Thursday, April 12, 2007

My TR4a's History

Ok, so I was bored sitting around after work and I was flipping through the new Moss Motors catalogue that showed up in the mail. A though popped in my head that I needed to add my recent receipts to the folder that I got when I bought the Triumph that contained all of the receipts for work done to the car over the years. I had flipped through all of these when I bought the car but had never sat down and looked at dates, names, items ect. So here is what I found out...

I know the names of the previous 3 owners.
Car underwent a complete restoration, engine rebuild starting in May 1989.
I know the name of who rebuilt the engine.
I have receipts (must be over 100 items) for everything that was ordered from The Roadster Factory for the rebuild/resto.
Oil pump went bad sometime in the mid 90's and was replaced along with the valves being reworked and some other engine work (biggest bill I found)
Car was repainted sometime around '90-91 as well as having some other body work completed.
Since '95 the car has had very few problems. Only two breakdowns both coming from issues in the distributor.

So the car was restored about 20 years into its life and now I have it 20 years after the rebuild. I would love to get in contact with the guy that restored it, maybe even meet him and show him how his work has held up (I'm guessing it is in better shape today than it was before the restoration was started!). Also would like to find out what he knows about the cars history before 1989 (oldest receipt I have is dated 5/89 along with a fax letter to The Roadster Factory dated the same month).

I'm going to take this on as kind of a car genealogy. I'll put together a timeline of all the work, owners, where the car lived, get the British Heritage Motoring Cert (Build date, color, when and where it was sold, find if all the #'s match) and put it up on the site when I get done. I hope that I am lucky enough to have the car for the next 20 years!

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