1968 Triumph 1300 FWD

Great looking little car these,and those interiors are great,foldaway window winders and a great dashboard, one of those cars I've always admired,nice buy fella, bookmarked

Not done a great deal with this, it was pushed into a corner of the lock up and left alone. I did manage to get it running, unbelievably it started first turn of the key after 16 years of inactivity...



The reason for the lack of progress is the work I'm doing on another big project, not likely to be finished before 2018. The bodyshell of that one goes away for blasting, welding and painting soon so last week I took pity on the old girl just sitting in the corner.



I decided to push her out of her resting place and have a good look over it to see what it'll take to get it roadworthy again. I reckon £800 will get it on the road again, I'll do a full resto if it needs it after I've finished the other car. The biggest challenge is the wing and scuttle repairs. I refuse to bodge it up so both front wings and the front doors will be coming off to get at the scuttle, A-pillars and inner wing areas and add any fresh metal required along the way. Got a nice NOS wing for £15 off Ebay...



I had reconnected the old fuel system but the car was continually stalling due to all the crud in the line from the tank. Blowing through with an airline had no effect so with some old brake pipe I made a new fuel line. It now runs longer but eventually still stalls. More investigation needed.



So, I've done a list, I'll update you as I work through it.

Please do. I learnt to drive in one of these more than 30 years ago, so this is very nostalgic.
It handled beautifully on the winding roads. It had a chronic fuel starvation problem when it was warm & had you had to know where to find each gear.
Keep up the good work.

There was one of these on Eastenders last night. Same colour as well!

Looking good

For the fuel starvation, try running a line to a jerry-can in the passenger footwell. I had occasional problems - with a jerry can eventually traced it to crud in the tank blocking the fuel pickup pipe. Maybe check your inside your tank and add a gauze filter if there's not already one there?

Beautiful work, great to see 👍

Thanks for all your comments guys.



Thanks Nomad.

I’m sorry I should’ve said, I sorted out the fuel starvation issue about 18 months ago by using another gasket on the fuel pump. Runs great now! I took it for a little trundle around the yard when it was sorted.

So much for a week to the next update!

Sadly the boss has had me working on our new abode leaving very little time to sort this little beauty out. I have done a bit when I could snatch time from the jaws of household DIY.

We are now onto the top area of the LH inner wing and scuttle area. First piece to come off was the wing strengthening section. Sadly it’s rotten. Although you can’t see it here it will be a swine to make, a very complex pressing.



With wisps of smoke exiting my ears due to an overheated brain I decided to leave the fabrication of the strengthener for a bit and move on. The poor design of the inner wing and scuttle drain had built in a remarkably good water trap that had rotted out not only the scuttle but the strengthener and the inner wing itself.



After marking up where the rot ended and the decent metal started, a repair section was fabricated and the rot was evicted from the wing.





After that it was stiched in, cleaned up and etch primed.



I was still on a break from the strengthener (still am) so therefore it was onto the scuttle area. As you can see, it looks like Ze Germans have had a bloody good go at it. Not much left of it for reference sadly. So, the angle grinder was deployed and I opened up the right hand wing to see if that side was any better.





Thankfully it was, although not much. All this will eventually come out as a bit of pokey pokey finger fun revealed just what state it was in,but for now I could copy the shapes and flip them for the left hand side.



After this it was time to dig out all the rot from the scuttle. I was digging for a while...



The top of the A post was rotten and also there was rot in the A pillar which had to go.



So, after bracing the little blighter and taking some brave pills I made a repair section and began chopping.





Once out I slotted the repair section in and adjusted the fit, all good!



The new scuttle piece is now a flat piece of metal curved down towards the extremities. Water will hopefully collect at the edges where I will be drilling drain holes so the water will drain out into the Wheelarch as opposed to into the strengthener box section. In theory of course. It’ll all probably end up in the glovebox or on my shoes. I believe Triumph modified the design a few months after my car was built.

The new sections have been dry fitted ready for welding together. I’m pleased I’m at this point now. I’d been avoiding tackling the A post/pillar rot like you avoid picking the s**t kid for your footy team.








Hopefully another update soon. Until then, it’s back to painting bloody fences...

agree it was a nice surprise to see the thread pop back to the top