Caught on Camera

Noticed this picture on Karls blog today! Like he says, he's got the best job in the world!

Spitfire at the Showcase

I went to the Showcase cinema in Walsall last night to see 'Miami Vice', a film which seemed to have none of the charisma of the 80's TV series but lots of fast cars and boats instead. The result looked like a two hour long music video and I wasn't impressed. My mood was improved no end however, when I saw a Spitfire 1500 in the car park next to my everyday Golf. It was is seemingly excellent condition and advertised that it was for sale for £3000. Wierdly, it was exactly the same colour (Tahiti blue) and had exactly the same beige interior! The only real difference was that this other car had been fitted with wire wheels, something which I really hate!

I can't understand why a small part of the Triumph world loves to do this to a poor old Spit. I mean wire wheels look great on the early Triumphs but in '76, when the 1500's came out they were old fashioned. Its like ripping the alloys of a BMW and whacking steels on there - it just dosen't make sense! Stuff like luggage racks on the boot, chrome dashpot covers and wheel embelishers are also horrific and should never be seen!

Nearly done!

I got an email last week from Karl asking if he could have the car another week. It worked out quite conveniently as I needed to spend the weekend flat hunting! Apparently though the longer 'Wolfitt spec' wishbone bolts are in place and there's just a few more jobs left to do before it's MOT!

In 'other news' I have spent a few days trying out a few things with Carbon-fibre. I saw an article in Practical Perfprmance Car (http://www.ppcmag.co.uk) about it where they talked about a few techniques for working with it. I had been hoping to make a few bits and bobs from the black stuff and bought about 0.5 sq metres on Ebay at a bargain price to experiment with!

All I can say is that it's a lot harder than it looks and whilst I have only made a few small test pieces I have realised that it takes a lot of skill to avoid 'pinholes' (air bubbles in the resin surface). I have also had the frustrating experience of having a piece jam solid in the mold (despite a massive polishing effort). It was the height of frustrating that I destroyed the mold and subsequently the piece in my effort to seperate the two! I will be investing in higher quality resin and repeating the process when I feel mentally strong enough and when the effects of the resin smell have worn off!

Future Plans

I suppose that with the car away from me for so long I've had a chance to think about what I want to get round to doing. For starters, I'd like to get the CD changer mounted up properly in the boot and I will make some aluminium or carbon-fibre brackets to do just that. I'd also like to move the Infinity speakers that were fitted by the previous owner to somewhere out of sight under the dashboard. That'd leave me with two big holes in the rear cockpit board, giving me with no choice but to ditch it and replace it with an identically shaped peice of aluminium (with plastic edging to keep it looking 'factory').

I'd also like to get the rear suspension sorted out with a new rear spring and lowering block and some new AVO's along with a few polybushes!

Then there's which wheels to choose. I think the 5.5J GT6 steels look good, as do Compomotive ML's, but then everyone's got Minilite style wheels. I also like Revolutons too but I dont think the 4 spoke design looks right on square tail Spitfires somehow, I think it looks a bit wierd although they look awesome on GT6's.

Of course I eventually want to get round to a total respray in the original Tahiti Blue but thats looking a long way off at the moment!

If only I had the time and the money!

MOT Time!

I went over see to Karl this morning with the V5 for the Spitfire so that he can put it through the MOT next week. As you'd expect there was some nice machinery around, including a nice looking Moss kit car that had apparently just been bought off ebay and a green Mk3 Spitfire. Of course I checked out Karls GT6 too which was looking very tasty indeed on black Revolutions!

The Spitfire should be back on the road soon! I can't wait!

Throttle pedal

With the car at Karl Dandridge Triumph I don't have anything to play with, so I decided to clean up and repaint an accelerator pedal I bought of Ebay a few days ago. It struck as I was sanding it that it was suprisingly heavy and could be easily lightened with a few holes here and there. I was aiming to keep it looking 'factory' so I didn't make the holes too large! A few hours later and it was looking good in matt black with the face of the pedal sanded smooth and laquered (although it remains to be seen how long that'll last!).

Off to Karl Dandridge's!

Well Andy Smith came and picked the car up yesterday evening to take it off to Karl Dandridge Triumph (www.kdtriumph.com) where Karl's going to weld up the chassis and the passenger floorpan and get it ready for an MOT. Should be hitting the road again soon!

Outside!

Finally rolled my car back out onto the drive today! I spent the last few days derusting and respraying the rear panel. I also replaced all of the cracked light lenses with some from the 4 light units I bought of Ebay! I've now got enough rear light spares to last the rest of my life! I also took the time to cut the ends off my front number plate. Because I only have a six digit plate theres a few spare centimetres on either side so I removed them to get more cool air through the radiator. It looked pretty cool so I did the back too which improved the look no end. The rear number plate was comically large before and made the back of the car look a bit unbalanced. Now it looks better and I saved a few grams too!

Steering Wheel

My latest Ebay purchase is a 12" Mountney steering wheel with solid black spokes. I went to pick it up locally and spent ages looking for the right house. Might have known it'd be the one with the bright pink race spec Toyota outside it!

I'm sure there are people who'll be thinking 12" is too small but then they're not 6 foot 5 and struggling to drive the thing without hands meeting knees!

Unfortunatly I haven't been able to fit it because the boss supplied by the TSSC dosen't seem to fit!? Its too loose on the splines and when the nut's tightened up it wobbles, not really good enough on a steering wheel!

Wolfitt Racing parts

I came across John Wolfe's Triumph pages a while back http://www.btinternet.com/~jon.wolfe/) and instantly decided to add a few of his parts to the 'parts needed' list. The original lower wishbone bolts have a threaded part that can easily get worn by the mounting bracket. Wolfitt racing bolts are longer, to stop that happening, and a total bargain at only £3.50! I was also going to get a pair of John's excellent looking anti roll bar drop links but they were out of stock till April. I found a standard pair that I bought a while back from Canley Classics so they'll have to do for the time being!

More Braking News

Having sorted out the brakes at the front, I stupidly assumed that the back brakes would be OK. When I pulled off the wheels to reveal more broken bleed nipples, rust and rubbing hoses I wasn't all that pleased. In fact I was pretty pissed off! So I busted the angle grinder out and got medievil on the drums with a wire brush, followed by painting with my favourite silver brake paint. In went new wheel cylinders (from Ebay) and EBC brake shoes that I bought a couple of days ago at the Triumph show at Stoneleigh (from the Canley Classics stall). Finally, I also replaced the handbrake springs (which were knackered) and popped in some braided hoses (also bought from Stoneleigh). Job done!

Exhaust Wrap

Having invested in a stainless tubular manifold and K&N filters I didn't want the filters to suck in all the hot air produced by the manifold. So I decided to get some exhaust wrap. Having seen the prices on Demon Tweeks and Agriemach I got on Ebay sharpish and bought some, which arrived a few days later. This was a job I thought was going to be really easy, but actually it was pretty tricky! Firstly the glassfibre strands got everywhere amd made by arms and hands itch for days, secondly the stuff dosent wrap very easily and took hours to get looking neat and thirdly the snap straps were an absolute bitch to put on (bear in mind I was on my own and I only had one hand spare!). Looks pretty good though!

Back on it's wheels!

Finally its off the axle stands and back on it's wheels! I discovered that the previous owner used grease in the trunnions so they had to be added to the list of replacement parts after I carefully cleaned out the uprights, inspected them and sprayed them the same colour as the brake calipers.

I also had to make up some washers to space the steering arms correctly because I have removed the brake disc and caliper shields (although it is shown in the photo!). It was really simple, I bought some washers from B&Q that were the right diameter and thickness and drilled them out to be able to take the steering arm bolt.

More Welding Needed

Unfortunatly I've found some more welding while I've been scrabbling about fitting the exhaust. The passenger side floorpan is pretty rusty along the line where it meets the sill. There's a fuel line running pretty close here so it's another thing to get professionally sorted.

More Exhausting Work

Well I sorted out what I'm going to do with the rest of my exhaust! I decided that I really wanted the large bore single box system from Canleys because I think the twin box systems are too common, mostly sound too boomy and add a bit of weight without really adding much performance. Unfortunatly the Canleys system was £146 and the twin box system offered by James Paddock was a good £50 cheaper. I called Paddocks up to buy one only to find that with VAT, delivery and fitting kit it was about the same price.

30 minutes later I was at Canley Classics buying the single box system. It looks absolutely awesome but took a fair bit of effort to fit. I had to drill a new hole in the boot floor to attach the bracket that the silencer hangs from and I used U clamps and exhaust sealer to join the pipes together. Once it was hanging from the car I noticed it wasn't very well supported. The manifold to head bolts and the single bracket was all there was! So I popped down to Halfords to get an exhaust mounting clamp and used it round the pipe adjacent to the diff. It needed to be sawn down to size but after that it fitted perfectly and the whole system seemed to be pretty solidly mounted. Job done!