Arrival
This TR4A was a nearly ideal project car. It was largely complete, had only a little rust, and no major problems that might have prevented a cost-effective restoration. It came with a lot of extra parts, including replacement panels for the rockers, and even a spare engine. There were also some fairly new and rather expensive pieces, such as a wood dashboard. Not a bad place to start.
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The car needed quite a bit of work; many of those needs, such as paint, are not obvious in the pictures below. A more visible need was a front bumper and overriders. The rear overriders came with the car but were not installed. Those are especially important, as the license-plate lights are in the rear overriders, so the car is not street legal without them.
Classic-car enthusiasts make a fetish of door gaps, which should be uniform in width, top to bottom. In many (perhaps most) TR4s, however, that's just not the case. Mine was one of those; the rear gaps on both doors were wider near the top. (Enlarge the picture to see them clearly). The conventional wisdom states that this could indicate frame sag caused by rust, but I'd expect a rust-softened frame to sag in the center, and that would close the gap at the top, not open it. Eventually I determined that there was no frame rust, and in fact, the frame was in pretty good condition.
Whatever the cause, it's true that TR4 and 4A frames are not famous for stiffness, especially in the rear. I eventually welded stiffening plates into the rear of the frame. See Frame Modifications for all the details.
The rockers on both sides were rusted through. A common problem, not too difficult to repair.
The engine still had its original Zenith-Stromberg carburetors. Reportedly, the compressions and oil pressure were good. I deferred a decision on rebuilding it until I could open it up; the options were, depending on what I found, leaving it as is, "freshening" it with new rings and bearings, or a full-up rebuild. I ended up rebuilding it completely.
The underside looked better than one might have expected for a fifty-year-old car. I planned to rebuild the suspension completely, to tighten it up and make it feel like a new car.
The underside was cruddy; no surprise there. I found one rust hole in the floor and a little rust perforation in the trunk, repaired with fiberglass. Eventually, I found more rust areas and decided to replace both floor panels. I also had to repair a number of smaller holes that I found as I worked on the body. The frame had the usual layer of surface rust and crud, but I later determined that it had no rust-through and was factory straight.
The passenger seat, which was a little better than the driver seat, was removed to make space for the extra engine. The interior was a little tired, but much of it was still usable, with repairs, if I chose to do so. The gauges were complete and functional, and the wooden dash, a replacement, was nice. I could have gotten by with a lot of it; it just depended on the level of restoration I decided on.
After all the work I put into the car, it seemed like false economy to have a less-than-perfect interior, so I eventually restored the entire interior with new seat covers and foam, carpets, panels and convertible top.
The underside of the dash wasn't bad at all. Usually, by this age, a car has a lot of jury-rigged wiring, but that wasn't the case here.
The car came with a second engine. It was mounted inside the passenger compartment for shipping. I was told that it was the original engine, but I later determined, from a Heritage Certificate, that the one in the car was the original. Initially, I just set it aside, but I eventually rebuilt it.
