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.

Spitfire MOT and The Shed

Been quite a successful day today as the Spitfire managed to sail it's way through another MOT, this time without any advisory notices. While this evening my next Triumph was delivered, in the form of a MkI 2000 saloon.

Affectionately know as "The Shed" the completed the Round Britain Reliability Run (RBRR) in 2006 and the 10 countries run in 2005. Unfortunately during the last RBRR the car had a run-in with a Deer, making a bit of a mess of the front end. The previous owner, Andy, had started work on the bodywork, but had not had time to complete replacement of panels.
The car comes with a spare complete front end, so the plan is to exchange panels as required to getting the car looking right again.
My plan for the next few days is to spend a bit of time going through the car deciding on what I will have to do to get it through a MOT, it may end up with me bodging panels for the short-term so I can get it on the road and replace panels as time allows me, allowing me to sell the Spitfire. Should be a couple of weeks?

For more history of The Shed why not have a look round Andy's website

Spitfire MOT prep.

With the MOT due on my Spitfire in just over a weeks time and the Bank Holiday upon us, I decided it was time to start getting the car ready.
Fortunately as I have been using the car quite regularly, the car is in quite good condition as any problems noted were normally sorted relatively quickly.
Work that I have had to do included fitting a new exhaust back-box, bought from Paddocks a few weeks ago, checking the screen wash and fitting new wiper blades – apart from that the car was pretty much ready for the MOT.

Since I plan to sell the Spitfire a few weeks after the MOT, once I have another car on the road, a fair bit of time was spent over the weekend on the rear bodywork. Fibreglass was removed from the inner rear wheel arch and wing bottom of the Spitfire to be replaced with some fresh steel, while making a repair to the boot floor and rear valance. A previous owner had repaired both inner rear wheel arches and lower rear wing sections with a mix of fibreglass and aluminium matting at some point, but the rust was starting to get under some of it and lift it up.
I repaired the passenger side fibreglass sections about a year ago, so it was about time I got the drivers side done.

Spitfire - an update

A few weeks ago I got my NOS propshaft from Paddocks, only problem was that on standing it next to the one I had just removed from my car I noticed the new one was 1/4" longer when both were fully compressed. Undeterred by this I was just able to squeeze it in place, but was unhappy with it being so tight in-between the gearbox and differential, so a quick call to Paddocks to explain the situation was made and assurances given to me that there should be no problem with it.
So with the gearbox tunnel back in place, I took the car out for a run, a pleasure to drive now the vibrations had gone, well for at least two miles, when a new vibration and noise started. I quick inspection of the propshaft showed that the sliding CV joint was running very hot, so it was time to turn around and head back for home to remove this new propshaft.
After further discussions with Paddocks it was decided that I would return the NOS propshaft and replace it with a slightly more expensive, but more extendable, propshaft. A day or so later it had arrived, been fitted and run in with no further problems.

With the car running quieter and vibrations reduced I was able again to get up to good speed and really get the engine warmed up. Only trouble was that the car was overheating and pushing all of the coolant out of the engine through the radiator expansion pot. This went on for a few days with me continually having to refill the system, despite having flushed the cooling system through numerous times.
I finally worked out what the problem was when plumes of white smoke issued from the exhaust after a spirited run - the head gasket had failed. Just what I did not want as I was due to drive down to Cornwall in 36 hours time. So that evening the head was stripped down to reveal the fire ring on number 4 cylinder had failed, letting a weep through. Fortunately my local motor factors was able to get me a brand new head gasket on same day delivery, so I managed to get a lift to his shop, pick up all the required parts and set to getting it all back together again.
24 hours after the head gasket had gone the car was up and running again, would have been quicker if I had kept a spare gasket in stock. Since then the car has done me trouble free mileage to and from Cornwall and then down to Exeter and back, totalling 600 mile in the past fours days. I reckon the car is going the best it has since I brought it, shame I am thinking about selling it now.
Know anybody who was to but a tax exempt Triumph Spitfire 1500?? contact SpitBang through the Club Triumph forum or leave me a comment (will not be published)