Hello All!
Thanks for visiting the TR6 Web. This column is here because I'm at heart an extroverted nerd, and I figured that offering a few of my words up for pondering, ranting, ignoring, what-have-you was a small price for what (I hope) the TR6 Web offers. If you haven't checked out the rest of the site, by all means go do so now before reading this drivel. This page is going to be where I post any extended rants, rambles, thoughts or other whimsy that pertains to our world of LBCs. Yep; the content here is indeed going to be (verrrrrry loosely) affiliated with the cars that we know and love. Beware; some columns may take delight in spending the entire text simply drawing obfuscated connections betwixt themselves and the LBC passion. They'll follow no set schedule.
Previous Columns:
Hokay. So here we are. Since I'm in California, and having a blast with my TR, I figured I'd let y'all know what precisely I'm doing out here. With the car, of course.
In any case, the first Triumph-related thing I did was to meet up with a fellow TR6 driver, who'd been encouraging me along via email. Mr. David Stephenson and his TR were nice enough to show me a fine place to eat lunch (the Versailles Cafe on Venice Boulevard...yum!) and talk TR's with me. Then, at his urging, I attended the June monthly meeting of the Southern California Triumphs Owners' Association (SCTOA) I was made very welcome, and am most grateful to Jan and Steve and JM and Alfredo and Bob and...the whole crew of you!
Lessee, I promised you random exhortations. Okay. The following is a letter which I wrote to a gentleman who, in the guestbook to the TR6 Web, was (at least implicitly :-)) asking for advice on whether or not to keep his TR6, which needed restoration. Looking for any excuse to editorialize and/or wax enthusiastic, here's my response.
M-You may get a spate of letters, you may not; but I thought I'd check in with the Editor's Privilege of Nosiness. :-) This is JB Zimmerman from the TR6 Web. Regarding your TR6- whatever you do, don't sell it. If you HAVE to sell it, make sure it goes to a good home, and, ideally, one from which you might retrieve it later.
As to restoring it...there seem to be a couple of reasons that people embark on restorations. One, they deliberately set out to do a restoration, and have acquired or unearthed a car that is more a bucket of rust than anything else. Two, they've decided they want to win concours events. Three, they have shipwright's disease.
If you aren't familiar with the last, lurk on the triumphs mailing list. For info about joining, see the Introduction section of the TR6 Web. Basically, you'll fix something like, say, the turn signals one day, and while doing so you'll notice that the wiring under the dash is really tangled. So you'll fix that. In the process, it will come to your attention that the bushings int he bulkhead that the wiring goes through are stiff and cracked, so you'll replace the bushings in the firewall. Of course, that will lead you to realize how loose and shaky your steering column is, and now you'll see that it's because you need a new coupling. So that gets replaced. And while doing that... anyhow, you get the idea.
My recommendation, for what it's worth, is that you just drive it. Especially if it's in OK shape. These things were meant to be driven and enjoyed, and although reliability is in short supply, the British managed to pack an enormous amount of fun into them, so much so that it's still fun to drive them with things like windshield wipers going wrong, or headlights being dim, or a loud exhaust, or...and again, you get the idea.
Once you start a restoration, you're looking at a great deal of time and money, typically more one than the other, but not always! While you may, one day, be ready to tackle this project with enthusiasm, I would say that given your uncertainty over the car's fate, today is not the day. Perhaps when you have acquired your second TR to drive while working on the first...:-) Anyhow, be of good cheer; you can still drive your TR. And from what I can tell, as fun as restoring them can be, most if not all of the payback comes from that moment when you motor down a two-lane curvy highway listening to the basso voice of the exhaust, smelling the trees and the water and the soil and the petrol and the oil, and your eyes mist over and you have to either beat a tattoo on the dashpad or just throw back your head and shout, 'cause you're so happy.
You, you lucky fellow, get to enjoy at least some of that latter right now. Revel in it.
...and if, after all this, you think you really *have* to get rid of it, the TR6 Web is always happy to make room in its shelter for Wandering TRs. :-) :-) :-)
All the best, and good luck-
J.B. Zimmerman
Amanda (1970 TR6 #CC58880L)
Well, anyhow, so much for that. Obviously I need filler and am nabbing rendom bits from my 'sort for the page' scrapbook.
Ah yes. I did attend a collector car auction in Teton Village, Wyoming, on 7/5/98. There were a few cars there among the muscle cars and German or Italian iron that caught my eye. They were, in no particular order:
It didn't appear to be a British Car crowd that day...the final bidding on the MGA was $9,700 if I recall correctly. The owner's reserve was $11,500. The Morgan attracted a bid of $17,500 which fell short of its reserve of $20,000. I didn't see the result of the MGB-GT auction, and the Lotus hadn't been sold but I was unable to determine the reserve.
That's a lot of money. Granted that these cars were in what looked (in and out) and sounded to be excellent shape; still, I was cringing. :-) Of course, I'm a grad student. On the other hand, a Porsche 914 in good to very good shape was sold for $2,600 (I didn't catch the year) so there were some bargains, maybe? I don't know Porsches.
Outside the auction was parked a lovely Jensen Interceptor III convertible! I salivated at it for a bit, until discovering it had an automatic tranny. Ah well. I don't know if that car was available in stick; it was a LHD model. It was a dark maroon ('Eggplant?') and was just, well, tasty looking.
There were, of course, two Cobra replicas, a Viper, a couple of Ferraris, a bunch of 'murican Iron like a 442 and a bigblock Chevelle.
In any event, it was my first non-police car auction. I was impressed with the cars, and not so impressed with the asking prices. there were bargains to be had; a few machines went for what I felt were low prices; however, a lot of them weren't making reserve.
In any case, that's all the news for now. Soon to come on the TR6 page (I hope): J.B.'s Folly Pages- a complete list of work done to Amanda since I've owned her...and hopefully, I'll be able to attempt a rebuilding of my brake booster vacuum unit, which is still no go...I have the Girling Seal Kit (from TRF) but apparently there are two types of booster, and one is rebuildable while one isn't, and you have to get the thing apart to find out. We'll see.
Thanks for visiting.
J.B Zimmerman
The editor of the TR6 Web is a graduate student currently studying the effect of TR6 repair and restoration outlays on student loan repayment schedules.. He lives in perpetual longing for a paycheck that will actually cover one month's expenses. At times, he has been known to whip out a credit card and attempt to purchase used Duesenbergs on impulse; however, the person that informed him of this the morning after may have been lying.
If you're interested in more of his writing (fictional, in this case) it can be found here.