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.

Chassis prep

A lot of banging and a bit of welding, the sandblasted chassis is getting ready for paint.

Guess who's back

Back from media blasting already.

Looking better than expected on the rear quarter panels.

Can't wait to get started !
Next step : install on rotisserie and primer

Off to sandblasting

Good milestone today, car is finally of to get sandblasted. Body, doors, hood and chassis.

Doors ready

Been procastinating for a while to get the doors ready for sandblasting. Kind of knew it was not going to be fun. Took 2 hours to get the first door ready but the second one was ready in no time, much easier once you know how to wiggle the various mecanism out of the door.

Got all the parts laid out in the basement and some shelves, lots of parts in a spitfire !

Spitfire paint removal

You seriously have to see how easy it is to strip the top layer of paint on flat surfaces.

All you need is a razor blade !
A video is better than words, see below

Spitfire parts

I might have bought a parts car... thanks Mitch !

I now have 2 spitfire projects in the garage, ouch.

Spitfire chassis cleaning

Stripped and cleaned the chassis this weekend. Sprayed degreasant and pressure washed.

Looks like someone used that hole in the chassis to make a little house !

The point of no return

Pretty sure i have reached the point of no return. Body tub was lighter than expected but not so easy to handle so i am happy i had an extra 3 set of arms to help.

Car looks good like that, spitfire low rider !

Body tub strengthening

Added 2 bars so the body doesnt fold at the door level. Did some banging on the trunk as well to set closer to straight.

Looks the body might come off this week end !

Floors prep

Realized i had a few more things to do before separating the body from the chassis, such as removing a previous owner attempt at fixing the floor. The plates were put in place with rivets, self tapping screws and great extent of caulk...

Been toying with various techniques for taking some paint off before media blasting, chemical stripper works if the correct quantity is applied on the blue orginal paint and the red top coat goes off amazingly well with just a razorblade. A combination of the 2 might get me pretty far, we'll see.

Spitfire dismantling - part 6

Good progress this week end, finished around the trunk area. Almost everything connected to the body tub is off.

Next steps are prepare the body to be lifted off the chassis !
(reinforcement bar in door area and maybe floors)

Spitfire dismantling - Part 5

Wire harness is finally off the car, been looking forward to that moment, but not looking forward to when I will have to reconnect everything.

Car is really starting to look naked, steering column and seats are off too. Can things go fast from now ?

Spitfire dismantling - Part 4

Visible progress made tonight, doors and windshield are off !

Spitfire engine on its way to machine shop

All right, engine and head are completely apart, will take it to the machine shop this week, hopefully for some good news !

Check out the condition of the crankshaft bearings, huh do you think it was time to replace them ? !
Check out the one from the left piston...

A bad case of "now that i have gone this far i might as well do that"

So... There's been a shift from engine paint and minor repairs to full on overhaul.

Following the advice that i should do it well so that i dont have to get back in there soon.

A few bad news so far : pistons are stamped 0.40 so someone has been in there already, recently if i am lucky so i dont need a rebore and the camshaft is pitted. Hopefully the bottom end will look better !

Head is off !

Scratching my head as to what to do next :-)

Spitfire engine stand

Engine is finally on stand !
Will make working on it much easier.

Spitfire accelerator linkage

I could not remove the pin whatever i tried, push, pull, hammer, drill you name it.

Had no choice but to cut the end and finally got it in the vice. Will have to reunite them with a nice weld.

Spitfire dismantling - part 3

Great progress made today !

Not much left in the engine bay, tried to label things as much as possible and lots of photos. Hopefully to put back together i'll just follow the photos in reverse order.

Engine is off !

That's it, did not take long.

Now here is some advice, if you ask your wife to help you and lower the crane, tell her to turn the switch very very slowly, not just slowly... Luckily with the help of my panic scream day was saved and the engine stopped less than an inch from the floor. Thanks for the help honey.

Spitfire dismantling - part 2

Next step, engine is coming out !

Spitfire dismantling - part 1

Ok it's not going as fast as I was hoping but eh, some of these bolts have been stuck for over 40 years.

I still did some noticeable progress though

Before :

After :