There may be trouble ahead

[rizzo]

Your doing a good job. I had to do lots of work like this on the Firenza. I had to slit and reweld the wings to make them line up with the doors.

Time consuming stuff.

But well worth the effort. It already looks fantastic!

I can't wait to have my own workshop so I can get stuck in to the bodywork on my burgeoning collection of HBs

One has to ask if you dont have a workshop where is your collection of HBs?

[Colin]

At the moment, Bill, they're at Fredshed and in lockup garages. I'm looking at retiring next year and moving to a house where I can build a proper man cave... Until then I'm frustratedly doing what I can in lock up garages. Not ideal.

[rizzo]

Yeh thats not ideal for you really, i'm a little pushed for space aswel, this HB is in the garage, my other is in storage and my granada is on the drive under cover until i can sell in, now the kids are driving we have 6 cars on the drive and one in the garage, its driving me nuts, i cant move,

Trying to press on as quick as poss at the moment as i have a plan in mind as to when i want this finished, anyway i've got everything now ready for welding up, so back on with the wings before the final stretch.

Its been so long getting to this point i was kind of cr*pping myself something might go wrong or i would have forgot to do something, but it all went well, its finally welded in place i'm so happy

[rizzo]

Oh i wish that was all, lol sadly there's more, this is a HB afterall, onto the doors, ive taken off the n/s door and refitted the original as i wasn't happy with how it fitted, you would have thought they would all be the same, both doors are going to need a bit of attention at the bottom.

[rizzo]

The bonnet i've chosen to use has a hinge mount rotted out, its a mint bonnet otherwise so its the one i'd prefer to use.

The plan is to cut out an area around the hinge, then do the same with another bonnet i have that's in poor condition and weld to sucker in,
I hadnt realized there is a diifferent bonnet, ie with the cutouts near the hinge, does anyone know if this is early or late?

so there we go, i might leave the other panels now and concentrate on the motor, i cant cope with any more body work.

[Johnboy HB]

The bonnets with the cutouts are early ones, 1966 early 1967

[glenn93]

whats the condition of the early bonnet ?

[rizzo]

The "early " bonnet is in good shape really its in brabam colour so may be off one

[glenn93]

would you sell it ? as I have an early hb

[droopsnoot]

you would have thought they would all be the same

I thought the same for HC, but I noticed quite significant differences in doors and even the HC estate tailgate shape where the spoiler fits on. Some of it's down to the tooling wearing out and not being replaced or whatever adjustment they do with tooling to correct such things.

There are many tales of chasing half-inch anomalies around cars during initial build back then - when I measured the original front wings on my Sportshatch along the swage line to get an idea I was cutting the fronts in the correct place, they were almost a quarter of an inch different between sides.

I am told that Triumph had four different sets of doors on the production line, all slightly different sizes to each other, and when a Dolomite shell arrived for them to be fitted, they'd pick the set that fitted the best.