Josef

Did you find any seats? Just spotted a pair on eBay in York https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-Spitfire-Mk4-Seats-/373951675418?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0 which might not be too insanely far for you to travel?

Before I had a real car to play with (and before I was old enough to drive anyway!) I spent a fair bit of time building and running smaller cars. As I’m still waiting on either gearbox parts to eventually turn up or the Spitfire to return from being painted, I’ve dug out my old Tamiya Mini M03 RC car. There were cracks in the chassis and some suspension parts, and the speed controller nearly caught fire when I tried to get it running… So I’ve stripped it down and ordered a whole load of parts. Sound familiar!? I can guarantee some full size car parts will now turn up…

I don’t know about the height, but the bottom of the panel attaches to four right angled brackets with spire nuts which are welded to the boot floor. They should line up with the holes in the lower edge of your trim panel. Have you replaced the boot floor perhaps? They don’t come on new panels as far as I know.

The pictured one won’t fit as the fixing to the engine block (slot/hole to the rhs of the photo) needs to be at 90 degrees to the plane of the clamp. Try the Spitfire Graveyard for a good used one.

Right I see. Photo of part 17 attached. Two per door needed. It’s not fitted in my pictures cause those bits are bagged up and I didn’t get them out. The bolt 20 goes through the hole you noticed George, and through this nylon part. You definitely need them as they keep the rail (15) in the channels properly.

17 1/2 inch with covers, by feel along the bar you’re measuring along.

Are we talking about the hole where the nylon spacer bolts on? The spacer that keeps the part of the mechanism that the glass fits to located in the vertical channels?

What screws are you meaning? Parts 18-20? Those just not fitted to mine in the photos as everything is in bits.

Did you have enough of the bits you cut from the floorpan left to maybe slide them outboard and retain the shape of the footwell, albeit narrowed to suit your chassis mods? If you see what I mean?

Can recommend replacing the lever, linkages and pins that connect the handbrake cable to the rear wheel cylinders, and welding up any wear caused by the lever on the backplate. I did this just before my Herald’s last MOT; the tester got one side to lock up on the handbrake test and the other wasn’t far off. It’s always been borderline beforehand…

I wouldn’t leave stuff sitting in the deruster for a very long time. These things will be working on the principle of being able to dissolve iron oxides (rust) at a greater rate than they’ll dissolve the metallic iron in your steel parts. But they will also dissolve that eventually. Speaking both as a former research chemist, and someone who chucked an old horseshoe in a nearly spent pot of the BlitHamber product and forgot about it for months… You could see the layering of the iron from it being forged when it came out, which was definitely interesting!

Searching “seat occupancy sensor” brings up some modern equivalents that might be worth looking in to if you’re not too fussed about it being exactly original.

I sold the one I stripped out of the seats I rebuilt recently and it went nearly instantly, so I would expect they don’t show up all that often I’m afraid. This site lists it though https://www.inracing.co.uk/teesdale-classic-car-parts-centre-catalogue-s-u/ along with other not usually available parts so might be worth a call.

Hmmm, is your heelboard definitely the original size and shape then? I would give you the measurements of mine if the car wasn’t still off waiting to be painted! Hopefully someone else will be able to chip in there.

Ah, well, the diagram Chris has posted of the dimensions of the cross section through the sill would probably be the best thing to reference here. However, providing the inner sill is not drastically the wrong shape (hopefully you have some reference from what you removed?) it should go back in exactly the same position as the factory one. The bottom of the inner sill should be in line with the bottom of the heelboard and parallel to the floor when the car is on the ground (which should correspond to parallel to the top flange of the outer sill for you provided that’s well fitted). If you achieve that condition, then the floor should be fitted against the heelboard, sill and lower edge of the front bulkhead.

Oh wow, that is quite some wear!

From what I know Chris yes that would be correct. But I have only stripped and rebuilt a heavily bodged Spitfire and looked at a lot of videos / photos of other people working on their cars, so I’ve never seen the factory inner sill to floor welds myself. You definitely described the ‘normal’ resto order of assembly. Pettifordo, I think what I’d try in your position is get both the inner sill and floor fitted up together. Clamp / self tap / your temporary fixing of choice everything firmly together and then weld the whole lot. That way you can be sure they both fit up against one another properly. Make sure your floor is straight along the edge the joins the sill too before welding, I had to put in support to make sure this was the case, though the way you’re working is pretty different (I don’t have a rotisserie)

How are you planning on welding the bottom of the inner sill to the floor? I guess you can probably drill the floor and plug weld from underneath? It’s normally plug or stitch welded from the inside, though the flange is pretty small - I would be interested to know how it was welded in the factory.

Aren’t they wood? If I’ve got the right part 36234 here then they are also available from Canleys at least!

It’s daft really that the specialist brokers didn’t fight a bit harder there (or maybe they did and didn’t succeed I suppose). After all, FJ, Lancaster etc won’t have any future business if younger people are excluded from buying classics. Then again as NM says insurance is usually pretty strange…

I don’t know actually. The Thomason book only refers to the air entry slots being moved from the bottom of the box on the Mk2 to the top on the Mk3. (As an additional bit of info the air box was black till FD75000 ish when it was switched to silver)

There’s one on eBay at the moment. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-Spitfire-1147-Air-box-Filter-Housing-Twin-SU-/224837806936?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Just had a quick flick through our “Surrey in the Hurricane” book from the storm of 87 and spotted these two destroyed Triumphs amongst a collection of other crushed cars.

You’re quite right, it’s a Mk3 Spit airbox with standard filters, and fits fine. I’m pretty certain my engine bay valances are unmodified. The only minor awkward thing is I can’t get a socket on the front airbox to carb bolt so have to use a spanner, but that’s not really the end of the world! If you’d like any more photos then just let me know. I have tried to adopt an ‘if it ain’t broke’ policy with my Herald. Though when my Spitfire is up and running I would like to try finding a good rolling road for them both just to get some real data on the performance of the carb needles with modern fuels.

Progress is going in tiny steps as I’m mostly waiting for back order parts to put the gearbox together again. The overdrive is sitting waiting for strip down and inspection, but I really don’t want to start that till I have a whole gearbox. However, I have just put the welch plugs back in the top cover, so that’s now complete, ready and waiting. I had to replace one of the detent springs, otherwise everything was serviceable after a good clean.