Congratulations on having your perfect Triumph displayed for all the word to see and appreciate! Now we must work on Rock Auto to make us a refrigerator magnet. Yours was a well-written writeup, too.
It was either you or Neon John whose TR I saw spitted on a rotisserie in the side garage, with a spare car hiding behind the barn 10 years ago.
I was never very successful restoring Brits. Each time I broke an AH I just bought another one. They were all about 10 years old at that time and nearing the end of their useable lives, so you could find them for less than $200 or so. I bought a new set of Dunlop Road Speed tyres and kept swapping them from one old Healey to the next. They were equal to (or worth more than) any of the cars they rode.
I had better luck with my MGB, but the spoked wheels were a bear to keep balanced. Any of those cars used Lucas electrics, which was an experience in and of itself. Heck, you didn't even have to leave the driveway to have a Lucas adventure!
Q: Why do the Brits drink warm beer?
A: Lucas refrigerators.
I have to add, for the sake of those who may not know what you actually had to go thru while restoring an English roadster of the 1950s-'60s, that the electrical system is positive earth, 6 volts, runs on a generator, points and condenser, and none of the lamps are grounded to the frame; they each have a separate return wire running back to the battery fuse block. Picture it, folks; each tail lamp, license plate lamp or instrument lamp has two wires, one negative and one positive, which each need to be fully insulated their entire length so they don't ground anywhere along the way. The insulation of the day was cloth, not rubber. A simple week of rubbing against a sharp surface would break thru the cloth and short that circuit out. The shock absorbers on my Healeys were 'scissors shocks', rather than straight tube shocks. They pulled right off the frame of my first 100-4 when I broad-slid it thru the gravel at Watkins Glen.
The first time I drove my Healey thru a carwash, I nearly drowned, and some lamps didn't work for days. There is no such thing as a weatherproof English roadster.
The pedals were mushrooms which grew up out of the floor, rather than the handy pendulum pedals we are accustomed to today. When the 4-wheel drum brakes heated up, the brake drums expanded away from the shoes, making for a longer pedal push before anything happened. My pedal ran right to the floor many times. Plenty of fluid, just no brakes.
It takes a real man (or a masochist) to own, drive and restore a classic British roadster.
I look forward to the first day some of us can get together with you and take that beautiful TR3 and our Zs out on a cruise. I might bring a pocketful of fuses.
Frank
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It's cool, it's old classic and goes suck, squeeze, bang, blow 