The Spitfire that just needed a tidy up...

[Josef]

With the car pushed into ‘showroom position’ (skew across the garage) so I could get down the driver’s side with the welder I’ve built up and ground down the handbrake bracket. After searching around in vain for some suitable bit of metal stock to machine a shim from, I resorted to searching my collection of washers until I found a pair that made up the size and thickness I needed. Had to enlarge the holes to suit, but now the play in the handbrake is greatly reduced, and it’s no longer possible to operate the quick release mechanism by yanking it off the mounting. 

[Piglet]

By quick release do you also mean a fly off handbrake? Mine has that and it is useless...and wobbles everywhere! I shall try your washers idea,

Alex

[Josef]

12 minutes ago, Piglet said:

By quick release do you also mean a fly off handbrake? Mine has that and it is useless...and wobbles everywhere! I shall try your washers idea,

Alex

Hah, no  Mine has a conventional one but I found if I pulled it to the right then the part of the pawl the engages with the bracket on the floorpan would detach. So I was calling it an (unwanted!) quick release mechanism. Bit of welding to build up the floor bracket and some shim washers have dealt with that though. 

[NonMember]

31 minutes ago, Piglet said:

fly off handbrake? Mine has that and it is useless...

There's no reason a fly-off should be any worse than a more conventional handbrake. If it's useless then it's almost certainly down to all the usual reasons for a typical Triumph handbrake to be poor - lack of adjustment, wrong adjustment, intermediate lever at the wrong angle.

[Josef]

The interior work progresses. I’ve, mostly fitted the central floorpan carpet. Still rather underwhelmed buy the fittedness of this bit of the fitted carpet though. Ended up putting some foam I originally bought for heater matrix insulation on top of the crossmembers as otherwise there would’ve been an air gap under the carpet. I also fitted press studs where the carpet meets the leading edge of the crossmember. My car came with the remains of these on the crossmembers, I assumed they were original, but the Newton Commercial instructions do not mention them. Anyway, I felt they made sense! With the carpet in I went ahead with the passenger seatbelts and seat. Which pulled the carpet over so it pulled up around the drivers side crossmember… So might have to have a rethink and hope I’m not going to end up with holes showing

[Piglet]

Josef are these the 'moulded' carpets? I'm asking because, as you know, I need a set. However my car has had a new floor pan and has none of the little clips anywhere. Do they rivet on? 

Alex

[Josef]

8 minutes ago, Piglet said:

Josef are these the 'moulded' carpets? I'm asking because, as you know, I need a set. However my car has had a new floor pan and has none of the little clips anywhere. Do they rivet on? 

Alex

Yes they are the moulded carpets. The fit of most things has been great, but this bit that sits over the main floor I’m less happy with. But then it is a large, awkward shape. The clips that hold the non glued sections of carpet down are press studs like those used on hood bags / tonneau covers. The male halves do pop rivet to the floor and bulkhead, if you look on your bulkhead you might find you still have some there, or some holes where they used to be. 

[Piglet]

Another thing to go and investigate! Thanks for the info. I do like the look of your interior so I may opt for the moulded carpet option.

Alex

[NonMember]

Moulded carpets are good.

[Josef]

So I think I was fussing unnecessarily about the fit of the central carpet. Well, sort of. It isn’t really moulded to the shape of the floorpan, rather it has a half cylinder cross section for the length of the prop shaft tunnel. However, it will conform to the floor well. The problem was my handbrake gaiter mount construct. The fibreglass had ended up making it way too thick. I’ve removed everything and tested again without the handbrake gaiter and the carpet fit is much improved. Luckily I think I’ve got all the holes on the passenger side in acceptable places and am not going to have to patch up or hide anything.
So on to Mk2 of the replacement for the gaiter mill board. I’m trying it completely out of card and papier-mâché this time (it’ll also be slightly healthier as I’m starting with a Quaker oat cereal box rather than a pizza box this time!)

[Josef]

Got the new radiator in. As mentioned elsewhere the top hose connection was not pointing in a usable direction when I got it. As the supplier’s response was ‘they’re all like that’ I ended up deciding to see if I could persuade it into a more sensible position. Figured if I broke it I’d have to take it to a radiator specialist, or I’d have to take it to a specialist to have it adjusted. Anyway, I picked a socket that fitted snugly inside the tube and put it on my longest extension. Stuck that in the hose connection and carefully levered to get roughly the same angle as the old rad. Seems to have worked. I’ve filled it (with plain water) and run it to temperature, no sign of any leaks. In the process of checking all the hoses I found that somewhere along the line my heater valve had been fitted so the minimum setting was half open, so fixed that up too. Oh, and I’ve fitted the wipers and arms, and adjusted the parking position. The list is getting smaller!

[Piglet]

That rad looks longer than stock to me. Or is it the angle of dangle on the camera? Good job bending it to fit!

Alex

[johny]

Unfortunately I dont think the same method could be used to rectify the similar problem the cheapy aluminium rads have....

[Josef]

9 hours ago, johny said:

Unfortunately I dont think the same method could be used to rectify the similar problem the cheapy aluminium rads have....

Yeah. Obviously I’m also yet to see if I’ve stressed something which will cause it to fail disastrously down the line, but fingers crossed. 

[Josef]

9 hours ago, Piglet said:

That rad looks longer than stock to me. Or is it the angle of dangle on the camera? Good job bending it to fit!

Alex

It is a full width one. The car came with a full width Herald radiator fitted, which didn’t really fit very well. I also have the original narrow one which has at some point been painted red… I went back and forth a lot on getting the original narrow one refurbed when the one on the car started leaking. I would have put money on the PO having had overheating issues cause the red paint wasn’t really helping the original rad do it’s job (though maybe it made the car faster, who knows). But eventually decided a new drop-in replacement would be the best option. Then it turned out not to be quite as drop-in as I hoped!

[johny]

The aluminium ones have the top pipe made of two sections of straight tube welded to form the (wrong) angle while yours is a brass tube bent to shape and then soldered in place so I think you have a much higher chance of success👍   

[Josef]

Progress on some small bits. A-post seals, bonnet to valance seals, b-post cappings (squaretail ones, which fit nicely it seems, I think the Mk3 ones were a carry over from the Mk2), and another version of the handbrake gaiter mount drying. Started fitting the rest of the hood poppers to he body, but ran out with two to go! I did find some of the original ones, but they’re rusty and covered in green paint so new it will be. 

[Josef]

Spent most of the afternoon making some very sophisticated front numberplate brackets out of the old radiator side valances. Four holes and two bends in some bits of scrap aluminium took quite a while with all the measuring and checking that was needed! Discovered that I can’t use the existing holes in the rear valance as they’d foul on the raised characters on the new plates, which is a little irritating. Easily solved though I suppose. 

[NonMember]

The vaguely similar "sophisticated front number plate brackets" for my Spitfire came in a pack of four from B&Q.

[alan.gilbert_6384]

3 hours ago, Josef said:

Spent most of the afternoon making some very sophisticated front numberplate brackets out of the old radiator side valances. Four holes and two bends in some bits of scrap aluminium took quite a while with all the measuring and checking that was needed! Discovered that I can’t use the existing holes in the rear valance as they’d foul on the raised characters on the new plates, which is a little irritating. Easily solved though I suppose. 

Wow a number plate held on the a green dust pan and brush, brilliant 🤣

[Josef]

Even the simple things aren’t simple! I ordered a second key for the Spitfire which arrived today. Worked fine in the door locks, but not in the ignition switch. So, off with the switch and out with the barrel. Which turned out to be very obviously wrong (even if it hadn’t been marked with a completely different key code!)

Dipping in to the spares drawers produced the broken boot lock the Herald came with. So armed with a few spare parts I was able to rejig the barrel to be usable with the “correct” key, old and new!

[Badwolf]

I think that Doug did that some while back

[Josef]

Handbrake gaiter mounting assembly Mk2 had dried out enough, so I’ve installed it. It’s not going to be the most robust of things, but it should serve the purpose, so long as I don’t climb on the transmission tunnel or something daft. 

With that done, got the rest of the carpets in! Cleared up and hoovered up, then remembered the h frame. Dug that out, but it needs a clean having now sat for 2-3 years since being painted, so that’ll do for today. 

[alan.gilbert_6384]

2 hours ago, Josef said:

Even the simple things aren’t simple! I ordered a second key for the Spitfire which arrived today. Worked fine in the door locks, but not in the ignition switch. So, off with the switch and out with the barrel. Which turned out to be very obviously wrong (even if it hadn’t been marked with a completely different key code!)

Dipping in to the spares drawers produced the broken boot lock the Herald came with. So armed with a few spare parts I was able to rejig the barrel to be usable with the “correct” key, old and new!

That takes me back, WBH  = Weston Body and Hardware based in Redditch, or it was back in the day.

[Josef]

That’s the H frame and seats in. Turns out the threads in the chassis are too damaged for the shiny, £2 a go chrome bolts to bite, so I needed something longer. All I have in that category are some former door hinge bolts so they look a bit of a mess. Still, not too hard to change once I find something better. Suppose I could take a lot of stuff back out and put helicoils in or something. But I’m just not up for that right now.