67 Triumph GT6 project

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rally_x
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67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

So after this car getting away from me back in 2006, I got a second chanceand finally bought it today. It's a very early GT6. It was originally sold at Beverly Hills Sports Cars. The story behind it was that the original owner drove it for a few years until the car broke. Rather than fix it, he bought newer GT+6 and parked this one in his garage. That was in 1973. The car sat in the garage until 2006! It was then donated to a charity where they had plans to restore it but never did anything with it. It then sat in their warehouse for another 5 years until I got it today.

My plan is to get it back on the road first and then decide what course to take from there. The car was stored in a garage in the desert so it has no rust but all the rubber bits are pretty dried out. So far it appears the car was parked because of a blown head gasket. I'm looking forward to getting to drive it :drive
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Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by olson »

nice. good luck .
always liked the GT6
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Larry Kluss »

Nice find! I too like the GT6.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Steve Simmons »

Nearly bought one myself but decided an MGB GT would be a better daily driver for my needs.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

This one won't be a daily driver. Once it runs, I'll have a different car for every day of the week :lol:
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Jimmy »

rally_x wrote:My plan is to get it back on the road first and then decide what course to take from there.
Oh, man, why didn't you tell Tanny about that trick?
He could have been having fun driving his '67 all this time, and taken it on the New Years run, too.
In baseball, running into someone is apparently a "collision".
But doing the same thing in a car somehow makes it an "accident".
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by TEAM ROSBIF »

I have some rear tail light lenses from the MGA you can have, no problem.

Merry Xmas


Mark
WORKS MGA TWIN CAM YD1
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by olson »

TEAM ROSBIF wrote:I have some rear tail light lenses from the MGA you can have, no problem.

Merry Xmas


Mark

The MGA tail lights (Lucas 549) are not the same as the spitfire/GT6 tail lights, but they fit perfectly, on the same rubber base and look way better on the GT6 than the clunky GT6 lights. you do have to drill a hole through the 549 base. let me know if you want details or to see what they look like on a GT6

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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by tdskip »

Looks like a good project - keep us posted.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

I picked up a bunch of parts today for the car. I picked up a tr6 head, manifold, and carbs. It should be good for close to a 20hp gain over the stock set-up. I also got a clutch set, a new front hub (one is stripped), misc. hoses, brake calipers, and a transmission. The head will be on its way to the machine shop after the holiday week-end. The gas tank and radiator will be heading to the shop for a refresh.

It's like putting together a big puzzle! That's about it for now :D
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

Got into the engine this week-end to determine the state of things. As was suspected, the car did suffer a blown head gasket. Unfortunately there was some other damage as well. The cam also shows quite a bit of wear. It appears this car was neglected or driven very hard! I'm going to go with a full rebuild on the motor.
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Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

Making some progress! The engine and head are due to be back from the machine shop next week. The TR6 head is also being converted to run on unleaded fuel. In the meantime the brakes and carbs are getting sorted. Along with rebuilding the calipers, brakes will also be getting all new lines. The lines have been open for years so no telling what sort of contamination they have.

Engine out. This will all be cleaned up and repainted before engine goes back in.

Cleaned up and looking as good as new.


Checking out the gearbox for any wear.

Unfortunately as we get deeper into the project, we're noticing more and more missing parts. Most of it's small stuff with a few exceptions. Anyone have a GT6 drive shaft laying around??
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Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

We've made a lot of progress on the GT6. First, some weird stuff was uncovered in the front suspension. By the looks of things, the car had to have had weird handling or was difficult to drive! I never understood why people make repairs like this rather than fixing it correctly.

One of the springs had a spacer on it.

2 completely different control arms were used.

The front sway bar is really bent and pretty much not useable.

The sway bar mounting points were bent upward rather than being flat. They're going to be reinforced.

Stripped hub on the bad suspension side.

Carbs are rebuilt and ready to go.

Exhaust manifold coated with jet hot coating. Cool stuff.

Engine bay cleaned up: Originally I was planning to just have the front sprayed before reassembling the front and installing the engine. I'm now thinking of having the whole car resprayed.


The original floors are in good shape with only minor surface rust. The only real rust is the battery box. Once that went, it allowed water to leak on the right front floor.

Another bummer that was discovered is that the rear diff was welded. Good for racing - bad for street.

That's it for now :D
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bentswaybar.JPG
coatedexhaustmanifold.JPG
controlarms.JPG
rebuildingcalipers.JPG
rebuiltcarbs.JPG
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Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Larry Kluss »

Nice progress. With the welded rear end and the quick suspension fix on one side, perhaps it was raced and had an off-track sortie at one time?
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Steve Simmons »

Nice work, it's looking really good! I can't wait to see this one finished. :thumbs:
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

The goal is to have it done by the end of July in time for the Central Coast British car show. Fingers crossed!

On the rear diff: when the car was pulled out of the garage where it sat for years, it didn't have a rear diff on it. The guy who took possession of the car (between the original owner and the time it was donated to charity) bought the rear diff from a Triumph racer who had a lot of spare GT6 parts. My guess was it was used on one of his race cars.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

More progress: Finally getting close to the point where no more surprises will be uncovered and things will start going back onto the car rather than coming off. Some of the body work has been done with some more to go.

Very little bondo has been found. The rear had a dent where the rear license plate light mounts. The bondo was pretty thick here and is almost gone now.

There's also some bondo in the left front corner. From the inside you can see that an attempt was made to pull the dent out so the bondo shouldn't be very thick. This is the same side where the funky suspension repair was made.

Filling the antenna hole.

Interior surface rust has been treated, primed, and is ready to go.

Front is primed and ready to go.

Dent on roof

Cracking on "B" pillars yet to be addressed. Since the roof at the front isn't welded to the windshield frame, the "B" pillars take a little more stress. Not sure how this is going to be resolved. The doors are also very wavy from all the small dents. Rather than trying to fix them, I'm going to order some new door skins.

We don't have a rotisserie so the body shop will have to handle the bottom of the car. There is only light surface rust on the bottom which is pretty amazing considering there is almost no paint on the bottom of the car!
In the meantime I'm looking into restoring the seats. The foam currently inside of them turns to dust when putting any pressure on them. I learned that although the backs are fixed, they are modeled after Triumph's competition bucket seats, and were a noticeable improvement over the standard buckets found in Spitfires. As a result of the seats not having anything in common with other Triumphs, I'm finding that replacement bits are pricey.
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antennahole.JPG
Bpillarcracking.JPG
interior-1.JPG
interior-1.JPG (272.92 KiB) Viewed 35460 times
interior1.JPG
interior2.JPG
rearbondo.JPG
frontbondo.JPG
roofdent.JPG
Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by MiniGuy »

Cool car - looking forward to more progress updates!
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

My project was on hold for a bit but alas I have some progress to report. The body is just about ready for paint. I'm awaiting a color sample to determine the right shade of color I'm seeking. The body has been trussed to avoid distortion on it's transfer to and from the paint shop.

The machine shop called a couple of weeks ago with a problem they encountered. They had magnafluxed the block some time ago, but had missed a very small crack in #2 cylinder. When they set up the block to bore for the new pistons he noticed the small crack in #2 cylinder. The #2 & #1 pistons were the ones that were frozen upon disassembly. The original block apparently got a crack in it so it had a sleeve installed. Basic problem was never solved the first time around.

Upon searching for a new replacement block I learned from several sources that the MK I block is known for having cooling issues such as my original motor had. A replacement MK III GT6 block was sourced in Colorado and has been shipped out here. Shipping was almost as much as the block :( At least it's here and now at the machine shop. Hopefully that will be the last of the surprises.

Here's a couple of pics as it now sits.
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Last edited by rally_x on Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Larry Kluss »

When is it scheduled for paint, Patrick? Color?
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

I'm waiting to get a painted sample from the paint shop. We're trying to get a shade of BRG that was used by Jaguar in the 50's. It's a pretty dark color. It almost looks black when it's not in the sun. Many colors of BRG I've seen are either too blue or too yellow. I'll find it!

I found this link where someone did extensive research in their quest to find the proper shade of green. As you can see there are many!

http://home.comcast.net/~rhodes/paint.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Larry Kluss »

Cool. I think a dark BRG will look great on that car.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by malcolmr18zoy »

The really dark BRG used on Jaguar D-types was ICI code 5038. The slightly lighter BRG used on C-types was ICI code 2539.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by rally_x »

Thanks for the info! The C and D-Type colors are exactly what I had in mind. We had a call into XK's Unlimited to see if we could find that paint code from them but never got a call back.
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Re: 67 Triumph GT6 project

Post by Martin Keller »

Hi Patrick,

Give Dave Wellwood a call as I know he has the paint codes and might even have a sample you could view.
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