Cooling bits

Made a bit more progress on the cooling system, the idea as taken from Dave Powells Crazy Spitfire Blog, where a swirl pot is used after the coolant leaves the water pump, the excess from the top going to the radiator expansion tank along with water from the bleed off on the radiator. The coolant is then drawn back into the main system to a point just before the water pump, to get it to rejoin here has been a bit of a pain as most readily available "T" pieces only have 1" outlets, which is too big for what I want. So instead I have made my own "T" piece from two joiners by cutting a 5/8" one in half and sticking into the side of the other. It was a nice tight fit between the two and then chemically bonded together with JB weld, should be interesting to see how it holds up.

Been struggling for a while to find a fan for the 205 radiator, but struck lucky when I won a fan from a Nissan Micra and it is even a "pull" type, so it can be mounted behind the radiator, reducing the restriction to the flow of air.
I have been able to cut off the excess mounting lugs, it had three but only two roughly lined up, the third would not line up with anything I could bolt it down to. However it does all sit well on the rad, will just have to wait and see now.

Back in the car I have been laying a bit more of the sound deadening down again, trouble with that stuff is if you start putting it down in one position there is no chance of being able to lift and reposition it, guess that is probably a good thing though.

Bonnet struts

It's been a few weeks since my last update, so I best fill you in on what has been done recently.
The radiator I am using is from a Peugeot 205, a common upgrade for the Triumph Spitfire. While it fits nicely due to it being quite short and very wide, one problem incurred is how to fit in the bonnet support. The original support folds away forward when the bonnet is down, however with the new radiator there is not enough space for it to fold away. To get round this I am using a pair of gas struts from the boot door of a Rover 214.
I made sure that when I got the gas struts from a breakers that they came with the ball joints used to attach them to the car, these ball joints have a M8 thread on them, which I used with a locknut and washers to hold them onto the inner wheel arch of the bonnet. The other end of the strut is attached to one of the front quarter valance mounting plates, via a right angle bracket made from an old number plate bracket.
The whole bonnet is a lot easier to lift up now as, past a point, the gas struts assist the lift and once up holds the bonnet quite firmly, well worth it I reckon.

I have had to move the GT6 around the barn recently, so the steering column was fitted again and much to my annoyance, I found that the steering shaft was touching the exhaust manifold. Fortunately, this problem is easily overcome by moving the steering rack over again, this did require though a little extra clearance for the steering knuckle joint as it passes through the suspension turret.

Around the car, some of the smaller jobs have been completed, with the clutch slave cylinder serviced and connected and the brake hydraulic system also connected although neither have been filled or bled yet.

In the footwells, the sound deadening has been laid down, with the rest of the car yet to do. One thing I do not want to do is to cover the rest of the inside of the car and find there is not enough material left to cover both sides of the gearbox tunnel, that area being a major source of heat.

Brakes and bits

As the GT6 gets nearer to completion I keep on finding yet more little jobs to finish off, having a note book beside me most of the time helps as I can jot it down and make sure I tick it off later once done.
Over the weekend I fitted up the remaining brake hoses on the rear of the car and checked over all the hose connections, just as well as I also found some loose.
Seeing as I had the back end up in the air again to do the brakes, I found time the free up one of the adjustable rear radius arms. It obviously had not been adjusted for some time and will probably need altering once the car is on the road and I get a chance to have all of the wheels aligned.

Inside the car all of the painting I plan to do has been completed and now needs to be left to cure for a week or so.

Been going great guns with the Adheseal, putting together the quarterlight latch, which was broken when I bought the car.

Also made a start on laying down some of the sound deadening, just a few pieces in the engine bay that would be easier to put down while there was good access. The inside of the gearbox tunnel will be lined out, but I rather not do that until the rest of the tunnel has been made. The deadening material came from Canada, as despite import charges and shipping costs, it still worked out cheaper to buy direct from the supplier. It is only 1.6mm thick, but is super sticky and had a reflective layer on the outside, so it should be good at preventing some of the engine heat from getting inside the car.