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1976 Spitfire 1500


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Still continuing on the fitting P700 lights to a spitfire. I know it can be done as I have seen a spitty with them fitted. I took the units apart to see the nodules people mentions which stops the sealed units spinning under the beauty ring but these units don't have them. They do have 3 clips on the unit which tie with 3 gaps in the adjuster ring but the units are too shallow for the clips to tie into the adjuster ring gaps. I have seen these clips on the back of old brit sealed units when restoring old triumph bikes and they tie into W clips, would W clips work here? Any other advice?IMG_20210430_155946.thumb.jpg.f96956dc0df0b52e51387dadf6de1c97.jpgIMG_20210430_160800.thumb.jpg.222dd079c734c68a175df0bdd0532868.jpg

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At that point trying to make everything fit and inline before paint. Its quite satisfying connecting all the bits back together.

I also ordered a different headlight bowl set from Paddocks to see if that sorts out the spinning headlight issue.

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Struggling fitting the o/d adaptor plate to the single rail gearbox. There is a dowel type rod that sits in the adaptor plate (marked in the picture) but it seems to be hanging on it and stopping the plate going down even after tapping with a rawhide hammer. I have cleaned up the dowel and its nice and smooth, does it require some force to get it to fit. The bolts that connect the adaptor plate to the gearbox will span the gap and I could slowly use the bolts to pull the plate to the gearbox if required but that feels like a last resort.

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The bar sticking out of the main casing is the reverse idler spindle and that hole in the adaptor is its rear support so has to be a good fit. The adaptor should tap down into place and I think its preferable to do it like that than use the bolts which might not pull down evenly - obviously a bit of oil on it will help. 

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Found out why the adaptor plate would not seat. the reverse idler spindle was not fully home. Unfortunately with all my messing a couple of needle rollers escaped and the spindle is not running as freely as it should. My assumption is the only way of getting the needle rollers back in is to completely remove all the gubbings from the gearbox to get to the idler gear. If I have to do that I might as well replace all the bearings and refurbed the gearbox.  

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not sure if we're getting mixed up here? The reverse idler doesnt have any rollers as it runs directly on the spindle (well it turns slowly and isnt used very much) and the only loose rollers in the box are in the laygear. There are 25 at each end of the layshaft and they are important but everything else has to be removed to get to them.

I dont know what youve done on this box but I would certainly want to look at the layshaft and mainshaft tip bearings and more importantly the surfaces they run on. However I would only replace the items that need it because the durability of new replacements is an unknown...   

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bit of a frustrating day with poly bushes causing issues fitting the swingarms. I had planned to do both sides today but only managed to do most of one.

I found that the drop links are dead and the track rod ends the same so they are now ordered.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've just brought a set of Hel branded S/S braided hoses for the daughters Spit Mk2, to replace the 20year old Goodridge S/S ones which aren't Roadworthy compliant here in Aus, the S/S braiding needs to be plastic covered where its swaged at the ends, ADRules are worried about the S/S fatiguing where it flex's at the ends? I need to replace the old ones to get a local Roadworthy to transfer ownership into her name, complicated she was working for VW in Germany when we brought the car so it's all in my name.

Interestingly I brought the Hel set locally, well ex Queensland, but only 3 hoses turned up, I queried why only 1 rear hose for a car with Independent rear suspension, answer was some owners only ask for 3 hoses, (Crap) but sir we do a 4 hose set too, I argued with them got the extra hose at cost and no postage costs, and their Customer Dept is reviewing their advertising! Even with the extra cost they were marginally cheaper than buying and shipping ex UK.

Mind you the Hel product looks good, the S/S braiding has a plastic sleeving over it's whole length similar to the later Goodridge ones I got for the Vitesse around 8 years ago.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A job I had been putting off finally needed to be done. At the start of the build I fitted a new rear inner wing section and not very successfully. I transferred the old threaded bumper iron fittings from the rotted panel to the good but on one side I hadn't drilled the hole anything like big enough and the other side I managed to weld part of the thread. I had probably walked away in disgust at this point as I hadn't drilled the floor for the lower bumper irons either (I must had replaced some of the boot floor too, forgotten that bit). So I stepped drilled the smaller hole into the right size but scratching up the first threads of the fitting then tapped very slowly both fittings and by some miracle it worked. Once I had one bumper iron in it was easy to mark the correct points and drill the holes for the lower ones.

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after a thoroughly good cleanup, its amazing the amount of crud a boot attracts I did a bit of painting in 2K.IMG_20210610_210209.thumb.jpg.472a07dfb45888f961687d9aea222128.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/04/2021 at 16:17, hardhatharry said:

Little bit of work done on the dash, removing the veneer and making some extra holes.

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Also the new veneer arrived today

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Bit of an update ordered some burnishing cream to polish up but the dash now looks like this.IMG_20210621_164720.thumb.jpg.304a9e4fd8a6febe5d6f407b776504b0.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Back from my hols and found some time to investigate the leaky carb issues. 

Looking at the worse carb I took off the top of the float bowl and took the pin out which holds the float bowl, there is no evidence of the float leaking, the float valve is new and removing the seat revealed no blockages or dirt. I did notice that the gasket has been pinched when fitted so I ordered a new one the the pin is rather dirty so I gave it a clean

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Putting it all back together I sprayed some brake cleaner into the bowl took a look at the bottom of the float bowl. The feed to the carb was leaking badly and I could pull out the feed pipe from the bottom of the float bowl without any resistance. I noticed that the ferrule had been pushed into the feel pipe and none of the rim was showing outside the pipe. Undoing the nut for the feed pipe showed that the seal had not been compressed, it was at that point the nut escaped hit my foot and disappeared into another dimension as I couldnt find it after an hour of trying, another one ordered. The feed pipe on both carbs also have kinks in them, I dont know if this is an issue IMG_20210801_120544.thumb.jpg.39c1d7580ca4804cd03fae09151d9f8b.jpg

It was at this point and noticing how manky the carbs were I decided to stick them in the sonic cleaner for a couple of hours and hey presto like new (ish)

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So I now need to wait for new gasket sets and jet pipe seal kit to turn up.......

Back to welding tomorrow.

 

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