Josef

I checked my small collection of misc Stanpart/Unipart bags of clips. No joy I’m afraid. Might be one of those times where calling Fitchetts to see if you get lucky and they’ve got some squirreled away would be worth it. Great to see the roof on though!

This is wear, it should be round. They were NLA the last time I looked, but I turned down a bolt as a replacement. If you’ve not got a metal lathe you could probably start with a cut down stud, or longer bolt, so you get a non threaded section. Though I think the non threaded bit needs to be narrower than the nominal threaded diameter.

I had a NOS rear overrider in a Leyland box with a 1981 pick date. I’ve also got some Rover branded Spitfire sills stickered with the green and blue striped logo, and the one I fitted on my Spitfire passenger side had a Rover ship hologram logo so that must be mid to late 90s. So clearly new parts were being produced for some time after the small chassis Triumphs had ceased production, and ten to fifteen years was the expected lifetime of the cars so it’s reasonable to expect the manufacturer to keep producing a full range of spares for that sort of time period. Anyway, NOS nerdery aside, great to see the progress Colin!

That looks like it might be the one from other pictures I can find. Thanks!

Got this in a lot of mostly Spitfire parts last year. It’s not GT6, and it doesn’t look like Stag, Dolomite, 2000 to me. Anyone got a suggestion!?

What you describe probably means something is worn out in the ball/cup/spring setup that the lever pivots on. There’s no way of adjusting anything higher or lower.

https://www.replacementkeys.co.uk/strebor-ss-series-keys.html plenty of places they’re available new (they’re used for all sorts, from filing cabinets to cars!) that’s just one example.

@martyn wright for your boot handle, take it off the car and look at the square shank that projects in to the actual latch mechanism. There most likely will be a number stamped on it. If it has a two letter prefix then that’s your full key number and you can get one cut to pattern. If it’s just three numbers then it will be an FS or FP series key. The number ranges of those key types don’t overlap so you can look which one has the appropriate number in it and get a key cut. It’ll cost £2-5 ish. Provided the lock has not been re-keyed, which I’d say is less likely given it came without one! For what it’s worth the lock handle is the same as the roundtail Spit, Sunbeam Alpine, TRs etc, so the one from Moss will be right if you want to go that route. It’s also easy enough to strip the barrel out and fully replace that (£18 ish from Canley’s). Pretty sure the replacement barrels are only for FP/FS type locks though, and you can’t swap barrels with a non FP/FS handle. Or alternatively re-key your existing barrel to match one you already have.

I’ve bought parts from them. Chrome is generally good, the condition/shape of the part they started with, not always so…

Chances of finding good rear overriders for less than a new one are very low. I got lucky a few months back and got a NOS one on eBay but I paid not far off brand new. The new new one I have from Fitchetts via the club shop appears to be holding up well (unlike the Bastuck Spitfire rear bumper…) I have a box of boot handles, so can probably find you a reasonable one, but if you’re looking for perfect chrome you’ll need to have it chromed or buy new (chrome on my 15 year old ‘new’ handle has also survived well). I’ve also got some front overriders I was intending to take to the next Autojumble, but they’re not in the Very Good category! If the lack of working key is the only problem with your existing handle I (and others!) can talk you through dealing with that.

Good excuse to get the car out next Sunday, it’s the North East area meet!

I’m afraid there’s no quick and easy solution to rusty looking bits… You could give the water pump there a coat of hammerite or similar direct to rust paint which’d hide the rust for a few years, easiest done with it removed though at which point it’d be easy enough to clean it and paint it properly! The edge of the head there maybe you could improve with a wire brush/wire wool and a bit of oil. Demonstrates you’re not leaking oil from the rocker cover though! My personal opinion is just drive it! Then when you have to remove something take the chance to give it a good clean up and paint. Otherwise you might find you’ve suddenly got a pile of car parts in boxes rather than a car you can enjoy driving around My Herald’s engine bay looks quite pretty now, but that’s happened incrementally over 16ish years of ownership.

You have to do this anyway, with the glass wound down as far as it’ll go. I’ve got my seal clip fitting tool wrapped in hockey tape to minimise risk of glass damage. Also if you’ve not bought the clip fitting tool yet, don’t! It’s only a bent bit of maybe 1.5mm steel, you must have some scraps kicking around and be able to save yourself £10-15 or whatever daft price they’re sold for…

No! If you feed your device 12V when it is expecting 5V it will not be very happy…

Was just stripping down a 16ACR to rebuild, using the press to remove the front bearing, and the case cracked. Perhaps I should’ve been supporting it differently, but too late now… Anyone have a spare I can cannibalise, or indeed a known good one? There’s a couple on eBay, relatively expensive though so by the time I’d bought one of them plus parts it’d be in the territory of a new replacement…

It goes on the hood header rail, rivets through the channel, hood fabric then the frame itself. Do you have the early (Herald style) or late (square tail style) hood catches? I imagine the former if you were looking for a continuous seal channel? I’ll post a photo of mine later when I can get out in the garage.

You’ll really wonder that when you’ve got a couple more Totally not speaking from experience…

Royal blue mk3s are the best kind of Spitfire, I might be slightly biased though

The seam cover should be DIY-able (two strips of steel, tack either side of the seam, weld the corner, careful grinding / dressing). Don’t expect you'd be able to salvage that part from a donor. How bad is the roof? Worth asking the usual suspect breakers (Spitfire Graveyard, Spitbitz) for a donor, even if they’ve only got a section less bad than yours it might help.

I’ve wondered about trying something like this https://cjautosheywood.co.uk/product/visbella-leather-repair-kit-c117/ on my Herald dash. Not got round to it, and in some ways I like the little nicks as they’re part of the history. Anyway, at £11 ish and a bit of time I’d think it worth a go.

It was earlier. My Dec 69 built DHC has no flags, or filled holes in the wings!

Yeah as Johny says the arm on the gearshift mechanism is bent. Straightening both the piece parallel to the gearshift and the bit perpendicular to it should bring you in to contact with the switch. They really don’t need much to actuate.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the a-posts can also splay outwards. I had, in addition to jacks under the floor, a post and b post, a ratchet strap between the a posts. Less likely to be a problem on the GT6, but @Richard Baines definitely something to watch out for on the Spitfire, as well as making sure your door glass and windscreen frame will fit relative to one another. Dropped a posts can result in the window not closing cause the screen ends up tilted back!

Have you got an FD prefix engine number? It should make 75BHP in standard tune, and it’s a nice revvy engine, mine certainly feels fast! Would be worth checking the carbs, dizzy etc for wear, and perhaps measuring the cam lift to make sure it does have the expected Mk3 cam fitted. Plus a good tune up, best thing I’ve ever learned for making the engine more performant is doing the timing by feel and road test!

Four of course, then you’ve got one whole light Glad to see the door skins are looking like good pressings. I had a bad one… They all come from the same place, and the supplier was very reluctant to accept that one could possibly be wrong, despite photographs showing this was the case. Luckily Mick Dolphin had a NOS one which solved the problem for me (and I got a refund on the original eventually) but I was concerned that this was another thing we were only getting in crappy quality. With the sills, even NOS Stanpart ones, be aware that they may also require some modifications to fit, so don’t topcoat them immediately! I was surprised there, but it’s the old 50 year old wonky body wonky chassis problem. For anyone looking for sills the modern repros looked pretty comparable to the NOS one I had: Adjusting the Sills to Fit - NOS Versus New | 1970 Triumph Herald 13/60 | Part 15 https://youtu.be/1is9d95_ZvY