DanMi

TSSC club shop says £315 (member price) that will almost certainly be your head reconditioned done by Ivor Searle who have a good reputation. £600 is just way too much, there will of course be carriage. Canleys will not be a rubbish recon. That price would include a skim, clean new guides (or bronze inserts) new valves, springs and the seats sorted, all in all about £300 is a fair price plus carriage of course their price will include labour to pack your cylinder head and send it to their reconditioners, but also consider any warranty, if you supply the reconditioned parts the garage have no responsibility for warranty of those parts so if there where to be a failure you would have to pay labour to refit, this is why I do the work myself

yes the last one looks like early GT6. Rimmers are not the best for getting the parts correct, why they have one listed as dolomite, when there is no difference is anyones guess

rimmers only list 2 herald 1360 gk and then earlier, they have 4 as 2 are new and superseded by the 2 used versions. I'm not certain of the 6 cylinders

Also the early cars (spits at lest) had a vernier on the distributer so that you set the timing at TDC and then advanced a certain number of click to get the correct timing, so you didn't need the degrees, later didn't

They changed the pointer when they went from small to large crank (4 cyl), the hole is a different size so they are not interchangeable as the crank pulley is a different diameter and the crank is a different diameter so the pulleys are not interchangeable either. single pointer = early small crank

I think intermittent operation of the j type is often the solenoid. Search on here others have put new seals in it. Wiring is pretty simple and relay not needed, only for earlier but do check for poor connections

probably just needed an Italian tune up (thrashing) after years sitting Idle. The problem with modified cars is that you have no idea what has been done and to what standard (unless you modified it). The weber would indicate that more has been done as the twin SUs work well on the mk2 (hotter mk3 cam), but the only way to tell without documentation is to strip the engine, well I guess you could measure with dial gauges to see if the cam is stock but if it isn't you still will need to know who made it to find the correct valve clearances.

Glad it's running better. After a few years pretty much idle, probably just needed a good Italian tune up (thrash) to clear everything out. The big problem with a modified car is you have zero idea of what has been done and (judging from the "improvements" to your wiring loom), how well it has been done particularly to the engine. I would guess that if it has a Weber and a 4 branch manifold, then more has been done as the standard twin SUs work well with the hotter mk2 cam (same as mk3), so it would simply not be worth the hassle and outlay without extra work. The real only way to ell what cam it has it to strip the engine and look for any markings, probably too much effort. I would just set the timing as suggested above and see how it runs hopefully the PO got the carb set up. If not it will need a trip to a rolling road.

The majority of rebuilds are done without splitting the calliper, which is a very simple process, Lucas Girling said not to split the callipers (probably to sell more replacement callipers!), but to be honest it is still a very simple process, just make sure the mating surfaces are clean. When I last did mine I sat the halves of the calliper in patio cleaner overnight (HCl acid) which dissolve any rust etc, rinsed thoroughly, dried quickly and then rebuilt and painted. Very straightforward and no issues

A very simple job, doesn't even require any special tools and the hardest part is often getting the seized piston out, so you have already done the hard part

I would get the car to a competent mechanic familiar with the car, there is no point doing a complete rebuild for a burnt out valve. They can check the compression, oil pressure and crank endfloat and be able to tell if the engine is worn. If a valve needs doing then they can take the head off and rebuild it and assess the bores for wear. A worn bottom end will give plenty of warning before giving up e.g. knocking under hard acceleration from the big ends or a rumble from the mains

yes Cars sat at home and no work for many small businesses, I went to Lanzarote recently and loads of restaurants still shut as very little business for 2 years so the tourism industry was also hit very hard

bit cheeky that they still have the website advertising services up. Plus sad to see another specialist go

Chic Doig in Perth is probably Scotland's leading Triumph workshop. As others have said get a second opinion.

I would say excesive. Look in the TSSC shop they quote £2750 for a fully rebuilt engine £410 for just the cylinder head then you would need it removed and fitted so no more than £4000 total

or use automotive double sided tape. saves drilling

That exhaust valve seat looks pretty poor, it should be a nice consistent grey, even the inlet is not perfect. It at least wants the valves ground in but probably once in that state the guides are probably worn, I would consider having unleaded seats inserted

there should be tabs fitted to the bonnet above the grill aperture with a plastic sleeve similar to on the chassis, the wires sit in the nose on the small shelf

all spitfires with a diapragm clutch use the same slave cylinder as the herald (well some a cast iron rather than ally but fuctionally the same

ok so they changed the propshaft flange from the smaller herald to the larger later one, rather than the output flange. It will probably fit just fine.

of course If I remember this is in a herald, so may need the gearbox output flange swapped over depending on what was done with the prop

best plan is to get the box out and have a look, did both engine and gearbox come from the same car? who knows what is there if the car is not standard

Just to make it harder the MK2 spit used the later integral upright or at least did by 1966 in fact fitted from to FC15575 so only on early MK1 had the adaptor

For a head gasket I wouldn't worry too much about a formal warranty, you get 6 months under the sale of goods act and a head gasket normally either fails pretty quickly or lasts pretty much forever and any decent garage will stand by their work.

at least it looks like there are no cracks. Make sure that they use hardened washers rather than standard ones for the head nuts or better still use the flanged nuts CAM4545 (minispares or minisport) from a late mini as ordinary washers can deform and lose clamping force (when I had my engine apart there were none available). You could consider putting unleaded valve inserts in whilst it's out but it should be fine with lead memory for a long time (plus once you start it would end up as a full head rebuild). I hope that those are not your pistons behind the cylinder head!