I thought this may be a good time to post another period racing film that my dad made.  circa 1965. please excuse the silence YouTube flagged up 1965 music that has a copyright claim. Whilst I know dad got all the permissions for his films  I can’t produce the paperwork some 60 years later ! enjoy and happy Christmas    

Challenging job in a single garage!  Good work. Also liking the 80s Audi 

They are 3/8”…… Just be careful with that stud method. It certainly can work but you need to be careful to keep the load spread fairly evenly between at least 4 of the studs as otherwise you may pull a chunk of the diff casing off….. No prizes for guessing how I know this. This job is actually hardest on Heralds/Vitesses (the strongest, highest arched springs) with the body off and thus with nothing to hold the chassis down against your lifting of the spring. The correct tool is a spring lifter lever but even they don’t work very well on the lighter cars as unless you add weight to the cars (quite a lot of weight) you may pick the car of the axle stands before getting to the point you need…… Messing around with fat timbers, long bars and ropes/ratchet straps is not especially unusual.

The first restoration! I was 27 years old at the time, had always tinkered and worked on cars, but a restoration like this was new to me and a challenge. It started in the fall of 1985 and would take a year. The TR3 was disassembled, and the frame and all parts were cleaned (with a wire brush, a lot of manual labor and sweat). Afterwards, a particularly resistant "truck primer" was applied to the frame and then painted black with a brush. At that time, I met a lot of people my age who had also recently bought a TR and were also restoring it. This meant we could exchange ideas. Looking back, we did a lot of the work in a very amateurish way, but it took us across Europe for 40 years. At this point I had not overhauled the engine, only cleaned and painted. Only auxiliary units such as the water pump etc. were replaced. When I bought the car I had already replaced the gearbox with a sedan gearbox with J-overdrive.   I painted the vehicle interior as well as the engine and trunk myself. Afterwards the body was put back on the chassis.

Good job I just measured....they are 3/8"!

But... found when putting the hub on the passenger side that the thread on the shaft is mullered. Fortunately got those pairs of spitfire shafts coming so will replace it.....BUT ...spring compressor ....what do you folks use? Not gonna fook about with the 4*3 again. Thinking of getting some 300mm lengths of 7/16" studding to replace 2 of the main spring/diff studs so can slowly wind the spring up and down into place. Must be a nightmare of a job to do with the body on....e.g. when fitting spacers.

Rear suspension back together. If course, I gave no thought to a spring compressor before starting to put the shafts back in. Fortunately a length of 4"*3" and some ratchet straps worked a treat. To try and get it level I used some bits of dexion to make some dummy shoxs. Mind you, there was a slight problem when refuting the wheels. I have replaced the standard wheels studs with M12*1.5 Freelander ones.....but ordered M12*1.25 nuts ...DOH!!! Currently on by half a thread, but will do til the proper ones arrive. It took 5* 25kg bags cement plus one wife to get it level!

Thank you Hamish and Nick. Now that we were the owners of a TR3A, we had to complete all the official procedures to be allowed to drive the TR on German roads. The German TÜV (MOT) was the biggest obstacle, but this was solved after a few repairs to the wiring harness, tuning the engine and converting the headlights to German standards.   Our TR adventure could begin. On our trips in the summer of 1985 (thank God, we never went very far from home) we broke down on the side of the road more often than we drove. Often there were problems with the fuel supply and dirt in the tank that kept clogging the line, but also ignition problems.     Then it became clear that the car had to be completely dismantled and restored.

Hi Rainer, Good colour.  Familiar story too. Recently drove all over the country looking at old Triumphs and eventually bought one just 20km from home! We did look at one US import (TR6) which was terrible. Hope you did c better. Look forward to the story 

We always love a back story as much as the current story moving forward at whatever speed ……