Charles Roberts wrote:
>Can you tell me a little about your "6" for sale? I'm in Gulfport, and
have been >looking for one for a while. Had a '69 and fell in love.
Hi Charles,
I have a white 1974 & 1/2 TR6 for sale. No o/d or redlines. I bought
the car 3 years ago because it came with a hard top that I wanted for my
71. I pulled off the hard top and was going to just sell the car for
whatever I could get because I didn't think much of the car. But, as I
started looking at the car I had to reevaluate: First it had been
sitting under some trees and was simply a mess. I cleaned it up real
well and except for some rust in the outer rockers behind the chrome
finisher strip the car is very solid. There is a little rust in the
rear fenders toward the upper rear where the tires sling mud (common)
and the rear decklid has some in the lip. The car actually looks pretty
good as a driver, but paint wouldn't hurt. I decided against a cheap
paint job as I feel most long term owners would rather control the
quality of the job themselves.
I was concerned about the frame as it was caked with mud and I assumed
the rear outriggers where the trailing arms hook in would be toast as
that is what I had to repair when I did my frame-off on the 71. I
borrowed a steam cleaner and cleaned off all the mud only to find that
the frame is in very good shape. You may guess where this is leading...
I found that there was a brand new soft top in the trunk, so I bead
blasted the top frame, painted it with hammerite paint, renewed the
seals & velcro, and installed the new top. The windshield was cracked
and I had a good one from a parts car so I replaced it - new w/s seal &
new w/s frame seal. While the w/s frame was off I replaced the dash top
crash pad.
There was a little lean in the rear wheels so I put in heavy duty springs
and urethane trailing arm bushings. While I was under there I checked
the diff mounts real well and they are in good shape. I rebuilt the
brakes all round but the master still has problems- a crisp brake
actuation results in excellent pedal as the seal expands well, but if
you ease into it, the brakes a very spongy. I expect that I will need
to get a White Post resleeve job to fix it.
The engine block is painted red, and as it doesn't look like it was done
in place, I assume the motor has been out. It runs strong and has
excellent oil pressure (no STP, just 20w-50) I have not done a
compression check yet. Rebuilt? your guess is as good as mine. There
was an import shop in town that supposedly painted all motors they
rebuilt red - for what that is worth. I put in a crane electronic
ignition, replaced all hoses, and the car runs well with the original
z-s carbs.
The interior is servicable w/ brown carpet and panels. The seats were
pretty bad so when my buddy wanted to recover his fairly recently
rebuilt seats with leather from Chester's Britalia I traded my shot
brown seats for his good black seats. I put in a decent stereo (didn't
hack the console) and drove the car for several months. Finally reality
has once again reared it's ugly head and I simply can't move all these
cars this summer as I shift residence to Virginia (or Maryland) for a
job in DC. I have around $3300 (not counting labor) in the car and am
asking $3500 but have a little room to bargain, obviously more room the
closer summer gets!
Everything works except the heater fan - it blows the fuse. I haven't
troubleshot it yet, could be a short or bad fan. I have several
Spitfire fans though. Don't know if they are the same or not - Not
numbered in the TRF catalog. So in the end I have probably done more to
the car than I should but I had the fun of doing it, I had some of the
spare parts needed, and learned a bit in the process.
I have parked the car up at the corner shopping center with a sign but
haven't tried to hard yet to move it. I did decline to sell it to a
high school girl as neither she nor her dad were the least bit
mechanical and just didn't understand that these cars aren't simply
riceburners that only need gas, she just thought it was "cute".
There are some other TR6's on the market here in Mobile. A local dealer
got one in on trade and he is doing what I call a muff & buff and asking
around $5000. Someone just put one in the paper for $2500 but I haven't
gone to take a look at it yet. If you want the number for those cars let
me know.
No disclaimer! The fruits of this transaction will land squarely in my
pocket, although that is simply a temporary stopping point. The TR3a
has reached critical mass and developed into a unbounded money sink.
The WX has been pretty nice so if you can't get over to Mobile I could
possibly either get over to GPT or at least meet you half way - maybe at
the casinos!
MRB
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