Tweet
The Lobby
Enjoy the blog this week with Tom Petty, Breakdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqxns-JTTqA&list=PLnzWxFWr_jTlyJPzWfIATZqx3fotaQpd0&inde x=14
Not sure my description of this song will make sense, but in 9th grade, we had to learn debate, and my partner and I chose if aliens exist. Close encounters of the third kind was at the theatres, hot topic at that time. Local DJ Allan Handleman did a show each Sunday night on stuff like that. I called him at the station, told my sad story, and told me to swing by the station for some material to use. Wow. My parents drove me to the station, old converted house, and he photo copied some pages for me, and handed me some junk to him, promotional albums. One, was an album of nothing more than album ads – like 30 seconds of Keith Moon talking about their new album. Or Warren Zevon and his debut album. And an announcer talking about the debut album of Tom Petty and the heartbreakers. Each time I hear this song, I think of all that.
Fun week – chasing printer problems, and amazed at how new printers are not much better than something I bought 12 years ago. You’d think wifi, and setup would have evolved. Somehow, regressed. Some bee work this week, and either my bee suit is tasty to my colonies, or it’s the wrong time of season to poke those little bears. I at least got my mite control in the bottom deck area of the hives. Kids are good, family is good, work is good, and I had a fender bender with a wreckless motorist on access road. I tried to give this maniac some room, then thought he backed off, and then tap on the rear left corner of my tahoe. Minor dent and scuff. On his lexus? Lets just say, his lexus was not like a rock. My tahoe was. And is.
Whats new
More bam!
Down to some final touch up paint, sand, buff. The shop is pulling my hinges, painting those, installing the hood, and sanding, buffing all together. My new bumpers arrive this week, as do new old stock turn signal assemblies. I had this idea to fix my bent ones, but this will be covered in the claim, or should be. So, all that goes on the front, and I’ll ask that they don’t mount the rear bumper until I paint or wrap the back – More on that later, but essentially, I asked them to just paint the rear section, and I’d handle the black. And that bumper would be in the way. Now I’m posting old parts – some good stuff, like my rear old original chrome bumper. Left front fender that can be hammered out, a decent valance we never used, and other bits, like my original grille. Alex told me I might have it back this coming week. So, exciting to get this close.
As always, the diary of the The School Car Wreck Blog is here
Did you put gas in your car? Go do that, even if it’s a gallon.
The Wax
Have a pint with me. Maybe I’ll change the title of Wax to that – seems fitting, I think.
That symphony last week was a fun bit of prose. Those little things sneak into you from conversations, often having zero to do with this mark. What is resonating this week, for me, is the interest in the mark – and its been building. In no particular order, what seems to have bubbled up, and trended, is Jay Leno’s 74 TR6 project – a youtube channel his group has put together for his garage – Leno’s Garage Blog. Of course our mark is overshadowed by the rest of the blog focused on this garage find E type, so original it still had magic marker in the engine bay from some assembly guy, marking the car for whatever. Several articles on how our mark is up there with the collectors, holding and lifting value. My friend Kelly V, sends me a pic of a 74 car – simple picture, lovely. Tells me he was at mecum, and this car just sold. For 27K. I tell him, that sounds cheap, and in the scheme – I think a well sorted one is in the 20s for sure. That’s up from my old metrics.
Part of me listens to this stuff, other parts are like – dude, focus on your car, and help others with theirs. I’m not selling mine, but I am bumping my value with Hagerty. But does that matter what market values are? Not with Hagerty – that number, in my opinion, has to do with what it would cost to replace or fix a badly damaged car. I was at 25K, but moving to at least 40K after this collision repair. I think we are going to get near that 25 number, and if I bend this car again, I need it to be over that if rates keep going up – and each year, there are less of these on the road. Spares get more sparse. If you have a 6, do a good audit of your policy. I say that in my signature below each week, but I think its helpful for me to tap you on your shoulder here.
Ok – on the rest of this ramble.
Tech: door gooey
New Era
Throwback. A senior without a car
Tech: vapor barrier
With my new paint almost done, the school car will head home, looking good from the outside. Until you open the doors. Tired carpet, panels, dash is ok, and my seats are good. I am installing BobbyD panels – highly recommend. And before I put them on, I want to replace that sad original plastic. I want to duplicate what is behind my tahoe door panel. Modern cars, most I think, have this thick plastic between the door and the panel, as do our cars. A TR6 vapor plastic is prehistoric, and often tear, and are almost permanently attached to the door area. My tahoe has a thicker plastic, and is held in place by what looks like giant pieces of tire plug string. Its nice cause you can pull the plastic back to work on something, and then just push it back to where it was, and it sticks again to that giant gooey black stuff.
So, this tech area is short this week. I’m going to buy a package of tire plug string on amazon. Just the plugs, no tool. And I’m going to put that stuff around the inside of my panel. I compared the tire plug solution to the 3m strip caulk. 3m strip caulk is 23 dollars for 60 feet of material. Tire plugs cover 25 feet for 11 dollars. I guessed at our panel outline, and the shape is roughly 3 feet wide, 2 feet tall, overstating it. That’s 6 feet per door. 12 feet. I don’t need 60 feet, for example, and the tire plug is good on this one – ¼ inch wide. The links are below – either is better than a permanent adhesive.
On the sheeting, I’m planning on cheap Walmart 7mil plastic sheeting for under 5 dollars. If anyone knows cheap, thicker plastic, that we can use to replace, be sure to comment on the blog.
The 3m strip caulk, 23 dollars.
https://www.amazon.com/3M-08578-Black-Strip-Calk/dp/B000PEZ1L4/ref=asc_df_B000PEZ1L4/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312177448019&hvpos=&hvne tw=g&hvrand=15048894930336363406&hvpone=&hvptwo=&h vqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026839 &hvtargid=pla-496944296532&ref=&adgrpid=61495038909&th=1
The tire plugs, 11 dollars
https://www.amazon.com/Chrov-100pcs-Tubeless-Off-Road-Wheelbarrow/dp/B09MWL4SS3/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2ZV2WN72XZU3L&keywords=tire%2 Bplugs&qid=1662293203&sprefix=tire%2Bplug%2Caps%2C 125&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFZQlVRRTFNTkh PRVYmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA0Mzc4MjEySkRLVFdZWVRQRlExJ mVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA3MTI4NjBGNzkxNVBUODIyV0smd2l kZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZ G9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1
And here is what I found for the replacing plastic: Home Depot drop cloth, 7 mil
Good luck, McGiver
A movement
I pop over to a local spot for a beer this past week – for a half of pro football, and stay for maybe 5 minutes. Small coordination issue on the text thread as to who was coming and what time. I have a short leash, so I leave, and on the way out, I see a bmw 2002, hood up, 2 guys looking over the engine bay. I introduce, chat up the car a bit, and turns out, these 2 guys are programmers, and somehow have found each other, both having 2002s. I don’t realize it, but the car next to this one is also a 2002 – lighting, my old eyes, take your pick how I missed two 2002s parked next to each other, distinctive rear ends sticking out. Anyway, good conversation, and I share how we, as a TR6 community find each other, how we formed D6, how that has grown, and offer to help them find other 2002 owners and stewards in Dallas. 1 of them, Rob, is my accountant, and a music fixture at Growlers usually on a Friday night with his band.
Without getting deep into the 2002 mark, this speaks to how vintage will survive moving forward. Be social, be adaptable, and be progressive. Legacy groups are dinosaurs, and in jeopardy of dwindling away. This is hard to type about, as I love VTR, here in the states, and frankly, all legacy groups. But like me with an iphone, my kids are smarter than me with it, and if I need help, I hand this contraption to them. I accept I am not the smart guy in the room with stuff like that. Legacy groups, on the other hand, can, and lets be honest – be too smug and stuffy to admit it, much less do anything about it to change. None of us are the final stewards of these cars. Like Mick Dundee, we don’t own a TR6, we belong to it.
This is a pivotal time. Social has done a lot for this mark to help continue the interest. Some of it better, some of it less – information organization, for example. I can find pretty much what I need on a 6 pack search, but on facebook – I might as well look for a safety pin off the shore of Nags Head. But to communicate and socialize, for lack of a better term, social is a great way to spread the word, and bring people together. I tell the 2002 guys, every 10th garage has a TR6 in it. Not true, but we are aware of maybe 100 TR6s in Dallas. Are there more? Yes, probably 1,000. We can bet on it, and I may be tall at 1000. I might also be short. There could be 15000 TR6s in Dallas and Fort Worth – the Metroplex as we are sadly known as. In your area, regardless of how many TR6s you think are around you, there are some in garages or back yards, warehouses – that we simply aren’t aware of, even if we are the membership director for a club. Social, helps pull back the sheets. And with that, people that haven’t touched their stuff cause they didn’t know there were new stuff around it.
Our new generation of steward is about to take over – this next wave, and what this new landscape looks like -well, I can’t see that far in the future, but I am prepared for it mentally. Change is good – and bad.
Throwback. Senior Year
I had a 72 blue TR6 in high school. I’ve said that many times. What I never blogged about was that my senior year, I didn’t have the car to drive. I had a bike. My dad took a job in Texas, and that required us to move. Rather than move me my senior year, I lived with my best friend and his family for a year. Great memories. But I had no car, and I had a job at a pizza place, a good 5 miles away. I had a ride to school, but not work. And for the first time, I was without that TR6. It was shipped out to Texas, along with the household, and stayed parked in the garage, waiting for me to graduate, and leave NC, friends, the coast, and a ton of other mental fabric.
Seniors don’t ride bikes. Uncool, but I made due, best I can remember. I rode mine a lot. I remember this. I got rides from a lot of people. I look back, and don’t remember missing the car that much – remember, this was essentially a stunt car, ran poorly, and if anything, I missed having a car, but not necessarily that thing. At first anyway. I’m trying to remember visiting with it when I traveled to Dallas. In high school, for a few weekends, I got to fly out to Dallas, and spend the weekend with the parents. The 72 car was very backseat, as I start to dust off this memory. Its 1980-1981, and if you are struggling with the current events then, it literally was “who shot JR” time. I get to Dallas, I am surrounded by chaos – Dallas was a focal point in the news and events around the world. Its also when Urban Cowboy came out. So, now I have boots. I’d pop out to Dallas, get immersed in dinners out, site seeing, Billy Bobs, and who knows what else.
But here is what I do remember about this car. When I finally graduate, and move out, I am alone with this car during the day in the summer. Dad on the road, mom working for a petroleum company, 8-5. I have 3 months of time to myself. I know zero people in Dallas. I spend it watching Raiders of the Lost Ark at the theatre a few times. Hobby shops, a burger here and there at recommended burger places. I spent some time at the pool, and I was also recovering from a dislocated shoulder, so swim helped that. But I wasn’t in the garage like Atticus Potts and Chitty. The 6 sat there, while I learned my way around north dallas. By the time, college starts, I have my car at school, still blue, but some bug got into me to start doing stuff to it. Like my dash, then my top, then my carpet. The time away from it must have inspired me, although I don’t remember it as some vision or burning bush. It might have been boredom. I really don’t remember. I do know, that my weekends during my freshman year, at home, was in the garage, tinkering with something around this car. So, who cares why, right? It matters now, and that’s good.
That’s enough for today. See you on down the road,
Thank you for caring for your Triumph TR6. Lets also thank those considering one. This is a great mark for young and old. This mark is blessed with an amazing network development, parts, owners, experts and car availability. A TR6 helps people everyday, lifting spirits, bringing smiles. A TR6 brings happiness to Lynn, a previous owner, missing her car. Please start your car with it out of gear and foot off the clutch to save your thrust washers – they struggle with oiling at start up. Please pop your hood and have a good look around the engine bay. Please put fresh gas in your car each week, even if just 1 gallon. Please have good insurance, and review your policy regularly. And please drive your 6 defensively, as if it was a 4 wheeled Harley.
And remember. Smile when you drive, and whenever possible, take a kid driving.
Please join my journey here:
The Guvna Blog playlist:
The D6 Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/d6tr6
The Guvna Blog Youtube Channel
I am the 3rd steward of CF50460UO, born September 1975 with paint code 19 and 11 black interior. Nicknamed “the school car”, is now over 100K in miles, with new Cayman Blue Mica 2 stage paint, and 11 interior. Car was delivered with original hard top and factory overdrive. Current upgrades include Volvo overdrive internals, König Rewind 16x7 rims, Michelin Pilot Sport 205.55.16s, 4Runner calipers and 7/8 rear wheel cylinders. Poolboy carbs, FlexAlite electric fan, Patton Fan Eliminator, Pertronix ignitor ignition, TR5 cam, pacesetter header, 70amp Lucas direct fit alternator, solid state Rheostat, Silverstar Halogen headlights, Wishbone blueprinted oil pump, Bastuck 9LB flywheel, Goodparts suspension on all 4 corners, Goodparts sway bar, Goodparts trailing arm brackets, Uprated Armstrong lever shocks with cycle fork oil, high torque starter, JVC Bluetooth audio with front and rear USB, 4 speakers, stainless steel bumpers, flip up scuttle vent, hidden antenna, window tint, custom gear knob, and other concours frustrations.
My to do list
New carpet, new panels, custom dash.
r200B diff with goodparts cv joints and hubs
fresh head with roller rockers.
At some point, a fresh square motor with lightened crank, cam bearings,
Hard top inside insulation, and dome light.
Oh, and AC.