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Triumph TR6 - Factory ain't too good either

Thought I'd start a separate thread...an observation...as I've gotten involved in this labor intensive body work, it has occurred to me that the body sure ain't perfect, then realized...Hell it came from the factory this way!! The door was the give away. Nothing has ever happened to the door skin in the way of damage, etc, but it's not flat from side to side. It has a slight concave dip on either side of a vetical line about the mid point of the door. Likewise the bonnet. There are two shallow low spots running most of the length of the bonnet on either side of center with sort of a ridge on either side, kinda like a low shallow valley laying on each side of center. Am I being AR here or am I correct that the factory product leaves a good bit to be desired w/r to straight, smooth, flat, level, etc?? Anyone else note this?
db
Doug Baker

Doug, I had new door skins and bonnet and boot lid painted for me. I was blown away by the amount of putty that was used on those flat surfaces. Now I don't feel like I was cheated after seeing your project
DON KELLY

Oh yes Doug.. I've noticed.

Just wait until you try to align panels...hold on tight it's a head scratching ride! For my door alignment I had to add/remove body mount shims to adjust the twist of the body to find the best door alignment gaps. Of course all the other gaps changed as well. A real pain!!

My right door skin had a verticle crease in it towards the front of the door. It looked like someone opened the door too far without the hinge strap attached and creased it that way. besides that niether door was straight. when I did my smoothing filler on the doors I used a long board with sandpaper glued to it and used the front and rear door edges to guide the board on. Came out pretty flat.

Are you going to upload some pictures of your car in progress?

Henry
HP Henry Patterson

Doug:

When I stripped and painted my rust-free '76, I too was amazed at the amount of filler used to smooth the panels. Look at Boyd Coddington's American Hot Rod show. They use oodles of filler just to make their cars straight. It's not a rust issue, just correcting factory sloppiness.

Cheers,
Bob
1976 - TR6
Bob Evans

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences. I had fully anticipated NO body filler except the absolutely minimum necessary to effect smoothing welded in repairs. Now it appears that I should invest in Eastwood stock or other body filler manufacturer!! Clearly gonna be a long winter!@!
db
Doug Baker

Doug
You do not want to hear about new pannels comming out of Britain these days.

When I did my restore I left it up to my paint guy to do the alignment of pannels. He said to me he lost his shirt doing that.
So no, you are not AR!
Rick
Rick Crawford

I think part of it is the fact we are now so used to seeing paint surfaces measured in microns and panels gasps in the two millimetre range.

It does come a something of a shock to realize how far car companies have progressed since the TR6 rolled (or was pushed) down the production line.

Back then the expression Quality Control in an average UK factory would have been met with a puzzled look and a heavy Midlands accent asking..."wossat then?"

Pete.
Peter Thomas

This thread was discussed between 20/09/2007 and 22/09/2007

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