Unkel Kunkel

Always struck me as a rather peculiar system. Has anyone ever “boxed them in” with removable fabricated metal covers and gasket seals?

That looks good! New springs do seem to vary in spec.- not just in the spring rate , but in curvature, weight, thickness of the leaves - and also the size of those ‘ dimples” for the buttons - insulators or whatever you call them.There were some aftermarket springs made with no buttons or recesses ie the dimples to hold them and the edges of the spring leaves in some cases were sharply cut. ie were’t chamfered . Those buttons closely resemble my DIY ones, except mine are UHMWPE Getting the “swing spring” secured in the spring “box” can be quite a wrestle. I battled with G clamps and various levers etc. for most of an afternoon. The tendency for the outermost buttons to fall out ceases once the drive shafts, shock absorbers etc are all connected up because as the lower leaf spring of the “swing spring” set up can’t then travel as far downwards.

I saw that but noted Blubayou had tried tap washers- which was imaginative, and then rubber ones - which didn’t fit. I was relating from experience regarding buying a new spring (from one of the major suppliers)as a cautionary tale as I was surprised and disappointed to find it was completely different spec with thicker leaves, very much heavier and didn’t fit into the space between the diff. and first leaf. I returned it and got a refund. So I re-used the original spring with UHMWPE spacers. inserting these “buttons” did give a noticeable increase in ride height ( any thickness you make them will be that x4 in ride height)- though if 2” is what is needed, that does seem a lot.

I would suggest at least hesitate in changing or getting rid of your old spring. Although we tend to assume “ new” parts are always better than “old”parts, “T’aint necessarily so” in relation to these springs. New rear springs can vary in appearance, weight and dimensions and no doubt other areas.They don”t always solve problems. Replacing the spring “buttons” -( the between-the spring leaves- isolators) , can restore the car’s lost “back end stature “ effectively and very cheaply. The original rubber type can be replaced with far more effective and durable ones - Teflon, Nylon or UHWPE - see E- Bay. You can make them but it is a bit of a faff.

Can’t give an opinion re Spitfire, but I have a 2006 VW Eos for which I obtained a wind deflector, the type that sits behind the occupants.Similar sort of thing in principle at least. I was very surprised by the vast difference it made.Hardly any buffeting”, to the extent of being able to hold a normal conversation at 70 plus.

If we are talking about coating metal once it has been successfully salvaged by rust conversion or rust removal, there are some options for the amateur such as myself: The coating should be easily applied.i.e by someone with basic skills and equipment. It should be available at reasonable cost. it should adhere well, preferably have a degree of anti-corrosion action, have resilience to impact damage - favouring toughness over hardness to avoid brittleness and cracking. It should be easily and cheaply “repairable” (again with with basic skills and equipment) It should be able to act as a good primer accept a cosmetic top coat and finally, under the vehicle, a transparent wax coat of choice. Each to their own, but for chassis renovation, after repairs, I used a laborious combination of numerous, repeated sessions of mechanical cleaning by needle gun and phosphoric acid applications, a final wire brushing, then hand painting with UPol Acid 8 primer. Top coat just body colour aerosol then Kent wax coat spray. Time will tell…

Whilst Hammerite is tough, I found it rather brittle and liable to chip. Probably not a popular view, but I am not really not convinced about powder coating. Based solely on experience with things like ride on mowers, concrete mixers and other out door things I have owned, failed powder coating was the reason such items ended up being prematurely scrapped.Rust spread so very rapidly under the coating once there was the slightest bit of wear and tear and it was far more difficult to try and deal with this than with “ordinary “ paint.

Rust. A subject near to the hearts of old car enthusiasts especially old, old car enthusiasts ! I used Jenolite for many years, but I now use a Machine Mart product which is very similar.Both are phosphoric acid. Very effective, but unless just treating “flash” surface rusting i.e where the rust is deep, it best regarded a process needing repeated applications with chipping / wire brushing between each to get into the pitted areas. Used patiently in this way, it will certainly give excellent results. It is more user- friendly than hydrochloric acid. HCl has nasty corrosive vapour. ( Leave something uncovered in it overnight in your garage/ workshop and next day anything ferrous in a 2 metre radius will have acquired surface rust).Not too kind to your lungs either. There is a theory that HCL shouldn’t be used on springs because “ hydrogen” brittleness” can result- making them more liable to break.This seems to be the case for small coli springs like return springs on throttles and brakes, but whether it is a concern for car suspension springs, I have no idea. The only differenceI I found is , as you can see, is that the MM version is much cheaper.

The terms are a bit confusing - “ converters” are a different group to rust “removers” though some removers can to some extent, covert..and Loctite use the term “ neutralizer” for their product * - which could be viewed as a “converter” The removers include acid groups as hydrochloric ( the archaic term muriatic acid is still used by some ) then phosphoric , oxalic acid ( poisonous) as “strong” acids and weaker acids such as citric, and acetic acid, as vinegar. The converters are chelating agents - sort of binding agents that envelop the rust chemically and also provide a basis as a primer. The most widely used seem to be tannic acid and sometimes a derivative , gallic acid. When mixed with a liquid polymer this enhances the primer action.This can be a latex solution. Sometimes some dilute phosphoric acid is added to the mix to lower the pH for the tannic acid to work more effectively and for direct effects of the phosphoric acid. Typically the tannic acid products goes blue /black after application to rust. For success the instructions have to be followed : 1.They will fail if applied on loose, flaking rust. 2. The primer action only works on the rusted metal. Citrate is a bit of both, it works -as an acid -as a remover and also has a chelating action. Molasses is also chelating agent. It takes as long as months to work, I understand. Evapo-Rust composition is not revealed to us, but its low toxicity, neutral pH suggests it is probably a citric acid based with a chelating agent or several agents, ( other than tannic acid). It is very expensive. The advantage of converters include their ease of use and low toxicity( The worst thing that tannic acid will probably do is stain your fingers very black) A lot depends on what is rusty and where it is. The encapsulator paints can work for inaccessible bits.Their effectiveness depends on the integrity of the that sealing coat. I would suspect that any defect in that coating, whether on application or acquired later, can lead to failure. Ideally, If you can remove a rusty bit and can immerse it for a few hours then go for any of the “remover”s. (My choice these days is Citric acid for 6-12 hours at 50- 60 C, in an ultrasonic cleaner, It cheap, very effective, safe to use and dispose of afterwards) * Loctite product recommend

Something very cheap to make your ultrasonic cleaner quicker and easier, save on cleaning agents and solvents and make it a lot easier to clean afterwards, just one of these: Putting the items to be cleaned in a bag of cleaning agent and then immersing in the tank with just water filled up to the usual level means its quicker, cleaner and saves whatever cleaning agent your using.The crud remains in the bag, rather than in the tank.

The cheapest welding tool available: A DIY copper welding ‘spoon’ gadget made from a short length of 22 mm copper pipe off-cut hammered flat and folded over again to give a bit of mass. ( I used two copper nails used as rivets to keep copper compressed but this not really needed ) Mig welding thin metal when there is a need to fill gaps or holes with weld can be challenging and the end result can be can a lumpy mess that needs a lot of grinding When plug welding where you want a flat surface on the reverse of the weld this also helps. Placing this gadget firmly behind the work, conducts some heat away from the weld - avoiding further burn- through and allows you easily fill the gap with weld at at the same time leaving a flat surface on the reverse of the weld. Using scrap pipe I think it would be possible to make ‘custom” spoon shapes where access is difficult.

Might well be dead simple for you, Danny ! I have begun the bilateral wing and outer arch panel replacements in my slow plodding manner, not simple for me , let alone dead simple!

I think the bonnet is original. it does look like that they assembled it, then dipped sprayed etc. There is no paint / primer under the various brackets etc.

Large areas of completely unpainted metal have been revealed as I start to dismantle a Spitfire bonnet. Presumably they sprayed the bonnet after it had being assembled in “ bare”metal and the paint went where it could reach. The lack of protection wasn’t a surprise, but the way some of these areas remain remarkably intact after fifty years without any protection at all, certainly was. These were places mainly confined to the upper and inner facing aspects of the wing and the outer wheel arch. Lower and other areas - the familiar picture of devastation Presumably, the deciding factor here was these areas were just relatively dry most of the time?

I discovered only one problem changing to silicone brake fluid. One not seen reported elsewhere. Sudden and unexpected - a tiny amount spilt on the floor is very slippery …

Revert to plan I. = new wings - and also outer wheel arches… I had ignored what all old car enthusiasts know as a fundamental truth : Rust is always far worse than it first appears. Someone in the past had certainly been very industrious and imaginative with lots of odd bits of metal welded in here and there and everywhere joining the outer wheel arch and wing in many places. All hidden, under a surprising amount of filler and thick bituminous under-seal and topped-off with something black and waxy that might be black Waxoyl.

Used mainly to locate rather than diagnose, the metal probe end functions like the ‘big screwdriver with the wooden handle to the ear ‘ in practice , but it transmits the sound up the tubes to a safe distance from the machinery and the ear pieces cut out extraneous noise. Used in this way, probably a cheapish one will probably work as well as a more expensive one for your intended use.

In general, I would be wary of using alkalies on Aluminium alloys as depending on the type of Al alloy, the results can be disappointing - it can go black. The Al oxide removers tend to be acids rather than alkalies - Phosphoric (a U.S. commercial product is 24% phosphoric) hydrochloric, oxalic, citric.Some advocate citric or citric and acetic together.A detergent/ degreasing agent seems to be added to the mix. Oxalic acid is found in rhubarb , spinach etc etc but the amounts are very tiny. Even Popeye’s heroic spinach intake would be OK for him, but the amounts used for cleaning purposes and these sort of jobs are huge in comparison and are best regarded as poisonous. Once the dull oxide layer is removed, the bright alloy is exposed and the oxidation process resumes. It is slow though, and it reaches a stage where the oxide layer itself slows the process. Keeping that initial brightness will depend on inhibiting that oxidation - by keeping the Al away from oxygen - by polish, oil, paint, lacquer - whatever, and keeping it polished and the protecting layer intact.

My personal cost:benefit ratio for the TSSC website is such that I have had out , and continue to get out , vastly more than I put in , including the fee - which I readily and happily pay.

With better weather coming, hopefully we will be out with, and almost certainly under our cars more .. The following plea about working under cars might seem very dull and boring, but in mitigation I say it is not about being risk-averse , it is about being risk-aware , which is a very different thing. According to HSE in its March report, are the words “, It will only take a minute” are the words, sometimes the last words, of people who get injured whilst working on vehicles. In the last 5 years in the UK. there have been 13 fatalities resulting of vehicles falling on top of people. I make no apologies for repeating my cautionary tale : As a young chap, I became trapped after very, very foolishly venturing under a GT6 after removing a rear wheel.It was supported only by a scissor jack on a paving stone which wobbled.. well you can guess the rest.It happened so fast. Now pinned face down, unable to move and very aware that I was hardly able to breathe and it was getting rapidly worse, I was approaching being just another digit to be added to the 1976 list of similar fatalities, when miraculously I was rescued by my my young wife. She was fast,(reassuringly, she didn’t even pause to check the life policies) So please, Be aware.Take a minute to be safe. “You can’t have too many axle stands”

Thanks everyone for your views and confirming my impression that repair sections aren’t available.It has been very helpful : option 1. New wings. materials= (original type) cost £ 134 x2 , bit cheaper are available. option 2. Repair wings . materials= metal I already have .. cost zero For both: (a) equipment :similar for both, cost = few litres gas. (b) time : considerable needed, but willingly provided when available, and probably similar for both. So I am going for option 2 ……. when I get enough (b) -on the basis that if the results looks really c****, I can look again at option 1.

I know there are repair sections available for the rear wings but have not seen similar for the front - only complete wing sections for the bonnet. Have I just missed them? Can you point me in the right direction if there are, please? My spitfire has rot in the leading edges, both sides - bad but localised. It doesn’t really seem to merit changing the whole wing sections. If there are no such things as repair sections out there, I may use the technique shown in Martin Thaddeus’s excellent book ‘How to Repair Classic Car Bodywork’ like this:

Well sort of ‘spotted’ - not the actual car, but a bit of paperwork. My Spitfire was purchased from a lady who bought the car new in 1973. It came with a thick wad of paperwork. Today, amongst the paper I came across a receipt for her purchase of a different vehicle: for the purchase of her previous car bought new in Devon in 1970. (She traded this car in 1973 when she bought my present Spitfire) It was also Spitfire: a 1970 model reg TOD 633J . colour ‘Saffron’ ( referred to oddly as a ‘Triumph Herald - Spit fire’ on the receipt) It is still registered according to DVLC Is it owned by a TSSC member ? -it is quite a significant part of that cars history if you’re out there, please get in touch. Andrew

Difficult to quantify, but they certainly do get wet and wetter from slightly glistening to there is a discernible layer of of petrol on them. In the olden days, there were priming ports on the cylinder(s),and even sometimes incorporated into the sparking plugs themselves, through which a small amount of neat petrol, say half a teaspoonful, was injected to help start up. Later, car handbooks used to warn of the consequences of running the engine with the “choke left out” as the excess petrol would wash away lubricant from the piston/cylinder walls and cause premature wear.

I found a cheap option for making a tunnel gasket and a material that was very easily available -under my feet, you could say, from B&Q interlocking garage foam floor tiles.The material is about ideal in terms of thickness and compressibility. It would be some months before I was due to put the tunnel in, so I tested strips of the material in engineoil/gear oil,and petrol/gear oil. The petrol had evapourated from the mix after a couple of months and the material showed signs of collapse but there were no signs at all of any ill effects to the oil samples even after more than year of immersion. The pattern- the little raised bits,can be removed by using a bench grinder but probably not necessary. A single tile gives a vast amount to play with until you get the best shape for the job. Glued in place with impact adhesive (over self adhesive sound /heat reflecting material):