This is my favorite Triumph, it retains the design of the TR4 and adds in the chassis and inline 6 of the TR6. Along with many subtle cosmetic changes, it adds in a self storing retractable room and better sealing side windows.
We found this particular car (1968) from a posting on our New England Triumph club looking for just the right Triumph owner to buy it and retain the car and not modify it. The previous owner thought our Spitfire restoration story showing a family effort and seeing my Triumph arm tattoo, that it showed that I was that person. One of my local friends who always likes to help another Triumph addict and I, took his truck and trailer to Connecticut and retrieved it from a 19 year slumber in a tobacco barn in June of 2016.
It had lived a hard life. It appeared to have been near a salty environment early in its life, since there were things rusted that I never saw rusted on one of these. I already knew that there was a TR4A front nose on the car and it needed a frame, but I should have walked away, since even though the car looked good from 10ft away, previous attempts at holding the body together will make this very hard to restore. But the price was right for a true TR250 and I cannot help but to try to save these basket cases that I collect.
My guess is that it suffered from extreme rust and a front end accident in the first 10-15years of its life and went through some really bad repair sessions, finally landing with the owner I bought it from, who just drove it from around 1990 to 1999 and did basic maintenance. I think he ran into some growing major issues and parked it in the barn until I purchased it.
My wife Erin and I decided to name her Victoria and that we would do a full mechanical restoration before ever digging into the tub and body panels. First pass would be doing everything we needed to get her running and driving, and then evaluate and dig deeper on anything we found.
We are also not a big fan of non-blue cars, so we are looking at various ways to add some blue to the car, while still keeping the car white (though it will be a nicer white).
Now that we had the old mice nests removed and an inventory of what we wanted to change right off the bat, we started to dig into doing a quick mechanical upgrade. We decided to invest into adding the 2-post lift, so we took a year off and ordered parts over the winter of 2016/2017 and dug into it during spring of 2017. We knew we needed the following:
Full brake line kit and hoses
All new radiator hoses and new radiator
Oil change
New front rotors and calipers.
New rear brake drums, cylinders and adjusters
New gas tank and full lines.
Various lighting fixes.
New tires and upgraded the rims at the same time.
Rebuild rear diff and fix broken flange on a rear axle
The car was now drive-able, and we wound up putting over 500 miles on her over the 2017 summer and fall. Finding a few things wrong. Engine would lose oil pressure after it warmed up indicating worn bearings, and consumed oil (leaked a lot as well). We also noticed the transmission would not shift well into 2nd, indicating one of the inner top hat bushings was broken or worn. The front right wheel had a huge amount of camber, due to flex in the frame and a huge bend due to the earlier mentioned accident history. Overall, the frame was pretty scary and we did not want to push it too far. The convertible top was original and very brittle and once down, was not worth putting back up. We also noticed that it had two right side seats (they are curved in opposite directions to clear the roof frame when down), not to mention they were not great at supporting humans.
So I put in an order to Rat-Co for a new frame (1 year wait) and started planning the next phase. Over the summer of 2018 we ran into a cache of 4 TR4 parts cars. The owner had bought them the year or so earlier from somebody storing them for decades. He had the following:
1966 TR4A, body was off, and he had taken the engine apart and restored the frame and chassis
1961 TR4 with a running TR4A engine. Body was wasted and I cut it up for scrap or parts.
1962 rolling chassis in really good shape. We used this for Georgia’s frame and it allowed us to restore it and just move the body over ad then tear her frame and chassis apart.
1964 or so rolling tub and engine. Front of both front fenders were cut off for some reason.
A boat load of solid fenders, doors and misc parts.
The restored TR4A frame/chassis was a great find. Our friends at Classic Car blasting had told me about it the day they saw the frame when the owner decided to start the restoration. And commented on how perfect it was then. So we cancelled our Rat-Co order and using brackets from them, I converted it to a TR250 frame and began a transfer from one to the other as well as started the engine rebuild.
This TR250 rebuild would not be possible without the following services:
Advice and high quality parts from Ted Schumacher at TS Imported https://www.tsimportedautomotive.com/
Carburetor Rebuild Services of Joe Curto at https://www.britishsuperior.com
Transmission and Differential work of John Esposito at https://www.quantumechanics.com
Engine part machining and advice from Leo at https://www.rlengines.com/
Distributor rebuilding by Jeff at http://advanceddistributors.com/wordpress1/
And off the races we went, with the desire to lose access to the TR250 for only the winter of 2018/2019. It wound up being the end of fall of 2019 before we were driving again. So not too bad if you ask me. Engine needed additional work since it had suffered the not so uncommon thrust washer damage in its past, which was poorly repaired. We wound up having Leo make a custom 360 bronze thrust washer set and had to source a different crank and connecting rod set since the previous rebuild attempted to use the damaged set and they were actually out of spec.
We have made some minor fixes since this over the last 2 years (high ratio steering rack, high torque starter, LED headlights, relayed 12V power socket for Erin’s blanket). We also rebuilt the TR4A seats that came with the frame, and it allowed us to wind up getting 1500 miles on her over 2021, including a trip to the British Invasion. We have some minor things to fix. I still have some oil leaks that I have learned how to prevent in the future and the OD needs a checkup, but otherwise it has been a great driving car. I am still unhappy with the clutch and will be working on that in 2022. Only things left mechanically is new wiring harness, install rebuilt steering column and heater box (existing one is filled with a mouse nest I am sure), and then start rebuilding the tub. We have good metal fenders (rears are fiberglass now) and the correct grill. The tub will be painful, since I need to use some parts of it that will not be replaced and they are covered in basically tar. The rockers (inner and outer, floors, rear trunk section will all be replaced.
But it will stay this way until we get through the GT6, Georgia’s TR4 and maybe the Murder House TR6.
4/10/2022: With the install of the new wood dash in spring of 2022, we did the following off the punch list:
- Fixed scuttle rust to water proof the heating system from water.
- All new wiring harness
- Wood dash from a left over from CG Woodworking.
- Heater box rebuild
- Steering column rebuild.
- Cleaned and rebuilt wiper system and motor. *Motor now has beefed up stater.
11/22/2023: As with all car projects, done never stays done. Some updates for the year:
The OD wound up having some issues, and a checkup turned into a full repair of several internal components. However, the opportunity to install a Toyota Supra 5 speed came about, and we jumped on it. It has a QuarterMaster hydraulic throw out bearing and with the 5 speed, it has made the car a complete pleasure to drive. Have two seasons on it now with this trany and not sure if I am going back to the OD. We also picked up a TR4A tub, which I think we will build into a TR250 and build it up on a spare frame. That way we can swap bodies with little driving time lost. There are some issues here, like: different B-post door latching, different pedal box mounting, different right side front wheel well indent, front oil cooler valence opening and some other small metal changes. I have enough spare doors, fenders and lids to do this I think.
One small problem is that the engine started with a small lower end sounding knock at warm start, that has now turned into a warm at idle knock. Will need to look into this asap and decide next steps.