Why you should grease the spitfire differential bolt

Needed to take the differential off from the parts car because the casing is broken on the one I have.

After much heavy banging, days of wd 40 and heating that bolt would still not move ! Turn but not move.

In the end had to cut the bolt in the middle, weld a hook to the bolt and pulled it with a hoist with the addition of much much heat.
Lesson learnt, see the bolt is still "welded" to the metal part of the bushes.

Spitfire battery box replacement

It's one of these jobs once complete you think eh wasn't that bad but it was a pain. The only difficult part is to remove the old battery tray.

See the tool I used, it's important to get a good first punch so the drill doesn't go wandering around, if you need to, drill a small hole. It got easier as I did more holes, you basically have to cut around the spot weld without cutting all the way through.

For the welds at the back I had to make the spot weld drill bit longer using an extension bar from my ratchet box. It was easier this way, maybe because it allowed for a bit a movement correcting for the drill mandrel not being so true.

Here is what it looked like once all spot welds were done. Not pretty. In parts that were still holding together I ended up cutting the battery box  and peeling the part that is welded on like you do on a sardine can using a good pair of pliers.

Pushed the 2 reinforcements aside rather than remove the top part. Saves on more cutting / welding and you can have them out of the way without pushing too far.

A bit of hammering to bend the back lip and all around made the new battery box fit right. Held with vise grips during welding to keep as close as possible

Final result, tada. I will never let water accumulate at the bottom of the new tray ! Dont want to do this again...

Finally having the little helper is what really made it easy :-)

Spitfire steering rack

 Probably one of the most messy jobs so far. Fully dismantled the steering rack, cleaned everything and re-greased. There was nothing that looked too tired to need replacing apart from the boots, so I got some new ones.

Cleaning all the old grease just so I could paint was what took the most time.

There's a pretty smart balljoint system with a spring on both sides that needs removing in order to pull everything out. After that, pull out the gear and the shaft can slide out. When you pull the gear, careful not to loose that little pin ;-) (See previous post)

Clean, paint, the regreased everything.

Finished product looks good as new ! It's a lot harder to turn now but absolutely no play which is great, the spring play reduction system was probably frozen solid by old grease.

Last, you always need little hands to help with this kind of job !

Steering rack pin

Argh so annoyed ! Just spent hours removing the fresh steering rack I had just installed and removing the one from my parts car just because I had forgotten to reinstall (and lost) that one little pin.

See the culprit below, if you ever do a full dismantle of your steering rack remember that little guy ! Photos of the project in a few days.

Spitfire passenger floor

Finally started installing my homemade passenger foot floor.
Was quite a learning experience to make it and fitting is not easy either ! Lets just say that a lot of swear words were used, hopefully the driver side wont be as rude.

Spitfire copper brake lines

Finished all the brakes lines that go on the chassis tonight.
Takes a while, especially when you realize you forgot the nut after you have done the flare...

Most complicated was the one that goes from front driver to passenger side, many twists and bends, it was very useful to have kept the old one intact.

Very happy with the result, looks good !

Heater for parts washer

Did an interesting upgrade to my parts washer today that I thought my interest some.
As my garage is only a couple degrees over freezing in the winter the cleaning liquid is really cold and not so efficient for cleaning parts.

Bought a universal element for water heater, 1500 watts, these are cheap. Drilled a hole on the side of the washer and screwed it in place. Toughest part was to find a nut large enough with the correct thread, couldn't find one in any of the local diy store so I just bought a small piece of threaded pipe and cut it. Seems like it's working well, an extra bonus is that I don't freeze my hands cleaning the parts anymore !

Front suspension

Front suspension is finally assembled, with poly bushes and all moving parts replaced.

Assembly of the driver side proved more difficult than expected as the top suspension arms were bent probably from a past accident. Of course, i did not find this out until after several trial fit of the newly painted parts.

Luckily the parts car came to the rescue and donated the needed organs !

triumph spitfire front bearings replacement

Since everything is apart it would be a shame not to replace the bearings as they are not expensive.

Much easier when you have done once before.

Start by pushing the old bearing cups out with a drift, there are 2 places to for that, clean the old grease out and you should see them

You can see here the 2 bearings and the cups that need to be pushed in. See the sockets I found that match the size.

Gently push in with the press or a vice.

Et voila ! Just need to pack with grease

Changing the springs and shocks

As always with this kind of operation precaution is the key word, actually made a plate as suggested in the spitfire magazine, and that made the replacement way easier and surely safer.

Now boasting new uprated and shortened springs + gaz shocks !

Photo of the setup to remove the spring below :

Starting on front suspension

Got one side completely dismantled then sandblasted and powdercoated the arms.

Now need to order the poly bushes for an impeccable ride !

Rocker patch fabrication

Been cutting templates out of thin cardboard, it's time well spent so the part fits right and need to use only very little filler before paint.

November update : Here is what it looks like once installed :

Inner sill repair

Behind the damaged rocker panel was a damaged sill... Turns out to be more work than ecpected but i want to do this right. Home made repair patches are in place now working on making the rocker part to be replaced, a bit more complicated as it has a curve and a lip.

Floor bodywork

Starting on the bodywork and will work my way from front to back, am still way at the front !
Unfortunately there's more damage than i thought, it will take a while.

Spitfire hub puller

Been wanting to have one of these triumph tools for a while...
Basically due to the conical shape of the shaft and the hub, these 2 always get stuck pretty hard.
Best solution is to have a tool to put pressure on the shaft but without risking to bend the hub.

I made one using dimensions found on triumphexperience. Kind of made my own using materials I had available. It worked but it was hard work, had to use the impact gun. And when you do that, remember to leave the nut on the shaft to protect the threads and that it doesn't go flying when it comes of !

Spitfire rotisserie blueprint

Some have asked, so here is some more info on the rotisserie. Use it to make your own from whatever materials you have available, many have been built out of wood, not a problem as long as you adapt the design to make it solid enough. I wanted a strong one that I can easily move and can re-use on future projects with different cars, hence the large size and beefy build.

Overall if I had to redo it I would make it not so tall, and the centre of gravity it a bit to high and the part with the top of the car is heavier, I pushed it up as there is more metal on the bottom part of the car but you would probably want to do an inch lower.

Front and side blueprint with dimensions

Here is a general view of the rear support and mounting

The rear mounting bracket, attached inside the trunk to where the bumpers support normally bolt onto as I wanted to keep the underside free so I could work on it

Front support, you can see the locking system

 Bolt system to lock the channel in place, makes for a solid assembly

Spitfire body is on rotisserie

Big milestone today, the body tub finally moved from sitting on top the parts car to the homemade rotisserie. I can now start painting and fixing it.

Quite happy with the design, and spending time to get a good guess at positioning the brackets was worth it as it pretty well balanced and rotates without too much effort.

Thought I would ask a couple of friends to help but in the end just installed it myself with the help of the engine hoist.

Looks good or what ? Now I can start welding sheet metal :-)

I hate paint

Not happy with the paint result but eh it's all good learning.

My best tips for next time :
- keep the outside door opened
- filter the paint after mixing
- you cant mix the paint enough
- get plenty of light, frustrating to discover you missed a spot once the part is in day light

Protective coat

Getting ready to spray more of that black epoxy coat on the hood and various bits. Improving the technique !

Chassis paint

Got some black epoxy paint. Did the top side with a brush hoping that it would fill ok. Not so good so i sprayed the other side.