1964 Spitfire 4

[Badwolf]

First time that I drove mine a quick look in the mirror showed that the engine needed more attention, as the view rearwards disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Still felt great though.

[Neil Clark]

A happy hour or so re-doing the Weber carburettor settings.  I had forgotten how straightforward they are to set up once installed and once the engine warmed up, with the Weber tweaked gently per the instructions it settled down to a smooth 750 - 800rpm tickover.  Great pick-up too.  It's got an Accuspark ignition in the distributor, I imagine for cost reasons.  Then, unpacking another case of dismantled parts to find the seatbelts I realised that it had only ever had lap belts, and those had been involved in the crash so I should have binned them.  The bolts for the diagonal belt are in the rear but they have clearly never had anything attached to them!  So a new set of lap and diagonals on order.

I inspected the tyres for tracking signs after last nights run, when I could hear tyres squealing every time I changed direction slightly.  And the fronts are badly scuffed on the outer edge though the rears are clean.  So tracking is urgent.  I'm not surprised because the front suspension needed so much work when re-installing it.  I'll get it set as close as possible to the guidance on here and eventually get someone to do it and the camber properly.

I also found the evidence I had been looking for of the date of the last restoration - 2017 which is later than I had thought.  So it had only been on the road a short while before the accident.

[Neil Clark]

1. Beautiful day, felt I had to do a longer run sometime so drove the car over to Merityre in  Kingston on Thames.  Engine good, gear change takes a bit of getting used to after the MG which is sharp.  When I arrived there was another Spit getting aligned - a Spit 6 with GT6 rear suspension.  Forgot to get a photo or his name.  Tyre place assumed we had arranged to be there together - how often does this happen?
2. Front track was way out.  Amazingly they had the specs for the car.  Their machine also checked the rears and they are both pointing slightly left - left 0 degrees 33 on the left wheel  and left 0 degrees 16 on the right wheel.  I realise that this will be a shimming job.  Can anyone advise how much adjustment comes with each shim?
3. Gearchange is a bit sloppy - is there a simple bush that could be worn?  First sounds a bit noisy but the other gears are fine.
4. After the tracking the steering feels very loose around the straight ahead, especially on left turns.  I haven't rebuilt the front suspension out of fear of its complexity.  It's a new rack, track rods etc and the chassis suspension bushes have been replaced but otherwise as it arrived.  Since the chassis is new I'm sure the shimming is wrong - I just put back the same number of shims as on the old chassis.
5. Clutch pedal became a bit "lazy" on the way home.  I haven't paid any attention to it since re-fitting it into the car and re-filling it.
6. Handbrake needs a minor tightening up.

[Clive]

When you saw "new" rack, was it one of the brand new ones, or a reconidtioned one? If recon, the rack itself may be worn, especially if it feels OK when a little off "straight ahead" (where a car spends most of its life) Otherwise, an assistant to wiggle the s=steering wheel why you peer at the bottom flexi joint can be helpful.

[Neil Clark]

Thanks Clive - I'll have to look out the invoice to check that.

[Neil Clark]

It's refurbished, but that could just be re-painted.  It was cheap.  I'll investigate further.

[Neil Clark]

The play is where the column enters the steering rack box 👎

[Clive]

so inside the rack itself. Afraid not much can be done if it is tight with the wheel turned. 

[Pete Lewis]

is this rotational play or is the shaft flaoting ???

if its rotaional try remove a shim from the rack damper cover 

the rack end spericals inside the gaitor are adjustable if there id feer float inside the rack end joints 

Pete

 

[Neil Clark]

Pete I wish I knew what that meant!  The best I can describe is that when I turn the wheel, the coupling is firm to both the column and the splines on the rack itself, but when I turn the steering wheel it goes from say 3pm to 4.30pm with nothing happening at the road wheels.

[Neil Clark]

Yes, that's secure Mathew.

[Josef]

I think the thickness of your shims corresponds roughly to the amount of toe in/out. So if you’re 1/16” toe in and you add 1/16” worth of shims you’ll be at zero. But I’ve not done this myself. I got lucky with my first estimate and it was dead on where I wanted! (This on the rear, I’ve not touched the front suspension on my cars so far)

[Neil Clark]

That's perfect Josef, thank you.

[Josef]

1 hour ago, Neil Clark said:

That's perfect Josef, thank you.

No worries, and I’d be interested to hear your results for some confirmation of the thing I read somewhere at some point being true or not!

[Neil Clark]

50 minutes ago, Josef said:

No worries, and I’d be interested to hear your results for some confirmation of the thing I read somewhere at some point being true or not!

I think it's going to have to be fix the steering rack first!  But as soon as I can get to the rears I'll let you know. 

[Colin Lindsay]

4 hours ago, Neil Clark said:

Pete I wish I knew what that meant!  The best I can describe is that when I turn the wheel, the coupling is firm to both the column and the splines on the rack itself, but when I turn the steering wheel it goes from say 3pm to 4.30pm with nothing happening at the road wheels.

That's a lot of play; are your track rod ends all ok? 

[alan.gilbert_6384]

1 hour ago, Neil Clark said:

I think it's going to have to be fix the steering rack first!  But as soon as I can get to the rears I'll let you know. 

You might want to check the shims in the yoke.  The yoke is the bit that takes all the play out of the engagement between pinion and the rack.  It has a spring to ensure it always engaged, the shims are to ensure the correct amount of steering feel is obtained.  Remove the large nut and one shim, see if the helps ( put it back together before you try it;).

[Neil Clark]

Track rod ends are new Colin and were wound on to exactly the same thread position as the ones I inherited on the damaged car.  As far as I could then see both TRE's were damaged in the crash.  Original rack looked OK externally but after what it had been through I got an untested one from eBay, which this is.

I'll have  look Alan.  Nothing to lose

[Clive]

Take care with removing shims to tighten the rack. It is VERY important that the steering will go lock to lock without going tight. (as mentioned te rack wears in the traight ahead position, so will have more play there.)

[johny]

Dont forget the rack itself has ball joints at each end with their own shims. Play in these will give similar symptoms to rack and pinion wear although it will be present over the complete range of movement. Theyre located under the rubber gaiters and you might feel the play by turning the steering to full lock (front wheels off the ground) and then with a hand either side of the extended ball joint get someone to waggle the steering wheel. If you feel any play between track rod and rack the gaiter has to be removed so that a shim can extracted to correct the wear....

[Neil Clark]

Steering being so vital I am probably going to bite the bullet and buy a properly restored exchange rack.  I'm just too hamfisted and I don't want the car to repeat its recent crash experience due to my engineering incompetence!

[Pete Lewis]

im sure you can remove a shim from the rack damper  Big nut under the greaser do check on a jack that lock to lock runs freely racks are designed to have more play on lock than straight ahead 

so it will have more play when on lock 

doing t=anything to the internal spherical is a lot more faf   but you should feel that slack

the joints in general should be stiff enough to just support the weight of its rod if when off the car the rods are freely wagging around  that would be   wrongly set up if that helps decide what to do .

pete

 

 

 

[Clive]

15 minutes ago, Neil Clark said:

Steering being so vital I am probably going to bite the bullet and buy a properly restored exchange rack.  I'm just too hamfisted and I don't want the car to repeat its recent crash experience due to my engineering incompetence!

Be VERY careful when getting a recon rack. Many are no more than painted and new gaitors.

The dolomite club does recon racks (only dolomite) but their reconditioners rejects 8 out of 10 as too worn, but they have new parts available. 

So you may just be wise to have a go, it really is not as difficult as it sounds. It is just that things can be very tight, especially the ball joints at the end of the rack. Big spanners required!

The other area that wears is the bush in the rack tube on the passenger side. Cheap to buy, but never replaced one. Can't be too difficult though. Symptoms are the teering arm from te rack woddbes back/forward a little. Makes the steering feel sloppy.

[Pete Lewis]

if you fancy cuppa  bring the rack up to me in Luton we can work through it 

Pete

[Neil Clark]

Pete - that would be amazing!  Love tea.  I was going to go to Canley Classics for it but to learn more about how it really fits together is fantastic.  We're looking after the aged in-laws here for the next ten days so can I message you after that?

49 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:

if you fancy cuppa  bring the rack up to me in Luton we can work through it 

Pete