Jonathan Clegg's TR5

 Jonathan Clegg, proud owner of CP 2972 O.  You may remember we had Jonathan on the list as an unconfirmed car, but we can now confirm all of the following:

Jonathan bought the TR5 while working in South Africa in 1978.  Some years later he relocated to Canada (Saskatoon) and brought the car with him.  It arrived about 3 months after he did and was slightly the worse for the journey.  In Canada he was never able to get it running anywhere close to its South African performance and he effectively took it off the road.   Work and family kept him from dealing with it seriously until he semiretired and in 2014 he undertook a body-off restoration.  The restoration is now 99% complete and he drives the car at irregular intervals while he deals with a contractor who doesn’t seem to want to finish what he started.

The restoration summary:

1. Ratco chassis
2. Complete engine rebuild
3. Complete gearbox rebuild
4. Fuel system sent to UK for rebuild fuel pump replaced with Bosch
5. Rewired with some relays added
6. Interior rebuild new carpets and new panels
7. New brake lines and brakes
8. New clutch
9. Complete body paint strip and respray
10. Some body fenders replaced and others rebuilt as necessary
11. Changed to left hand steering

 The Ratco chassis was very good to work with.  It is extremely well made and comes with all the mounting hardware (not spacers) and brackets to mount brakes lines etc. 

Mine was powder coated with foam filling.  

You obviously need to be contemplating a full body off restoration to deal with something like this.  I did find that everything fit without too much trouble in my case but I did have to do some shimming.  But as you may have anticipated that is not necessarily the case for all and your “right corner challenge” could be a real challenge when mated up to a straight and true frame.

When I put the suspension together and checked the wheel alignment it came in very close without problems or special brackets.   That was with appropriate loading in the driver and passenger seats.

If you haven’t already done so it is worth talking to Tony at Ratco, he is very helpful.

Hope that helps.  I could go on for a lot longer but maybe the pictures will give you some idea as to what to expect.  If you have any specific questions feel free to shoot them off.

All the best, Jonathan