Tales of a Resurrection

An update on the last 4 months, which i haven't updated in.. oops...

2009-02-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Whoa. looks like i haven't updated in about forever. sorry for that. Anyway, happy new year and such.

Unfortunately, it's still winter. which means its cold. So we have gotten absolutely nowhere with the car. HOWEVER..
other projects in the Andrews family household are progressing wonderfully, meaning that soon there will be a lot of time for the car. The patio is almost done and just needs some sand and tiles, and yesterday, we installed a door in the basement.
So by the time it gets warm we should be building a garage in the back, and before then we might be able to pull the engine and start welding some body work on the GT6.

Speaking of which, the GT6 has been unveiled. last week we had a colossal windstorm, and that temporary garage thing sort of disappeared. That is, its now been impaled on some trees at the back of our property, bent and mangled, about 250 feet away.
It was really, really windy.

Anyway the GT6 has been sitting there and its nice to see it out in the open.. hopefully it won't rain! we are planning on covering it with a tarp. Luckily it hasn't sustained much damage from the storm.. the bonnet got slammed closed but i think it is for the most part in the same state it was before.. not that that's saying much. The inside of the bonnet got deformed a tiny bit but its nothing major. The wheel arches do look worse than i remember though.. hmm..

Anyway. Upcoming plans are as follows:
get the rest of the interior out (just the driver's seat and a few bits of trim left)
Pull the engine
Weld in new floors and sills

Hopefully it won't be much longer :)

Miscellaneous stuff

2008-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Haven't been doing much lately. Finally got the speedo out, working on the rev counter and whatever else is still in the dash.Have most of it removed at this point.
I've started trying to take ancilliaries off the engine but some of bolts are stuck. Weirdly enough some of them come with no persuasion at all but others are just stuck solid. there is no middle ground.
more when it happens..

Where we are

2008-09-26T15:10:00.001-07:00

Work has come to a virtual standstill at the moment. Dad and i are far too busy building the patio to do much work. Anyway. it's been a little while since i've made a post so i figured i'd give an update with where I am. The doors are both off, and the dashboard is almost entirely out- i'm having trouble getting the driver's side panel out, what with all the gauges and such. The passenger seat is out, and the driver's seat is almost out. the floors were so rusted that we had to grind the bolts away. The floors are totally and utterly shot, except possibly at the back of each one. We have some replacement footwell panels but they look kind of iffy because they were homemade a bit crudely. We will see how that pans out.

Most of the foam insulation stuff has been scraped away as well, and the carpet bit taken out from behind the seats. I've begun trying to take ancilliaries from the engine but things are getting difficult. some of the bolts/nuts are loose and just pop right off, the others might as well be welded in place. i started tapping one with a hammer- i thought i was getting somewhere but in truth i was just deforming the nut (intake manifold). one of the radiator bolts seems to have stuck solid too. Hmmm.

I've been looking at the bodywork and i've been thinking that we can probably get away without buying replacement panels for everything. the interior parts, probably. but on the outside, the only bad parts are the wheel arches and only one of those is really bad. i think we could patch it up pretty well, actually, with the exception of the left/rear one.

hmm.

well thats where we are for now. more when it happens.

Vacation, school

2008-08-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

We just got back from our family vacation, our yearly pilgrimage to cape cod. We spent two weeks in mashpee at the sea mist resort (i can recommend it, its quite nice). So its no surprise that nothing GT6-related has happened recently.
In addition, we're slated to go to Porscherama the 13th and 14th of september. So we need to replace the brakes and seats and a few things in the 944 turbo to bring it up to racing spec.

And sadly enough, term starts in less than a week. So I'm not expecting to have much time for fun stuff like cars. But now that we have almost finished building our patio, the powers that be may grant us permission to build an extra garage (7 cars, 3 car garage... difficult).
AND the andrews family may be getting a new car. Mum doesn't like any of the classics (even the XJ6) so we might be getting something boring, but i refuse to accept that until it happens. i'm pushing for a 911 (which she really likes) or a miata or a solstice or an elan or a mark 2 (she likes those too)... anything as long as its fun :)

more later

Doors

2008-08-09T12:08:00.001-07:00

removed the doors today. One of the wing mirrors broke when i was trying to remove it yesterday.
the doors are of a particularly obtuse design- the limiting straps (which control how far the door can open) are riveted right in the middle of the door. we had to grind the rivets away. there is very little access so it was a challenge.

we've decided we're going to keep the body on the chassis when we start working on it, to keep things in alignment.

Lights

2008-08-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

My computer has been ever so slightly dead recently, so sorry for the colossal lapse.

A sort of temporary garage ( pretty much a giant metal frame tent) was purchased and erected to provide more work space for the GT6. it was given a gentle shove out of the trailer, whereupon all parties had to chase after it as it rolled across the lawn. It now sits safely in its new home.

to celebrate (or something), i started removing the rear lights. I got one brakelight and both reflectors off. Only one was broken (the right side reflector). The recessed nuts that hold these things on must have been loose on the left-hand brake light because no amount of turning the screws persuaded it to come loose. Tomorrow i hope to finish taking the lights off. Those that I already took out have been put safely in an old shoebox. i made dividers to keep it organised and everything. I'm jolly proud of myself, i must say.

I have a few pictures which i may or may not upload later.

Glass

2008-07-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Managed to remove the back window. Fairly easy to cut away the rubber seal with a utility knife- pulled off the window-side portion on the outside. It tore every 8 inches or so, but after cutting away all but a stubborn spot on the top edge, i was able to use some delicately applied brute force to pop out the window. Almost missed the wire for the window heater/de-icer/meltatron, but it unplugged without much of a fight. I'll look at getting out the windshield tomorrow..

Boot work

2008-06-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

Well, after a bit of thinking, I figured something I could do without decimating the floor of the car and trailer: the boot. One of the car's previous owners had already started stripping the car, it would seem, as the carpet is missing from much of the interior and most of the chrome trim is as well. Most of these pieces were put in the boot. It's nice opening up the boot- after 38 years, its one of the few parts of this car that works perfectly. Anyway, I relocated all of the things piled inside into a heap at the side of the trailer. Included were the handle from the passenger-side window crank, a set of hubcaps, random pieces of wood, notes of the PO, and a nice new air filter.

Then I tried taking out the fibreboard insulation. The piece covering the petrol tank came out alright, but the one covering the spare wheel disintegrated in my hands.
Oops.

I took the spare wheel out after undoing the nut that holds it in place. The metal inside the car seems to be doing pretty well for itself, although i noticed a hole in the bodywork that was hard to see from the outside. Hopefully more work tomorrow.

Air filter and carbs

2008-06-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well, i tried again in vain to remove the passenger-side seat. I can't for the life of me find the two bolts that hold it in place. They should be there somewhere, but I don't see them. So i took a look under the bonnet, just because it sounded like a lark at the time.

i took off the air filter (for the same reasons that prompted me to open the bonnet), and looked at the carbs. They're so tiny and cute! I am loving this car more and more each time I look at it. hopefully I'll figure out the seats soon, and startstripping more bits off the car.

Insulation and rust

2008-06-09T03:24:00.000-07:00

i did, in fact, start removing insulation. it scraped off pretty easily, and, predictably, the floor was really rusted. What wasn't predictable was just how rusted it really is.
Example: i managed to shove the putty knife i was using to remove insulation all the way through it when it slipped.
Judging by the fact that there are holes in it, I'd say that the floor is totally shot. Oh well. It seems you can buy replacements.

This does, however, mean that I won't be doing much work until we can get the car out of the trailer, because I don't want to muck up the floor with bits of rust and insulation falling out the bottom.

Car picked up

2008-06-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

We drove out to Emerson to pick up the Triumph GT6 which we bought on Ebay last week. Or the week before last week. Wednesday the 28th-whichever week that was.
Anyway, we hitched up the trailer and hauled ourselves to emerson.
In a truck without air conditioning.
In a 90-degree new jersey summer day.
Oh joy.
With few mishaps (snapping a tensioned cable out of place in the trailer, breaking a parking light on the car), we shunted the car into the trailer and drove it home.
For $501.00, its doing pretty well for itself. The interior looks ok, the panels are straight, and the car is complete. The engine doesn't work, and we have no idea of the condition of the diff or transmission, or anything else really. The past two owners have tried doing some work on the car- it's been painted in red primer by the first. the second evidently didnt have any time for the restoration, as he had a total of 15 cars. Whoa.

We need to get moving.... we only have 4 classics. 5, now.
The jags and porsches are already taking up garage space, so this is destined to stay in the trailer while we strip it out. We're planning on building a second garage in the back garden to hold more cars and big projects, so it'll move to there when its done.

I'm pretty psyched, I have to say... dad is too. Restoring a car is a dream for both of us, so this is quite an opportunity.

I'm hoping that once things are a bit cooler, i'll be able to start stripping insulation from the interior.

I'm really excited- i keep finding myself opening the trailer door just to look at it. I love the GT6... such clean lines on it... I wonder why they never really caught on...