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?

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.

Paint & fuel line fitting

A few days ago my seam sealer arrived from Innotec so all of the seams as recommenced in the Triumph workshop manual and any other places which have been welded have had a coating. With the Adheseal it is best painted within four hours of laying the stuff down, so on the same night I made a start on painting the interior panels of the GT6. A couple coats have gone down now and once it has had another coat and has cured the sound deadening will go down of top.

Meanwhile, the fuel system install has been moving on with the Pressure Release Valve (PRV) being mounted on the rear tunnel and the pipework from it to the metering unit also being almost finished. I ended up getting a copper fuel pipe from Rimmer Bros. to go from the PRV to the plastic fuel line, as I thought this would be easier to keep routed through the tunnel and away from any moving parts.

Fortunately the plastic fuel lines I have came with the remains of their chassis mounting clips, so with new inner retaining pieces they could be used again, not that drilling the holes for them were particularly easy as ideally you want to be at right angles to the piece you are drilling, but at the body tub is now securely on, access to the side of the chassis rails is somewhat limited.

I will also put some extra clips in the rear tunnel, just to make sure that the fuel lines are kept clear of any moving parts.

So far I have concentrated on the high pressure fuel system, there is another fuel pipe which runs from the front to the rear of the car, this is a lower pressure line, which carries excess fuel from the metering unit back to the fuel tank and runs parallel to the high pressure system along the chassis. As it comes to the back of the car and over the rear spring, the idea at present is to run this last section in copper, so it can be securely held to the panels and turn tighter corners than the plastic fuel line.

Prep for paint and sealing

Some years ago, before I bought it, the GT6 has had new floor panels, sills, rear valance and various other small repair panels put in, unfortunately none of these were ever painted properly after fitting. They had however received a generous coating of over spray and the results of exterior polishing. In addition to this, a substance, possibly waxoyl, had been spilt down the drivers side bulkhead, getting into the drivers footwell via the cutouts for the clutch and brake.
Now, because I want to give all of the new panels a good coat of paint I need to remove any loose paint or dirt before painting, but because of the spill in the drivers footwell I have had to lay sheets down in the car and lower myself head first into the footwell to attack the spilt substance with wire brush, glass paper and thinners. Once cleaned, the plan is to re-seal any seams, paint the panels and once the paint has cured, lay down some sound deadening.

In the meantime, I have been busy on good'ol eBay and have been able to pick-up a window washer bottle. This one has come from a Triumph Acclaim, so at least I am trying to keep it Triumph. The bottle looks to fit quite well in the side of the passenger footwell, so before the MOT I will need to make some bracket to hold it in place. Also on the bottle is an electric pump, so as time allows, this will be used in place of the original old manual push pump.

I have put another foot on the combined fuel pump and filter holder I made up last week. As it was it was not freestanding, which meant if bolted down it would be pulling excessively on the two mounting bolts, with the extra limb it is now freestanding and should sit better.
A hole has been cut in the boot floor for the fuel hose to pass from the bottom of the fuel tank to the fuel filter in the car, quite a large hole had to be cut for this so a rubber grommet could be used to protect the edges.