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Adoom's 1976 Triumph 2500 TC


Adoom

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Before I did that, I removed the underseal used as seam sealer, so I could located the spot welds. Underseal...Dicks. I used petrol, a rag and a 3M paint removal thingy on the drill(on go slow so I didn't spray it everywhere). My choice of solvent was possibly not a fantastic idea cause I had to put all the rags outside and vent the gara...bedroo...kitche...lounge, by opening all the doors for a while, to clear the fumes. 

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Drilled out the spot welds to separate the two parts of the firewall panel. The smaller panel needed to come off for access the weld the bigger one on.

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Removed the remains of the old firewall. And removed the brake, clutch, pedal box and steering column. And scraped some shitty old seam sealer off.

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Removed the battery shelf to make more room. I think I will bare metal the engine bay cause all the paint is fucked, then seam seal all the joins cause most joins are not sealed and the stuff that is is horrible tar stuff.

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Found some more rust after removing the radiator.  

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Not loads of progress...

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Took the lights and grill out. Had to drill out some rivets to remove the headlight bowls. Didn't find any rust there!

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Used my mallet as a dolly and straightened this flange, just because. Scroll up to see how wobbly it was.

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Used the flappy sanding wheel on the grinder to remove the old welds. 

I'd like to go nuts in the engine bay with the paint/rust removal abrasive pad on the grinder, but the dust goes everywhere. Maybe I need some drop cloths for my 'kitchen'.

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The paint job on this car really is half arsed. I think the chrome trim was removed, then GLUED back on, but they didn't bother removing the lights or grill.

Last night I started removing the fuel tank and drained it. I removed it the rest of the way tonight. I think I found out why the fuel gauge didn't work. The sender float doesn't.... float, it's half full of fuel. Inside of the tank looks to be surprisingly good. 

I also removed the rear lights and the rear loom. And cleared out all the carpets and stuff that I had just put in the boot.

I really need to start putting metal back into it.... taking parts off to look for rust doesn't feel like progress.

 

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I wanted to remove some of the sound deadening bitumen pads from the floor because it was in the way of welding, it looks really horrible and I was looking for any more rust.

So I bought 5kg of dry ice today and removed ALL of the sound deadening after work. Was 3kg of the stuff. I think It took about 3 hours. Didn't find more rust. There is a mystery tear in the floor, like it was lowered onto something sharp...

I'll clean the remains up with solvent and wirebrushes and paint it with POR15.

There is a really ugly repair to the floor where the handbrake mounts. I want to cut that out and do a tidier job of it.

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Woken up at 1am this morning by my shoulders reminding me about how unfit I am and the 3 hours of work I made them do last night. Fuuuuuu. Took like an hour for the ibuprofen to kick in and I could get back to sleep. 

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Removed the rear screen. Found some rust.

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I knew there was something going on under there because where the trailing edge of the parcel tray meets the gutter around the boot, it's just crumbly rust. I thought I'd have to try repair that from underneath... inside the boot. Now I'm just going to cut this whole thing off, repair the parcel tray, then patch these panels and put them back on top.... well that's what I think I can do....

I also removed the roof lining and found a mouse nest!

And some more rust.

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Same place on both sides. Maybe it gets condensation there and it just sits on the panel....

Also removed the front screen. Didn't damage the stainless trim! They used a shitload of mastic. No rust at the front. yay...

 

 

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Used a bunch of wax and grease remover and a lot of rags and a little wire toothbrush and cleaned the underseal off around where I need to weld the firewall in.

I thought I might make a little patch for the floor to make me feel like I'd made some progress. But then I realised that I still needed to remove the underseal from the underside of the floor where I need to weld the patch in.

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I wanted to be able to get my starlet or bike out of the garage. But I was using the wooden ramps/planks as spacers under the axle stands holding the Triumph up. DOH!

So I made a tall 'horse'.

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It's 900 high. Which is higher than it was with the big axle stands under the front. Easier to work on the sills.

This meant I could remove the axle stands from the front. Then jack the back up as high as I could and use the big axle stands at the back, with 2X4 jenga style spacers(nailed together) under them. After removing the small axle stands from the rear, I had my ramps back!

I wanted to be able to drop the rear sub frame sometime, so the axle stands are not as far back as I'd like. There seems to be sfa at the rear of the car to support a jack or axle stand. With the subframe, diff, etc in the back and nothing in the front, I reckon there is only 10kg on top of the horse. It's REAL easy to lift the front.

I had a got at cleaning up the underseal at the front end of the left sill, so I'd be able to weld there. It didn't come off as easy as the inside stuff. The wax and grease remover didn't soften it much. Might need to get a heat gun to warm it up before using the solvent.

Made the mistake of using the flappy sanding disc on the grinder where the underseal is... well, that sanding disc is fucked now.

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I cut out that rust behind the radiator.

And made a patch.

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This took at least an hour to make and it's the second attempt. The first attempt took longer and was all wrong. Those little bends were hard to do so close together. I also don't have a bender.

I ended up clamping two bits of plate that were just the right thickness to the bench, then clamping the patch over the 'groove' that created, then hammering it into the groove.

Would be a PITA if I end up needing to cut that bit of panel off because it's in the way of something.

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I also made this patch where there was some rust pitting that went through. Those round things are magnets. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After much cutting, grinding, trimming, filing, bashing and trial fits, I got the firewall patch to fit acceptably. I also cut off the lower flange and bent up a flange on the top of the tunnel so I get rid of the lip that catches water and shit.

I used crc zinc weld through primer on both faces where the panel overlapped. I tried some spots and tacks... Weld though primer is only kinda weld through, my welds looked shit as. So I stopped.

Today I got a selection of wire brushes and did my best to clean off the primer through the spot holes. There was success.

I'll do some more welding on the weekend.

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I kept getting blinded when doing those spots along the top because that gutter would block the sensors on my helmet.

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Fully glued in.

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Much easier to weld without the primer in the way. Started the fun time task of grinding down the welds. Got pissed off with the power file cause the 40 grit belts kept catching on the join and coming apart. I went through 5 of them in about 20 minutes. :( 

Mental note not to buy the flexovit ones again.

I think the problem is that they butt join it with some backing tape. It would be much stronger if there was an overlap, so there is no join to catch.

 

The bosch ones I had were good, but I can only find the 80 grit ones which take ages to grind down the weld.

Has anyone used these? Any better than the flexovit ones?

https://www.trademe.co.nz/building-renovation/tools/power-tools/sanders/auction-1420958943.htm

 

 

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Showed a borrowed S13 rear subframe the the undergarments of my triumph. It looks feasible... I used the diff output flanges as my reference point. The rear mounts on the car just need to be moved back 30mm, shortened and moved further apart, don't even need to cut into the box section the existing mounts are attached to. And make a couple of 'scallops' into the boot floor to clear the rear mounts on the subframe. The front mounts are actually about 50mm lower than the floor, so the floor/sill/inner guard would need some reinforcing and mounts built down to the subframe. 

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Here's a shit picture. The subframe would be 110mm higher than this photo. There is a bracket there preventing me from moving it higher, and I ran out of blocks of wood to stack on the jack. I've drawn in the mount, it would actually be partly in the boot to get it back far enough. Those dashed lines are where I would make a scallop thing into the boot space.

Aaaaaand I need to narrow the subframe 200mm, and make custom driveshafts, like @sheepers did.

 

But, first. keep fixing the rust. sigh.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did some metal gluing yesterday.

This panel was a bit of a bitch. The top profile curve was off by about 10mm in the middle. After extensive bashing, by flattening out a bend and more bashing, I managed to get the top flange closer to the top panel. It didn't sit flush though, so I seam welded the front edge and I'll have to fill up the spot weld holes with weld from the top.

I painted all of the inside of the area with some silver por15 that I had. Then marked where the welds were going and removed the por15 from those spots. Once I've finished welding the holes at the top and ground down the welds, I'm going to do my best to flood the seams with more por15. I'll also be seam sealing the whole engine bay later. Triumph were not really into seam sealer at all.

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A bit pitted here! I think I'll have to cut that spot out.  

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I finished welding and ground down the welds from my last post.

Then today I fixed that pitted bit.

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I made the patch first, then marked and cut out the hole. Then trim trim trim trim trim trim bend trim bend. drill drill drill. bend.

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Hot glued it in.

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Grind grind..... grind grind grind grind grind grindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrind.... grind.

 

 

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