical shorts can quickly ruin some fairly
expensive parts, not to mention the whole car.
> As far as the tach problem, my gut tells me you are probably correct about
> the connection on the back. How easy is it to fix?
The tach cable is trivial to replace. It screws to the back of the tach
head with a single knurled collar, and runs almost straight through the
firewall to the distributor, where it's fastened with another knurled
collar. Start by undoing the head end and pulling out the inner cable.
(You can expect to get your hands pretty dirty, so have some rags handy,
etc.) I think you'll find the inner cable broken or damaged, which
means a new cable assembly ($15 at Moss). If not, lube the core, and
slide it back into the housing. With the end still sticking out by
about 2", make sure it turns easily without binding, then slide it home
and make sure it will no longer turn at all (because it's held by the
tach drive in the distributor pedestal). Start the engine briefly, and
check that the exposed end of the core turns. If all these tests pass,
you probably have a bad tach head. Check out Tony Rhodes' info at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/arhodes/Speedo.html on repair
possibilities.
Randall
59 TR3A daily driver (well, as soon as I change the @~%#! TOB)
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