1970 Spitfire resurrection

[Howard81]

Excellent photos, and some good pointers on what I need to check for on mine! In all honesty I haven't a clue, but I haven't even got it out of the back of KSF yet, but I will do shortly and give it a good check over. I have no idea if it works, but it did come out of a 1977 Spitfire that was incredibly rusty, so I'm in for a chance at least! All gears seem to select okay.

The gearbox code is on the top of the gearbox, there's a notch in the right hand side of the top plate to show the stamping on the actual gearbox case. It's usually under a whole load of muck and grease..

[Howard81]

Another big milestone passed in the Spitfire - first longish roadtrip out of London completed! I went with a friend to the Imperal War Museum at Duxford - 50 miles each way, most of which are on the motorway. I know that doesn't seem much but I've only ever driven the car locally around London with the longest trip of 25 miles to Tinweevil's house for the MoT last November, so completing this without any problems is a big confidence boost! Back in November the car had been unused for over three years, so drove horribly. However at motorway speeds it's sitting about 4000RPM, so the overdrive 'box I plan to fit will help that a lot.

The engine has proven to be a very good runner, it drives lovely with a good amount of power and easily holds motorway speeds without fuss. However, I still get rattles at startup when cold, and at 3,000RPM under slight load. The engine is going to need new bearings at least, but a full engine rebuild is well out of budget at the moment. Still haven't got my head around how to combat that issue yet.

The next major pressing issue is the hood - it fell off on the way back from Duxford! A stupid previous owner has fitted it completely wrongly - it has poppers all round, but it's meant to be rivitted to a bolt-on metal plate at the rear for security. Without that, it means anyone can just pull the rear of the hood off to break in to the car. Also the front has been badly hacked to fit the front header rail - there's no seal and the hood has been cut short. I have a new hood to fit (along with the rear plate, seal channels and seal) but no instructions!

[swifty]

http://web.mac.com/jclaythompson/iWeb/S ... 0Hood.html

I followed these instructions from a TR7 forum member when replacing the soft-top on my TR8. Obviously some of the fixings will be a little different between the cars, but I imagine the principals are largely the same

[tinweevil]

Cheers Howard, mines an FR too.

[Howard81]

http://web.mac.com/jclaythompson/iWeb/S ... 0Hood.html

I followed these instructions from a TR7 forum member when replacing the soft-top on my TR8. Obviously some of the fixings will be a little different between the cars, but I imagine the principals are largely the same

Excellent, thanks for those!

[Howard81]

The hood situation is getting quite urgent now as the front edge keeps falling off.. it's getting a bit beyond bodging now.

Due to the riots I've nicked a secure undercover visitor's parking space, stuff the building management which means I can take the hood apart without leaving the car insecure!

Anyway.. first problem was that one of the hood securing latches had come off its post, the replacement screws arrived today so I've taken the mechanism apart on both sides. The first problem:



Ahh.. I thought it had just come out Nevermind! Let's see if the other side is any better!



At least it had a screw in it.. but a wood screw

Most annoyingly - the new screws I bought don't fit!!!!



Oh well, I'll still plan to do what I can. I'll remove the hood frame tomorrow and strip the header bow back to bare metal and repaint in the same paint I did the suspension in. The locking mechanism will get stripped, cleaned, grease and reassembled (sans screws).

[Howard81]

Hood removed, hood frame removed and brought indoors. Header rail has been bare metalled and now in primer.. will top coat with black later

Hood latch mechanism dismantled and cleaned up.. I'm missing the spacing and anti-rattle washers, so need to source those along with a spare latch pole (?) and screws..

[Howard81]

Catches back together again, hood is laid out in my living room for me to think about while I wait for the black paint on the header rail to dry

[matienzo]

Howard,
Here's something I've discovered through the years. Fit the hood on warm day after leaving it in the sun or somewhere warm for a while. It's much easier to handle and it ends up being a "tight" fit.

[Howard81]

That's the plan! However, I have to wait until Friday in order to bribe a friend help me fit it to the header. I'll leave it backing in the sun for most of the day while periodically going out to stretch the vinyl.

I got the main part of the hood fitted, firstly the rear metal plate was glued to the flap rear of the hood and the three male fasteners riveted in place. The durable dot fastners were a pain to fit, but I got them pretty well lined up. It's not as taught as I would like around the back edge of the door windows, but I couldn't get it any tighter around there without serious overlap of the vinyl onto the body work. But that's how the old hood was.. Overall, it's a damn good fit for a £95 hood!!

Ignore the floppyness of the top, it's not attached at the header rail yet.

[matienzo]

It's not as taught as I would like around the back edge of the door windows, but I couldn't get it any tighter around there without serious overlap of the vinyl onto the body work. But that's how the old hood was

Thats normal I'm afraid. You can fit a home made stiffener by making a slit in the doubled over section of the hood which improves the fit between the hood and the back edge of the glass but the excess material remains. Its common across vinyl and mohair hoods...baffling really since its all down to getting the pattern measurements right in the first place.

Nevertheless thats a cracking job you've made of ftting the hood. Well done.

Steve

[Howard81]

The hood is finally fitted!

It's not perfect, but not bad for a first attempt I think. Fitting it to the header rail was a real pain. Unfortunately it's about half a centimetre off towards the passenger's side and there are a few ripples at either side, but the old hood was also like this. They should subside as the tightness of the centre section settles down. I glued about 15cm in the centre section first, then when that was fitted and dried I did the sides one at a time.

However, it is VERY tight!! Takes quite a bit of effort to shut the top now, but hopefully this will ease as the hood settles - I did it tight as I didn't get much of a chance to stretch the hood before fitting. The centre section of the header retaining strip is fitted, but I ran out of rivets for the outer two strips. I'll do that tomorrow and get the seal fitted.

But for a cheap hood and the first time ever to fit one, I don't think it was a bad effort at all





Camera strap in photos FAIL

[Aar0sc]

It's back in it's place again!

As long as it's waterproof

[Howard81]

Once it's settled down I'll pull the corners off again and re-tighten them. Should do the trick!!

[Aar0sc]

You'll want to leave it up for as long as possible; at first at least; just to get it "used" to the shape

Otherwise you'll find it gets harder and harder to put up as it tries to shrink back.