Colin Lindsay

Steering column shroud is different on the later Spits so you can't use the two-arm version from the early cars or Heralds etc... original single-rail sticks come up for sale all the time although this guy surely must be having a laugh: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-OVERDRIVE-GEAR-LEVER-STICK-SHIFT-SHIFTER-KNOB-WIRES-DOLOMITE-3RAIL-1850/392333073321?hash=item5b58df9ba9:g:kuYAAOSwlQddJGNb https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-SPITFIRE-1500-OVERDRIVE-GEAR-STICK-LEVER-SHIFT-SHIFTER-KNOB-SWITCH/352714342630?hash=item521f69c0e6:g:bmUAAOSwhBVdJa4D

I remember that those used to be massively expensive back in the day, any NOS or even S/H sets that came up for sale were snapped up. I'm at the other extreme - I have something like seven sets of Estate side glass which all the van owners wanted back in the day to convert their vans to estates... but no-one wants these days....

Last post for this session!! I stripped the car down in a corner of my yard. The bonnet was obviously a replacement, being royal blue underneath, so I left it fitted in order to keep rain off the other bits. The rear tub came off.... Engine, drive train and rear axle all came off, and I found I was able to wheel the front end of the car about like a wheelbarrow... But then a new garage got in the way, and the poor Herald was stuck together again and moved to a corner of the yard, where it lay for too long... I built a second garage, and no sooner was it finished than a mate moved a Spitfire 1500 in for a quick restoration... and removed it five years later... and alongside that I rebuilt a Herald 13/60 convertible for another friend, which took three years while my own car sat there and suffered under the elements... And finally around 2012 or so I decided it was time to start on mine again. To be continued....

This car was rotten. Seriously rotten. Most of the underside was thick with underseal - in fact the car had been submerged in a tank of the stuff and sailed about like a dinghy. Even the engine was coated in it, and all of the bonnet springs and adjusters. Once I removed the underseal, there was... nothing. Fresh air, and the metal equivalent of a net curtain. There were holes everywhere, usually in places where there shouldn't have been holes, and where there should have been drain holes, they were full of underseal. The spare wheel well looked just as bad from above... all of that metal is tissue thin. The boot corners were frilly too... But it was the entire rear deck that was rotten under the hood lip, crumbling away, and the non-existent floor under the rear seats, and the B-post that was more like a bee hive that did it. The car was coming off the road. Strip it down over the winter, and it will be ready for the next season... April / May 2008. That was eleven years ago.

I'm going to start this thread for no other reason than to shame myself into finishing this car. I advertised for a 1200 convertible back around 2006 but it was only much later in the year that someone made contact with a car he needed to shift asap, a 1962 1200 in signal red. I made an offer, he declined, then came back to me a month later after another potential buyer let him down. Maybe he had more sense than me, having viewed the car in the flesh... and I didn't really need one at that time of year, bills were looming, but the more I refused the lower the price got... so eventually I bought it, sight unseen in November, and had it trailered home to a local transport yard. The car was quite presentable, full year's MOT, every single tax disc since 1962, the original bill of sale, handbook, hood instructions, warranty, service manual etc and a little hand-written note along with the original receipt that said: "Your spare keys are under the washer bottle." They were, still taped to the bulkhead, 44 years later. Everything was original - gearbox, engine and diff; there was an alloy bellhousing and a brass waterpump, a red full-beam light, and other little oddities that were replaced with alternative items on the later cars. Sadly as the keys had never been touched, neither had any of the car. First problem was a seized front brake caliper - completely solidly rusted seized. There is no way that had happened in the two months since MOT. I replaced that then added little bits as the year progressed - Stromberg carb conversion, various upgrades, and replacement shiny bits. By May 2007 it was looking very well indeed. I had a great summer in it, and then it was October and time for the next MOT. That's when the trouble started....

I drove a 25 back in the early 80s (firms car) and thought I was the dog's danglies. I've had two Lagunas including an RT Sport, hated both, and had a Clio for about three months which was as long as it took me to realise I'd never make anything of it, so flogged it very quickly. I did a lot of work on it, out of necessity rather than enthusiasm, including fixing the fault where the head fills up with oil that overflows everywhere due to a cheap O-ring.

They kept my mate in business for years; many nights I helped him pull them out of hedges and ditches. For a long time they were the vehicular equivalent of Darwinian Natural Selection and weeded out the idiot drivers. It was like a mandatory 'to-do' list: buy a Clio, lower the suspension, add a huge exhaust and a massive sound system, then stove it into a hedge or tree.

Well I tried to keep it in-house, but that's the way it goes.... Local electrician came today, reckons the unit is on the way out as it's heating the wiring so much that the connector block melted and neutral / earth were making contact. The end switch blows for an earth fault; the other individual breakers go if it's a power surge. New immersion heater planned for tomorrow. BTW he only charged me £20 to strip it all down and rebuild so he's good value. And a little edit for today: the washing machine has started blowing the trip. Replaced the socket, 12" extension lead plug, 12" extension lead, washing machine plug and finally the washing machine itself, and the last cured it so far. Four hours later I'm knackered.

And posts a photo! cue the limerick: "there was a young man of Devizes whose balls were of different sizes one was so small It was no ball at all but the other one won several prizes."

Didn't they used to offer a battery for life? (lifetime of the car replacement warranty) Has that stopped now?

Do any of the major supplies have remanufactured ones? Pricey I'm sure, but it would be nice to know they were available. I must go and have a quick search... Yep they're available - first I checked was Rimmers at just over £105... it's good to know as I haven't checked the state of my spares.

I thought that was only me? The centre console of my car is full of odd washers and bolts that I pick up when outdoors. Some of my best tools are things I've found in the middle of the road when driving, and I remember reversing about 200 yards to pick up a good pair of pliers from the road centre one day...

I think it would be more of a case of: put it on a transporter, drive home via the ferry, and see what remains by the time you reach home... And re Badwolf: every time I sell a part, I need the self-same part within weeks, so I have a garage full of odd bits that I never need, as I never sell the spare one....

On the top photo I think the axle should protrude further out of the nut than pictured; I don't think it's being sufficiently gripped by the nyloc and an MOT tester once gave me an advisory on the same thing. I went out to photograph mine for comparison and found that mine are different lengths too, so I was head-scratching for a minute until I realised the nuts are different depths.

Been offered too many cars recently and am actually having to turn some of them down... I'm starting to feel like a Pokemon player... gotta catch them all!

I had a 1973 Scimitar on which the autobox failed, so having cash in those days bought a recon unit plus torque converter. My local mechanic had a lot of head scratching over it, and when nothing appeared to line up he cut brackets, rewelded halfshafts, chopped the chassis and all sorts of other things over a six-month period (It was in his garage for longer!) THEN he admitted defeat and couldn't get the car to drive at all. It turned out that the car had a type 65 and I had bought a type 35 on the advice of the retailer as the most common box on the SE5a and when nothing would fit, the mechanic decided that he would bloody well make it fit. I had the car for two years during which time I drove it twice, spent a fortune on it and sold it as a non-runner for £1200 less than I had paid. I never trusted automatics for years until I had a T5 Volvo and it restored my faith in pedal-less driving.

I'll not be the one to phone up about it, I'll probably end up buying it.

Oh Lord not THOSE two boxes...35 and 65... ruined a Reliant Scimitar I had years ago and I've cringed ever since when I hear the names...

Just a query while we're on the subject: if the whole idea of the exhaust system is to get burned gases out of the engine as quickly as possible - and given that the tailpipe is a considerable distance from the engine - has anyone ever come up with a kind of suction device to actively suck exhaust gases away? It's the sort of thing you'd see in old ads in 1950s / 60s motoring magazines so was just wondering...

I've checked Dave's profile and it says 1970 Herald convertible, so a replacement should be readily available.

The last ones I obtained were reskinned USA frames from Chic Doig but I've just realised that was 16 years ago.... I don't know if anyone currently sells remanufactured frames, but the skins probably all come from the same manufacturer like so many other parts. The frames are the important bit; repair sections for the lower areas are probably still available if you know a good bodyworker.

And how does this relate to a Mini engine, which is sideways?

Light has dawned on marble head. The switch points downward, the contacts are held open by the pedal at rest, and when it is pressed downwards, the plunger moves out and makes contact. I kept picturing it as a switch that was pressed IN by the pedal moving downwards - no idea why as I've replaced more than a few in my time - therefore Paul's post confused me as a pedal at rest would, in my mind's eye with the backward fitting, be off the plunger completely. Make allowances for advancing years and a slowing brain, please....

In case you don't die would be more useful, then you could claim the money back again. No point wasting it...

Closest to the radiator in our cars. If not, my cars have been running backwards all these years....