I’ve recently set about completing a full chassis-up restoration of a Triumph Herald and thought it might be a good idea to serialise progress via the Courier in the hope it makes interesting reading and hopefully might even be inspirational to anyone considering doing the same. I’m not aiming for concourse condition by any means but do want a car I know is going to be good for several years to come. I intend completing the rebuild on a tight budget but will be replacing the major components of the running gear, particularly the whole braking system.
It’s purely a finger in the air guestimate but I reckon the whole thing is going to take me about two years to complete. Due to the extended timeline I’m not going to provide updates to The Courier every month, instead I’ll be aiming for every three months in the hope I don’t bore you to death before the restoration is finished. I may have to skip a month or two depending on progress (or lack of it).
I owned a couple of Heralds in my youth in the late ‘70s, one of which was a two-tone green 1200, but gave up on Heralds soon after the arrival of my first child as I needed more suitable transport for carrying enough equipment to impress any F1 racing team. I then spent many years wishing I could have another Herald, just as a second car, but finance wouldn’t really allow it while the family were growing up. Eventually of course they all flew the nest and I found I now had a little spare cash and spare time on my hands, so I scoured the local ads and the internet and found a decent one, a 13/60 convertible, at only my second viewing and within two miles of home.
I ran this car for five years slowly completing a rolling restoration, mostly cosmetics and minor mechanics, and I was very happy with it – but I still hankered for another two-tone green 1200 saloon. Then last year I spotted one for sale by a TSSC member. It was the right colour, the right year (1965) at the right price, and with a full MOT, the only trouble was it was in Southampton which is about 175 miles away from where I live. After a few days procrastination I decided to take the plunge and go and take a look at it.
Initially it appeared to be just what I was looking for but closer inspection uncovered a few areas that would need attention. Nevertheless I went ahead and bought it and drove it the 175 miles back to Shropshire. It ran really well on the way home cruising at upwards of 70mph most of the way. The only troubles I had on the journey were a sticky accelerator and clutch slip if I tried to accelerate too quickly.
My intention was initially to complete a rolling restoration, much like I did with the 13/60, and use the car at weekends and special occasions. As I can only drive one Herald at a time I reluctantly decided to sell the 13/60 and luckily it went to someone who was a keen classic enthusiast.
My first task was to remove the engine to replace the clutch, but this proved to be a major turning point in my plans as I decided to continue stripping it and complete a full chassis-up restoration – something I’ve never done before. Before I knew it there were so many bits in boxes it dawned on me that there was no turning back, and I now owned a taxed & tested car in bits. At the same time I received an offer I couldn’t refuse from fellow TSSC member Jonathan Ryder, a ’68 Herald 1200 saloon in Gunmetal blue for spares or repair, and thinking I was likely to need a good source of parts I gladly accepted his offer.
I arranged to have this second car delivered to my house without having even seen it in the flesh, up to this point all I had seen was a couple of photographs from when it went in to storage four years earlier. When it arrived I knew almost immediately it was too good to break for spares so I set about getting it roadworthy again. It took me several weeks, some parts off the ’65 and bit of cash, but in January this year it was finally taxed & tested and is now my run around while the ’65 undergoes restoration.
There isn’t very much to document about stripping the car to its chassis as it’s all just a nut & bolt job, however I did make sure I took plenty of photographs as reference material for when I come to put it back together again.
One of the biggest problems I had is the fact I only have a single garage which is only ten feet wide, so not very much room for storing the mountain of parts that I was removing. To get around this I built a makeshift platform just high enough to allow the chassis, still on its wheels, to roll underneath. My garage is now unusable as a workshop but then it does mean everything is under cover, but the downside is all work has to be completed outside so progress is now governed by the weather as well as available finance and spare time.
It’s purely a finger in the air guestimate but I reckon the whole thing is going to take me about two years to complete. Due to the extended timeline I’m not going to provide updates to The Courier every month, instead I’ll be aiming for every three months in the hope I don’t bore you to death before the restoration is finished. I may have to skip a month or two depending on progress (or lack of it).
I owned a couple of Heralds in my youth in the late ‘70s, one of which was a two-tone green 1200, but gave up on Heralds soon after the arrival of my first child as I needed more suitable transport for carrying enough equipment to impress any F1 racing team. I then spent many years wishing I could have another Herald, just as a second car, but finance wouldn’t really allow it while the family were growing up. Eventually of course they all flew the nest and I found I now had a little spare cash and spare time on my hands, so I scoured the local ads and the internet and found a decent one, a 13/60 convertible, at only my second viewing and within two miles of home.
I ran this car for five years slowly completing a rolling restoration, mostly cosmetics and minor mechanics, and I was very happy with it – but I still hankered for another two-tone green 1200 saloon. Then last year I spotted one for sale by a TSSC member. It was the right colour, the right year (1965) at the right price, and with a full MOT, the only trouble was it was in Southampton which is about 175 miles away from where I live. After a few days procrastination I decided to take the plunge and go and take a look at it.
Initially it appeared to be just what I was looking for but closer inspection uncovered a few areas that would need attention. Nevertheless I went ahead and bought it and drove it the 175 miles back to Shropshire. It ran really well on the way home cruising at upwards of 70mph most of the way. The only troubles I had on the journey were a sticky accelerator and clutch slip if I tried to accelerate too quickly.
My intention was initially to complete a rolling restoration, much like I did with the 13/60, and use the car at weekends and special occasions. As I can only drive one Herald at a time I reluctantly decided to sell the 13/60 and luckily it went to someone who was a keen classic enthusiast.
My first task was to remove the engine to replace the clutch, but this proved to be a major turning point in my plans as I decided to continue stripping it and complete a full chassis-up restoration – something I’ve never done before. Before I knew it there were so many bits in boxes it dawned on me that there was no turning back, and I now owned a taxed & tested car in bits. At the same time I received an offer I couldn’t refuse from fellow TSSC member Jonathan Ryder, a ’68 Herald 1200 saloon in Gunmetal blue for spares or repair, and thinking I was likely to need a good source of parts I gladly accepted his offer.
I arranged to have this second car delivered to my house without having even seen it in the flesh, up to this point all I had seen was a couple of photographs from when it went in to storage four years earlier. When it arrived I knew almost immediately it was too good to break for spares so I set about getting it roadworthy again. It took me several weeks, some parts off the ’65 and bit of cash, but in January this year it was finally taxed & tested and is now my run around while the ’65 undergoes restoration.
There isn’t very much to document about stripping the car to its chassis as it’s all just a nut & bolt job, however I did make sure I took plenty of photographs as reference material for when I come to put it back together again.
One of the biggest problems I had is the fact I only have a single garage which is only ten feet wide, so not very much room for storing the mountain of parts that I was removing. To get around this I built a makeshift platform just high enough to allow the chassis, still on its wheels, to roll underneath. My garage is now unusable as a workshop but then it does mean everything is under cover, but the downside is all work has to be completed outside so progress is now governed by the weather as well as available finance and spare time.
Once the platform was ready I set about removing the tubs. Apart from the usual problems of corroded fixings, particularly the body mounting bolts, it was all fairly straightforward and came apart reasonably quickly. The body tubs were lifted without any major issue and manoeuvred on to the platform with the help of an engine hoist and rope. The roof was a little more tricky as it’s one of those jobs where you need two pairs of hands or a willing helper, neither of which were available at the time I needed them. I did have problems removing the petrol tank as the outlet fell apart when I tried to undo the drain plug, luckily I had already drained the contents.
I decided to leave the front suspension intact for as long as possible as it makes wheeling the chassis in & out so much easier, and I have made a trolley for the rear end with a section of chipboard and four castors.
As the tubs came off it dawned on me that the rust was much extensive than I had initially realised (isn’t that always the case?) as three outriggers were totally shot and needed to be replaced, and two others needed some patching as a minimum. At this point I began to wonder if the restore was really feasible but after prolonged consideration (well five minutes actually) I decided to press on. My first major step towards restoring the chassis is to replace all dodgy outriggers so I went out and bought five new outriggers and both side rails. The offside front outrigger had been replaced by the previous owner so that one will stay, and the boot extensions are not too bad so I’m hoping to salvage those but I’ll reserve final judgment until I’ve inspected them a little closer.
My next task is to rebuild the chassis and get it back to a rolling chassis and I’ll be reporting on how I tackled this in my next instalment. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment