Our test was booked for Thursday 17th August, with a 2 month waiting list you have to book in advance. I'll pick up the story on the Saturday before the big day.
Bodywork wise, the situation looked like this
The underside had been primed, painted with a stone chip protective layer and then painted with the blue 2x top coat. The inside was primed and I had started some filling/prep on the outer panels.
Mechanically it was as below,
pretty much as per the previous post but all rear suspension components were more or less ready to install and the engine work was also pretty much completed.
Body wise, I arranged some "hired help" for the Sunday and the Monday evening, 2 guys well experienced with body work and prep so by the Tuesday morning the body looked like this,
ready for painting.
In the mean time my wife cleaned the gearbox
and I reconstructed the rear suspension, complete with new wheel bearings which were changed by a local garage as I don't posess a press.
Tuesday was a frustrating day, the high build primer which was supposed to be on the body by 10 o'clock wouldn't flow from the gun and the compressor I had couldn't keep up. More details of the nightmare I had painting can be found here on The Club Triumph Forum. In the end, again way behind the days plan, I got it all painted with the primer and looking pretty good.
During the few hours the primer needed to harden I got the chassis on 4 wheels for the first time and with some help drafted in we got the engine and box hoisted up, rolled the chassis under and dropped them into place. One job that went well.
I then installed the propshaft and by the time that was completed we were ready to start flatting the body work, this went relatively quickly and with 2 compressors joined together spraying the top coat went relatively well, although finishing at nearly 1 o'clock in the morning was far from Ideal.
Bright and breezy the next morning (Wednesday, 26 hours before the car needed to be road worthy...) we were all ready to re-unite the body with the chassis, which we wheeled out in the sunshine,
so that we could wheel the newly painted body on it's trolley into the garage.
We carefully attached the body to the ceiling and using the 2 chain blocks I had borrowed from work raised it up off the body trolley and high enough to wheel the chassis back under. This whole procedure went well and remarkably enough, all the neccessary holes in the body lined up with the captive nuts in the chassis. Seems we achieved something during all those drunken weekends in my old garage in Cockermouth...
At this point, the photos dry up and about 14 hours of frantic bolting back together ensued. I had assistance during the evening and into the early hours from a mate, and despite extreme tiredness good progress was made. Whether the tiredness and late hour was a factor in the cracking of the old windscreen during installation is a point for discussion.
Not wanting to accept the inevitable truth that the car was not going to be driveble by 10 a.m. the next morning and ever the optimists it was back out of bed at 5:30 am, less than 4 hours after we had hit the sack. Everything continued to take more time than expected and the deadline came and went. However, out of pure stubbourness we were still going to drive the car on the same day.
Around 5 p.m. the engine turned over for the first time in 8 years, but as with all other jobs starting it wasn't totally straight forward due to a blocked outlet valve in the fuel pump. Once this was fixed, to great rejoicing the engine started as soon as petrol got to the twin SU carbs. The occasion warrented the first photo shoot of the day.
If you look closely you can see the fan spinning just above the top of the radiator....
After this momentous occasion spirits were lifted slightly and we set about the remaining tasks of sorting out brakes and installing seats, in otherwords the bare essentials for the first outing. Having sucessfully bled the clutch with the assistance of one of the neighbours lads, Mari was left in charge of bleeding the brakes. This was one of the few jobs that went surprisingly well and quickly. In the meantime I got the seats installed and by 10p.m. we were out on the lane guided by very dim torch light. No speed records were broken and we were far from finished but there was satisfaction that we had managed to get the main major functions more or less in order and there was light at the end of the tunnel. We went to bed naturally disappointed but all the same with a great feeling of achievement.
