Description
KTA 913E - an original UK car, RHD in Signal Red w/ black leather MX5 seats.
Uprated chassis, wax injected. S/ S exhaust. CV jointed half shafts with new hubs, Polybush suspension + Great mechanical condition.
Also offered, as an option to the purchaser, a bespoke / very practical Surrey-top (‘targa’ top)
The same, but different ! . . . Triumph built the TR4A from ‘65 to ‘67 as the successor to the highly successful TR4. She wears the exquisite Michelotti style, but benefits from independent rear suspension with coil springs + half-shafts (the TR4 has live axle & leaf springs). The 4A has a folding hood frame, a wooden facia, relocated handbrake, side repeater lights, and revised bumpers & radiator grille. The 4A’s engine shares the same 2, 138cc capacity, but reflects a 5% increase in power & torque.. now @ 105 BHP & 133lb/ ft. Also the radiator was altered and the clutch upgraded to diaphragm, with its improved grip and lighter pedal.
. . ‘Katie’ is an original UK car, first registered in July '67. An older restoration, c. 1990, I bought this car in March 2021. She’s in signal red with comfortable MX5 seats, in black leather with stylish white stitching.
An open-top, two-seater - these TR’s are an excellent 1960’s seat-of-the-pants driver’s sports car with a favourable power-to-weight ratio & crisp handling. According to my own preference for lightweight rally-style cars, I mostly drove without bumpers or wooden dashboard. These have now been refitted. The wheels are pressed-steel with hub-caps & new tyres on ¼” spacers.
She’s in great condition.. not a £45k concourse car of course, but certainly a very attractive & capable / reliable driver’s car. Door gaps are good. I’ve had all the carpets out, and treated where surface rust was again beginning to happen (.. since restoration 35 years ago) and then repainted. This car’s floors are in excellent condition both from the inside & underneath.
> Mechanical & Tuning ; The prior owner did, or had work done to the engine. Receipts show new piston rings & gaskets, and the cylinder head was an exchange for ‘unleaded’.
Soon after buying Katie I dropped her sump to clean it out and check the crankshaft bearings & end float. They were good. The oil pump was rebuilt to minimum tolerance. She’s a quiet engine and oil pressure is 40-50 psi when hot.
The inlet & exhaust manifolds are standard TR4A castings with their improved porting and quietness. Thereafter the pipes & exhaust silencer are stainless.
The engine’s cooling system was flushed and the water pump replaced. The original 4-blade cooling fan was replaced with the 7-blade type off a TR6. The original (heavy, off the front of the crankshaft) fan extension was replaced with a bespoke one, made from a billet of aluminium.
The gearbox & overdrive were each pro- rebuilt in 2001. The prop shaft was reconditioned. The Borg & Beck diaphragm clutch replaced, together with its trust bearing. The differential was rebuilt ~29k miles ago by specialist Tom Cox. The drive-shafts were replaced with CV jointed ones, including new hubs & wheel bearings.
Most rubber parts have been replaced, including hoses & bushes, engine mounts, steering column UJ’s, etc. Polybushes replace rubber throughout the suspension, the steering rack, and differential’s mounts.
Twin SU carburettors were pro- restored in 2023, as was the distributor. All in all, she’s now in good order, pulls strongly, has good oil pressure.
The starter is hi-torque. The dynamo was stripped & checked, and a heat shield placed between it and the exhaust down-pipes.
I’ve gone through the car’s wiring from one end t’other, replacing any hardened or chafed wire or loose connection. I use solder connections & heat-shrink-wrap. All other connections were cleaned & wiped to minimise future oxidisation. Hazard-warnings added.
All but the excellent H4 headlamp bulbs have been replaced with warm LED’s. Side-lights are fitted in the headlamp reflectors. LED’s minimise current through the wiring & switches.
> Chassis ; I didn’t know when bought her - the chassis rear suspension mounts were cracked. I was yet to learn, through the TR Register, of these chassis’ shortcomings, where to look for damage, rust &/ or fatigue. My ignorance cost me £-ten-grand.!
Award winning M&T Classic Restorations, near Wolverhampton, had a TR4A chassis which was in very good order, I bought this & commissioned them to do the swap.
Specific to the 4A, this was correct for the car. The bulkhead VIN plate is the car’s identity, and it matches her documents, the body plate & engine number. It also confirms her as an original UK TR4A with overdrive.
There are a number of TR Register recommended upgrades .. such as double-bolted front suspension brackets, doubler plates for the diff mountings, and some closing of open chassis members. The chassis was uprated to dissipate localised stresses.
. This was simply a matter of adding corner-webs, a cross-beam & diagonals to the rear suspension’s mounts, plus jacking pads. Two additional rear-body-mounts, from the TR6, were added under the rear shelf. All this work was of the same composition as the standard chassis, so only someone very familiar with an original might even notice they’ve been added.
The chassis was painted with silver POR-15 before being clear-wax injected. POR-15 does yellow, but is otherwise incredibly tough against stone chips or jacking damage, and its particularly excellent against chemical & moisture. NB .. the works TR4 rally car chassis’ were similarly painted a light colour - for ease of inspection. Again, all chassis work was professionally done by M&T .. and the chassis under Katie is now quite exceptional.
I fitted backing-plates on rubber pads to each body mount, to seal those body mountings from moisture. Their new bolts are of stainless-steel. There are four further additional body mounts, again to minimise body twist & scuttle shake.
A steel, Triumph TR3, gearbox tunnel (unlike the TR4's cardboard cover) gives the body-shell a torsionally stiff backbone from the engine’s bulkhead to the rear bulkhead. Arguably it is safer too. Together with the chassis amendments - it gives this car reassuringly tight & responsive handling.
Although choosing not to drive in inclement weather, we frequently travel to events, and again the 70 mile round-trip every month to our local TR Register club meet. From June to October last year, we drove a tad over 2000 miles and the car averaged (including touring the Wey Valley and Welsh Marches with a lightweight camping trailer) 32. 3mpg. Mostly we drive to UK speed limits but still I prefer not to potter, not least around corners.
> Big & Tall : The TR is a small car (.. is easily parked in the garage) but Katie was discretely adapted to accommodate me .. and I’m 6’-5” tall & 17 stone.
Fitting Mazda MX5 seats is commonplace amongst TR4 owners, because they’re more comfortable, stylish, have headrests, are longer in the back, semi-bucket shaped, and have adjustable backrests. Altering their mounting plates, and dishing the rear inner-wheel-arches (something often done on TR3’s) we gained 5” more legroom length than the standard TR4. The seats are on runners for those with shorter legs.
Triumph’s TR3 owners don’t complain about scuttle shake, and yet their cars have no dashboard bracing (H-frame). But those car benefit from a steel gearbox tunnel (inside the car). Bolted to the bulkhead, to the car’s floor & rear prop-shaft-tunnel - it bestows the body shell with stiffness. It doesn’t need intrusive dashboard bracing (the H-frame). So., I adapted a steel gearbox tunnel cover from a TR3 to fit into Katie. Should it be required - a standard H-frame would fit over this cover. But having no H-frame is more comfortable & very much easier to get in & out for any long-legged driver, or those with stiff knee or hip joints.
As she sits, for the Big & Tall ; Katie without the H-frame, seat pushed back and without the intrusion of a soft-top hood frame - I am quietly confident she has more interior space than any other TR4, 4A, 5 or 6.
> Optional - Bespoke Surrey-Top .. aka a ‘Targa’ : The car is being offered for sale with its fabric soft top. As an option, I can offer a very practical Surrey-top with bespoke, individually removable half - lids (please see photos).
> In Summary : Katie is structurally, mechanical and electrically in very good order. She’s running well and has proven herself reliable for everyday / daily driver use and touring holidays. The car’s handling is sorted and her steering responsive. And that overdrive adds smoothness to the ease of travel. The brakes might benefit from softer pads, but for my size-13’s they work well enough. The heater & vents work well, and the interior space is comfortable & otherwise spacious enough for touring.
Katie is tidy rather than pristine. Her paintwork & general condition is good but not perfect ... which for me equates to far less anxiety when I park & leave the car unattended. She’s a fun car to drive, is nippy rather than fast, and lovely to drive through a woodland canopy of trees .. whatever the season. She's small to garage, inexpensive to run and maintain.
Please Note. Many of my photos show Katie as we most enjoyed her .. without bumpers or the burr-wood dashboard facia, with a towing hitch & boot rack for touring, and her bespoke surrey top, etc. BUT please recognise ; the car is now being offered for sale with the bumpers & facia and soft-top back in place, with steel wheels & hub caps. Anything else is not included but negotiable.
With the structural, mechanical & electrical work done, there’s little which couldn’t be refinished to ‘show queen’ should an owner so wish to do so. She’d make a fine example of what is arguably the easiest TR to live with.
Best of British. Pete.
