Triumph TR7

A

Addicted

I'm definitely crazy for investing this much in a TR7, but I'm doing it.
 

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I had a friend who's Dad got him one for his birthday back when we were teenagers. Pretty little car. I had a 1970 Datsun 240Z that had a little done to it. The look of disappointment on his face when he realized his car was much slower than mine still makes me chuckle. :) I tried to console him, telling him it looked really nice (which it did). Unfortunately four weeks after he got it, it burned to the ground at a stoplight. Electrical fire which then caught everything ablaze. Luckily he was unharmed. British Engineering.:eek: He then proceeded to get a new 91 LX 5.0 and finally had a faster car than me (just barely though...:))
Good luck with your Project.
 
Are you doing matte black as the final finish for the whole car?

That will look very good, keep us posted of your progress, cool project.

Matte black is for the bottom. I'm 99% sure I will stick witb red (color of my original TR7). Here is a picture with both cars. I was shufling stuff in my garage a few months ago and ended up with a cool picture of my two TR7's.
 

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Chris, I know exactly where you are coming from. My dash caught on fire driving to school one morning in 1989. I completely redid the Red car (except the body) about 3 years ago. Custom suspension, big brakes, ford 302, Narrowed an 8.8,etc. 25 years of driving a 90 hp car was enough.

See if this video works.
 
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I haven't weighed the car, but it should be around 2400lbs. I weighed the engine and transmission swap, and I gained 70lbs. Aluminum heads on the 5.0 would fix that.
 
Different engine and wiring fixes 99% of what was ever wrong with these cars, imo. I put together a model of a TR7 when I was a kid, so taken was I by the looks of it.
 
Epoxy is on! It will get matte black on the bottom this weekend. I did a coat of black epoxy, and then gray. That made it super easy to make sure everything got two coats. That will also make it easy to make sure it all gets the matte black. The first pic is bare steel in the back, not the gray epoxy (During a cup refill). 2nd picture is the complated gray epoxy. It took 4 hrs to spray each coat. 8 hrs total. I wasn't expecting that. Holy crap, so many nooks and crannies in the bottom and in the engine bay! Not a bare spot anywhere now.

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Well, I lost some momentum, but I'm back at it a bit now. I made some wooden racks that I will paint the doors on. I'm pretty happy with them.
 

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Off to a goid start for the day. 1 coat of epoxy done this morning.

DA'd the remaining paint last night.
 

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Still plugging away. I have spent the past few months dialing in some perfectly shaped seam sealer on the welded panel joints among some other things. I have also spent a ton of time working out a masking plan to protect my beautiful SPI matte black underbody. OCD slows me way down, but I think it will turn out really nice.

I just finished a first round of blocking on the 2 coats of epoxy that I put on the body last fall. I found a hand full of tiny spots that I want to get straightened out. The biggest thing (which I knew about before blocking) is that all 4 wheel arches are wavy from the factory spot welds between the inner and outer fenders. I am going to spot spray epoxy on those areas tonight to prep for a little filler. I have been doing a lot of reading on "cratering" or "fisheye" with the SPI epoxy. I saw some of that on my first coats and I don't want to see it again.

If I get the spots I identified in my initial blocking dialed in, I am thinking I am close enough on the rest of the surfaces that a few more coats of epoxy may be sufficient for final blocking. I already put 2 coats of epoxy and then 2 coats of 2k primer on the door skins (window frames and jams have 2 coats of epoxy only). Should I stick with 2k primer everywhere at this point? I may end up blocking most of the 2k off the door skins anyway. I had never thought of blocking out the epoxy, but this wonderful forum gave me that idea. Thanks guys.
 
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Here is a video I made a month or so ago. More for my own recollection of what I did, but you might want to watch too. Hopefully you don’t find too many things I’m doing wrong!

I have moved on to the hood and trunk over the past few weeks. Somehow I must have caused some warpage/ shrinkage on the hood and trunk skin. I managed to work the metal back within about 10 thou max before primer.

I am busy spraying and blocking epoxy. Should be done with that and ready to tuck away awaiting top coat.
 

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It seemed like unending sheet metal adjustments to fix the warpage I got from blasting the hood and the trunk, but I think I’m there now. I was really careful looking for any signs of warpage when I blasted the body, and never had any issues. Months later, I blasted what I needed to on the hood and trunk (the reinforcing framework underneath, louvers, etc). I used different media, and that must have made a difference. Ugh. All good learning, although painful.

I had the big surfaces dialed in pretty well a week or so ago in black epoxy, and then I started studying all the louvers in the hood. They were all straight, but not flat with the rest of the hood. I sanded them back to bare metal and started working on “adjusting” their shape. I ended up making a flat tip for my air hammer that fit the louvers correctly and ran the air hammer along all the louvers from underneath with a dolly on too to line them up the way I wanted. I had about 5 PSI going to the air hammer. That was pretty successful.

Sunday morning I sprayed white epoxy, and then 2 coats of 2k Monday morning. As my luck goes, a few spots will need a little more.

I’ll have to figure out a good way to sand down inside the louvers, but the tops are looking great.

The doors are a little goofy and could have used 3 or 4 coats of 2k. I’m probably spraying it too light, but I don’t want any issues from spraying too heavy.

More 2K in the morning.

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