Josef

Well, that might’ve been the lack in similarity of the sales price coming in to play then!

I’d be very surprised if the tax disc fonts were identical to any readily available PC font, except possibly on the very last issues when they certainty will have been computer designed. There might be something close about (but will it be close enough for concours, who knows )

Good idea to check your shroud and tip regularly too. If the shroud has become fouled from splatter then the gas flow will be poorer, if the tip has distorted at all (I had one bend slightly) then the gas flow in the weld area won’t be uniform. Also be aware that unless you have a proper gas regulator then it’s unlikely you have a great deal of fine control over your gas flow (so settings of ‘6’ or ‘12’ may not really be uniform between your welder and the youtuber’s welder, or even very meaningful at all).

From my hand-wavey back of the envelope thoughts on the geometry / physics of the two systems. The Herald’s bonnet is shorter and pivots such that the centre of gravity of the bonnet will be somewhere close to the front of the top panel when it’s open, and that will be positioned just about over the front valance. So the springs will only be providing a relatively small assist to a quite well balanced hinge. The Spitfire on the other hand has a longer bonnet and the hinges protrude beyond the front of the car, so the centre of gravity is much further towards the rear of the car at all times. That’ll mean any springs would need to provide much more force on the inner arches, and fits with Pete’s thoughts / memories about bonnet distortion.

I have recently finally bitten the bullet and obtained an overdrive box and overdrive to fit to the Herald (via a complex plan of rebuilding this one and swapping it into the Spitfire to then at least attempt to re-seal that one as it barely holds oil and has suspicious bits of red sealant hanging down from it, before converting the Herald).

Should be a 4.11 diff for a standard Herald though right?

Oh, right, yeah I’d did think them being specified as plugged up made little sense for drain holes… I wonder if they were something to do with an assembly jig or similar.

Just opened my workshop manual to look for something else and flicked past this sealing diagram. Looks like there is a further drain hole towards the rear of the car (item 4 in the diagram) that’s heavily sealed over in Jon’s photos. In Colin’s it looks like there’s weld in that area so I assume the hole was eliminated by a previous repair.

Sorry Dave, wasn’t quite sure what you meant before. Were you meaning to list places on the Herald you’ve particularly noticed collect water / mud?

Might be something in the top cover selector mechanism then? Hopefully it’s that or the shift linkage rather than the main body of the box, fingers crossed!

What’s happening? Will the gear-lever not move into fourth position, or will the gear not engage when the lever is in fourth?

Interesting to hear that Steve. I’d read before that Triumph used American walnut but never felt the colour or grain looked quite right for walnut, and have never seen an original source (period documentation or similar). Of course years of sunlight and old lacquers could be misleading me, but even my re lacquered dash looks very different to the American walnut veneer I used for the radio box front. The inside of the glovebox door however looks very much like walnut. I did swap a couple of e-mails with Colin Heary a few years back, he identified the dash veneer as teak, so a conflicting opinion via another woodwork professional surprised me. I’m only interested in what the ‘right’ answer is for curiosity reasons though! Sorry the photos are a bit naff, the car is still mostly under dust sheeting cause of the metalwork I’m doing on the rear.

First top coat underneath. I decided to go for primer, stonechip, and then body colour on the bits of the underside of my Spitfire I worked on (which turned out to be most of it…). I’m carrying that on on the Herald as it gives an indicator of where I’ve been, even though I’m going to have a mix of patches of Valencia and mucky black bits. Not many people besides me are going to be looking under it after all!

I read, but never tried as I found a dash with good veneer, that making a sandwich of wood - polystyrene - dash + veneer - polystyrene - wood and clamping all that was a good way to get even pressure over the whole thing.

The photo of mine Pete is referring to was taken just after I'd removed the butt weld clamps. They're pretty handy for making flush repairs if you do wish to do so, and can work to some extent on more curved surfaces. It's great nowadays how easily you can come by examples of just how people are repairing various bits of car. That's why I've started sharing my photographs as I learned by looking at photos of what other people had done, and a few youtube channels (mostly Fitzee's Fabrications and Elin Yakov's Rusty Beauties - particularly his GT6 restoration), and figuring out my own preferred methods from there.

I definitely like the fact that I know the broad strokes of the history of my Herald (4 previous owners, the one before me had it 1979-2007, the first from 1970-1977). I have enough MoTs to be pretty sure the mileage is original and that it went round the clock in about 1992. I have a few letters from the last owner, and it was the only car she had ever driven! It definitely has satisfaction value for me, and I’m a little disappointed I won’t ever have such info on my Spitfire. Though perhaps I don’t want to know, one of the 14 previous keepers did a whole load of crappy brazing and painted it red (including the rocker cover and radiator), and another did some crappy welding, fillering and fibreglassing and painted it green, the last then drove it around like that for near on 20 years. Not sure there’s much value in knowing anything else!

Got the boot outrigger all welded up over the last week, saving it was a mistake in hindsight as it needed a lot of welding and grinding in awkward positions. But, done now. Popped a bit of topcoat on the upper side repairs this morning, had my booster vaccination yesterday though so am not feeling up to lying under the car painting the chassis…

Well, too late on the net curtain tip as they’re both done! But I shall bear that in mind in case there is a next time.

Seat number one. Getting the cover for the back of the seat hooked onto the frame was really hard work. I ended up stripping the insulation from some mains lighting wire and looping that round a thick bit of dowel (formerly a curtain rail), clamping the seat frame to the bench and puling down with the wire tool lopped around the hook. Once on, the wire could be slid out. The ratchet strapping shown is just a major overkill method to hold the rear flap out of the way! The base squab went together pretty well, my only complaint about the instructions was there were photos of black cable ties against black vinyl which made things a bit hard to see on occasion. I ended up with a fews spots where the leather isn't completely flat against the foam, but overall it turned out OK. Not mentioned in the instructions, but a handheld leather punch of this sort was very useful for making the holes for the cable ties (I happened to recently have obtained my great grandmother's punch so was able to use that).

Based on this http://www.spitlist.info/1500b.htm (which is commission numbers rather than engine numbers, but they’ll be close enough to give an idea) your engine is likely from a 79 US/Canada spec Spit originally.

Mine (still unfinished) was a runner, but I feel like my list would only be a little bit shorter… I very much second the Spitfire Graveyard recommendation!

Just spotted Quiller list new Herald dashboards for £230. Though I’m never quite sure how current their website is…

Oops, I see he doesn’t list Herald ones as standard products.

https://handmadebyheary.wordpress.com/ Colin Heary’s dashboards certainly look very good. He lists on eBay fairly often too so you might be able to find an estimate cost there. I got very good results relaquering a s/h 13/60 dash myself having found one with intact veneer.

Also check you have plenty of fuel in the tank! I put half a gallon can in my MkIII tank and then spent ages fiddling with fuel pumps etc, till I finally decided to put the rest of the can in and then lo and behold it started fine. I assume you have the later tank with the pickup pipe from the top? Not sure how easy it is to remove with the tank in the car, but it could be worth unscrewing it and dipping the tank to check if the pipe end will be sufficiently submerged in fuel.