Works Spitfires

The problem is once crank end float goes out of tolerance wear is accelerated, and the inevitable lost washer, and subsequent main bearing cap, and crank damage happens. Ignore any excess crank endfloat at your peril, it can have very expensive consequences all for the sake of a couple of quid new thrust washers.

As one of the largest suppliers of T9 conversion bits you might assume that at least one of our fleet has one fitted, not so! I have to say hand on heart I have never broken, or worn out to the point where a few needle rollers, or the odd tip bearing are needed in any Triumph box. I used to pull the gearbox on the Chicane every 50,000 miles, and swap a few syncro rinds around, Same on our Vitesse (pictured), and that has over the years been given a fair bit of stick doing the odd track day, autosolo, etc. However the most important thing I have found is to carefully monitor oil level. The small chassis cars in particular have a very small oil capacity. Let it loose a bit at your peril. I also change gearbox (and diff) oil every time I do a engine oil, and filter change. The majority of customer gearboxes I have rebuilt over the years show neglect of the above. The remaining oil in them generally stinks like its been there since the car was manufactured

Anyway, back to the workshop, I have some close ratio 'works' Spitfire gearboxes to build.

Never understood the extra expense of Polybushs here. The specification of the original plastic bushes (and our locally made repros) was never an issue. Has anyone ever seen an badly worn roto plastic bush? 99% of the ones I've removed which have generally been 50 +year old originals come out looking like they would go again (after cleaning off the rust from the wishbone/steel spacers).

He initially recommended Metalastic bushes to replace the plastic trunnion bushes. I drove a Vitesse that had been fitted with those as per that advice. I nearly drove into the ditch at the first corner I came to! Change of underpants time! I hope that he did change that advice later to something like sealed needle rollers. or the like.

Co-incidentally I had Mick Papworth (he was here borrowing our o/d test rigs, and the lathe) sat opposite me yesterday in the office, and we were discussing this because he had noticed the roto bush bits on the desk with my vernier from earlier. He had a careful look at them, its nice to have a second pair of eyes, I thought I was going mad! Anyway Peter has just been on the telephone, and I have offered him a refund which he seemed happy with. Good luck Peter, I hope you find a solution to your problem. David

"Thicker TR7 type washers/dustcovers, etc" I wasn't aware such a thing existed, where do they fit on a TR7? Our roto kits are for roto GT6, and Vitesse.

and back in the room again! There are two types of link. Peter has the wider ones which look like they have cast on washers. Whereas the other type is plain cast at the bottom, and needs selective washers to make up the considerable gap.

I should have identified myself for those of you who haven't worked it out. David @ Canley Classics

Pete I thought I would answer your enquiry on here rather than calling you back, helps everyone then doesn't it. As explained on the phone a few minutes ago it came as a surprise that the dimensions of the plastic bushes should be called into question at this late stage as they were made a few years ago now. They are made locally for us by a great engineering company, and we have never had issues with them. Anyway as I also explained we have NOS bushes here removed from NOS wishbones some years ago, and kept as patterns just for this sort of thing (we have extensive OE pattern stores to cover the many parts we have made locally). As you can see from the attached pictures the NOS bush is showing as slightly thicker than the repro, but this is down to my cheapo Chinese Verynear as I couldn't find the decent one in the workshop! However every time I measured them the variance swapped the odd thou from one to the other, and back again, so I would say they are near as damn it identical. Your problem lies elsewhere, I have my own ideas, but I'm keen to see how this topic pans out first.

I have to be careful there aint much left

Ours were curved along the top as original. We had NOS Stanpart wings to drop onto the tooling (fitted like a glove) to show anyone who questioned this. However there was a cheaper 'flat' hand made wing available throughout the trade which meant that very slow turnover on our part pressed wings didn't justify another run. There was only about £30-50 in it depending on your chosen retailer, but most chose the cheaper option, pity.

Its not just the bulge that adds height to the bonnet, it curves upwards more than a standard bonnet all across its width, hence the new nose cone top panel. I would guess there is an extra 5" or 6" of clearance in there over a standard set up. The PE166 is a bulky old engine in all dimensions, I'm not sure why anyone would try and shoehorn one into a Spitfire! As for the Museum opening in the near future, its unlikely unfortunately.

We (Canley Classics) have always sold them as an aftermarket item to fit to inlets on worn engines. They were NOT fitted originally, nor are they needed on inlet valve/guides that are to original tolerance.

There were significant issues with those Heritage TR6 shells, one of the reasons they have never been produced again.

We have had a few NOS bulkheads go through our hands, and the odd rear tub. No big secret on Dicky Symonds NOS 2000 shell, he has had it over 30 years, and has taken it the odd show in the past.

Canley made several batches over a number of years. At the end of the day there was only ever one real trade buyer for them that made it worthwhile for us to do them.

We used to make all of these parts. The 'male' part was cast locally, and finish machined in Nuneaton. The 'female' part was pressed here, with the slider bit cast by the same company that did the other casting. The internal spring was made specially for us by a company in Birmingham. All the screws were proprietary off the shelf items. All the metal parts were plated in Coventry. The door internal strengthener parts were fabricated here in our press shop. We did the last production run of these about five years ago, and sold the last of the stock a couple of years ago.

When we crossed the Sahara I don't recall drinking any extra water. We had a 10ltr water container in the car, but that was there in case we lost water from the radiator, which we did at one point in the Atlas mountains.

Yes we are the source for these in the trade, that's why we are cheapest! JK had to have a mile of extrusion done for these to make it economic. That was at least thirty years ago, talk about being in it for the long term.

That's the tribute Turn Left For Tangier Herald prototype I built for JK in the Sahara. We had planned to do the West African Safari, but it got cancelled due to a war in the Western Sahara. We decided to go anyway, and the Landcrab crew who had also signed up for the event joined us. Everything was going well until we got to Daklar in the Western Sahara where we missed a UN convoy by a couple of hours. The next convoy was a couple of weeks away, and we were running out of provisions, so we turned around and headed home. I dropped JK off at Casablanca airport, and drove home on my jack (apart from an Australian hitch hiker for a few hundred miles).

Now you come to mention it I remember the port holes! I also recall Andy having a Herald Estate that had been left out in a field for many years. JK asked me to get it up, and running, and MOT'd as cheaply as possible. I recall the main motivation was that it ha a full tank of fuel in it when it has been originally parked up, just sufficient for Andy to drive it back to Wales when I finished it. I bet it smoked all the way home on that ancient fuel.

JK copied Ray Hendersons original diary of the Africa run back in the 90's when we were building JK's tribute Herald saloon to the run. I recall it ran to many pages, and was much more comprehensive than the book.

Many (many!) years ago there used to be an Atlas stored here when JK owned the farm. I have a vague recollection that it was Andy Jones's van. Back then I had little interest in it, and never really had a good look at it. My taste in vehicles has obviously matured since then! I seem to remember JK (or was it Mick Papworth?) telling me it was dragged out of hibernation to help with JK's move from 55 Whitmore Park Road into his first shop on Aldermans Green Road. That must have been a very slow process!

Mike is this the same Register that is now maintained by Bill Davies?