Part II of the Once and Future TR3A's story
When it came time to rebuild the engine I decided to have it professionally
done. There is a local shop that specializes in Morgans. The owner
vintage races a Morgan and builds engines for a number of Morgan race cars.
First of all I WANTED DCOEs. What can I say. I know SUs are better suited
for a street TR3 but I have been to too many vintage races. I love the
look and the mystic of DCOE Webers. There was nothing rational about that
decision.
I went to Ken Galanders with a shopping list: 280 degree cam, hardened
lifters, shortened push rods, high performance valve springs and retainers,
alloy rocker arm stands that supported the shaft ends, rocker arm spacers,
special grade 8 rocker assy hold down studs, special hard nuts, oversize
intake valves, harmonic dampener conversion,and a rear crank lip seal
conversion kit. I sent my oil pump down to Ken and had it clearenced.
The rocker arm assy was rebuilt with new shaft, new bushings on the arms
and new adjusting screws. The ends were resurfaced.
I located a late TR4A head. The head had 0.060" shaved off. The shroud
from around the plugs were removed. The combustion chambers, intake and
exhaust passages were polished. The exhaust was open up a bit as were the
valve pockets. Hardened valve seats were installed upside down into the
enlarged valve pockets and new seats were gound into the other side. This
provides a venturi effect in the space between the wide pockets and the
open valves.
The drive train was balanced. The crank nitrided with the journal
passageways cross drilled. The rear scroll was removed for the lip type
rear seal. A front harmonic dampener added to keep the crank intact at high
RPM.
The engine received new 87mm pistons, that has eyelash cuts made into the
top lips of the barrels to match where the shrouding was cut away from the
combustion chambers. This was the primary reason I had the engine
professionally rebuilt. I did not have a clue how to do that.
The distributer was rebuilt and recurved to work properly with mechanical
advance only.
I had a set of four tube headers chromed and ceramic coated internally.
The TWM intake manifolds and linkage were polished, as were the upper and
lower thermostat housings. On the bottom side of the engine is the
optional finned aluminum sump. On top is a period Cal Custom polished
aluminum intake manifold with a Moon breather coming off the side. The
steel fuel lines are polished stainless steel with braided flex lines going
into the DCOEs. I have an ITG foam filter over the DCOEs.
I have an external oil cooler sitting to one side just behind the front
grill opening.
Before the engine went in, I plumbed completely new hydrolic lines out of
polished stainless steel. I also ran a polished stainless steel line into
the interior for the oil pressure guage. Once into the interior, I
switched to copper tubing. The flex lines on the clutch hydrolics and oil
pressure line are steel braided.
The rest of the engine bay is new orignal appearing except for the use of
unpainted stainless steel fixings. I disassembled the wiper motor and
painted the center section the proper krinkle black. I retinned the bottle
holder for the windscreen washer and the wiper gear assy. I carefully
researched which parts were body coloured and which were black.
When I installed the refinished petrol tank, I used rubber pads and strips
in place of the original felt that holds water to accelerate rusting. The
rubber strips that Moss Motors sells to install MGB fuel tanks is perfect
for the job.
I installed the newly recovered and repainted instrument panel. Next I
installed the new harness. The steering box went into the car, followed by
the engine and radiator. Next, the front valance, bonnet, and boot lid
were fitted onto the car and the Once and Future TR3A went down to the
paint shop to have her exterior sprayed. I had the doors sparayed
seperatly to make sure all the crannys recieved proper paint.
When she came home I started hanging parts on the car, new bonnet and boot
hinges, new lettering, the stainless steel wing strips, the rock guards and
more. After all this time, she was starting to look line a real car.
I assembled the door handles, hinges and went to hang the doors to discover
that the door openings were about 1/4 inch too narrow. The car got packed
back onto a trailer and returned to the body shop. They offered to fix it
by shortening the doors by 1/4 inch. I told them that would only be
acceptable if they would shorten the hard top by 1/4 inch, the door rails
by 1/4 inch, the interior door panels buy 1/4 inch, the side curtains by
1/4 inch, purchase a new tonnou cover and soft top so they can have new
lift the dot connectors installed, and agree to make up short inside door
panels any time I choose to replace worn interior panels. They agreed to
cut the car and lengthen it 1/4 inch then repaint the center section.
When the car came home, I installed interior panels. My car came from the
factory with leather seat covers. Black with white piping. I replaced
them in the original colours and style. The rear fiber board had been cut
out for two speakers and had some tears. I discovered that I just could
not purchase a new fiber panel. I could only get one with upholstry
already installed. Since I had rear upholstry from my interior kit, I
ended up coating the fiber panel with fiberglass, covering over the speaker
holes.
I went with the factory original carpet configuration with the rubber floor
mats in front and no carpeting on the floor. This will keep any water from
being held by carpet next to the floor panels.
The badly worn wire wheels and spindles were replaced with new ones, along
with new tyres.
At this point, I was ready to start bringing the Once and Future Triumph
back to life.
{Continued in part 3}
TeriAnn Wakeman For personal mail, please start subject line
Santa Cruz California with TW. I belong to 4 high volume mail lists
twakeman@scruznet.com and do not read a lot of threads..Thanks
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