Spitfire drive movie

I have an other proof it drives at least semi ok, took my longest drive ever today for at least 15 minutes !
Sorry forgot I had the waterproof case on the camera, so no engine sound.

Broken intake manifold heater pipe

Went for an other ride around the block, car starts so well now, what a pleasure to start on first key turn, choke on full for 5 seconds, then half way for 10 - 20 seconds then that's it. When back, proceeded to removing the vinegar and replacing by water to get a good flush of the engine. While I was at it I decided I would fit the new water hoses...

The good thing with vinegar is that it will clean the inside. The bad thing is that it will dissolve rusty things that were held just by rust... that's what happened to the intake manifold heater pipe. I have a little piece of tube pushed in there for now so I can run the engine but that will be something to fix during the real restoration. Starting very soon by the way.

Rotisserie 2

Good progress on the spitfire rotisserie tonight !

Generator brushes

Slow progress this week end, but did some of those things that had been on the back burner for a while.

Replaced the brushes on the generator as well as painted it while i was there. Not related to my voltage charging issue i ll have to track that one later.

I found a few weeks back that the engine tends to overheat after a while so i took out the thermostat and filled the engine with vinegar instead of water that should clean the inside pretty well. Can't forget to take it out next week and put coolant liquid back in. I suspect my thermostat is opening a bit high and might buy the 82 celsius one.

By the way, good news, now the engine starts easily, looks like that previous hard work is paying off !

Spitfire rotisserie

Started work on the rotisserie, exciting !

Spitfire gear shifter repair

Today, finally fitted the gear linkage repair kit I had ordered, it was not as easy to fit as  it looks because one of the retainers is a pain to remove. The kit contains a lot of parts some for different era spitfire so it took more time trying to decide what parts to use. Overall it improves the feel on the gear lever and will make gear change a lot nicer.

Since I am at it I sanded the gear knob, super easy just fitted it in a drill, clear coated, hopefully it will look nice.

I went round the block again but noticed that now my voltage it too high so it looks like I need to give the voltage regulator an other look. Ah, british electrics... gotta love it !

On the road again

Eh forgot to mention, yesterday I ... wait for it...   drove the spit !
What a good feeling, not a major milestone for the project but it is for the moral !
Car still doesn't handle very well but the gears change a lot better and it's nice to have brakes.
I have the video to prove it :

When I got back replaced the coil, capacitor, points and cap that is a repro, does not say lucas on top it fits tight and doesn't move at all.

Spitfire voltage regulator

I finally got round to checking the voltage at the dynamo output and it was higher than the battery so I decided to give the voltage regulator a second look (it had already been cleaned and inspected) and I found that one of the contacts from the relay was broken so drilled the rivets to be able to take the contact part out and welded a new piece of coper in place.

The pic below will explain better, good news I now have an engine that charges the battery when it runs !

Engine prep to run and coil removal

Here is what I did (over the course of several hours this afternoon :-) ) trying to follow all of the advice I got on the awesome triumph experience forum : 

- Refit the wrong but at least new spark plugs as my order for the new ones hasn't even shipped. Did adjust them to 0.025 before fitting though. 
- Took the dashpots off, and tried on starter fluid. Was not real frank but car ran for a bit. 
- Drained the carb dashpots from their oil (20W50) as I found it was real difficult to move the piston inside up and down, I put that oil in maybe 6 months ago and I wonder why it was so sticky. 
- Turned the electric gas pump on and looked to see if from excessive pressure gas would be forced inside the carb, none, so I ruled out the pump putting out too much pressure, although I'll have to get a gauge to check how many psi it outputs. 
- Turned the jet nut to have the jet flush, fitted the pots back on and checked that the cylinder inside was descending freely 
- Unscrewed the jet nut by 12 flats 
- Tried many times to start, no luck 
- Tried with starting fluid, massive backfire in the exhaust, neighbors probably thought someone got shot :-) 
- Adjusted timing back to -6 BTDC by lining up with 6mm to the left of the dot on the pulley (I believe I was a 0) 
- Managed to start on fluid 
- Finally managed to start with choke fully on 
- Could not get the car to keep running without the choke so I opened the jets even more, another 12 on each and it ran finally ! 
That's definitely too rich I backed it up on one side and will need to do some carb tuning. 

So by the way there's still no oil inside the pot but as it seems to work like that I am thinking of leaving it out for now as it might have overcomplicated my problem 

I now pray that I will be able to start easily with a cold engine now. 


While in there I removed the screws holding the coil, these are big philips type screws, they would not move and the head was quickly ruined. Had to use my favorite technique : welding a nut on the head :-)