Adrian Cooper

Would it be possible to cut the legs down to 2mm? Say if you held a clip of staples in a vice and used a Dremel or similar cutting tool?

John, You are, of course, correct and you explained more tightly than I did. I had assumed that Iain's question referred to tyre width not pad width. One of the downsides of thread drift perhaps (4 wheel drift in this instance) Adrian

As I understand it, friction is proportional to the force of the road surface acting on the tyres and this is stated as Pressure X Area This is equal to the weight which is distributed to each tyre, assuming a smooth, uniform and level surface. Therefore the friction is the same regardless of the width of the tyre; for a wide tyre the area is large but the force is small and for a small tyre the area is small but the force is large. In the real world, the road surface is not smooth and a wider tyre has more chance of making contact with more high spots on any given patch of tarmac, but the advantage may be minimal. Adrian

1 vote from me for the braided pipe. And while you have it all apart, why not add a second flexible pipe for remote bleeding of the clutch slave cylinder? If you do, and have a cutout door in the gearbox tunnel for checking the gearbox oil level too, it might be years before you need to take the blasted thing off again. Adrian

I second that! Good to see you back Marcus. Adrian

Black Cat Have you considered cutting an access hatch in your new cover to allow you to check and top up the gearbox oil? This saves having to remove the tunnel cover for this routine job and is a very worthwhile modification in my opinion. Adrian

Welcome Will, You will find everything you need here. There are some extraordinary, patient, knowledgeable, resourceful and boundlessly helpful people on here who have seen it all and fixed all of it. Good luck with your search for a car. Adrian

Come on David, don't tease us, show us some pictures! Adrian

If only there were some way of deleting it....

I went yesterday and got to see Mark's pickup in the flesh. I'm not sure I qualify as a Triumph diehard but I was certainly impressed by the great attention to detail on this unusual Triumph. Thank you for taking the time to show me round. More pictures Mark! Adrian

The SORN rule was introduced while mine was off the road and there was no fine when I realised it applied to my car and I filled in the form. But why not insure it too if you've spent lots of money on it? Adrian

Perhaps the Triumph ones never came loose because they had the 'belt and braces' solid steel drive pin, not a roll pin?. I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing of the engineering principles behind this issue but I also know that Triumph rarely over-engineered their assemblies and so I would not be happy with the Fitchett's shafts either. You may be a careful and sedate driver Roger and I respect your choice, but I would be seeking something as good as OE or as near as possible. The problem is that we are all getting too used to accepting substandard replacement parts. Poor quality rubber parts are one thing, but elsewhere on this forum (or might be Sideways) there is a thread about problems with repro brake callipers that give a long pedal travel and there is one reply that proposes the solution that you just need to remember to pump the brake pedal before you need to use it. I know that the argument goes that the suppliers are trying to keep prices at the low level that they believe we will be prepared to pay, but this only leads us in a race to the bottom. We need to be less British and to complain and let the suppliers know that price is not the only criterion. It is good to see that you are already doing this with the company who supplied your drive shafts Roger, and I will be very interested to hear what their response will be. I would say that there is a strong argument for a recall of these shafts which are demonstrably 'unfit for purpose'. I am genuinely worried that these cheap repro parts will be the achilles heel of the classic car world, especially with the crazy mot exemption, and that wheels falling off and dodgy brakes etc. will be the reason all our old crocks are finally limited to restricted use or forced off the road altogether. Sorry, rant over. Adrian

I got mine from these chaps http://www.gsparkplug.com/fuel/fuel-pipes-hoses-connectors/fuel-pipe-fittings-imperial?p=3&page=3 But do order over the phone and talk to the chap there who is an expert so that you get the right thing. Adrian

And what a good day it was! I hadn't seen racing on the full Grand Prix circuit since the late 80s and I had been really looking forward to this event. There were huge and varied grids of cars that were driven with real gusto and great competitive spirit. None of this 'parade' or 'demonstration' nonsense, just genuine racing with plenty of battling and overtaking. Plenty of highlights including one from our own John Davies who overtook a Porsche 911 round the outside on Druid's hairpin bend, a truly ballsy manoeuvre, and then went on to have an epic nip and tuck with the Porsche for the next 4 laps. For one of the classic single seater races I sat and watched from the far end of the GP circuit, deep in the woods with nobody else in sight except a marshal; all the evocative names like Hawthorns Bend and Dingle Dell. Between races I sat and ate the best blackberries I have ever found. And to cap it all, I met Bern in the paddock. I drove home a very happy boy. Adrian

Does the Dashboard Revolution book have a section on fitting gauges in other places? I have a 'Funk meter' fitted to one of my bass guitars..........

Hi Reg, My Spitfire was off the road for years and juddered when I first put it back on the road. I was getting prepared to replace the clutch but the juddering disappeared all by itself within about 100 miles of use. Maybe giving your clutch some time to bed itself in again, after having been seized onto the flywheel, might save you some work? I hope it proves to be this simple for you. Adrian

Hi Adrian, Thank you for your concern. I did a lot of research on this very question and there are many who share your opinion on using ptfe tape on compression fittings. However, there are just as many who advise its use and I chose to go with that camp as their opinions seemed to be based more on first hand, practical experience. I hope you manage to solve your problem. Adrian

Hello Adrian, Forgive me if this is a silly question but are you using 1/4 inch tubing and compression fitting not 6mm? The fitting in the tank will be expecting an imperial olive and pipe which is just a tiny bit bigger than 6mm and so may not grip properly on the smaller bore. I redid all my fuel line recently and didn't have any problems with the actual fitting of the unions once I had found the correct parts online (which was a mission in itself) I did use ptfe tape on all the threads and olives just to be sure of a really good joint. Adrian

Hi Nick, It's wonderful how enterprising the younger generation can be with this exciting new technology. We have actually been down this road already on this forum in a thread started by our own Uncle Pete To cut a long story short, my son also produced a 3D model of that same part and we had it printed in ABS and PETG. One of our valiant fellow Triumpheros had the part on long term test in his car and the printed part failed in the same place after about 8 months. However, my son has uploaded his 3D model to the Shapeways website where it can be ordered in any material you choose. Several have been ordered in aluminium I believe and these seem to be reliable so far. Pete did also start a thread asking for suggestions for other parts that are unobtainable that could be commissioned for 3D printing and there were very few replies and so we didn't progress with anything else. I hope your post rekindles some interest in this idea as I think there are real possibilities with this technology. Adrian

Always, It's good to see how others are doing/have done it but remember to include plenty of pictures. Adrian

I had another angle drive fail on Tuesday which makes 3 in 14 months. It is not just the expense that annoys me but the job of taking out the gearbox tunnel is only second to replacing the differential in the rank of irksome things to do with your Spitfire. Each time I have bought a new drive cable too and replaced the speedo with on that I know to be good, and yes, I fit the copper washer. Each failure follows the same pattern; a long, fast run on a hot day and all is fine until I stop, then when I restart the speedo has failed. No strange noises or swooping needles. Inspired by Clive's post I decided to have the back off one of the broken drives to see what had broken and if I could fix it. All 3 had suffered the same failure point that Clive mentions where the square drive pin just spins in its ferule rather than transmitting the drive to the gears (which were in perfect, smooth running condition) In this first picture you can see the offending part which is actually in three bits, the gear wheel, the ferule that runs through it and the square drive pin. You can see the end of the drive pin poking out of the ferule and I assume that the ferule is designed to grip the drive pin when it is pressed into the toothed wheel. In the original Smiths angle drives the hole through the centre of the ferule was threaded, rather like the rifling on a gun barrel, so that it gripped the drive pin which is made from twisted steel strands. These new, crap repro parts don't have this and this is the root of the problem. My guess is that the heat from the gearbox makes the different metals expand at different rates and so lose their grip on each other and once they have started slipping there is no way that it will ever grip again. What really surprises me is that it worked for as long as it did. Following Clive's instructions I removed the pin from the ferule. I tried to drill it out but , even using a pillar drill, the bit kept wandering off the steel wires of the drive pin and cutting into the softer metal of the ferule. So I gripped the pin in the vice and carefully levered the ferule away from it. Be careful with the ferule as it is very soft and it will not run well in its bearing if it is deformed in any way. I didn't want to try to reuse the pin so I found one of the old speedo drive cables and thoroughly degreased it and the ferule. I used Araldite to glue the pin into the ferule making sure that it protruded 20mm from the front of the drive, like the original. When the glue had dried I used a Dremel type device to cut off the rest of the cable and I filed the cut end flat, finishing it off on an oil stone as this surface runs against a domed washer under the cir-clipped end cap. Final reassembly with plenty of fresh grease and time to refit it. Higher up this thread Uncle Pete had suggested, perhaps jokingly, that it would be a good idea to make an access hatch in the gearbox tunnel and this is what I did, not because I don't have faith in this repair but because I hate taking the tunnel out so much. Worked like a charm Pete! I went for a long test drive today and everything seems fine. Thank you Clive! Adrian

Piston/cylinder number 1 is at the radiator end of the engine. Adrian

Hi Citybreeze, I took off and replaced my fuel pump last week and I don't remember hooking it under the cam, I think it runs on the other face. Certainly the shiny wear patch on the lever would suggest that it goes this way. I'm sure one of the real experts will be along soon but I would be tempted to try it the other way. Good luck! Adrian

Richard's original post prompted me to check the state of the fuel hoses on my Spitfire. It was all R6 stuff that I had put on about 18 months ago and it seemed to be in good shape except for a section that runs through the boot floor, joining the metal pipe from the fuel tank to the 8mm copper pipe that runs to the engine bay. This bit had gone very hard and certainly needed to be replaced and I decided to redo it all to be on the safe side. Somebody else had suggested putting in a fuel cut off valve as well and so I ordered one of these as well as 2 metres of Codan R9 hose. I drained the tank by undoing the rubber pipe under the boot floor and then went to pull the other end off the metal pipe from the fuel tank. I didn't do more than just touch the pipe but that was enough to snap off the 50 year old metal pipe from the bottom of the tank. I hate to think of what would have happened if this had broken off while there was any amount of petrol in the tank, it was clearly about to let go at any moment. This prompted a rethink and I remade the pipe in 1/4 inch OD copper pipe and used compression fittings to make the entire run from the tank to the engine bay from new. On the early Spitfires the petrol pipe comes out from the bottom of the tank and this part is just in the right place to be snapped off by the spare wheel if the car suffers any rear end impact. For further piece of mind I cut a thick piece of rubber that was just thick enough to protect the pipe and spread the impact load if that should every happen. I cut a hole in the tank cover to allow access to the fuel tap and covered this with a box to protect it. At the other end of the car I made a bracket to support the copper pipe where it joins the new rubber hose to the fuel pump. I used a pipe cutter rather than a hacksaw to cut the copper pipe as this rounds the cut end and makes a much less jagged cut so that there is a reduced chance of Pete's dreaded rubber slivers being cut off the inside of the hose. I hope the pictures explain all this better and that it is of some help to somebody. Adrian

I'm also 6' 3" and, like Mark, my flat 14" is a Mota-Lita wood rim wheel which at least one observer thinks is the best part of my car. I was a little concerned that a wooden wheel would transmit road vibrations and make the car tiring to drive but it's actually very comfortable to hold. For that reason I would recommend paying the extra rather than getting one of the cheaper versions.