MOT success & Spitfire for sale

Yesterday (Saturday) the Triumph 2000 went through it's MOT without any advisories and by the time I had returned from the test station, the package from the Triumph parts supplier had turned up. Being half day opening at the Post Office, a quick trip into the local town was made to pick-up the required tax disc, free of course. Back at the farm again I made a start on checking my new parts and fitting them, starting with the speedo drive gear, which meant draining the gearbox oil again.


Since getting the MOT I have covered a few miles, partially to get myself used to the car, but also to workout what needs to be done. Luckily over the 130 or so miles I have covered so far nothing too major has come up. Though one of the things I do want to get sorted fairly soon is the propshaft, the sliding joint in it is getting worn and causing vibrations in the car between 55 and 65 mph, which at the moment just means I need to go faster or slower than that.

During my drive around on Saturday afternoon we popped over to New Tredegar to see a guy I know, who has just got his Fowler A7 ploughing engine back on the road. We met up with him, as you can often find them, outside a pub about five miles from their yard. Although not a great distance to travel by modern standards, it was still quite momentous to get out this far, as the engine is still running in as they work through any problems as they occur.

With the 2000 on the road and appearing to go quite well I am starting to make positive moves to selling the Spitfire, so if you or anybody you know is looking for a tax exempt Triumph Spitfire 1500, why not have a look at the Club Triumph Classified section?

Progress, of a sort...

After a couple of evenings trying to blend in the new piece of wing arch on the Shed, I have decided to take a break from that as every time I put on some filler to get rid of one ridge, another came up. I really want to take a break from bodywork for a while and come back to it afreash with ideas on how to banish my ridged filler work, so for now it has received a couple of coat of primer to prevent any water or dirt getting in.
The drivers side headlight bowls have been re-fitted albeit bolted instead of riveted, as to rivet them in you need to remove a special circlip type ring to get enough space, which was most likely to break as you try to remove it. Also the remaining front lights and bumpers have been fitted.

A date has been booked for the MOT, this coming Saturday, so some time has been spent chasing parts suppliers to find out where the parts I had ordered are, only to find that they have not sent them yet. It is a real pain that I have not had the parts yet, despite asking for them to be sent out on Tuesday, two days later they have not left the supplier. With that in mind I have set about using my contingency plan to try to get the car through the forthcoming MOT.
The two things I really wanted for the MOT were the halogen headlight, as all the other lights are halogens and a new rear exhaust mounting rubber. So far I have been lucky enough to find a spare sealed beam headlight and have glued the slightly dodgy exhaust mounting rubber, lets just hope both will be sufficient to get through the MOT.

Shed repair panels

The promised repair panels for the Shed were delivered on Tuesday, by a 18ton curtain side lorry, made all the more interesting when the tail lift on it failed, being able to lower itself, but not back up again. With a bit of man handling it was soon off the lorry and into a trailer for the short trip, through tight lanes, down to the farm.
There is a fair bit more of it than I had initially expected, it still having the steering column, pedals, and dash fitted. Fortunately for me it appears that the car, a few years prior to being cut-up, had received new front wings, so they were still in near mint condition.

If I was a better person, I should have carefully removed the whole wing and fitted it complete on my car, I'm not that good though. So a repair section was cut from the recovered wing instead.

The hardest part of the job so far has been to re-constitute the inner wing, as this required a judicious amount of bending and forming to get the inner wing to meet up with the outer wing in something akin to the original form. After welding the inside, all the welds and joins have had a coat of my favorite seal sealer, Adheseal, then a coat of primer.
I expect now to spend some of the next few evenings applying filler to cover and blend in the wing, before spray painting it.

The Shed, a week on...

It's been a fairly busy week on the shed, working my way through it finding what needs to be done for the MOT. When I bought the car I already knew about some of the jobs that needed to be done, including replacing the speedo as the original one had failed. Unfortunately when the speedo failed, it also stripped the threads from it's drive in the gearbox, so that will have to be replaced in the week.
Fitted new in the week was a ignition switch and luckily for me I was able to use the original ignition switch and barrel in the new switch, keeping the same key for most locks in the car. Also fitted was a reconditioned steering rack, as the old was was showing excessive ware at the tube end, I believe this had been picked up at the last MOT, but had been wrongly diagnosed as slack in both track rod ends.

Quite a bit of time was spent on the nose cone again, this time adding filler where required in a attempt to make it look right. After a few nights on it I came to the conclusion that it was never going to look perfect, so I have taken it to a point where it looks fairly presentable, with the intention to replace the whole nose at a later point.

I hate to say it but, I seem to have become a bit of a polisher, as I have been slowly making my way around the car, cutting the very faded paint back, polishing and then waxing it. Hopefully once the paintwork is up again it should not need that much work.

The Shed gets a nose job

As mentioned previously, repairs to the bodywork of The Shed had been started after it hit a Deer almost a year ago. The first job of the day was to re-connect completely the electrics which ran from one side of the car to the other behind the nose piece, having been partially cut when the old material was removed.

With the electrics re-connected and tied up out of the way, work started started with cleaning the area round the hole ready for welding and then welding in a couple of pieces of steel close to the headlights to give the shape of the nose, against which the main part could be formed. A piece of sheet steel was then held at the bottom, using three pair of mole grips, and carefully bent round to the shape of the remaining part of the nose and the new piece by the headlights. The steel was just tacked in place at first to allow me to get the shape of the nose and determine how much needed to be cut off. Once roughly trimmed down the weak welds were broken, followed by final trimming of the nose, then the piece was fully welded back in place.

It will need some filler put in to hide some of the welds and remove other imperfections, but for now it should do the job. Not too bad for an afternoons work, the leading edge of the nose is not as sharp as it should be, but it should do for now.

Next major job will be to re-constitute the drivers side wing, a few choices here. Either I replace the whole wing, get a arch repair panel or try to patch it together with numerous pieces of steel. At the moment my preferred plan is to get a repair panel, as it would be a lot easier to fit than a whole wing and would look better than anything I could make with bits of steel.