Greetings everybody,
starting from today I am participating in the triumphs mailing list.
My name is Alex van Zanten, 39 years old, living in Vaassen in the
Netherlands.
I am married and we have three children from 2, 4 and 5 years old.
After a crusade of 8 years and two months I have finished restoring my
TR3a.
She was born on 24 October 1958 and shipped to California (TS 38168-L
with TS 38654-E and body number 1013259.
I restored the car to it's original specifications.
On the outside she is signal red with disc wheels. On the inside she is
black (partial leather) with white piping.
I myself stripped the car down and did most of the suspension
restoration. Welding of the car has been done by a friend, who also
restored the engine and the gearbox. After that I did most of the
rebuilding myself.
She has no overdrive (which I am searching for by the way), but does
have a heater (very pleasant in our dutch climate).
I finished the car investing an enormous amount of time this year, since
she turned 40 and our TR Club Holland celebrated its 25th anniversary.
And I wanted to be part of that celebration in my own car.
I finished the car (and was cleared by our traffic department) two weeks
before the anniversary-event. During a period of three weeks we have
covered 1500 kilometers. What a great fun, though some fine tuning to
the engine needs to be done (carburetors).
I am suffering from cooling problems (a very known problem) and will
replace the original fan with a Kenlow fan (behind the radiator and NOT
in front). Also the steering house is leaking oil. The car is now stored
for a few months, and in January 1999 I will start with the final
improvements, and will be racing down the roads in spring, summer and
autumn.
No history is known of the car. I wrote to the previous owner (a
professor from Abilene, Texas) but received no reply. I am going to give
it one more try, who knows.
I hope you got an impression of me and my car. I will try to share my
acquired knowledge of the car with you.
Greetings, Alex.
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