All TR3’s have little brass commission plates on the bulkhead – there are two and it’s important that you don’t lose them (or at least you note the numbers down) as they are a) really hard to buy from anyone and b) the numbers won’t be on any paperwork anywhere.
When I bought my car and I was asked about them, I couldn’t remember seeing them which is no wonder as the previous owner had painted over them. So today’s job was to try and get the brass screws undone without destroying them so I could strip the paint off.
Would you know it, use the right tool and they popped undone with a very satisfying click. Here is the plate before:
And here it is after (with the other one once the paint had been removed). A little more polishing and they were both looking lovely. At the moment, the engine bay is hardly perfect so I’m not looking to make them look new, just to fit in better.
So I am very pleased with the result for half an hours work and it made an immediate difference to the engine bay.
That battery is going to have to go though for something more suitable………….and you can see I’ve removed the air filters for refurbishing.
1959 Triumph TR3A 
For what it’s worth, that EB number was applied prior to the car being painted (by the manufacturer)…and should have been left green. The lower number was applied when the car was complete and should be brass as shown. Still they do look good shiny!
Thanks for this. Unfortunately the previous owner had painted the outside of the car professionally in green (from powder/baby blue), but brush painted the engine bay which looked terrible. So it was easier to remove the brush paint on the EB Plaque and polish it as I didn’t have any matching spray paint.
The engine bay has since been stripped and spray painted so it’s fine now, but they removed the brass plaques to paint it so they are still shiny (or actually quite dull now again as they tarnish quite quickly).