Saturday, July 28, 2007

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?

2 comments:

Mike said...

Hi there

Who in Birmingham is making your manifold

Regards

Mike

SteveA said...

The exhaust work is being carried out through Gareth Thomas, GTEVO on the Club Triumph forum.

Steve