Spitfire 1500 - Re-Living My Youth (RLMY)

[Bfg]

Just now, Pettifordo said:

Anyone have any tips for creating the holes in the carpet for the seats. I was thinking sharp mail from the underside - mark the spot and then make a cross slit with a Stanley knife.

I painted the underside of my carpets with liquid latex (rubber) ..the sort you can buy from a craft store or on-line to make face masks out of, Mission Impossible style.  This has three advantages.. 1. additional sound deadening,  2. it's effectively non-slip when clean and dry, so the carpets don't kick about nearly as much as they would, and 3. it helps prevent any cut strands from fraying.  As the carpets I was fitting were used, and original of 'budget quality', and had plenty of frayed edges and loose nylon strands from their prior fitting, I gave my carpets three good coats of the stuff.  It worked well.   

Once that was dry I positioned the carpets and pushed hard down on the seat mounting studs , which accurately defined where the holes were to be made. I highlighted these with a marker pen.  You probably don't have studs sticking up but if you temporarily fit the bolts (without seat runners) then pushing down on those bolt-heads to leave an imprint should work as well.   Having determined their position I used and apple corer to punch to cut the holes.  That corer / punch was simply pushed hard onto a piece of softwood timber and twisted (with the carpet inbetween the two of course).  That again worked well. 

I've just had a look back / search through my 'That was the year that was' blog and the link to the photos I took while I did it -  is < here >

Hope that helps, 

Pete 

[Pettifordo]

16 minutes ago, Josef said:

melt the carpet with a soldering iron

What a great idea !

[Peter Truman]

3 hours ago, Pettifordo said:

melt the carpet with a soldering iron

Also avoids any stray carpet threads getting into the bolt and nut thread and becoming thread bound.  

[Josef]

14 hours ago, Pettifordo said:

Still need to glue all of that down.

So originally the footwell carpets, and the ones that sit under the seat and over the rear deck were not glued down. They were held by press studs to fixings pop riveted to the floor. Given you (or a future owner) will at some point have to remove the carpets to get at the gearbox tunnel, probably best off not glueing these carpets! I used press studs as per original, sticky back Velcro might work, and I’m sure there are other methods

[Josef]

So @Pettifordo has sent me his sticking tacho for repair. It’s generally in very good condition, and the problem has turned out to be not at all what I expected. The needle was resting at around 1500 RPM because the moving coil was catching on the stationary magnet. 

This is rather odd as there was no debris or similar preventing the movement, it was just obviously misaligned. I can only guess that the instrument must’ve been dropped at some point. Anyway, adjustment of this moving coil to fixed magnet alignment can be done by loosening these two screws (after removing the plastic backing plate).

With that done there was one more small issue, a capacitor had come unsoldered, and then time for a test. I’ve got a mini signal generator for this. The calibration needed a bit of adjustment at  6000 RPM (done on these late models by bending the grey metal tabs you can see in the photos above), but otherwise looking good. 

 

[Pettifordo]

57 minutes ago, Josef said:

instrument must’ve been dropped at some point

@Josef thank you very much for breathing life into the tacho - I bought the car as a failed restoration project which had started 7 years ago, so I picked up the car in about 15 boxes plus the bonnet, tub, seats, chassis and exhaust pipe.

Would have been easy for it to be dropped at some point.

Can’t thank you enough

[Pettifordo]

Seats in - the method with the solder iron to make the holes was great.

I’ve refitted the dashboard and I just need the Tacho and a couple of bulbs.

I have test fitted the seat belts to make sure all my welding didn’t mess these up !

Planning to do the vinyl on the rear wheel arches and the B-pillar ok Wednesday

That just gives the windscreen - perhaps 5th time lucky 😜😜

[Piglet]

I'm keen to see how you get on with the vinyl! Still haven't done mine as it just seems impossible.

Alex

[Pettifordo]

13 hours ago, Piglet said:

seems impossible

@Piglet I have the old vinyl which I’m hoping I can use as a template - I’m going to use spray contact adhesive and use my heat gun on the vinyl before I stretch into place - I should be having a go tomorrow - what’s this space !

[Josef]

19 hours ago, Pettifordo said:

@Josef thank you very much for breathing life into the tacho - I bought the car as a failed restoration project which had started 7 years ago, so I picked up the car in about 15 boxes plus the bonnet, tub, seats, chassis and exhaust pipe.

Would have been easy for it to be dropped at some point.

Can’t thank you enough

Happy to help  Glad it wasn’t anything too major either!

[Josef]

This is likely one of the youngest instruments I’ve worked on, but the perished seals were the hardest I’ve had to clean up. Normally they’ll scrape out, but they were well and truly solid here, and had crept over the glass too. I ended up soaking the glass and bezel in thinners to soften the remains of the seals. Anyway, it’s all back together and ready to go back. 

[Piglet]

Watching with a LOT of interest!

Alex

[AlanT]

Had to laugh at the pic of your tachometer on the tester at 6000rpm…I know what happens in real life if you try this on a 1500! It’s both loud and fuel saving ie recovery truck.

[Josef]

3 hours ago, AlanT said:

Had to laugh at the pic of your tachometer on the tester at 6000rpm…I know what happens in real life if you try this on a 1500! It’s both loud and fuel saving ie recovery truck.

I can only test at 100 and 200Hz, that equates to 3000 and 6000 RPM for a 4 cylinder. Though I tend not to care too much if it’s not super accurate at 6k for the reasons you allude to

[Pettifordo]

So he vinyl has gone well - I purchase this material - https://aemarket.co.uk/products/texture-leather-140cm?_pos=1&_sid=d499feb40&_ss=r

I got 3m as I wanted to do the back panel as well - still have over 2m left after doing the rear wheel arches, b-pillars and rear panel !! So I might do the boot !

I purchased this contact adhesive from Amazon.

The card I had from the old trim was ok and I could use the rear wheel arch as a pattern

 

This was before

I had a bit of old carpet to put the new vinyl on face down - I think sprayed the material (cut to an 80cm x 60cm square) and the old trim. I also cut the rear wheel arch out of this same piece.

after 3-4 mins I brought them together and using some plastic lid and heavy tool boxes I let them “rest” for 10 mins. Then I cut round about 1” and made cuts at the corners and curved bits. Sprayed on some more adhesive and left for 3-4 mins. 
 

This is what I got 

Not perfect but good enough for my needs.

In the car it looks like this

 

And with the rear panel done the same way

I’m pleased with the results and once the seat belts are in I don’t think the wrinkles will show too much.

@PigletLet me know how you get on.

 

 

 

[Pettifordo]

And now the roof is on !

[RichTeaBiscuit]

Looks gorgeous!

[Piglet]

Oddly enough I had the same (sort of) result! I got some used wheel arch covers from Spitbitz but they were a little ropey. So I used them as templates and with the spray adhesive I got slightly worse results that you did! I would have been happy if mine resembled yours...but now the roof is on I have no desire to take things apart to try again. That can wait for next Summer. 

Alex

ps unless you are local and fancy a crack at mine 🤣

 

[Pettifordo]

On 26/10/2022 at 20:52, Piglet said:

unless you are local and fancy a crack at mine

Happy to help I have plenty of material 🤣🤣 - I’m near Warwick

i think on the wheel arches 2 pairs of hands might have helps so you could get a better stretch and avoid the wrinkles.

But as you say with the roof on and seat belt in you can’t really see it 🤣🤣🤣

[Pettifordo]

Windscreen in - I updated another thread with the details of my 6 failed and finally successful 7th attempt !!

I found have the seal the right way round made the world of difference 👍👍👍

[Pete Lewis]

Ha!!!    you could get a prize for persistence Ha !

Pete

[Pettifordo]

2 hours ago, Pete Lewis said:

you could get a prize

Or stupidity !

[Pete Lewis]

dont belittle your enthusiasm     we all had to learn  

Pete

[Pettifordo]

For a complete picture of the cars progress this is a thread about an issue I’m having with with rear brakes

Hopefully new brake shoes will see this fixed.

[Pettifordo]

For anyone just starting out on the journey to renovate on of this beasts I have been keeping a running total of how much I have spent on this project and who I spent it with. When I bought the car (which was a stalled resto) I got about £500 of panels and the bottom end of the engine had been rebuilt and the head had been made unleaded friendly.

The main expense on the tool side was a rollover gig and a welder.

And I think I’m doing it “on the cheap” !

	Consumables	Parts	Tools	Grand Total
Bodywork	738.68	647.32	1,775.98	3,161.98
Suspension		942.92	101.70	1,044.62
Engine	91.15	661.31	61.86	814.32
General	121.95		517.13	639.08
Brakes	15.48	453.22	13.23	481.93
Interior	25.65	353.14		378.79
Exhaust	11.54	264.81		276.35
Postage	22.91	154.24	7.70	184.85
Clutch		181.93		181.93
Electrics		154.10	10.99	165.09
Grand Total	1,027.36	3,812.99	2,488.59	7,328.95

And this is who I spent it with

	Sum of Value
Rimmer Bros	1,984.61
Amazon	1,392.87
TSSC	642.25
R-Tech	620.21
e-bay	617.08
ANG Classic	467.92
Ade Foreman	450.00
Des Wootton	203.50
Chic Doig	201.50
David Manners	121.90
Halford	117.13
ScrewFix	98.72
Spitfire graveyard	82.50
Resto Show	80.00
Martin Brown Paints	54.36
The Metal Company	45.06
Mini Sport	44.98
Wellesbourne Hardware	32.89
AE Market	31.47
Draper	30.00
Wilko	10.00
Grand Total	7,328.95

And I still need new seats and a respray - so £3-4k to go (at least).

But it has been really good fun and the help from this forum as been invaluable - I hope to be able to help others in the future.

Thanks you Team TSSC !