1963 Triumph TR4 - oldtin's vintage racer project

Whew! Making a push for the April 2015 season opener. Thought it was a bit more solid at the start than it was. Nearly 100 patch panels went in to the body. Still a bit of exterior body work to fill in, but only a couple of days worth of filling and sanding, finishing the cage, wiring, plumbing and... but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Pardon the bugger welds. Welder drive had been acting up for years. Finally fixed to do pretty welds on the cage.

A question for the hive - to gut the doors or not. Not planning a nascar style cage, just x tubes. Trimming might save a couple pounds. Also any thoughts on door latches. Don't really need functional doors. Was thinking just weld up the handle holes and a simple lever/catch instead of the chunks of steel. Ideas?

Wow, nice work!

I've only gutted doors on one race car (my first, a 1979 Civic). I regretted it almost immediately. I'm sure I could do a better job now, but the end result was much, much flimsier than I expected.

Good lord man, that is a lot of work in one post! What kind of timeframe are we looking at for the above work? Care to share some of the car specs, like the engine build and what classes you're planning to race?

Very nice!

Looking good! I see many hrs. of hard work there. Good luck on your goal of the opener next year. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Looking good! Can't wait to see it done.

What color you thinking of going?

My first play car was a 64 TR4, always regretted parting with it. A couple of years ago I picked this up pretty cheap and started in on it. The engine was put together by an old triumph driver from the day (from the east coast team). Head is decked down to 11:1 compression and has a 300 cam. Rear plate is modded to use a molar 440 rear seal instead of the wet noodle triumph used. Crank was worked over and intruded. Not enough funds to go billet. Rods are stock, shot preened and balanced, big valves. Not an extreme engine, wanted it to survive more than a season, unlike some of the deep pocket crowd. Should rev to around 6500 safely. Has a 9lb flywheel and 4spd. With a little hunting I may be able to hunt down a cheap od unit. Koni classics for shocks. Front A-arms are converted to TR6 mounts so I can shim in some negative camber. Still need to add a big roll bar on the front. Got an old ford bronco steering rod that should do nicely to cut it down. Front springs are MGB GT items cut down. Still need to lose the spacers and lower it more. Can also flip the rear leafs and drop the rear a couple of inches as well. My local group is VSCDA, so run group 2 with MGBs Healey 100s, alfas and Porsche 356s. Too many mods and I get kicked to faster groups, so staying conservative and hoping for mixing it up in the mid pack bunch. Color is BMW alpinweiss since I had a bunch laying around. Will do a wide center stripe in a gray/green with a couple of narrower yellow stripes framing the green. Distributor is a Lucas d45 with a tweaked advance curve. Brakes a stock twin Pistons I rebuilt. Still have the zenith carbs. Would love to go with mikunis but that's a no no for the class. Thinking of keeping the steel wheels and keep a little of the look from the Sebring cars. Trying to crank out the body before I lose the weather in the next few weeks.

A man of few words I see!

But plenty of pictures.

Nice work.

Excellent!

Nice!

Very nice-thanks for sharing.

That is some serious work and a very good look at how to attack a race chassis build. Are you making the fenders removable (zeus tabs)? What wheels/tires are you allowed to run in your class?

In reply to hobiercr:

Supposed to be stock wheel sizes, but most everyone has migrated to 6 or 7 inch panasports or Koenig rewinds instead of the 5.5 steelies. For quick release front end there's not a big advantage to pulling the fenders because of the inner structure, unless you're willing to separate it all by cutting the whole front apart at the firewall. I've seen done and works well, but needs more cage structure. Is probably go that route if I did a second engine that could run under 2 liters. There are a few folks that run both under 2.0 and the over 2.0 and do engine swaps between run groups. I'm not that ambitious to be doing voluntary engine swaps in the paddock

I am glad to not be the only one unfortunate enough to do major unexpected rust repair!

How long did that all take?

As far as gutted doors, the only experience I have is with the LTD, which is not terrible similar. It was a giant pain in the ass and saved like 3 lb per door.

Nice build.

In reply to tuna55:

I've had the car almost 3 years, but most of the work has happened in pretty short bursts of productivity. Most of the rust and patches were done in about a week (took vacation time and gave it to the car. I think I have around 400 hours in it. I suspect I'm around 100-150 hours from tech inspection. I could do another in probably half the time

Did a marathon bodywork session this weekend - filling and sanding and sanding and filling and sanding followed by sanding. All the external panels are straight enough for a race car. Could have saved a lot of time starting with non-rusty straight panels, but as the saying goes, poverty is the mother of creativity. Going for getting all the panels in epoxy primer by the end of the week and in paint by the end of the weekend.

What were you cookin' in the bucket? Looks like Sloppy Joe !!

Electrolytic rust removal - I chucked the water pump housing in there. the goo is what came out of it.

This may have been one of the last decent weekends for weather for the year (70s this weekend - next weekend predicted in the 40s) - so I squirted some paint on the outer panels of the TR4. It has an epoxy primer base and urethane single stage top coat. Should have probably replaced nearly all the outer panels, but the budget said deal with what you've got. At least it's starting to resemble a car again. Next up is more cage work and getting the body back on the chassis.

More tubes for the cage - only a couple more to go - need the body back on the chassis for the rear down tubes. Getting tight inside the cockpit area. 17" kirkey seat just barely fits - although getting it an inch or so above the floor will help a little.

Love it!

My next car will be that brilliant white.

I love what you're doing here. Thanks for sharing.

Body rejoined the chassis this weekend. Had to cut out the cage bottom plates to get it in the car. Sadly, there was a little collateral damage figuring out the cage wouldn't go in with the plates on. Minor cosmetics, and life lesson on cage building. Still shooting for April season opener.

Well time does get away from you. Work got crazy busy and the next thing you know it's a year and a half later. The good news is that the task list is getting a lot shorter. The latest has been dealing with the fuel cell, finishing the cage and starting in on plumbing and controls. Also finding good hindsight stuff like mounting the cage to the body attachment panels definitely stiffened the car up (when I got it you could lift one corner and leave three wheels on the ground. Now you lift a corner and that side comes off the ground) - the price is a bit of a cramped cockpit. We'll see how much tolerance I have for that. Worst case is rework the cage and gain 3" of leg room.

Over the past year I've gone back and forth on the rear end of using a ford 8" or stock. Ended up selling the ford 8" to another FOT member for his street car and kept the triumph rear - modified with ford 9" axle housing ends and custom axles. Still an open diff - on the hunt for a detroit locker with 24 splines. I was always leery of differentials, but after this, I think I'm over it. Ended up fabricating a case stretcher and doing my own rebuild. I swear the hardest part was putting the housing back in with the body on. Also fabricated mounts for a generic aluminum muscle car radiator, put the steering column together with enough direction change I don't feel like there's a harpoon aimed at my chest. Also switched out the original zenith stromberg carbs for a pair of SU HS6s out of an old volvo. I'd rather have mikunis but it bumps me up a class where it's hopelessly outgunned. Looks like I need a little flare for the front tires - think I'll do what the factory team did and rivet on a piece of plastic to the inside of the arch. Could also stand to lower it about 2" front and back - but getting it running/driving is the priority for now. I'm pretty happy with the look of the hoosier speedsters on the diamond racing wheels - I've been staring at the stock steelies and dry-rotted tires for about 4 years.

Here's some updated pics: