The current state of play

I have a had a few developments with my GT6 since it went up to Birmingham, the guy who is modifying the exhaust manifold now understands how much of a headache it is to get the exhaust manifold past the back of the engine. This is due to me moving the engine back six inches in the car and consequently not having as much space between the engine and chassis as there was with the engine in the standard position. The upshot of all of this is that instead of modifying the manifold you may have seen in previous postings, the decision has been made to start afresh, though this is going to take longer to get finished.

This delay in having the exhaust system done has a couple of knock on effects, firstly means there is no chance of the GT6 being on the road when my current daily driver, Spitfire 1500, runs out of MOT, secondly it means I would be left with little or no time to get it finished and run in before the 10CR.

For quite a while now my Spitfire has just been used, with few improvements and this fact has been catching up with me. After excessive rumbling and vibration started from under the car from about 45mph, I thought it was about time to have a look at what was going on. Last time I replaced the universal joints on the drive shafts I noticed the rear wheel bearings were starting to get loose and the bearing cups turning in their housings, so having worked out how much it would have cost me to replace the necessary parts I decided to go for a pair of fully reconditioned drive shafts from TD Fitchetts (they had them in stock)
Unfortunately after also replacing the middle section of the exhaust, the bad vibrations are still there, so a NOS propshaft from James Paddock has been ordered along with a exhaust back box.

The aim now is to get the Spitfire in a MOTable state, while doing any other prep jobs for the GT6. Then once the GT6 is on the road think about my long term intentions for the Spitfire, perhaps move it on and get a 2000 saloon or even a modern?

Out with the GT6

Had a morning out with the GT6 on Saturday, unfortunately it was on a trailer at the time. I drove up to a workshop outside Birmingham to have the remaining sections of the exhaust system finished off. The car will be up there for a few weeks now, as while it is up there it is being used as a jig for a few other exhaust manifolds.
The journey up to Birmingham was quite uneventful, only seeing a couple of classics on the road, but no Triumphs. Thought I might see one or two going up to Stafford for the weekend, but no such luck.

While the car is away I will be spending some time finishing off some other jobs for the car, such as the fuel returns into the fuel tank. I might even find some time to do a bit of bodywork on the Spitfire in anticipation of the next MOT. The sill increasing look like they need replacing, I might just plate them as required for now and replace them once I have the GT6 on the road.


Hopefully once the exhaust system has been finished, the rest of the car will be ready to come together, then a week or two of hard work to get it ready for the MOT?