Maregratia Posted March 27, 2004 Report Share Posted March 27, 2004 Does anyone have any good or bad experiance of fitting thease body shells? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest harry dent Posted March 27, 2004 Report Share Posted March 27, 2004 Heritage have stopped making them and I think that is it,no more to be had.Yes there is work to do on these shells and to correct it takes between 20 to 40 hours to fettle.If you can get one at a good price I would buy it if I were you.The pressings are not that sharpe but can be sorted.Buy it if you can. Regards Harry Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Keith Stringer Posted March 31, 2004 Report Share Posted March 31, 2004 What you need to consider is, how bad is the body in the first place, can it be repaired and bought back to good as new. Questionably this can be more time consuming as fitting the Heritage body shell, certainly more than the 20-40 hours previously stated. I have the Heritage body fitted to my TR and I am more than pleased with the end product. Don't let people put you off fitting the Heritage, they are not perfect but then what is in life. A good enthusiast with plenty of time and patience can get a good result. If you don't have the skill, there is always some one who does and is willing to do it for you. If you wish to see a car with a Heritage shell you are welcome to view mine at any time.:rock: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jean Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 Harry, no wonder that Heritage stopped making them, maybe soon they will not make anything anymore for our cars. Why ??? because as far as I know the department BELONGS TO BMW.... Jean Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dave-lewis Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 I had the experience of rebuilding a Heritage shell. This was supposed to be the "improved 2nd version". There was a lot of re-work required i.e brackets out of alignment, holes not drilled where they should be and holes drilled where they should not be. Fortunately everything was corrected under warranty.I was invited, with a quite a few of the trade restorers ie TR Bitz, Gary Bates (TRGB), Alan Wadley (TR Workshop)etc. etc. to Abingdon to inspect the TR6 bodyshell and each indivual was asked to write a critique on the faults found on it, the purpose being, for future improvement. I personally think it was a PR excercise because not a fat lot was done anyway, probably too expensive. Maybe Keith got one of these shells. I do not agree with "they are not perfect,but what is?" . Why pay someone else a lot of money (labour is not cheap!) to correct it. At £2500+ We should expect it to be perfect. I feel that if quality and build on anything reproduced for our TRs' should be as original not as near as, If more people said no, its' not good enough (I am not saying they all are bad) then perhaps we would get better fitting and looking repro parts! Dave Lewis Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Neil Russell Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Why not look at things this way? New Chassis £1500 rebuild with new parts to chassis £2000 Shell £2500 Pro paint £4000 trim and wiring £2000 engine £2000 Total £14,000 Is this not dirt cheap for a new car these days? not withstanding an open top 2 seater sportscar? Sorry but £2500 is cheap for a new shell. Ok so it needs a bit of fettling, I would rather re-drill some holes and re-align some brackets than graft in whole new panels on a rusted out old knack of a shell? ok the model above is a bit simplistic, but on balance would you like to make a shell of this type for £2500. Get real, it is only 5 times the average servicing bill on my Audi. These cars are as cheap as chips as they say Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Red 6 Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I would like to add a personal experience here. I bought an abandoned rebuild which included a brand new untouched heritage shell. It was appalling. In particular the bulkhead was noticeably wrong, the swage lines and gaps were wrong and it was not a case of re aligning the wings etc what was needed was a fundamental un pick and rebuild of the shell, even to the point of fitting major parts of and origional bulkhead. Now this one was from the first shell build and Dave's post rings so true. I recognised the problem and the solution and immediately sold it on to a tr restorer who refettled it for his customer whilst i looked around for another project. When the shell was first announced i put my name on the list but couldnt wait as the delivery date was put back time after time and bought somthing else. If i had bought it I would not be on the TR scene now. In those days (as a beginner) i could not have overcome a problem of that magnitude. Heritage if you are reading this, then read daves post and take note, there is a market for components for our cars, do not expect us to accept sub standard offerings, the take what your given and lucky to have it attitude ended with WW2. I will now get off my soapbox! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Fremont Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Too bad if, as Harry says, Heritage have quit making these forever. I wonder if the problems had mainly to do with assembling/welding the pieces together or if the pieces themselves were faulty. I have L & R front wheel arch assemblies for eventual fitment to a '250 - one is NOS ( some slight surface rust in one corner, and primed in red ) and the other is recent ( gloss black ). The newer one has poor quality seam joints with gaps and pronounced weld scars, where the original one has no gaps and hardly any spot weld markings. Is the newer example representative of the entire Heritage shell? Pretty discouraging if so..... ??? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jean Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 As I said on some previous posts I was told that the spare parts department of British Motor Heritage Trust belongs to BMW. This resulted from the split up that happened a few years ago in the BMHT. So I' m more or less convienced that BMW considers it as an unconvenience that the Triumph logo is used by others in connection with any spare parts scheme, like the TR Register suppliers scheme. As far as I know it took quite a long time to sell the batches of TR shells that were made in the past, today the investment to continue would be hard to justify. Be aware that the economic situation in Germany is far from brilliant. I wonder if they will continue the production of MGB shells that sold at much faster rate. You probably also know that the BMW manager in charge of the Heritage spare parts department was killed in the Concorde crash in Paris. It was said that he was a very kind person, had a very positive attitude towards the spare parts fund and did put quite a lot of effort in it's operation. As we have noticed, since then, times have changed, and for certain not always to our advantage Maybe someone could provide us more information about this. Jean Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 There is of course another route around this which is to buy a decent LHD shell and repair / convert it. Still work to do, but what you end up with is an excellent end product. Ive done this a few times now and you always end up with a better result. Why worry - if Heritage are producing shoddy goods, who wants to buy them anyway. Im with Dave and Red 6. I will not on principle buy anything for any of my cars that is poor quality (and usually expensive) when there is something else out there - to the point that I have had small batches of high quality stuff made myself. Good TR's are not cheap - why fit rubbish ? Take note Heritage / MOSS - make **** - it wont sell. Maybe the Heritage TR6 shell story is another in the long line of so called 'products' for which the demand is not there because the quality is shocking- rather like TR4 wings! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bob Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 I saw a heritage TR6 shell at MOSS in Bristol a couple of years ago and it was disgraceful. They told me it had been ordered and not collected, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been rejected because of the condition. The current list price is close to £5k. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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