Subject: Re: [Fot] TR3 Prices

From: Don TR <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:00:14 -0500

Bill - Many years ago (sometime during the last century) Ken Gillanders told
me that someone in California made a front apron with the wide grille and
the Brits liked it so much, it was adopted for the TR3A (which back then was
still called a TR3).  When I bought my 1958 TR3A brand new in May 1959 the
paperwork read TR3 - not TR3A.

Don Elliott, Original Owner, Montreal

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of [email-masked]
Sent: November-06-13 4:11 PM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Fot] TR3 Prices

In a message dated 11/05/2013 8:32:18 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> And, recently, for whatever auction prices do for the collector car 
> market,
> good or bad, a perfectly restored small mouth TR3 went for $55,000.00.
> I have my TR3 race car insured for $30K

Amici...

I share Dave's position that the early, small mouthed version is the more 
desirable TR3.  Probably because I've owned and raced one for some 
thirty-three years, but more than that...I think it's style is classic.  The
way I 
understand it...Standard Triumph changed the small mouthed TR3 grill to the 
wide TR3A version because they saw that American cars at the time all had
wide 
grills.  The change was made in an effort to attract more American buyers.  
If that story is so, I always thought that they had shot themselves in the 
foot.  Back in the 1950s, any American who was going to purchase a 'Foreign'

car sure wanted it to look 'Foreign' and not American.  But the sales were 
pretty good, so who knows.

Bill Dentinger

PS I also agree with Duncan that Grandpa should consider carefully the 
impact a 'gift' or even 'cut rate pricing' might have on his grandson.  On
the 
one hand getting something for nothing can cause you to lose sight of the 
value.  Some grandsons could handle such issues just fine.  Others not so
much. 
 Grandpa might consider financing the deal.  Dealing with the debt has 
great educational value, and Grandpa can always forgive the debt, or a
portion 
of it when and if that becomes appropriate.  Shirley and I recently sold a 
very low mileage 1995 Taurus to one of our grandsons for one dollar.  He 
needed a car and was up against the wall financially (college debt).  He
really 
appreciated our gesture.  Within two weeks it had a brand new awesome radio 
and sound system, but I still don't have my dollar.  At some time, when it 
becomes appropriate, we can always forgive the debt.  In the mean time it 
makes for GREAT family dinner table discussion.    
_______________________________________________
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---

From: Bill Redinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:23:15 -0600

The wide mouth grille on the 1958 model was for engine cooling reasons
experienced in USA cars. The factory did not use the TR3A designation, dealers
in the USA used it to denote a new model. The factory did use the TR3B model
designation though.

Bill Redinger

On Nov 6, 2013, at 4:00 PM, Don TR <[email-masked]> wrote:

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---

From: Duncan Charlton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 19:26:37 -0600

Curious... I hadn't heard that inadequate cooling was the reason for going to
the "dollar grin" of the later TR3s.  The small-mouth TR3s don't rely on
cardboard to duct air to the radiator, so I would have thought the earlier
all-metal design would work well for longer, especially in wet climates.  Our
1956 TR3 (one of the few drum-braked TR3s, TS 9858-L-O) never overheated here
in Texas no matter what I did.  I sure liked that car. It ended up in
Connecticut in the mid-1980s.

Duncan

---

From: Don TR <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 21:16:07 -0500

The TR2s and TR3s with the smallmouth had the air deflector built into the
sheetmetal pressings for the front apron.  The air that entered the
smallmouth had nowhere to go but through the radiator.  When they introduced
the wide grille opening there was no problem with overheating because the
widemouth grille was introduced about September of 1957 and no-one ever
complained of them overheating till the summer of 1958.  That's when the
engineers at S-T had to find a low-cost and retrofitable solution.  The
result was the three-piece cardboard air deflector.

My TR3A which I bought brand new in May 1958 had been built in February 1958
and came with no air deflector.  I heard many years later that dealers were
installing them if a TR3A owner complained of overheating.  I drove mine
from 1958 to 1972 and rallied it extensively with no air deflector.  As I
did all the work on my TR myself, I never needed to go back to the dealer.
That's why I never knew that an air deflector could be installed by the
dealer at no charge.

During those years I drove 80,350 miles and blew about 4 head gaskets due to
overheating.  I think I also may have developed swollen tubes in the
radiator from the combustion pressure and this moved the fins away from the
cooling tubes in the radiator and made the heat transfer worse.

When I restored my TR from 1987 to 1990, I put in the original rad after
having it re-cored (5-row) and also an air deflector.  I later added a 12"
diameter Kenlowe elecrtic fan between the grille and the radiator to cool
the engine in heavy traffic jams.  I have had no over-heating issues or
blown head gaskets since then having driven 113,000 miles.

So while someone proposed that the development of the wider grille was to
improve engine cooling, in fact it made things much worse till the
introduction of the cardboard air deflector.

What's the old saying, "If it ain't broke, why fix it ?"

Don Elliott, Original Owner, TS 27489 LO, Montreal

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Duncan Charlton
Sent: November-06-13 8:27 PM
To: 'Friends of Triumph' Triumph
Subject: Re: [Fot] TR3 Prices

Curious... I hadn't heard that inadequate cooling was the reason for going
to
the "dollar grin" of the later TR3s.  The small-mouth TR3s don't rely on
cardboard to duct air to the radiator, so I would have thought the earlier
all-metal design would work well for longer, especially in wet climates.
Our
1956 TR3 (one of the few drum-braked TR3s, TS 9858-L-O) never overheated
here
in Texas no matter what I did.  I sure liked that car. It ended up in
Connecticut in the mid-1980s.

Duncan