The Spitfire that just needed a tidy up...

[daverclasper]

Great job Josef. Thanks a lot for all the photos and info.

Dave

[Josef]

Fitted a new fuel pump, and probably more importantly put some more fuel in (which I think was more likely the problem before..). So the fuel pump change probably wasn't necessary but I wanted one with a fuel priming lever anyway as that's what my Herald has, and it makes it simpler to see if the pump is doing anything. Anyway, with that I got it started and drove it outside. This was May 2021. With the car on the drive I could get all the muck that had accumulated from 10 months of metalwork cleaned off, and popped the alternator conversion on when the engine bay was a little less filthy.

[Josef]

Well, then, that should've been time to think about organising paint right? Nope, I turned my suspicious eyes on the driver's door. It had been re-skinned in the past, but the bottom lip had either opened out or never been crimped down fully and was rusting. That in itself would probably have been saveable, but the hinge area looked as bad as it had been on the passenger side, and would've been much more awkward to fix with the skin on, so off it came.

I did have a chat with Dave at the Spitfire Graveyard at before chopping this one apart. He said most earlier doors he sees now are rotting out in this area. I also asked about skinning a MkIV / 1500 door with an earlier skin. It's do-able apparently, and he recommended swapping out the area of the shell where the later cars have the door pull (top centre) as this fouls the earlier trim style and stops it sitting nicely. I still went with repairing the one I had though as it isn't actually too hard an area to fix given it's mostly just flat metal.

[Josef]

More door shell repairs

[Josef]

Door completed and back on the car. Made a much better job of the skin on this one.

[Nick Jones]

Some high quality work being done here 🙂.

Good to see.

Nick

[Josef]

Couple of bits and pieces - checking the rear toe (which was miraculously in spec with my initial guesstimate number of shims) and drilling holes for / test fitting the rear bumpers before the car was trailered off for paint. 

[alan.gilbert_6384]

On 12/12/2021 at 20:51, Josef said:

With the wheel arch finished I started to prepare to fit the wing. This is the point I discovered the repo b-post / door shut panel was poorly shaped, and had to scavenge the remains of the original from my scrap pile and heavily repair it. With that done the door to wing fit started to look more sensible, and I could shut the door!

great work

[alan.gilbert_6384]

Just now, alan.gilbert_6384 said:

great work

I too have used Hammerite rust beater number 1, with Kurust first for a number of years, really especially in marine environments, never seen it fail yet.

[Josef]

1 hour ago, alan.gilbert_6384 said:

I too have used Hammerite rust beater number 1, with Kurust first for a number of years, really especially in marine environments, never seen it fail yet.

I have taken everything I absolutely could back to bare metal before painting, so hopefully my reliance  on the anti-rust properties will be minimal, but good to hear about it's marine performance that's reassuring!

[Josef]

September 2021 - my seat kit from Owen at Park Lane arrived, so I went big on electrolytic rust stripping of the seat frames! They needed a few minor weld repairs but were otherwise pretty decent. I created a replacement for the long disintegrated headrest support spring from some old bits of wind chime that I put a thread on each end of along with some bits of pen barrel and suitable diameter springs. 

I decided to keep the late 1500 seats that the car came with. It's had them since at least 1997-98 so they're part of this car's history now I feel. I also didn't fancy paying £100s for some original style seat frames, plus £100s more for runners, if I could find them, to build up some non-adjustable, presumably less comfortable seats!

(Wrigley's gum wrapper and a US stamp that fell out when stripping the seat frames make me think they could have originally come from a US car.)

[Josef]

Re-webbing was pretty straightforward with the Park Lane kit. I used a thin screwdriver to pull the webbing hooks into place.

The seat runners I had completely disassembled and re-plated quite some time back so it was nice to finally pair them up with freshly painted frames again!

[Josef]

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).

[Badwolf]

Looking really good. I also had a few problems with the instruction sheet but all turned out fine.

[Pete Lewis]

to aid pulling the covers on have you got some old net curtain draped over the foam allows it to slip on easy

 you can use a bin bag but they can make the seat noisy

Pete

[Badwolf]

In my case it was squash a bit, pull a bit, but there were two of us doing the fitting.

[Pete Lewis]

and any wrinkles make a bit of pipe from the wallpaper steamer and use the wand under the covers to heat out any wrinkles 

[Josef]

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. 

[Josef]

Since I’m giving the paint over the welding work on the Herald a chance to harden up a bit before starting to put it back together (and waiting for a part or two to turn up) I’ve started stripping the spare o/d gearbox to go in the Spitfire. It is currently fitted with an overdrive box, and is a genuine factory overdrive car, and was running fine. Problem is, it leaks badly, even by the normal leaky Triumph gearbox standard. So, plan is to rebuild this one and drop it in the Spit, then eventually the Herald can finally have an overdrive conversion with the other one once it’s a bit more oil tight. 
 

This is my first gearbox rebuild, so we’ll see how it goes… Current findings are that the remains of the oil looked pretty much new, the input shaft is rusty enough it’ll probably need replacing, lay shaft looks new, main shaft is badly worn on the surface that runs inside the input shaft and the woodruff key that holds the oil pump drive on is jammed in the shaft, gears generally look ok (can’t spot any major wear, chips or similar).

[Josef]

Had an email from Tim at Willow Triumph yesterday evening with photos of the panel fit tidy up he’s been doing for me before sending the Spitfire for paint. So hopefully not too long before I get it back and can start reassembly!

[Josef]

Yep definitely! Even more so I’m looking forward to seeing it freshly painted and knowing for certain underneath the paint is solid metal this time!

[Josef]

Now I have the spare box in bits. I’ve not cleaned anything up properly but in general the gears look to me all to be in pretty decent shape, excepting reverse which has a tiny bit of chipping. I’d say this gearbox has probably been rebuilt in the past as the lay shaft looks barely used, and the synchros look unworn and all feel positive on the gears (they won’t turn even when pressed on very lightly so I assume that’s good?)

Bad things: one of the washers is cracked through! And the 1st/2nd shift unit is very sloppy (video attached) which doesn’t feel right at all. I’ve had three different manuals out trying to figure out if one of the parts isn’t correct for the box, hence the poor fit, not certain though. I’d assume there shouldn’t be any appreciable gap between the inner and outer pieces. I’ll likely go to Mike Papworth for parts and answers, but I’ll wait till I’ve cleaned everything up and taken some measurements so I’ve a better idea of what I might need. In the meantime if anyone’s able to satisfy my curiosity…

[Pete Lewis]

sorry cant open the movie file 

Pete

[Josef]

Hmm, there was another thread where some people couldn’t see videos. 
 

Anyway, the video is trying to show that the outer bit of the hub part 156911 does not just slide up and down on the inner part parallel to the mainshaft, but can be moved significantly in the plane 90 degrees to the mainshaft. There’s barely any resistance to sliding it, the ball bearings barely keep it in place. (I’ll post some photos of it disassembled later today or tomorrow)

[Paul H]

2 hours ago, Pete Lewis said:

sorry cant open the movie file 

Pete

Hi Pete , pretty sure it’s the same issue you identified on my Vitesse gearbox ref 156911 . 

Paul