1970 Spitfire resurrection

[Howard81]

Almost completed the front hubs.. all sanded down, painted, new bearing races, bearings, discs and wheel studs fitted. Hopefully I'll get to fit them tomorrow, and I'll be able to bolt on the steel wheels at the front!



The new driver-side rear driveshaft has been sanded and painted, but it will need a new universal joint before I fit it to the car. I've ordered two, which should sort the clonking from the rear.

Lastly, the driver's door seal was shot and kept coming detached, so a trip to the local scrappy in Poole revealed that the tailgate seal from a Rover 100 is identical and only cost a pound

[Howard81]

Another afternoon of fiddling about at the side of the road in the glorious sunshine has resulted in this:



Which means I can fit these..





Much nicer than those hideous wires

All went pretty hassle free, front bearings greased and fitted with the correct amount of play. Only gripe was that the carrier for the felt seals that go against the upright were too big to fit in the hubs, so I removed the new felts and fitted them to the old carriers. Oh and the split-pins in the kit were too big.

I need a special hub puller to change the rear studs though.

[Purplebargeken]

Howard, when the weather improves, bring the Spitty round and we'll will prep and paint it.

[Howard81]

I'm still waiting for the floorpan to arrive!!

[Purplebargeken]

Umm, meant to say 'hardtop' in there somewhere.

[Jon Tilson]

Carl has the puller
You could ask him nicely and pick it up on your way past, and be inspired by seeing his spit too, which is a cracker.

Jonners

[tinweevil]

Yay, half way to glorious wirelessness There's a puller in Horley if you are passing that way, gimme a heads up in advance though so I can make sure Mrs W will be home.

[fastblatt]

That looks so much better with the steel wheels

[Howard81]

I agree! Spitfire wheels are very good looking - they suit the lines of the car incredibly well. Even only with the front two on, the car handles better and seems smoother.

I had a set on my 1500HL but with the later silver centre caps

[Jod Clark]

I had some wheels on my Spitfire that had been done like this:

[Purplebargeken]

The Spitty wheels with the black centres would look very cool on Snowdrop. Hmm.

[Howard81]

Those painted black centres on the wheels look great!

I had the exhaust off today to fix the leak at the manifold join as it was leaking fumes into the cabin. All came apart much easier than I expected, so I fitted the secondhand centre pipe I picked up along with a couple of new clamps. I had to use a fair bit of paste to get it to seal, but now I have a leak-free system! One more thing ticked off the list

[Howard81]

Engine annoyances aside, a bit of work has happened this week.

Rear wheelarches recovered although not as good as I would have liked as there are some creases in the bottom (but it is a really awkward job), and the interior panels have been put back in.



Hardtop has been sold, so while I'm awaiting collection I've put the hood frame back in. It was most annoying driving around on this beautiful weekend with the hardtop on!

Also exhaust problems. It was blowing, so I had it off the car a couple of weeks ago to sort that. It was evident that whoever put it on has left off ALL of the exhaust mounts. Yup, not even one of the three there should be were on the car, it was suspended entirely by itself from the front downpipe to the rubber hangers on the silencer This explains why it hangs too low, and therefore has a tendency to hit speed bumps.

I ordered an exhaust fitting kit from James Paddocks, which arrived today. I have to say I was very pleased to see that it was actually quite high quality! The brackets are made from thick steel, plus all the right bits are in there. The downpipe bracket (gold one in the photos) isn't included, so I bought that separately. I think it was only fitted to the later cars though.

Here it is all assembled ready to go on the car. I just have to figure where to bolt everything

[Howard81]

Updates.

Exhaust brackets on! Couldn't get the front one to fit, will have to adjust the angle of the bracket. Rear one is on so the exhaust is now sitting at the proper level. No more knocking on speed bumps! Small exhaust leak at the rear join to the silencer, this is due to it being out of shape (it leaks at the slot), and despite my best attempts at reshaping it, it still leaks. Massive amount of exhaust paste to the rescue

As you probably know, I suffered from a snapped vertical link, which left the car like this:







This was probably due to someone filling the front trunnions with grease rather than oil - it was all solid and gunky inside the trunnion. See that centre hole? It's meant to be hollow but is just full of rock solid 1970's grease. No wonder it snapped.

A new replacement vertical link and trunnion is on its way to me, but this is where things start to spiral out of control.. again..

While the link is off, I've got perfect access to the suspension wishbones. At the MoT, the inspector said that he could feel slight play in one of the bushes, but it didn't fail. I've ordered a poly bush and bolt kit. The suspension turret and wishbones will be painted and refitted with nice new bolts and bushes. The upper wishbone arms came off without any problem, the lower was a bit tricky due to one of the nuts I needed to undo being right underneath the steering rack. The solution was to undo the bracket from the chassis and withdraw it whole. Luckily the other side was easy to take out, as you would have to take the downpipe off to access the bracket nut!





I managed to get the shock absorber off okay, but when I gently threw it onto the "pile" next to me, the bottom plate fell of and the whole thing exploded across the road It turned out that the bottom plate had rusted through! I think the car dropping onto the floor must have weakened it a lot. Scary stuff, it had quite some force!

So new front shocks added to the shopping list..

I also noticed that the front anti-roll bar had very loose bushes - you could see daylight through them! So a bush kit has been ordered for that, along with new links for the ends.

[matienzo]

Howard,
Despite the recent mishap fitting new bushes and bolts will transform the handling. You'll be really pleased with the results. Just remember to not fully tighten the bolts up until you have the car weight back on the suspension. I do this but using two trolley jacks under the wishbones to just lift the car off the axlestands. This saves nipping the bushes at the unloaded position and then twisting them under load.
Use Copperslip (liberally) on the bolts and make sure there's loads in the metal sleeves and they'll never seize. Another tip when installing the lower wishbone with the new bushes. If you have the hangers loose enough to move a little you'll probably find it a lot easier to force the bushes into place...then retighten the hangers making sure that they don't twist.

Here's some inspiration. New Polybushes and Gaz shocks courtesy of Paddocks...

IMG_4447.JPG (68.56 KiB) Viewed 4533 times

IMG_4446.JPG (69.74 KiB) Viewed 4534 times