1974 Triumph Spitfire Mk IV

You may have seen a thread on this car in the question section but now the car has arrived and ive started on it, I thought id start a readers rides thread to document her return to the road and restoration.

Todays plan was to get her running and start drawing up a list of jobs to do I was succesful on both accounts.

To get her running I hooked up a battery stuck some fuel line into a jerry can and connected directly to the pump pulled the choke and turned the key. She fired straight into life and promptly revved up to about 4k rpm before I was able to turn her off again. I traced this problem to a sticking throttle cable which will need so disconected it at the carb linkage. This time when fired up she idled. She is a little lumpy on the idle so will need a bit of tune up, but thats to be expected on a car thats been idle for at least 3 years.

Once I had her running I quickly spotted a couple of other jobs. The float chamber seal or at least the inlet pipe joint is not sealing properly on the rear carb, the result is a steady drip of petrol right above the exhaust when running this is the first thing to fix before she is started again. The other thing spotted was some rather perished engine mountings.

Going further back the car. The impact on the bonnet has deformed it such that the door catches if opened with the bonnet closed. The roof is leaking as the glue along the front edge has failed causing the skin of the roof to start pealing away and losing tension.

There is a patch of welding to do on the same A pillar about the size of a 50p piece and that is the only bit of welding I have found to do anywhere on the car and its also not within a prescribed area. It will be done ASAP though due to its proximity to the upper door hinge.

Going inside the car the dash needs re-laquering and the seats could do with some attention, the vinyl is in fantastic condition but the sorbo rubber that bulks out the seat has collapsed with age. So the seats will be stripped back to the frame and the collapsed rubber replaced with modern fire retardant upholstery foam.

Ive had both front carperts and the sill carpets off they were glued down but were only hiding nice clean shiny paint. Interestingly whoever resprayed the car has done it inside and out as the original colour was brown.

I need to replace both seat belt buckles as they are missing, and the seats need to come out in order to unsieze the for and aft adjustment as this is now required to work for an MOT.

So the list of work to do so far stands as such, obviously it may increase as I work my way through it.

For MOT

1. Seal leaking carb.
2. Replace engine mountings.
3. Make a battery clamp.
4. Refit clutch slave the right way up
5. Fit new seatbelts.
6. Re glue front edge of roof.
7. Replace one side lamp bulb.
8. Blow out fuel lines and replace any bad sections.
9. Full service
10. Replace throttle cable.
11. Welding on A pillar.

After MOT

Re upholster seats.
Replace missing carpet.
Re tension and refit roof
Re laquer dashboard.
Re paint bonnet underside.
Fit a boot rack.

Once ive worked through that list I should have one rather tidy Spitfire. Oh and the cars name is Winston this is because its a MkIV Spitfire and is proud to be British.

Read more: essexdafs.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=othercars&action=display&thread=461&page=1#ixzz2OxEkjztq









there are a few bad points that will need putting right chief amongst them being this ruddy great dent in the bonnet.



the foam in the seats needs changing and their are a few bits of interior trim missing





Engine bay is clean and tidy.