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 :

3, 2, 1 ready ...

Last ride today. All is in place, dismantling starts tonight !

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 !