My Triumph Herald Project: My Triumph Herald Project

I have been planning this for some time and I think the time has come.

But why a Triumph Herald or its relatives like the Spitfire?

There are a few reasons.

The car is simple; it is the ideal car for an amateur restorer.
You can take the car apart quite easily without the need for special tools
You can find almost all the spare parts new (!) at very reasonable prices, mainly by ordering them through Internet, from various suppliers from the UK.
Very often you can find leftover original parts in old local shops or from scrap yards or even from eBay.
The big advantage of the car is that it has a separate chassis.
If the car had been looked after and it was used in a country with not much rain and icy roads where salt is used (like Greece) then the usual problem of rust is minimal.

You will need:

· good quality tools, (not supermarket quality),

· plenty of WD40

· patience,

· a bucket of hand cleaning cream,

· some secure space where you can dump everything when you've had enough

· old clothes and rags

· your wife's approval!

The car is a 1966, Triumph Herald 1200 estate, it has been in Greece since new and it has already been characterised as a "Classic" car.

It drove realy well at 80-90 km/h from the old to its new house, a distance of approximately 40 km.

My ambition is to restore it to "Showroom condition". We shall see!

As you can see, it was not in bad condition to start with, with a little rust but not in any vital parts like the chassis.

30/6/2011

The mechanic

The workshop.

Unless somebody moves something, I know exactly where everything is!

Some of the jobs I did during the summer 2011

Some parts before and after cleaning and painting.

The air filter and the rocker cover

The distributor

The cylinder head

The manifold after cleaning and painting with heat resistant paint

A brand new Lucas starter was found in a local shop with a Halfords price tag on!

The rear spring and some other parts before....

And after

The steering

The front springs, shock absorbers and some other parts after some TLC treatment

Digging for the treasure

The windscreen wiper motor

The brake and clutch pumps

The fuel tank before

................ and after

The gear box before

Oh b......r, a broken tooth. Surprisingly the broken tooth was not noticed at all while driving the car. These particular gears cannot be repaired bacause, as I was told, there is no cutting tool available on the market for this size of tooth. So the only solution was to order a new gear cluster.

A new part was ordered, the most expensive so far 270 euros. The old one I think would make a good meat tenderizer!

Hmmm.. something is not right with the new part (the one on the right)

this part is for a four synchromesh gearbox, so it had to go back to the shop.

Fortunately the next day I found a second hand gear box in very good condition in a local shop that specialises in Triumph parts and not only that I met the shop owner, Kyriakos, a wonderful person.

As you can see I also bought some wood for the fireplace!

Now, about the differential which I opened and checked thoroughly

the amazing thing is that after 45 years of service the gears and bearings had no signs of wear although the oil in this model is never changed but only topped up

And this is the result

before

and after

This is not a car skin disease and is not infectious! This is what happens when you apply paint stripper to the roof. You can see the superficial layer of the bright blue paint and the original Royal blue underneath which is a lot more difficult to remove.

This is the attempt of the previous owner to repair the rust and....

this is my attempt. I hope that I will be proud of the final result.

I apologize to all those fans for not having posted anything for a long long time. The reason is that I was working underneath the car dealing with some rust, handbrake cables, etc and there was not much to show.
Recently I have started reasembling the car starting from the fuel tank, suspension and brakes as well as some bodywork.

Almost there

This is the motor cleaned, there was no reason to disassemble it any further. The motor performed perfectly well even though it was very dirty.

The motor cleaned and painted with fireproof spray

The other side of the motor the shiny bits are the core plugs which had to be replaced.

The rear half shafts with the brake drums ready to be installed.

The fuel tank is back in its place and the boot floor has been repaired and resprayed.

Detail from the boot floor

The bumpers scraped ready for respraying

The front ready for anti-rust treatment and respraying

The front axles, brakes, steering, springs etc are in place and the chassis has been treated with anti-rust and resprayed.

16/03/2012

The weather got warmer so I started spending again some time with my project.

I replaced the wheels so that I can move it around and washed it from all the dust it had gathered during the winter.

I adjusted the steering and toe-in and I discovered, to my pleasure, that the whole car is very straight.

03/04/2012
I painted the front of the cabin with a phosphate primer

I think the roof job went very well.
This is the sequence of events

Spot the mistake

I don't think the factory made the mistake, it must have been the previous mechanic when the car had been resprayed.

12/04/2012

I started experimenting with the spray gun. This is the original shade of colour of this car which is the "Royal blue". As it can be seen some parts have been put into place like the heater and the brake pipes.

I am very satisfied with the spraying. Not bad for a first attempt. I think!

17-18/04/2012

This was a big moment the engine (or part of it) is in.

and so is the gearbox

This is the engine before..... and after

Back to the bodywork.

Bumpers went on

Some repairs to the rear wing and the sills

The wheel rims before...

and after cleaning

and painting

17/12/2012

Some winter jobs. The dashboard was sanded down and new veneer is about to be fitted. The veneer is as close to the original as possible. The original is French oak and the new one is Greek oak which, to me, looks identical.

The new veneer cut and ready to go on the dashboard.

Ready and trimmed

And the proud machanic, or..... carpenter this time

The dashboard ready and varnished.

This is my speclal friend's favourite photo. Fitting the tailpipe!

This radio of the 60s, an original brand new PIANOLA, was picked up by a friend for me from the flee market in Athens for €10. I fitted a new facade with the same veneer as the dashboard.

02/01/2013

Back to the bodywork. Doors wre stripped off handles etc and old paint was removed.

And this is the result. Some sanding down and then..... painting.

15/01/2013

Another job for a cold evening. Cleaning and polishing the chromes.

All badges and letters were cleaned and polished, hmmm… now I have to put them in the right order, not like the previous owner “TPIUMRH”!

16/02/2013

new foamy pads for the tail-lights were made

an ultrasonic cleaner helps with the cleaning of many bits like locks, carburator parts etc.

16/02/2013

I started spraying the inside af the doors with the top coat. The paint I use is made by DE BEER and it's really great. It gives a really smooth and shiny finish without much effort but you need a BIG air compressor. Do not attempt to do this with the small 15 L direct drive compressor that you get from the DIY stores and always use an air filter to retain any water. The temperature of the environment is also quite critical. However, at 15 oC it worked well and the paint was fully set after about one hour.

10/03/20137

A few small repairs and it's ready for painting. I made a metal frame and covered the sides with strong polythene to avoid any dust or insects settling on the wet paint and also to keep the original colour of the other cars around it!

16/03/2013

This is the car with the first coat of paint, which is a dark blue primer so that the final coat will look even.

The rear end of the car and the front bumper lying on the ground. Strong lighting is essential for this job, so I had to fit several spot lights on the frame.

The tailgate

....and one of the doors. Compare that to what it looked like before!

This is the same door while it was being repaired and the multiple coats of paint were being removed!

22/04/2013

I, eventually, put the bonnet back onto its place. I can't really say that it was as difficult as it is described in some blogs. All you have to do is observe which direction the bonnet moves with the different adjusters. There are six of them!

I was trying to avoid stripping off the old paint from the bonnet but as I started sanding downt the old paint it started flacking off. So the next job is removing the old paint down to the bare metal. At least there is no rust at all!

25/04/2013

Eventually the whole bonnet was stripped off (almost) completely,

sprayed with a filling primer

06/05/2013

and sanded down. Now is ready for the undercoat.

11/05/2013

The bumper was put into place and the whole thingwas sprayed with the undercoat and the bonnet was accurately adjusted.

Door hinges were sandblasted and put into place

12/05/2013

The final coat of paint, next step is the varnish.

18/05/2013

This is the result befor the varnish

20/03/2016

After a long time, four and a half years, the engine started and it runs beautifully. It took a lot of time to sort out the electricals, switches, wiring and little repairs which cannot be seen, like windows mechanisms, locks, fitting of windows and many more.

23/05/2016

The upholstery needed a lot of work.
This is the roof after its removal, washing and reinstalling.

The frame of the rear seat needed a lot of cleaning. I replaced all the stuffing but I kept the upholstery it came with, although, it is not an "original".

One of the hinges was broken, so I had to manufacture a new one. This is the estate car with the folding rear seat.

The frames of the front seats cleaned repaired and painted. I suspect these are from a Vitesse as the Herald had different backs without coiled springs.

One of the stages of the repair. The electric knife is ideal for cutting foam. Don' t tell my wife!

The two front seats ready

All the door and side panels were bent and rotted, so I had to cut new ones from 5 mm thick MDF

The back of the rear seat. Not too bad as the previous owner had it always folded down because he was using it as a van.

Some more stages of the preparation.

The rear seat ready to be installed.

The rear seat and boot floor went into place. It was very tricky to adjust the movement of the rear seat.

You can also see the dashboard with the 8 track cassette player and speakers. It's 50 years old but brad new and it works. I found some 8-track cassettes at the flea market.