Colin Lindsay

This is the same area of the 13/60 from Canley's website (saves scanning the WSM or Parts Manual!) The y-shaped bracket screws to the bulkhead just under the windscreen then through the lower dashboard support rail by way of the studded bracket 35; this should hold it very solidly and along with the lower column clamp - 45 in the photo - means there should be no downward movement possible. 36 is a spring clip, it clamps the bonnet tube without distorting it; as Rob says, if not fitted the column tube will rotate and your stalks will point up and down rather than from side to side....

Who would be doing the repair work, Harry? Measure the cost of two replacement wings against the man-hours of bodywork and you might end up saving money by simply replacing them.

Chris, we all do it; I remember a disbelieving Spitfire owner standing looking at a rare part, and asking me in astonishment: "so you cut it into two pieces to remove it?"

You just beat me to it! I've refurbished three or four over lockdown including a GT6 0.7 version, and in each the plunger / piston was solid. The way I did it was heat - immerse in boiling water for a while - then spray with liquid spray grease whilst upright in a vice to keep the grease in the 'reservoir' on the end of the piston. The grease or penetrating oil may drain in and get round the sides, but if not try boiling water again and gentle pressure with the end of a thick wooden spoon; the plunger may shift and move inwards, but not fully out again. Gentle gradual pressure from a two-legged puller will also work. Each fraction of an inch of bore that's uncovered should be cleaned gently - polished with a soft cloth - and greased with spray grease. Eventually you'll reach a point where the piston will start to move both up and down, so gentle taps with a rubber mallet may free it, but if you push it down, then quickly let it spring up again, it may fly completely out. Compressed air works but can blow the piston out at some speed. As you say, it was just dried gunge and stuck or decayed rubber causing the problems. Most of them required nothing more than a soft polishing buffer on a Dremel, one that completely fills the bore, and light polishing - light enough to clean but too light to remove metal. Clean with brake cleaner and regrease with the proper red grease. A good repair kit should have the spring too, so no matter if the old one was terminally rusty.

They're so cheap - relatively speaking - that you may as well buy a good replacement (and I'll emphasise good) rather than risk a bodge, even on the clutch. In the past I've seen them 'lightly honed' to death! I've tidied some up with 1200 grade sandpaper on my fingertip and even then was wary, but I've seen them 'restored' with a wire brush on an electric drill and to be honest I wouldn't get in that car afterwards!

I had a reply written then thought "why bother" deleted it and went off for another coffee.

On the MK1 there's a rather strange 'plug'-type seal that goes round the inside of the cap; I've got one that I was never able to make fit. I just can't work out how it's meant to go round the spring and other bits of the cap, and diagrams are no help at all. Help there too would be appreciated!

Possibly not the seal, but distortion of the metal canister? Check the edges for evenness on a flat surface.

Don't worry, they may name the next wave Covid 20, so it'll be more divisible. I'm sure the guys who created it have plenty more, so there'll be a suitable number along soon.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oil-Pressure-Gauge-Leather-Washer-Seal-MG-Pre-War/141192994156?epid=1488446549&hash=item20dfc21d6c:g:wpkAAOSwgQ9Vl7P8 This guy is selling ten for £3.50 but as he claims, you only need one per gauge so will have a few spares...

Raise them to whatever height they need to move freely and don't foul the carpet. It will take as many spacers as it takes... but all cars aren't the same, nor are all carpets, so experiment for the best results.

Never realised that Triumph had also designed UFOs...

You're a clone! There are hundreds of you!

Home-made, or sourced from elsewhere, but I doubt if they're standard fitting. Estates, bar the Vitesse conversions, were meant to be functional workhorses. Front bumpers on that one are alloy Vitesse versions too so a PO has done a bit of work on it. I like Estates, the body shape suits the Herald very well.

Same with Heralds; many have retro-fitted the full-width radiator, myself included, only to find that at low 'pottering' speeds it never really gets warm enough to warrant it.

+1 to that; you must remember that at the time, they were fitted as a simple and innovative solution to large suspension movements and flex and if anything went wrong they could be replaced by the garages of the time, as much as a service item requiring regular replacement. I don't think Triumph expected them to last forty years, or for owners to have problems sourcing replacements.

An impact wrench will sort out the non-mover; if you do't have access to one then heat and penetrating oil - not both at once - will help. For the other one you've possibly stripped a thread, so it will need outwards pressure as you rotate it in order to remove it from the upright. Does it move far in both directions ie spin round freely, or just a slight movement one way then the other? If this is the case there's hope for the thread, but if it just spins freely then it's badly stripped so hope it's the bolt and not the upright that's lost the thread. Hopefully you'll be able to retap the upright but in any case I'd replace the bolts for the benefit of new threads.

Of course!! It was for the TR7 I bought parts from him.... apologies.

Technically then it seems to me that it's no longer roto but CV jointed; you no longer have the problems associated with the rotoflex doughnut and have modernised the setup. Having had two GT6 rear halfshafts shear on GT6, admittedly 15 years apart, I thought about it, but the cost- compared to new halfshafts - put me off.

Yes, I use him all the time, along with jumblemaster; two sellers that keep getting my trade so they're worth buying from. numpty9 is James Paddocks, again worth buying from if you can't be bothered going through the website.

The sign of a heavy right foot.... and I'm wondering what the clutch is like too!

IIRC - and it's been a long time since I had a Spitfire - is there access to the sills from inside the car? I seem to remember slots along the sides of the inner sills, certainly one at the bottom of the b-post and maybe one in the driver's footwell, so that there was access if the carpets were lifted? I can remember Waxoyling one from the inside, but maybe they had been cut by a PO?

That's the way I've fitted mine, hole to the chassis and slot to the bonnet tube, but by the time you get the bonnet to the correct place they're at such an angle that they're hitting against the welds where the bonnet front cross tube welds to. If you drop them down, to correct the bonnet height at the front valence and line up the gap against the vertical face of the doors, the further they point downwards the less they point inwards and so increase the gap still further. I find that mine have to bend in considerably, too, to be bolted tightly to the bonnet tube, and this, again, shortens the length. I don't want to grind any of the chassis away, so slightly longer would allow additional clearance.

I've been fettling a 1200 bonnet recently and the gaps are not what I'd ideally like, but the link plates (photograph) are at their utmost extension; they're hitting against the welds round the chassis front cross-rail and so won't move any further towards the bulkhead. Ideally I'd like to drop the front of the bonnet slightly but if I do, the gap increases as the links effectively get shorter because of the steeper angle and so the bonnet becomes pulled ever further forward. I remember these were sold a few years back in an extended longer form; does anyone remember where they were sold or who by? (I think eBay but can't find them any more) Has anyone tried modifying these, or making, for example, curved versions?

I always used standard Copper Grease and to be honest the two tins I have will probably outlast me, but I just tried the Mintex to see what it was like - it was actually just over £2. Have a look down this thread, that's where I got the idea from: