[TR] what is the most stressful thing to do on a Triumph?

[TeriAnn J. Wakeman]

Never having taken a car down to its individual parts and then 
reassembled it before, *THE* most stressful thing I did with my TR3 was 
drive it for the first time after reassembly.  As the time for the 
initial drive approached I stressed out more and more thinking of all 
the things that could go wrong such as the rear axle assembly to fall 
off, the steering wheel to come off in my hands or somehow for the front 
wheels to turn independently, or the front suspension to fall apart or a 
wheel fall off or any number of things just to fall off, break or any 
number of catastrophic failures.  I have a very active vivid imagination.

The first drive came and about 3 blocks from the driveway a front 
headlight rim fell off and promptly flattened under a tyre. That was the 
only part that fell off.

But I did experience intermittent fuel flow problems which exercised my 
AAA towing card a few times until I traced it down to an intermittent 
fuel flow interruption at the fuel tank. I pulled the fuel tank after 
draining it, removed the sender unit and looked down into a tank with 
dirt, oak leaves, dead pill bugs and ear wigs.

When I rebuilt my TR I did not have a garage so I put up a steel pipe 
frame and a tarp for a shelter and rebuilt the car on the dirt under a 
big oak tree.  When the fuel tank was taken off there was deep rust 
under where the felt like padding sat against the tank.  I sent the tank 
out to be boiled out and to have patches welded on. Afterwords it sat 
for a while on a pallet along the edge of the covered tarp area while I 
worked on the body. Once the tank was cleaned out and reinstalled the 
fuel system worked properly.

About 3 months into driving the car locally to try and build up some 
confidence in the results of my work there was an unhealthy noise 
starting to make itself noticeable at the front left corner.  I pulled 
over and looked for anything out of the ordinary.  I touched the 
knockoff and noticed it was hot.  Another flatbed tow later the TR was 
back home had I pulled the front wheel  and started disassembling 
things.  A new front bearing had failed. It seems I had set the front 
bearings up as to the instruction in the main part of the workshop 
manual which was for front drum brake TRs and had not noticed that there 
was a supplement in the back for disc brake TRs.  I redid both sides to 
the supplement specs and was off again.

And those were the sum of my TR's teething problems at the end of my 
very first and hopefully very last total car rebuild.  Though it still 
took about a half year before I would trust my work enough to throw the 
TR through tight mountain corners on the side of steep hills or drive 
outside my 100 mile free towing range.

TeriAnn