1960 Triumph Herald Convertible Restoration

[Jonny-Jimbo]

I thought I'd share with you guys some of the details of a restoration of a Triumph Herald 948 Twin Carb convertible.

The story started when my neighbour asked me to look at why the headlamp surround didn't quite fit right. I pointed out the issue was with the body work and not with the headlamp itself, so would 'probably' just need a bead of weld letting in to close the gap. Unfortunately the car had been very poorly painted in the past, so matching would have been difficult.

The owner of the car then decided he'd go for a full respray. Whilst doing the repair around the headlight I had a poke around and found that virtually all of the car was made of filler... and so the conquest began. What started out as a week or two of part time work turned into a marathon with arguments with paint shops, pat suppliers... you know the story.



That's the car as she arrived at my shed, not looking too bad... but once we got stuck in... oh boy! Was she a crusty one!





It turned out the car had had a replacement wing on it at some point, but poorly fitted, which is why the cowl didn't sit right. Whoever fitted it obviously gave it a few bashes with the hammer to get it to fit.



With the poor repair trimmed out I could see this wasn't going to be straight forward as there were other patches of filler etc in there too. So in the end I replaced the entire front end of the wing, pie-cut and welded the bucket up too as that wasn't mounted right either.



Stitched in nicely, so no filler required to cover this repair!



I also found all the valances were full of filler too, and made some interesting finds with the automotive archeology.



All the valances were like this of heavily bashed in so I had to practice my panel beating to get them to the right shape.



Found this copper plate buried in the filler on the valance...



Unfortunately it also turned out all the wheel arches were made out of filler and wire mesh, so they were all repaired too.







There were also issues with the rear of the car, notably one of the rear over-rider tubes was totally missing, and also there was a huge dent behind the fuel tank filled with over an inch of filler.



The previous paint job was so bad, they hadn't even bothered taking the letters out of the bonnet before painting it!



The rear arches and the rear body mounts were crispy, so they were chopped out and repaired too.







The panels behind the rear lights are no longer available, so they were also made by hand from sheet stock, as again, they had previously been replaced with fibreglass and filler.









There were lots of other small repairs too on the boot lid etc where screws had pulled through over the years. The interior was in good condition so that didn't need any work, and the engine was good too, if a little oily.

There was a fair pile of rust and crap cut out though by the end of the weldathon!



Eventually she went off for paint, and it took an age to get her back, but in the end the respray was good for the money although not perfect.





A bit of time bolting her back together and adjusting panel gaps had her looking quite splendid again.









... and that is a quick-ish summing up of a lot of work with many photos! Hope you enjoy looking at them!

[carboy2017]

wow thats a superb car

I own a 1964 1200cc Saloon and it too needs a respray and yes there is rust in the wheel arches any idea (rough) as to how much it will cost for the same(ish) amount of work as this convertible?

[smn159]

Good work - that looks spot on

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Carboy; the amount of welding on this was more than anticipated when the project started as neither the owner of the car, nor me, know that the previous owner had plugged her full of filler. Unfortunately my neighbour had only had the car a short length of time.

The stripping, welding and full reassembly work was around 2k in total, and the paint was another £1.5k, although this was done as a favour by my old boss, but given the amount of time it took I wouldn't do the 'mates rate' again.

Obviously the amount of work will vary from car to car, and sometimes it's cheaper to replace a whole panel than do patches.

Thanks also for the compliments, I do my best to do very good quality work. I used to work in restoration and race prep full time but lost my job during the 2008 crash and found a job in automotive that was more secure, if not as interesting... I like to do some jobs like these now and then to keep my hand in.

[carinaman]

That's an impressive standard of work.

Please excuse my ignorance, why is the behind the rear lamp fabricated replacement section hanging by a wire?

Was it painted, dipped or galvanised before being welded into place?

I doubt any of the heaps I bought as a youth were bodged so comprehensively, but the last two 90s I ran cars were rotting aft of the rear wheel arches in a not dissimilar fashion to that Herald.

[Toma500]

Excellent work nice to see another car saved from a certain death .

[carphotographer]

Great work, and a classic worth saving.

I bought a 948, 1 lady owner from new, 28,000 miles on the clock great little car, sold it on and he used the car as a daily for three years.

[matchmaker]

Great work. If the body was as bad as that, what on earth was the chassis like? I speak as a former Vitesse owner...

[Jonny-Jimbo]

carinaman said:

That's an impressive standard of work.

Please excuse my ignorance, why is the behind the rear lamp fabricated replacement section hanging by a wire?

Was it painted, dipped or galvanised before being welded into place?

The panel is hanging from a wire simply because after I had made it and test fitted it I gave it a coat of weld through primer as it butts up to some of the structure of the boot floor and is a key rot point.

In terms of the chassis etc I was surprised to find that the chassis was solid. It looked like it had outriggers replaced at some point, and maybe not particularly well given some of the shut lines etc before I stripped it. The owner didn't want me to go as far as cutting the chassis apart though.

[Jonny-Jimbo]

As there were some positive comments about the work I thought I'd post a few more around the repairs of the valances as they were the most tricky to repair. I don't have anything like an English Wheel so some of the repairs I did have to make with multiple sections. Not what I would like to do, but sometimes one just has to do the best they can with what they have; me included!

So as the original post shows, the valances were in a bad way, here is each corner after stripping;





Each corner of the front was plugged up with filler.

After grinding out the filler I gave the whole thing a shot of matt black primer and sanded it to show major low spots that would need knocking out, and also check for pin holes of rust that may not be easily visible. Then, areas of rot were cut out, patches formed and welded into place, then flapped back.





The other end of the valance was really bad. To those not initiated in the Triumph world, the early Heralds had different pressings to the later cars, so these are rare and worth saving. Even a later steel valance is around £500 from memory, and can make a difference to the value of the car over a GRP one.

Started trimming back the rot...



I then started letting in the patches. Some of the weld wasn't pretty, but after grinding it all out it was fine.



Then came the small compound curve patches, which were fun to make.



After finishing off the patches, the welds were ground flush, and then another zap of black primer to show up any pinholes.



Then there were the rear corner valances, they were pretty bashed up too, whoever owned this car in the past clearly couldn't reverse it. Don't know how, amazing turning circle and tiny cars with great visibility...










I knocked out the larger dents as best i could before removing the rustier sections...



New sections cut and let in. The flange had to be replaced too as that was just rust and filler...



And the small section of flange was replaced too where it meets the rear valance.



And that just about covers the valance repairs. I might do a bit about the body mounts too, as some of that got quite graphic and may be of use to others doing similar work.

[GT6 Jonsey]

Love Heralds motoring at its basic best, owned loads of the blighters over the years. An early 948 twin carb is a rare beast indeed, does it still retain many features of the early cars ?

Nerd alert from memory, 3 sided outriggers (mk1 chassis), shallow dished headlight bezels, fibre dash, white dials, separate temp and fuel dials, Grey switches, domed gear knob, two tone interior, slim front seats, bonnet handle, early grille. Depending on date might have herald instead of triumph on bonnet, early bonnet top vents possibly front drum brakes, I’m sure I’ve missed more

[Jonny-Jimbo]

GT6 Jonsey said:

Love Heralds motoring at its basic best, owned loads of the blighters over the years. An early 948 twin carb is a rare beast indeed, does it still retain many features of the early cars ?

Nerd alert from memory, 3 sided outriggers (mk1 chassis), shallow dished headlight bezels, fibre dash, white dials, separate temp and fuel dials, Grey switches, domed gear knob, two tone interior, slim front seats, bonnet handle, early grille. Depending on date might have herald instead of triumph on bonnet, early bonnet top vents possibly front drum brakes, I’m sure I’ve missed more

Jonsey, you are indeed correct about the earlier cars being rare and having some unique features.

- Early chassis, bendy riggers and exhaust through the rear chassis member rather than under it.
- early bezels
- fibre dash with white ashtray and glovebox, white dials.
- grey switches and white nacels on window wonders
- sadly missing its early gearknob
- interior is black and white, very nice condition with the thin seats
- bonnet handle, welded in heater intake mesh
- long horseshoes around the rear lights (was very careful removing those!!)
- front drum brakes

The windscreen seals were also different on the earlier cars but are NLA so I fitted a standard later type.

[carboy2017]

Great job in restoring it OP

I think the the reason for the panel gaps not fitting in correctly at the beginning was perhaps they have used after market panels at some point in its life hence they dont fit well?,btw where are you located @OP

Edited by carboy2017 on Friday 15th May 10:09

[carboy2017]

Its one of the best loved British classics from the 60's ,I learnt about basic car mechanics when I was a toddler by watching my dad service and fix his then 948 Herald saloon and made my want to have my own one day, and exactly after 30 years from the time he sold his Herald I bought my very own Herald 1200 saloon

Its not mint but very sound mechanically

GT6 Jonsey said:

Love Heralds motoring at its basic best, owned loads of the blighters over the years. An early 948 twin carb is a rare beast indeed, does it still retain many features of the early cars ?

Nerd alert from memory, 3 sided outriggers (mk1 chassis), shallow dished headlight bezels, fibre dash, white dials, separate temp and fuel dials, Grey switches, domed gear knob, two tone interior, slim front seats, bonnet handle, early grille. Depending on date might have herald instead of triumph on bonnet, early bonnet top vents possibly front drum brakes, I’m sure I’ve missed more

[Magnum 475]

Jonny-Jimbo said:

GT6 Jonsey said:

Love Heralds motoring at its basic best, owned loads of the blighters over the years. An early 948 twin carb is a rare beast indeed, does it still retain many features of the early cars ?

Nerd alert from memory, 3 sided outriggers (mk1 chassis), shallow dished headlight bezels, fibre dash, white dials, separate temp and fuel dials, Grey switches, domed gear knob, two tone interior, slim front seats, bonnet handle, early grille. Depending on date might have herald instead of triumph on bonnet, early bonnet top vents possibly front drum brakes, I’m sure I’ve missed more

Jonsey, you are indeed correct about the earlier cars being rare and having some unique features.

- Early chassis, bendy riggers and exhaust through the rear chassis member rather than under it.
- early bezels
- fibre dash with white ashtray and glovebox, white dials.
- grey switches and white nacels on window wonders
- sadly missing its early gearknob
- interior is black and white, very nice condition with the thin seats
- bonnet handle, welded in heater intake mesh
- long horseshoes around the rear lights (was very careful removing those!!)
- front drum brakes

The windscreen seals were also different on the earlier cars but are NLA so I fitted a standard later type.

Not forgetting the absurd diff ratio in the 948 - you think a 1200 or 13/60 revs hard in top - drive a 948! Anything over 60mph has you feeling that you're torturing the engine.

The front drum brakes carried over onto the 1200, where discs were originally an optional fitment.

[matchmaker]

My first car was a 1964 Vitesse, bought in 1975 for £80. After a year it failed the MOT due to a badly corroded chassis. The chassis was well past repairing, so with one of my mates I visited a local scrapyard which had a fire damaged late model (1971) Herald 13/60. After a few hours of hard work we had a complete bare chassis which cost me the grand sum of £20. We tied to to the roof rack of my mates Austin 1800, took it to the car club garage and put all the Vitesse bits on it.

It went on to last another couple of years when I sold it to a bloke who was building a Spartan kit car!

[Jonny-Jimbo]

carboy2017 said:

Great job in restoring it OP

I think the the reason for the panel gaps not fitting in correctly at the beginning was perhaps they have used after market panels at some point in its life hence they dont fit well?,btw where are you located @OP

Edited by carboy2017 on Friday 15th May 10:09

I am pretty much slap bang in the middle, just outside Stoneleigh / Leamington / Warwick area.

Yes, I think some of the panels are aftermarket, but they still could have been fitted better! However, at some point in the past this car obviously ha flakey arches etc and was just loaded with filler... if the paint was at least half decent it would have been passable, but I think it was even painted with acrylic or something as it melted and then reset whilst using the scotchbrite wheels for cleaning it off! Weird stuff.

Yes, the diff ratio on a 948 is rather short, I forgot about that, and not having synchro on 1st... I have to say on the drum brake cars I have driven, if adjusted correctly they are fine... 3 really good stops, and then you're in the bushes haha. Going out in my old bosses 948 Coupe was interesting at the age of 17... no seatbelts, drum brakes, headlights like candles, plus of course a door that always flew open at every corner...One wonders how one can become so obsessed with them!

[carboy2017]

Jonny-Jimbo said:

plus of course a door that always flew open at every corner...One wonders how one can become so obsessed with them!

Spot on about doors,mine needs to be shut hard and then its good if not due to the weight of the door it sags a bit and does not shut properly and will fly open at some point

Also the heating is very weak though the blower is working well,any idea as to how (if) I can improve it or is that one of the peculiarities of a 60's car?

[GT6 Jonsey]

Ah yes the Heralds party piece, trying to throw you out the door at a roundabout. When I used to unbolt the roof on my first salon during the summer months I very nearly ejected many an unsuspecting passenger later convertible anti burst catches help

[Jonny-Jimbo]

carboy2017 said:

Spot on about doors,mine needs to be shut hard and then its good if not due to the weight of the door it sags a bit and does not shut properly and will fly open at some point

Also the heating is very weak though the blower is working well,any idea as to how (if) I can improve it or is that one of the peculiarities of a 60's car?

Aye, I've not found many that shut smoothly. I have wondered about trying to use 2000 type locks as they just swing closed and latch. Lovely.

A very good friend of mine called my first car, a 13/60 in green The Werecar as it was always fine during the day, but at night it would chuck the door open etc.



The heaters can be a bit crap, although the square Delaney type are better as they have better valves and bigger matrix. People also swap the fans for ones from Micras as they are similar size but with plastic fans and more powerful motors.