| Digits | Meaning |
| 71 | Build Year: 1971 |
| 10 | Build Month: October |
| 19 | Batch Number |
| 1229 | Sequence Number |
| R | Type 65 (Federal) |
| 1229R is also the VIN | |
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A small chunk of body work is missing from the lower rear edge of the left front fender opening. 
Body filler had been unevenly spread on the boot cover. The engine cover shows sign of "sausaging" (too thin a layer of resin and the some glass strands are punching through). The press-board bulkhead is very punky and a large chunk came out with the carpet 
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Disassembly of the car was rather difficult, as most of the fasteners had rotted to the point that they wouldn't turn or that they were misshapen by corrosion ... I ended up cutting a signficant number of them with my Dremel Moto-tool.
A Banks 47R chassis, with the A-Arm rear suspension and vented disc front disc/solid rear disc brake setup has been purchased and received. This chassis is set up to accept a Ford Zetec 2.0L from a 1995 Ford Contour and Renault NG3-065 from a 1983 Renault Fuego Turbo 
. A modified Twin Cam bellhousing (to accomodate the NG3's pilot bushing) will be used. The clutch pieces, based around a modified Zetec flywheel and Twink friction disc and pressure plate, were supplied by Banks.
A pair of alloy fuel tanks from Banks were also part of the chassis shipment.
A pair of used seat in good condition was obtained, I still need the lower half of the seat rails.
A pedal assembly was obtain on a core-part basis from Sports Car World, as well as other miscellaneous parts, such as a second fuel filler neck to accomodate the second tank.
The original front "hard" suspension pieces (i.e. uprights, A-Arms) have been reconditioned, except for the left upright which was replaced. The steering rack was sent out to The Roadster Factory for rebuilding, as they had a special on their Triumph steering rack rebuild.
As the Banks rear brake set up comes from a Ford Sierra (aka Mercury Mercur XR4Ti here in the States) some interesting problems arose. First of all, the 13 inch wheels that came with the car (which I think came from a Triumph TR7) do not clear the calipers. The bolt pattern on the rear hub is 4.25"x4 to boot (with M12x1.25 studs, if I recall correctly). Going for the cheap, I decided to get a set of Mercur XR4Ti 14"x5-1/2" wheels (for $25 each). This required a set of alloy front hubs from Banks with the 4x4.25" bolt pattern and metric studs. The wheels were fitted with 185/60-14 Yokohama AVS's obtained on sale ($43 each) from The Tire Rack. When I purchased the wheels, I did not realize that they used a special lug nut with a captive conical washer ... regular aftermarket lug nut have too little bearing surface, so a trip to the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer was required. Believe it or not, a set of 16 of these lug nuts cost just as much as the used wheels! So much for going for the cheap. Although the offset of these wheels is more like that for a Front Wheel Drive car, it appears to be OK for this application ... any less negative offset in the front could be problematic.
An attempt to reuse the original dual circuit Master Cylinder was foiled when I accidentally broke the mounting flange by my own boneheaded improper handling. However, this is kind of a God send, as this precludes having the Master Cylinder breaking while in service (it just broke too easily out of the car). I was making plans to go to a Nissan B210 master cylinder (tandem .75" bore with 2 bolt vertical flange) as has been done by others, but I was fortunate to find a Master Cylinder from a wrecked Twin Cam. I haven't received it at this time, so I don't know if is for a servo assist car or not, which would require resleeving to non-servo bore diameters.
Body work is slowly progressing. I'm staying away from chemicals and many of the mechanical means I've tried to remove the paint have been ineffective or too aggressive. What I have found good so far in my situtaion is to scrape the color coats of paint off with a hand paint scraper (the sun exposed areas chipped off fairly easily, while those protected from the sun are much harder to scrape), stopping when I start to see the primer through the residue of the original orange color coat. From there, I might use a 3M "Stripping Disc" (similar to Scotch-brite) on a reduced speed 4-1/2" grinder to remove the bulk of the orange residue. I still have to be careful, as this is still a bit on the aggressive side if improperly handled. Finally, I hand sand with 120 grit mesh-style sand paper (as used for sanding wall-board/drywall joints) to get down to solid primer. The combination of the Stripper Disc and the sanding mesh has been relatively effective in tackling the gumminess of the orange paint (which would clog sandpaper very quickly).