1948 Triumph Roadster Supercharged plus other stuff…

Cheers guys.


With the enforced wait for another controller, I thought I might as well paint the plasma table.
The leftover paint from the Healey tank would do nicely.
Thinned it with some acrylic thinners so it would spray, took the table outside, cleaned with wax and grease remover and masked bits of it.
Here’s the result, can’t wait to get the electric bits finished.





Quite pleased with that, for how little effort was involved.

I should mention that it appears possible to restore the controller to factory settings, but the vid I partially watched confirmed that it was much more sensible to spend $13 on a replacement.

Did a little bit of fiddling with the Triumph.
Don’t think I’ve owned up to it on here previously, but the fit of the rear windscreen was very poor.
Somehow I missed fitting it before painting it.
It needed extra clearance along both sides and the forward edge.





It’s a lovely ally casting so it was just a matter of grinding a few mm off, where required.
And of course, repainting it.
Next job is to add some bits to the bonnet, then the spray gun fun starts again…

Also I want to try and remove the scratches in the glass. There are lots of them, and some quite deep.





Looks like the car was used as a storage bench at some time in the past.

Thanks.

Thanks Phil.
You’re lucky to have someone to ask, with so much of this stuff knowing who to ask is a big problem.
I too used log tables, though I wouldn’t know where to start with them now!


Back on the Triumph, adding the small pieces to the corners of the bonnet.

I had made a template of each corner using the dirty-finger tracing method, before taking the bonnet off the car.





Found a piece of aluminium the same thickness.

Sanded both bits back to shiny metal and clamped it in place.





And that’s the last pic I took because anger and frustration do not a photographer make.

You guessed it, the tig was not cooperating.

I eventually got the bit of ally stuck on, but there would have been a lot of satisfaction in taking a BFH to the bl00dy tig.
I tried four different filler rods, varying the amps from 40 to 75, and the ac balance from 3 to minus 3.
Really, nothing made any difference.
I just cannot get the base metal to form a nice shiny, or even dull, puddle.
It just looks like I’ve been visited by a metal eating pigeon.
And it just takes so long, all damn day to do a couple of short welds.

While I’m having a whinge, does anyone else have a problem with their welding helmet pulling their hair?
The thing I’m using now is a Weldclass, upper range, and it pulls my hair.
I thought it might be because I needed a haircut, but it still does it even after a visit to the barber.
And it damn well hurts.
This is a replacement for the one I threw to the ground in frustration last time I couldn’t get an ally weld to happen.
The hair pulling is why I bought a better one, hoping the thing might be less painful.

Anyway, time to get off my soapbox.

Thanks.

I wear a hat when I’m welding.

They are just a thin skull cap type thing, not a top hat. 😀

Trying to weld to old aluminium is always a nightmare due to impurities.

Maybe time to think about bonding on a repair panel with one of the new 3M panel adhesives the modern car makers use?

I was also going to advise wearing a thin skullcap for the welding helmet.

Thanks for the replies men, I’ll look for a scullcap. Maybe it could be fixed semi permanently to the helmet, to make it a bit more convenient.

I eventually got it welded. And once the pigeon droppings are ground back, it looks normal.

Now to strip all the paint off.
Then, once I have the clutch back and the motor/gearbox back in, a trial fit.
Then paint.
Sounds so easy doesn’t it?

Thanks.

Cheers Tamber, it’s good to have an excuse!


Not much photo worthy in this update, but a milestone nonetheless. The plasma moved!

But not for long. And now it’s telling me 'access denied'

Computers are great when they work. More stuff to learn.



And the Triumph clutch should be home tomorrow.

Today I finished heatgun stripping of the bonnet. Now it needs chemical stripping to finish getting it back to bare metal.

Thanks.

Franz,


“Now it needs chemical stripping to finish getting it back to bare metal.”

I’m just using paint stripper.

Got the clutch back. It looks like new.









On the plasma front, it occurred to ne that the problems were with the Bluetooth side of things.
So I hooked up with a USB cable, and suddenly it’s reliable. And the jog amount seems accurate.

Now I have to figure out how to get a CAD drawing into it. I was hoping that it might just happen, as it did with the 3D printer. But apparently not.
At least I’ve stopped pulling my hair out.


Thanks.

Did some fiddling with the plasma to get the cutting dimensions correct.
Action photo.





It allows for the cut thickness, so if the cut thickness setting is wrong, the final dimension will be wrong.
I have it pretty close now, but you have to remember, these bits are plasma cut not machined.

Anyway, I was able to get these made.





The centre one is the original. My two have had the slag sanded off the back, but the edges, including the holes, are as cut.
So I’m pretty pleased with that. I know they would be very fiddly to cut out by hand.


They’re lock washers for the flywheel bolts on the Triumph engine.
I removed the flywheel because there was a drip of oil under it.

This is the seal setup behind the flywheel.





Anybody know what I’m likely to find behind that ally cover?
The sectional drawing of the engine in the owners manual shows what looks like a scroll in there.

Thanks.

Lots of stuff in the pre/post war era were never really designed to be oil tight by modern day standards. The ethos of “as long as it’s not pouring out” was pretty much the standard…