Project "really bad idea" 1966 Triumph 2000 sedan

I keep telling myself. "Trent, more guitars and less cars" I also keep thinking I need to seriously simplify my living situation so that I can relocate to Portland at short notice. But these are reasonable things and apparently are meant to be ignored.

It is no secret that I just haven't bonded with the Falcon. I love the car, but I love it in the way that you love your elderly dog. He's awesome but I really can't take him anywhere. Chances are he will leak on something and it is pretty much guaranteed there is gonna be a bit more hassle and complaint with simple trips than is necessary.

This makes it easy for the mind to wander and dream about other vehicles. Last week the boss called me into his office and said look at this! I set up RSS feeds to monitor craigslists in a 300 mile radius for cars relevant to our business. British, italian and other stuff. The RSS handed us an ad for a 66 Triumph 2000 about 150 miles away. The boss cared nothing about the car. He called me in to look at the wheels on it. Some OG 60's magnesium alloys that I couldn't have cared less about, but he wanted for a vintage Zink sports racer we are restoring. I said "Thats a cool car! Kinda looks like a Dolemite"

We decided to go in together and bring it home. As luck would have it a company we work with a lot just happened to have a trailer coming back from Redding with an empty slot so we worked out a deal and for $50 more than it would have cost us in diesel to make the trip ourselves it was delivered to us.

So here I am. A guy who works on british cars enough to know better now owns one of the blasted things...... and it looks ROUGH.

Yep. Rougher than the 40 grit sandpaper someone started assaulting it with.

I still had an out. Joe said that if I didn't want it after inspecting it he would ebay it off. I put it on the lift and the bottom of this thing is clean and rot free.

Wait... are we sure this is british?

semi-trailing arm rear? That isn't particularly British either.

Struts up front too. Very BMW like in the suspension department. Sadly it is outfitted with Lockheed brakes but we can change that. I hope.

Under the hood we have the venerable Truimph 2 liter straight six. The same motor that the GT6 used

Mmmmm.... mini inline

if I had to describe this car as having a "good side" it would be this.

The interior will clean up pretty well. The top of the back seat will need a visit to the upholstery guy. The Wilton wool carpet is in very good shape. The dash pad is trashed and warped.

There are 4 rust areas that need to be addressed. The middle of the door (really? how?) The trunk corner, the front wheel arch and the front valence corner. All on the drivers side. The major damage is to the nose cone. Someone installed an overider on the bumper which unceremoniously bashed in the nose, repeatedly from the looks of it.

Remember it has lockheed brakes?

So that is the initial assesment

After I checked out the underside and gave it a clean bill of health I threw a battery in the thing and hooked up a remote starter switch. Quick check of fluids and hit the button. Thing spun over great. Even the fuel pump was visibly working. So I tried to start it. Nothing. Spritzed some starter fluid down the strombergs and still nothing. No spark. pop the cap off, points look fine, grab the test light and no power. Oh yeah. Better turn on the ignition switch. Boom it fires up and runs for the first time since 97. Of course the dampers are stuck so it doesn't exactly rev up that well but it sounds good and has great oil pressure. All right I'm in. I'll buy the car.

The wheels it is limping around on need to be prepped and readied for the Zink so I dig around for whatever we have in the right bolt pattern. Some steelies off an MGA just happened to be free. Dug up some caps and rings for them.

I'm liking where this is going

But 4" wide wheels just aren't gonna cut it. I dug around in my garage for a 15X6 steel wheel shell that I hacked from a VW wheel and I will be damned if it doesn't measure out the same ID as the MGA wheel. I think I am going to pop the centers out and weld them into some 6" hoops.

hmmm.... Deep with hubcaps. This I like

Some work to do there

Wait, you don't want a needy old car that leaks everywhere anymore, so you bought a British car?

Luckily working in a restoration shop that specializes in British and Italian cars we deal with a lot of everything that will be needed on this beast. Today my favorite body and paint guy came by to drop off some pieces and I asked about the nose and if it was salvageable. He said get it down to bare metal and he would bring by the tools and knowledge to get it right.... Tomorrow!

I busted out the rice cakes and got to work this afternoon

Hard to get a picture showing just how off this is. There was 3/8" of body filler over most of it.It should have a clearly defined peak along the center. Some of it is bashed in over an inch.

Strangely Corvair like. isn't it.

I am starting to get attached to this ugly thing.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Wait, you don't want a needy old car that leaks everywhere anymore, so you bought a British car?

But at least it won't drive like an old american car

Leaks I am ok with. Unreliability I can handle. Miserable driving experience I cannot abide.

I am one of those guys that would rather be on the side of the road with grease up to my elbows in a beat up old car than in a reliable boring car

In reply to Ditchdigger:

Different strokes and whatnot I suppose. I kinda enjoy the slow floaty boat driving dynamic, about as much as I enjoy the car that feels happiest at WOT banging gears.

That is a neat car you've got there though, I didn't know Triumph built anything like that.

Ditchdigger wrote: He said get it down to bare metal and he would bring by the tools and knowledge to get it right.... Tomorrow! I busted out the rice cakes and got to work this afternoon <a

Please explain "Rice Cakes".

NOHOME wrote:

Ditchdigger wrote: He said get it down to bare metal and he would bring by the tools and knowledge to get it right.... Tomorrow! I busted out the rice cakes and got to work this afternoon <a

Please explain "Rice Cakes".

From the pattern left on the metal, it would be called a "cookie" around here or their real name of Roloc discs.

I love it. I have nothing to add but keep the info and pictures a-comin'.

NOHOME wrote:

Ditchdigger wrote: He said get it down to bare metal and he would bring by the tools and knowledge to get it right.... Tomorrow! I busted out the rice cakes and got to work this afternoon <a

Please explain "Rice Cakes".

Surface prep/stripping disc:

Evan nailed it. I started with four and a half inchers on the angle grinder and worked down to the one and a halfs for tighter areas.

They work fast, don't remove metal and leave a decent finish. Took me about 15 minuted to tear through all that filler.

OK, that what I suspected. Never seen them for the angle grinder. I always thought they were a low RPM tool.

Will have to keep my eyes out for the 4.5" ones.

In reply to NOHOME:

http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Non-Woven-Depressed-Center-Diameter/dp/B00755XY2Y/ref=pd_cp_hi_0

Those wheels are great for removing paint and bondo and leaving the metal alone. Especially if you're being a hog with it trying to get in a crevice or something.

NOHOME wrote: OK, that what I suspected. Never seen them for the angle grinder. I always thought they were a low RPM tool.

They are useless at low RPM. The drill mounted ones should be considered last resort tools.

They have them at Home Depot and even HF but the Fastenal guy keeps my bin stocked here at the shop.

I like it! If I remember correctly I have a Matchbox car of that model that I got when I was kid back then.

Oh god that car looks really familiar underneath, I think the 2000 and the Stag share a bit of a platform, but I think most things are awkwardly different.

In reply to VonSmallhausen:

It shoud share a lot with the stag since the stag was based on the 2000 chassis. As a matter of fact the Mk2 2000-2.5 cars looked a lot like stags.

This evening went pretty well. A lot slower than my friend anticipated. Having never seen a 2000 before he wasn't sure what the front end was supposed to look like so once I printed out a few pics he was able to really start banging things into place.

The back of the nose cone is pretty much inaccessible.

uh, yeah cant get a dolly in there

So that left him with his least favorite tool.

And hammers!

You can tell he does this a lot.

He must have burned through a hundred of the studs, pulling a little here and a little there being careful not to overpull anything.

And now half of the front panel is what looks to me 90% there. Of course the last 10% will take 75% of the time. He isn't shooting for perfect metal finish but he wants it to be good enough for just a skim coat of filler to make it spot on.

It is really cool to be able to watch someone with a lot of experience do metal bumping. I have read the "key to metal bumping" many times and I am understanding it more and more but watching it come out little by little really showed me how I overwork areas.

I really couldn't be more pleased and am really gonna owe him for this.

I also started tearing into the carbs

The first went really well and was blown apart and into the ultrasonic cleaner within minutes. The second turned out to have a torn diaphragm on the damper and one of the float hinge tabs broke off the body with zero effort.... which sucks.

I have to go to the dreaded "storage building" and look for a spare which is a huge can of worms.

So I guess tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode of odd british car adventures.

Cool looking car. far cooler than the Falcon.

What a fantastic project. I haven't seen one for years. There used to be guy up here who had a couple about 10 years back. One was his daily driver for the longest time. Seemed to treat him well. He ended up replacing it with a SD1.

Neat project, I've never seen one of these before. Watching someone competent do bodywork is almost a calming experience.

ssswitch wrote: Neat project, I've never seen one of these before. Watching someone competent do bodywork is almost a calming experience.

Indeed. Super interesting car. Beautiful bodyworking so far.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Very sweet ride. I sort of like the porcupine look, you should leave those pins on the front to discourage subsequent damage. :)

I recall rebuilding the motor in a Herald, back when I was much younger circa 1972. My dad raced Spitfires at the time, and we had all the parts for the motor just laying around in the garage. I had to test drive the thing 50 miles before I returned it, it handled like a pig.