Triumph TR3- Rear Valance-Metal Bashing Revisited

Today I was out in the garage for 0ver 3 hours. I decided to revisit the rear valance inner panel (what you would see if you were under the car looking towards the back of the frame) that I fabricated earlier in the year. Upon examination this morning I decided it really did not meet my standard of workmanship so I did some reworking, clean up and additional fabrication. The finished panel looks much better. A clean up with the angle grinder and then 40 grit pads has prepped the surface for final gluing and riveting.

I created some dust making another pass at rust clean up on the bottom panels (underneath the spare tire area etc. I think I have taken the bulk of it as far as I can. Some final clean up with Marine Clean, a coat of POR15 and then a couple of coats of primer should do it...

I couldn't locate my rivets which put a bit of a damper on the progress. Tomorrow I am going to venture back out into the garage and do another pass to look for them. If I can't find them they will be my first Triumph purchase for 2012!! I am really not sure why they are not with the rest of my bodywork supplies?

I also decided this afternoon that I am going to order replacement fasteners for the front suspension.

Triumph TR3- Now Go OUT and Build Something!!!

During the Christmas season I have been watching a few episodes of Gearz on SPEED channel.

Stacey David (the host) offers advise at the end of the show to "Now go out and build something". I enjoy his encouraging words because I think he really believes a gearhead should be in the garage applying what has been learned while watching his TV show. I really like his "can do" attitude and of course, his mastery of his craft!! A real inspiration for me to get back to work on the Triumph...

Adding to Mr David's advise, my wife also suggested (out of the blue) that I get out into the garage today and go "back to work" on my car. I checked my blog and my last entry was Nov 17th-Since then I have been in Maui and Kauai for over 3 weeks, doing a quick reno job on our spare bedroom and then prepping for Christmas so I have not had any wrench time for a number of weeks...same old story-conflicting priorities-this all changed today when I fired up the garage furnace and spend 1-1/2 hours on the project. A modest start to the next phase but at least I am moving ahead.

Today I cleaned up the garage for a while-then continued to remove surface rust from the bottom of the fabricated floor boards. I am almost finished the task...A good use of an hours time in my determination!!!