I dropped the radiator pan down to see how bad the frame damage was. Not horrible, but not great. The holes for the bolts that hold the pan on are now oval. The passenger side straightened up pretty well. The driver side still needs some work. I may weld some washers onto the frame to reinforce where the bolts go through.
That sucks joe. I can relate, remember that Winchester autox that I got boxed into straddling a rotted deer carcass on my way to? At least you don't have that mess/smell to deal with!
In reply to Apexcarver :
Yes, I remember that. It's never fun to hit an animal, alive or dead.
I'm actually a little surprised how little damage there is. It felt worse than it was. The radiator pan may press flat and be fine. I may just hit it with some primer/paint and bolt it back on after pressing out the indentations. I'd like to weld up a replacement out of aluminum plate, but there's no way I'm gonna MIG that.
Bummer about the construction smash. I don't think I've ever seen a thing like that in the road before.
If you want to bring parts here, I'll tig them together for you.
In reply to TVR Scott :
I may look into getting some aluminum plate. Not sure what thickness would be required to match the 1/8" steel of which the original was made. 1/4" would probably be good enough with 6000 series aluminum as a guess, but maybe 3/16" would work. It's main stress comes from holding the sway bar mounts.
The original pan pressed more-or-less flat, and this wasn't it's first rodeo. But it is serviceable.
Nothing car related to report other than straightening the other frame rail and test fitting the radiator pan. I think I can get by with making some reinforcement plates to go on the inside of the frame rail to keep the bolts from pulling through. I may also put some reinforcement sleeves on the bolts, which the factory should have done anyway.
Otherwise, I was on vacation in the Outer Banks of NC last week. We also moved out the last teenage girl (getting ready for college) and are moving the 15 y.o. boy into her old room. Of course this means fixing and painting stuff, but I haven't had to do much to the house in a while. Painting a ceiling with a roller on a stick isn't as easy nor fun as it used to be.
I painted the ceiling in our new spare bedroom/wife's relaxation room. The LED lights around the ceiling were also upgraded.
Hopefully I'll get the TR6 bolted back together this week. Our daughter and grandkids are visiting, so some fun rides would be good.
The sway bar is buttoned up and is pretty solid. I added some reinforcement plates to the inside of the frame rails that act like big washers, and also put some spacers around the forward bolts. Given the hit the aluminum mounts took, new ones are on the way. It will all come apart for paint/powder coat repairs when those arrive.
The good news is that everything else looks good. There were just a few scrapes on the frame near the gearbox that didn't break through the powder coat. I feel fortunate that it wasn't worse. So back to breaking in and tuning, and waiting for the Robbins cloth top to arrive.
Maybe you could put some sweet titanium blocks on the low points and throw out a bunch of white sparks when you bottom out.
Seriously though, I'm glad your bottom-out incident didn't do too much damage.
TVR Scott said:Maybe you could put some sweet titanium blocks on the low points and throw out a bunch of white sparks when you bottom out.
That might be the answer. Rub rails the entire length of the car. It may help stiffen up the chassis too. Or I could just try to avoid any other Dukes of Hazzard situations.
I've actually been thinking about doing titanium rub plates on the f500. For funzies. I do scrape some if I hit a bump wrong at Waldorf.
We took the TR6 out for another drive to a local brewery in Black Forest. After a 3 mile hike this morning, a coffee vanilla Porter with some excellent Honduran food truck fare went down really well. The car felt great, and I'm starting to tach it up above 4000 rpm. Zero issues again, and the mileage is at 280. The only thing that makes this unlike a modern car to drive is the cold start not quite keeping the car running in the first minute or so. I need to look for a solenoid with more flow, or maybe just stage two of the same kind in parallel. I'm taking a last round of stuff to be powder coated this week including some interior door hardware and the radiator pan.
My eyes keep wandering to the unused MSM on the other side of the garage wondering if it's time to sell that.
The last round of parts came back from the powder coater yesterday, so I spent some time working on the steering wheel. I had pulled that earlier this week to test fit a leather cover and trim the grip foam where it covers the end of the spokes. Satisfied with that, I sanded down the spokes in preparation for some matte black paint and masked off the grip. After etching primer and paint, it looked a little too shiny and pebbly, so the spokes were lightly sanded for a final coat. The first can of Rust-Oleum was getting low, so I switched to what I thought was the same paint.
I suppose the "advanced formula" on the lid should have warned me off. The extra coat reacted with the previous and wrinkled it badly. At least it will be easier to scrape off now. 
I hate paint.
The sanded finish actually looked pretty cool and could be buffed back to a satin finish. That's probably how I'll redo it.
Funny that you post this now.
I’m actually about to do some work to get my original steering wheel back to usable again.
I actually like the stock wheel for autocross if it's made thicker. The '72 and earlier wheels are really thin. I may eventually buy a new non-stock wheel, but wanted to keep the original for now to save money and not waste all of the effort of getting the horn push working.
Paint disaster recovered. The wrinkled paint scraped off very easily and sanded back to clean steel. This morning I remasked the wheel and sprayed it with the SEM trim paint that was used for the sills and rear valance. Should have used this yesterday. Once the paint cures the cover will be stitched on and I can continue driving.
Paint looks perfect.
Is that a Wheelskinz?
oppositelocksmith said:Paint looks perfect.
Is that a Wheelskinz?
That's a "black Italian leather steering wheel cover for TR6" that I bought on Ebay. It ships from England and wasn't too expensive for the quality of the leather. It's soft and the fit appears good.
The car is back together and fully repaired. I finished stitching the wheel cover on this morning so that it could be driven today.
Another 15 miles of testing down. The smell of leather is stronger than the burning oil for now. I like it.
That turned out great!
Looks really good, Joe!
Worth it just for the smell of leather!
Let me ask for opinions on something. I've been considering doing two cosmetic things now that the car is being driven. The first is putting paint protection film around the fender wheel arches to protect the paint from rocks (which are particularly bad in Colorado). This would wrap around the outside edge of the wheel arches only a little.
The second thing is to add a silver stripe across the nose similar to the TR250. It would look like this.
For the stripe, I was thinking of vinyl and not paint in case I change my mind.
So what do you guys think? Worth doing?
In reply to JoeTR6 :
As to the TR250 stripes, I like that idea. And I think that silver stripes would really suit that dark blue... go for it!
Joe, I like the idea of the 250 stripe on your car. I’ve seen it on a bunch of 6’s and it looked good.
Also like the idea of the film. I get terrible road pecks in two places on mine - leading edge of the bonnet and the front facing half of the rear wheel flare.
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