In message <950315205412_50795639@aol.com> writes:
> I'm doing a ground up restoration on a 1964 TR-4, CT27267. The running gear
> is done , the body is at the paint shop. Does anyone have any feel for how
> much more time is required to install electrics, total interior and get it up
> and running? I may have to hire it out this summer. Also does anyone know
> the whereabouts of a complete surrey top with both top inserts ? Thanks.
> Fred
Fred, I think that will depend a lot upon your skills and the condition/
existance of your parts, and how stock things will be afterwards.
For instance:
Recovering the vynal on my TR3 dash board, getting the correct krinkle in the
instrument panel, disassembling the guage fronts, cleaning up the insides, both
sides of the glass & polishing the metal trim took me about a month. But since
the TR3 dashboard is not a simple flat surface, I glued down a section, let it
dry a day then glued down another section. By the process I used, it took a
week to get it recovered, but it looks perfect. I had to repaint the instrument
panel about 5 times before I got it right, mostly because the stuff is very
temperature sensitive & I was trying to do it outside in the winter.
Wiring the new harness to the back of the insturment panel took just a couple of
hours if that. The really important thing is to have a correct wiring diagram
that gives wire colour.
Mounting the electrics on the bulkhead went quickly as did runing the wiring to
the components. The slow part for me was varifying the correct location of
components and run of the wiring.
Rebuilding a new overdrive subharness will probably take me a few hours. I have
been building new lighting subharnesses in the evenings after work. British
Pacific in Burbank California, 800-554-4133 carrys a good supply of correct
coloured wires that you can order by the foot, as well as the solder on bullet
connectors. I recommend going through The Roadster Factory for barrel
connectors as British Pacific carrys the new style which is gray.
In addition to the stock electrics, my TR3A has an electric fan and a pair of
Lucas Flamethrower Lamps. Mounting a Motoleta steering wheel, I elected not to
use the stock turn signal assembly. Years ago I disassembled the turn signal
switch of a eatly sprite and modified it to work with the TR3's electrics. I
have it in the middle of the insturment panel where the insturment light dimmer
normaly goes (I always have them full bright anyway) Because of this I will
have to build custom subharnesses. I am using the Lucas wiring colour scheme
and black vynal sleaving. I anticipate the custom subharness construction will
be time consuming and probably double the time it would normally take to set up
the wiring for the car.
I am fitting a hard top to my TR3. I have found that one off one car may not
correctly fit another and that correctly installing the body mounting hardware
to get correct fit requires some slight carefull bending of the hard top. This
is taking a lot longer than I thought it would and I'm glad I'm doing this
before I got the top refinished.
Probably the thing that slows me down the most, is the uncertinally of exact
location, mounting & routing of parts I took off five years ago. I have good
electrical skills so installing & troubleshooting wiring is no problem. I think
the single best thing to have around is a completely stock fully assembled
duplicate of your car. I think If I had a stock complete post TS6000 TR3A
sitting next to my TR, reassembly time would be cut by 2/3rds.
Best of luck
TeriAnn Wakeman Large format photographers look at the world
twakeman@apple.com upside down and backwards
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