Danny's TR7 Blog

The restoration started with a thorough inspection of the car, it turned out not surprisingly to be a wee bit worse than I initially thought.

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The main areas that would require welding was
New sills
Front inner wheel arches
Trailing arm shell mountings.
The first job was to get the car moving, an oil change was done and eventually with a bit of coaxing and some fresh petrol the engine "burst into life" NOT more like spluttered, some work to the carbs and points and it was running reasonably smooth. Now to free off the clutch, this I tried to do by starting in gear and driving up my driveway and braking hard, the only thing I succeeded in doing was to burst one of the badly corroded brake pipes, a temporary repair was done with an old length of brake pipe. In the end got the clutch freed off by raising the rear of the car and starting up in gear accelerating in 4th and braking hard. A bit hairy I can tell you.
I next stipped the car almost to it's bare shell.
The only previous repairs that had been done was to fit cover sills and new rover part (sticker still inside) front wings, these repairs were done for the PO just a few months before the car was layed up. The wings were to be reused.
On the whole, or should it be hole, compared with other TR7 restoration projects my car was not pretty good. The only new panels I had to buy was full BL sills and the front lower panel the remaining rusty areas requiring repair/patching home made repair sections were let in. he only deviation I have from the standard Triumph bodywork assembly was Where the sills meet the front lower part of the rear wings (just behind the doors), The seam here which is a rust trap was given a continous weld and then the seam was ground back in to look original. Also the other well known TR7 rust area the seam between the rear deck fuel filler panel and the tops of the rear wings was seam welded. MORE TO FOLLOW