1970 Triumph TR6 Restoration

My TR6 had replacement floor pans in it when I got it.  What this means is that the original floor probably rusted through in a few places and a previous owner determined a replacement was in order.   Even though they had been replaced, they had a lot of surface rust and general nastiness coating them.

They hadn’t actually rusted through anywhere, so I decided to clean them up.  Whoever put the replacement floors in did so with sheet metal screws and caulking. It worked, but I plan to weld them.

This photo shows how the replacement floors were originally put in:

While this is probably not the ideal way to do things, it made it a lot easier for me to take them out, and being able to take them out made them a lot easier to clean up.  As an added bonus, I now had much better access to most of the frame (more on this later).

After wrestling the floors out of the car, I scraped as much of the caulking and surface rust off as I could, then sand blasted them in the driveway.  Putting a tarp down helped contain the mess, but this is still a tiring job, and how sand made it into some of the places that it did is still a mystery to me.

Now that the floors were all clean and fresh looking, I treated them with the same stuff I used on the gas tank, and painted them with POR-15.  I left a bare strip around the edges so that I would be able to weld them back in later rather than reuse the screw and caulk method [insert caulk joke here].

In this photo you can see the sandblasted driver’s passenger’s side floor and the coated passenger’s driver’s side.  This was taken months after I did the sandblasting, and you can already see surface rust creeping back into the untreated floor.  This side will get a touch up before it gets painted.

I had to move the car in and out of the garage a few times while the floor was out.  I found the easiest way to do this was to sit on the ledge behind the seats and Flintstone the car.  This way I still had access to the real brakes if my feet didn’t feel like they were going to stop it.

You can see the edge of the floor that was left when the old one was cut out.  I’ll be cleaning this up as well, so I have a good surface to weld to.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to clean and paint the frame as best I could.  To gain easier access, I put the car up on jack stands.  Without the additional support of the floor, the frame flexs a bit, and you may need to brace it.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that mine will be fine once I take it off the jack stands, but as of now it is impossible to open the doors while it is supported in this way.  I’m pretty sure it will sag back into place shortly after the car is back on its suspension.

As you may have noticed, it’s been almost a year since I updated this.  I had a bunch of projects that needed to get done take the time away from my projects that I actually want to do.  Between owning a house and a TR6, I don’t think I’ll ever have to look too hard for things to do.

The lack of posts on here doesn’t mean I haven’t done any work on the TR6.  I have several updates coming as soon as I can organize the pictures and write them.  I’ve removed the floor pans and stripped a lot of other bits off the car.  I’m currently in the process of cleaning the frame as best I can without removing the body from it.  One beneficial thing I’ve noticed is that the oil leaks these cars are notorious for act as a self preservation method.  Under the grease (and lots of sand for some reason), the frame is in pretty good shape.  Weirdly, the driver’s side looks better than the passenger’s.  You’ll see what I mean when I get the pictures up.

Once the frame cleaning is done I’ll be preping and painting the frame with POR-15, then welding the (now sandblasted and rust free) floors back in.  From there the goal is to get it roadworthy, and then get it pretty.

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Thanks!