Mainly exhausts

Today I have mainly been looking at exhausts, I had a vist from Gareth Thomas or GTEVO as he is known on the Club Triumph forum. He is doing all the head work for my engine and is also providing the exhaust manifold.
Seeing as I have moved the engine backwards by six inches, the whole job of getting a good quality exhaust manifold to fit properly has been made a bit more difficult, we should have it all sorted in the end though.

Here is a couple of pics of good exhaust manifolds, I will probably end up using the chromed manifold, it being more compact makes it easier to fit in.
These a lot better than the usual 6 into 1 manifolds available on the market, as the lenghts of the pipes are correct and the pipe joins are neater also, promoting good gas flow.

Odds and sods

Most of Saturday was spent fitting that exhaust manifold for the Spitfire, unfortunatelly I found a crack up close to one of the collectors, so this had to be welded before I could think of fitting it. It was a right pig of a job really as I had to remove some material from the inlet manifold for the primary from No.3 clyinder to pass and even now it is a bit close.
Mooving further down the joint between the 2 into 1 collector and the main exhaust pipe was never going to seal as it had been mangled so badly by the previous owner, so I resorted to welding the two pieces together, there shoul not be any exhaust leaks from there :)

Sundays job was going to be to put in the new fuel lines, having removed the copper fuel line I put in for the carbs a few months back I noticed yet another of my unfinished jobs, the seat and seatbelt mounting bolts. There are far too many jobs I have started and not finished properly on this car so I decided I ought to finish these seat mountings before I got any further.
The previous owner had new floor pans fitted, but the seat and seatbelt mounting points were new replaced, so I have had to first weld nuts on to plates, work out where to place them on the underside of the car (usefull having the Spitfire to check against) and then whilst lying under the car inches away from you, do some upside down welding. Not the most fun of jobs, but a nessary evil, I wish I had done this job when I had the body tub off and three feet in the air.
Tonight the freshly welded bit have had a coat of primer, along with the strip across the bottom of the sill, I had to strip the paint from here some time ago as the sills had only been spot welded on before painting.

Spitfire Ramblings

With the points opened out again the Spitfire has gained that lost power again, however it has started pinking and over-running again, it certainly seems the distributor and timing might need checking and perhaps the springs inside replacing.

Good 'ol fleabay has turned up a few good items for me recently with a original box of Payen manifold gaskets for the GT6. In the box were nine quality gaskets, bought for the cost of two mediocre quality ones.
Delivered in the post today, via eBay, was a second-hand 4-1 exhaust manifold for the Spitfire. It’s a pretty nasty thing really as the bends in the pipes have been crush bent and the collectors are poorly made. Despite this, it should be an improvement on the very difficult to seal original manifold and is £60 cheaper than new.
So the first job of the weekend will be to thoroughly check the new manifold for and cracks, flat off the jointing faces and then give it a quick coat of high temperature paint. After that I shall have a go at fitting it, it's best done sooner than later as the current exhaust is blowing by.

I now have a set of high and low pressure pipes to run between the metering unit in the engine bay and the fuel pump in the boot. The pipes have come from a Triumph 2500 PI estate so should be plenty long enough. In the last week I have also managed to get a length of high pressure fuel hose to cut to length and then fit to the ends to make up the pipes between the metering unit.

Weekend on the Spitfire

Its been a whle since I have done any maintenance on the Spitfire so it was due for a bit of time spent on it whilst there is some spare space in the barn. A job that certainly needed doing was the universal joints on the driveshafts, these only tend to last about 5,000 miles so they were over due for replacement.
Replacing the UJ's can be a right pig of a job as it involves spending a fair bit of time lying under the car with your arms in the air undoing the eight drivshaft bolt, four on each side. The added annoyance came when disconnecting the brake fluid lines, as the threads on both of these have started to corrode making removal of the locking nuts very hard to remove, fortunately I was able to remove one from each pipe. When I next do some work around this area I will probably change the flexible brake pipes.

With the drivshafts removed from the car they were inspected whilst on the bench, another job I found for the future will be to replace both of the rear wheel bearings as they seem to be sarting to get a bit of slack in them, nothing horrendous, just needs to be rememered about for next time.

This evening I finshed the job off by re-bleeding the brake fluid and took the car out for a run and damn, I am still getting knocking from the rear :(
Looks like new universal joints could be needed on the propshaft also.
Despite this I carried on for a few more miles, might as well as I was out, all was going well untill I got back on the home straight and the engine started to lack power, well I limped back home, changed the plug leads and went out for another run, still no better. Plugs have been checked and look good, a new coil, points and condenser have also been fitted recently so it should not be these, perhaps the points have slipped or something else, oh well I'll have another look tomorrow.

Bottom end almost finished

The engine front plate I received last week has now been fitted, not without some modification though. I had asked for a front plate from a 1500 engine, which I knew would fit straight on, unfortunately they sent me a plate from a earlier engine, which meant I had to open up the hole for the crankshaft to pass through, add two more mounting holes and remove a small ammount of material from the back of one of the mounts. It was just as well that of the thread on the plate were intact, otherwise it would of been sent back.

With the plate on it meant I could get the new duplex timing chain on, mating up with the wider tensioner. The old head was sat on the block and then the water pump and inlet manifolds were also fitted, as much as a moral boost and clearance check then anything else.
With the water pump on I was able to carefully remove one of the water take-offs. This is no longer required as it was used to pass water through inlet manifold, this is not needed or wanted when using the injection throttle bodies.

Next jobs will be to get the fuel pipework in place and then have a go at timing up the distributor and the metering unit, should be interesting.

Nice day for it.

I was looking through my old pictures of my GT6 since I bought it 13 months ago and I realised I did not have many of it as a whole car. So with the good weather and the majority of the car back together I went around taking a few pictures. This is one of my favourites so far. As it is not running yet it is still a bit of a pain to move around.

Delivered by courier today was the replacement front engine plate. It was obviously removed from a engine and cleaned off some time ago, unfortunately it was not coated in anything after cleaning as it is now covered in rust. That said, it does appear to be flat and relatively unmarked unlike the existing one, hopefully all of the threads in it will be intact also.
I shall check all of the threads before fitting and if any of the threads look suspect I might be inclined to weld a nut on the inside if space allows.

Engine back in - again

On Saturday evening I lifted out the old block from the car, I ended up doing by hand myself, damn it is a heavy old lump.
With that out I was able to remove the front engine plate, in cleaning up the gasket surfaces I realised how warped and damaged the plate was. It came with a mass of spares from my last Spitfire, however I have decided not to use it again, so although it is bolted onto the engine it will be replaced as soon as I can get a new one. Hopefully it should be faily easy to change it in situ.

Today after bleeding the fuel system again my Nuffield tractor was brought back into life and was used again to fit the engine and gearbox into the car. I have found it easier to lift the engine, move the car underneath and then getly lower it in.
This seems to be a better way as I have not managed to get the hang of gentle enough movement of the tractor, any slightly sharp movement sends the engine rocking back and forth, not so good for the paintwork :)

After the engine was securly in place the bonnet was also fitted, much perfer to have the bonnet on the car. I worry too much that it might get scratched or dented whilst proped up against the wall.
The propshaft was also fitted, this is a pig of a job, as it has to be done from underneath the car. On less modified cars it can be done from inside the car, but in a attempt to keep as much of the propshaft tunnel in place as possible I have made myself another undesirable task.

Engine coming together

The pistons were picked up from the machine shop earlier this week, so the pistons were soon fitted to the con rods and rings fitted soon after.

Before the pistons and rods went in, the block was given a final clean to remove any last reminants of paint or chemicals after the repaint, then it was time to build it up, again.

One of the problems I noticed when I last stripped the engine down was that two of the fixings for the sump had stripped their threads, obviously it could not go back in like this. Luckily I had a replacement part, as it also incorporates the rear crankshaft oil seal, from my spare engine.
The problem with this part is that it is alloy and hence the threads are not so strong in it, following a suggestion from the Club Triumph Forum, I have chosen to replace the bolts with studs loctited into the alloy and when I came to fit the sump it did not strip the threads.

Friday night saw the bottom end being sealed up, having had the gasket set delivered that morning. I will need to remove the old cylinder block from the car before I can build it up much more, as the front engine plate is currently in use on it, but its all quite straight forward.

Ordered from Chris Witor earlier this week was a replacement sump plug, not your normal type but a alloy one with a magnetic centre. I hope not to have any metallic matter floating about in the oil, but this ought to pick up anything that does get in or break free, alerting me to any problems.