More on Oil Sligner

Here's a picture comparing the old vs the new oil slinger (new slinger arrived today):

The old one on the right is so "wallered out" that the original slot for the woodruff key is gone.  That slinger was not slinging much oil, probably spinning sometimes and not others.  The old timing chain tensioner had a fair amount of wear on it, and the chaim was stretched quite a bit, compared in both cases to their new replacement parts, indications of lack of lubrication.  But I am really puzzled then by the sequence of events here.  The engine appears very clean on the inside and has very good compression.  Was the engine rebuilt and then not driven hardly any miles after the rebuild?  And the rebuild included not installing the harmonic balancer correctly, ie leaving the oil slinger free to spin?  Sure wish I could find a relative to Calloway Carmichael, the last owner when it was running and who died in 2003, to ask them some questions!

Knocking Noise Identified

Car show is over so this week I started the dismantling to get to the timing chain.  Got the timing cover off this evening and found......a broken timing chain tensioner!  These two pictures show it, the tensioner is a leaf spring with a double thickness which applies a sideways force to the chain, the leaf away from the chain broke off and was making the noise.  That's why you see the two halves wide apart in these photos:

I had already bought a new tensioner and timing chain plus a few other parts.  Turns out the oil slinger was damaged somehow, see picture below, so I'm replacing it too:

I plan to do some more detailing in the front engine compartment, esp removing overspray from paint job, before re-assembly so it will be a couple of weeks before I get it all put back together.  But sure does feel good to find the root cause!

Looks Great - Wish I Could Drive It

Well, the good news is the car is finished cosmetically.  I put the snaps on the tonneau cover today and decided to take some more pictures in the front yard, check them out:

The issue that remains is a knocking noise from the engine.  I had hoped this was a lifter that would "heal itself" as the old oil worked it's way out of the engine from it's 32 years of sitting.  But it's actually gotten a little worse.  I posted a video of the engine running on the British Car Forum and asked for advice and got some good ideas.  I also used a stethoscope to help diagnose the source.  Bottom line is I am now convinced it's the timing chain tensioner.  And it appears it will require removal of the front clip (sheet metal between front fenders) and radiator to get to it.

I plan to do this job after the local British Car Show September 17th.  I also plan to trailer the car to the show and drive it minimally until the timing chain tensioner is replaced.

Then I'll be able to fully enjoy the car.

Interior almost done, putting miles on it now

The carpet kit is installed, looks pretty darn good.  Seats installed except upper portion of rear seat is not attached, need some input from the guy that made my interior on how to attach that.  Here's some interior shots:

I like the way the wheels turned out, I power washed them and then painted them with aluminum colored Rustoleum paint.  Much cheaper than new wheels.

Overall the car looks good and drives well.  Drove it tonite about 15 miles in 95 degree heat, didn't run hot until I let it idle at the end for a while, seems normal.  Did overflow just a little but I probably had too much coolant in it.  I also should replace the coolant again, the fluid that came out looked kinda brown.

Still having lots of noise from the lifters, after 50 miles since bringing it back to life I would have thought that might have gone away by now.  I plan to check valve clearances again, just to make sure something hasn't changed since the motor is running again now.

On the Road and Legal!

Got plates, insurance, and new tires this last week so I can now drive the car legally.  I painted the wire wheels with aluminum color rustoleum, don't look too bad and MUCH cheaper than new wheels.  The exterior is basically done (still need to get the passenger side door handle from MI and install it).  Interior needs couple more panels and carpet kit installed.  I've put over 20 miles on it now, lifters still noisy, still hoping that clears up.  Ticking noise from engine appears to be from water pump, some indication of leakage too, that's a used water pump that a friend in Huntingburg gave me.  Guess I need to buy a new one.  Took some pictures after my run this morning when in front yard, check them out:

Had a friend from Belgium come over this morning, another car guy who has owned a TR3 in the past.  He was my first passenger, plus he's the first person I've let drive the car (besides me, of course).  Engine runs strong.

Oh, also had an issue with poor tracking of the front end, turns out the front wheels were toed out about 1/2 inch!  Belgium friend helped me adjust toe in, tracks much better now.

Dashboard is Done

The wrinkle paint turned out real well, neat to see the paint change texture when you apply a hair dryer to it.  The middle portion of the dash, where are the gauges reside, is the wrinkle paint.  Was a pain removing all the gauges and switches to paint it, but I'm glad I did it right.  Got the glove box and it's door installed. 

Next stage will be installing capping around upper edge of cockpit, then get serious about the interior.

Exterior is almost done

Busy time of year so progress is slow, but still doing OK.  Focused on the exterior of the car, here's a shot of the front, I've got the grille and front bumper but I need some hardware to mount the grille so it's not on yet:

Windshield turned out real good, also pleased with the chrome fender trim and the scuttle vent.  Btw, I have a wiring pigtail for my battery tender accessible under the scuttle vent, that way I can charge the battery without raising the hood:

I have also placed the interior inside the car, not installed but just to see how it looks, I sure like the red piping:

Then here's a view of the rear of the car, which is basically done:

Lighting in this picture makes the color look kind of orange, it's really more red like the other pictures.

The wheel wells are undercoated, and all exterior sheet metal aligns pretty well.  That fender beading was pretty tough to get installed, esp the rear pieces that are original to the car.  The transmission cover was also hard to get all 15 bolts to line up with their retainer nuts in the floor, rear tunnel, and firewall.  Esp since the cover had been pretty rusty and the body guy had welded in some replacement sections.  Seems like 15 minute jobs take an hour or more all the time to get things to align.  But I figure once I get it re-installed once then the next time should go easy.

Car's home from the body shop!

Picked up the car this evening from Darrell.  I am very happy so far with the bodywork and paint job Darrell did.  He says he used a gallon of clear on the car, sure does shine!  I managed to get it home without causing any damage.  Now the ball's back in my court. 

 Pat, if you see this please notice the shiny rock guards on the passenger side, Darrell even cleaned up the used part you sent to me!

Bad News from Body Shop - Time and Money Can Fix Anything!

Guess things had been going too well.  Darrell called today, said he couldn't get the hood to sit right inside the front fenders.  Turns out when the car was wrecked on the driver's side front  upper, inside sheet metal was shoved over to the passenger side, making the rectangular opening for the hood kind of diamond shaped.  The fenders and front clip can all be mounted correctly, they're all just shifted over to one side.  I captured the effect in photos, shot from front down towards ground but even with outside edge of fender, drivers side first:

Notice how you can see most of the knockoff protruding from the fender.  Then here's the same view on the passenger side:

Almost none of the knockoff is visible.  So we believe the frame is OK (wheels are attached to the frame of course) but the sheet metal the fenders attached too is shifted towards the passenger side by about 1/2 inch.  Looks like the car will be making a trip to a friend of Darrell's who has a frame jig where he can push/pull the upper interior sheet metal into it's correct position.

Here's some more pictures, Darrell is doing very nice work, under hood looks great, inside spare tire compartment looks good, front clip is very straight, door jambs are painted.  If Darrell had not run into this "bent front end" issue he thinks he would have had it painted by the end of this week!

Body Shop Updates

Visited body shop on March 27, floors and outer sills are in:

Then went back on 4/8, more progress, trunk is done, edges around floors are finished, most of body work is done except for fenders.  The white stuff is hard caulking to seal up welded joints.  You can see he's just now getting going on welding up holes in fenders.

The trunk turned out better than I expected:

Darrell was able to even retain the old welded on nut for mounting the gas tank strap, that thing was just a mound of rust last time I looked at it!  I didn't get pictures of them but the doors, hood, and trunk lid all look real good, ready for paint.  I didn't see the front clip and forgot to ask about it.

I'd say we're about a week or so away from starting to see some Signal Red paint on this thing.  Darrell has a guy cleaning up under the hood for painting.  Sure gonna be fun to get this thing home!

Progress at Body Shop

Here's a few photos from loading the car and delivering it to the body shop on 3/5:

As you can see, my son Joe helped me get the car on the trailer.  Everything went well except it was slightly drizzling so the bare metal from bead blasting did get a little wet. 

Then today 3/19 I visited the body shop to see how Darrell was progressing.  Coming along OK, he's focused so far on the upper portions of the body work plus getting ready to weld in the floors and rear arches.  For the rear arches he plans to "filet" portions of the new arch into portions of the old arch, that way he can retain a lot of the metal around the door pillar and avoid getting into alignment issues with the pillar.  Here's a decent shot of what I mean:

This is the original wheel arch yet, the "holes" are sections where we will weld in metal from the new part, around the arch plus the rotted out section at the very bottom.

He did a nice job on repairing the area on the passenger side where the windshield mounted, this was pretty messed up for some reason:

Then here's a before view of the worst part of the floorboard challenge, the passenger side:

Three of the four brackets on the inner sills to mount the body to the frame were fine, but this one is missing about 90% of the bracket portion which Darrell will have to replace.