Colin Lindsay

I never work on alcohol either, I wait till the effects have worn off. My garage floor has large slots that were cut soon after it was built to allow for settling; they were meant to be filled with sealant as an expansion joint, but never were. Everything I drop these days ends up in one of them, so I keep a magnetic pickup tool handy and it saves a lot of blue air.

So shake him off, or shout at him to let go.

I know the handles are different but the overall shape is the same, so if you mean that the skins differ by the shape of the handle aperture, I think you're correct.

Most of the panels are made by the same manufacturer, so if you're buying the panels yourself look for the supplier who has the best deal in terms of price and carriage. I'd ring some of the professional companies, such as Chic Doig, and ask what he would charge; it will give you a ballpark figure to work on.

You wouldn't drive too far with the EPB on.... You're right, Doug, we've all got moderns but the problem is that they're becoming TOO modern. I'm the same as you, I drive a modern to shows on the mainland as 400 or even 700 miles is too far in an older car, and besides the modern has more boot space for spares. What DOES worry me is the green lobby - those who cycle or walk everywhere and so have decided that the car is a monster that needs banned, as soon as; the Government is also pandering to these types by banning the sale of new cars from the near future without having a viable replacement. The general aim seems to be to restrict the motorist by whatever means; restrict how fast we can drive, restrict where we can drive, and now it's getting to the stage where they're restricting how we can drive, by effectively making a machine, controlled by someone else's programming, to do a lot of it for us on the grounds that it's somehow safer. Drivers have never been so isolated from the road, cocooned in machines that control the temperature, nestle them in armchairs and barely prevent them from falling asleep while their iPods sing them a lullaby. I find that far more dangerous than an alert driver being in control of his car, but that's what they're trying to eliminate, and for all the wrong reasons. It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy - they'll take away more and more driver control, then take away cars from the individual on the grounds that they're no longer sufficiently qualified to drive something that has more controls and sensors than a jumbo jet used to. And on THAT note: I'm off to watch the end of the world.

Fine if you want to be a passenger; I'd like to think we're mostly drivers here who enjoy driving. Some of these mods mean you might as well be sitting in a train. It'll be a small step till someone reckons the car's brain is smarter than humans, so they'll take away any notion of driver judgement, and make us drive as THEY feel we should.

The Lindsay Porter Guide has appeared on eBay; excellent price for this copy so get it while it's hot! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HAYNES-Guide-for-Triumph-Spitfire-GT6-Vitesse-Herald/202585242629?hash=item2f2b057c05:g:rXAAAOSwzThb-XFd

I drove Vauxhall Insignias for a time and they had electric handbrakes; easy enough to master but I always felt that there were times I'd like to have the flexibility of a manual lever, rather than a small switch. I prefer to be a driver rather than a passenger with a steering wheel...

Same here. Bought three huge rolls of it at Stoneleigh back in the 1990s for £15 and have kept using it ever since (including on the roof of my estate!) . If you require anything especially waterproof for the floor (I find the felt very good for soundproofing and while my cars are all dry inside I'm not 100% sure just how waterproof the felt is when placed on floors) go to your local scrappie and get modern-day soundproofing from under the carpets of any scrapped modern; they usually throw it away so will sell it for pennies and it's completely waterproof.

It usually is, speaking from personal experience. I don't remember the rubber ever wearing out, either.

That one is amazingly well beyond saving; I've never seen one that chewed before. Chic Doig has replacement ones.

I was going to say that the best I've found are mirrors mounted close to the driver, which magnifies the rear view; but as you won't have a door quarterlight in a Spitfire, would a clip-on version attach to anywhere else, for example the screen frame gutter - or would that foul the doors? With this type, you don't have to drill anything and can slide it up or down until you get the most comfortable location for your own driving position.There are quite a few varieties for sale, rimless, framed, round, rectangular so it's really personal choice... as long as you can get it to fit somewhere....

Single rail looks like the one in the photo; your gearlever goes into a short housing and then there's one long single rail coming out of the front. 3-rail has, as it says, three rails, but they're all internal, and the gearstick goes into the more familiar long extension cover.

How did they serve their coffee?

Use a small length of brake pipe, about 1cm, over the shank of the rivet before you put it into the rivet gun; it works as an extender and fits inside the rubber and rail.

Toht-l Krap... sounds like a brilliant name for a rock band.

Thanks Dave - that's an impressive mod and following your post I'm already making preparations to do it. it makes so much more sense than having a washer sliding about on top of a plastic bush, and obviously eliminates both wear and friction.The bearing I require is an old Ford Sierra bearing, still widely available so I'll get two from eBay; they're around £13 - £14 each if I avoid the ridiculously cheap ones and the really expensive ones.... I've already made arrangements to have the metal cones drilled out on the lathe to the spec shown; this avoids raising the front of the car when the thicker bearing is placed on top of the strut. It has already saved me the price of the large washer plus two of the bushes, but no doubt AJM Engineering will charge me half a dozen sticky buns for the lathe work.

It's okay, we're safe - the rot has started! Remember we all thought that some countries would side with the UK? I was searching for bearings earlier and found this one in the 'UK only' section:

Not everyone can afford a quilt, even these days...

It used to require a special tool, it was called a spanner... And a handbook, which was fairly short: remove the roof, tell everyone it's a convertible and claim that everyone does it, but don't tell your Insurance. Simples!

Latest update as of tonight, when there was nowt on the telly and I got bored.... I'm working on the front suspension and it's totally confusing me, given that there are some bits missing, some bits incorrect, and some bits that don't match the photos in the catalogues.The struts have gone for sandblasting, given that my own compressor won't play ball any more, so I need to know what bits to order for reassembly once they come back and are painted. I'm already short of two insert bump stops, but there are other bits missing too. The parts I have from mine are below, and you can see how rusty one side was; the other has been replaced by a second-hand strut so the lower ones not as bad, plus that side has all of the required components - I think. There are two of everything apart from the huge washer. I couldn't find any trace of the other large washer in the garage, and absolutely ate the place looking for it for over an hour, as it must have rolled away on disassembly. A new one is almost £6. it was only when I inspected the other components that I found evidence that there had never been one in the first place. You can see the wear in the right-hand cone from a small washer put in place of the large one, and which ate into it every time the steering turned. I'm hoping that cone can be skimmed lightly but in any case they're available second-hand. The next problem is the order of the washers, or at least their actual existence. The exploded diagram below seems to have some components that I don't, and doesn't have some that I do have. The part that confuses me is UKC329 - in the catalogue as a nylon thrust washer, and ULC2043, listed as a rubber strut seal. I think - THINK - that the thrust washer is the black washer with the six-slot pattern, second from the right in my top photo. I don't appear to have the strut seal and the confusing thing is that the diagram appears to show the strut seal as the same size as my thrust washers; in which case, the thrust washer appears to be the same size as the hole in the spring cap; and resembles the small rubber washer to the extreme right of my top photo, which I found in the bottom of my sandblast cabinet when removing the suspension components. The solution has been to check the part numbers on eBay, of all places, which has some great photos of the parts, and I've found that my thrust washers are correct - maybe a bit worn and in need of replacement - and the strut seal is actually a huge rubber disc that goes around the inside of the top of the strut cap, in the same way as the rubber spring seat goes round the underside. The diagram is therefore totally out of proportion and doesn't help when trying to identify components. So: tomorrow I have to order more rubbery bits, a washer, and possibly a cone, and then one second-hand upper strut mounting as the really corroded side is not fit to be reused. I think I'll go for poly anti-roll bar bushes, but standard sub-frame bushes, and of course new nylocs all round. The bodyshell has turned out to be amazingly sound, even underneath, despite the poor state of the running gear and rotten subframe, which has now been replaced. I'd like to think that if I can get a free day towards the weekend, things will start to go back on again. .

...but uses up cash faster than a TR7 restoration.

Does the missus mind it sitting on your bed?

Coke wasn't considered addictive in those days, but a genuine cure-all.

What are the last letters of the commission number? DL, or CV? DL is saloon. (Hopefully not SC as that would really confuse things - that's an estate!)