Thank you, Tim.
Wonderful stuff . . . .
Rick Kreiskott
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Thank you, Tim.
Wonderful stuff . . . .
Rick Kreiskott
My focus over recent weeks has been to clean and save as much as possible, still a few shelves full to go at but the latest items to work on have been the door caps. Firstly I had to re glue a considerable amount of it before cleaning the vinyl which came up really well and had a great "worn in" look to it being virtually smooth at the upper most part.
I had a set of excellent condition caps from another car which originally I thought I might want to use; although these will now not be required it was interesting to compare differences between the two sets. I don't know what car they came from so not sure if the differences are common to a model year or my particular car. The basic differences are that the caps from the TR turn up along the leading edge nearest to the door windows compared to the other set that turn downwards to remove the sharper edge. In addition the TR caps have no brackets on the underside around the door knob hole and at the rear end of the cap resulting in them being approximately 10% lighter.
Would be interested to know if the type of cap on the TR was specific to a particular model/year(s)?
Pics below show:
1. TR caps before cleaning
2 & 3. TR caps after cleaning
4. Comparison with other set showing no brackets (TR caps centre)
5. Comparison with other set showing the different treatment of the top edge (TR caps centre), hopefully you can make out how the centre pair turn up
Another interesting detail (thanks Chris for drawing to my attention) is the modification to the rear part of the internal roof.
Because the roof had lightweight carpet stuck directly onto it rather than the usual "suspended" headlinning, the vent metal work at the rear was simplified and a simple plate used to blank off the rear vent holes above the rear window.
The second picture is of a 1968T for comparison.
Wow..such little details!
John
Whilst the rally kit used simple rain shields for the Weber carbs in competition, for road use the car would be fitted with the standard air box.
The one on the car had fallen victim to the rather careless brown/purple respray the car received in Uganda. Using a solvent thinners I was able to remove the over spray whilst maintaining the original factory satin black paint......although not perfect I prefer to keep the original factory finish which has a lovely patina to it. All the brown/purple was removed, the slightly different colours that remain are just where the original paint has become thinner.
The before pictures:
Pictures after clean up:
Note: I have retained the "USE........................ A.E.30" on the nicely aged tape on the right hand side of the unit.
Good work Tim.
I am going to enjoy this thread.
Recent efforts have been focused on the rest of the door interiors. Having rescued the original door caps I was determined to maintain the original vinyl lightweight door cards and leather pull straps.
Following a good clean the passenger door card was fine however the drivers door had a bit of vinyl missing and more seriously some of the hardboard had been lost whilst what remained had broken in a number of areas; given that the drivers door panel gets more wear this was not surprising.
Because of the damage and wear to the vinyl I decided to use marine ply for the replacement backing to give a little extra rigidity. Having removed the vinyl it was a case of cutting out a new panel and then trial fitting/trimming bit by bit until a good fit was achieved. Where vinyl would be missing I sprayed the board black to minimise the impact of these areas and then reattached the vinyl using glue and clamps (and a few choice words) until a good fit was achieved.
These were still intact although the metal ends had surface corrosion
The leather straps responded well to a good clean and a few applications of a leather feed, whilst not perfect I quite like the age shown in the first picture. The metal ends were cleaned up with a dremel; in the final picture you can see the plastic collars that go in prior to being fastened to the door release mechanisms.