Thought I'd make a thread for the ride me and my dad are restoring.
It's a 1978 Triumph Spitfire 1500, originally owned by my dads brother, then bought from him, used for a year and sat on the driveway for the next 7 years. Originally we were going to just restore it back to factory but as it's come along we've decided we want to make it a little different, by putting a Rover 3.5 V8 in it. It' also not going to stay blue, but instead be sprayed black with some black and chrome minilite replicas we sourced off Ebay.
The first step of course was to fully strip the car down, this process took a couple of weeks as we don't have much time to work on it. It started with the simple bits, interior trim, seats, carpets etc but gradually got to the tougher parts such as engine components and drivetrain.
Out came the prop shaft, exhausts and differential
The fuel tank coming out made it easier as it made more space. There was still fuel in it from 7 years ago!
We had a visitor!
There's a lot of rust on this car, so we will have a lot of welding to do!
Taking off engine components was the next step.
It was really starting to come apart now
A new windscreen is definitely in order!
And new rear lights!
Our neighbor luckily had a beam with a hook in his garage so he let us roll the car in to take the engine out:
We managed to score these wheels off Ebay around this point, they will look great with black paint!
Test fit!
Hey! Get out of there!
Also around this point we got a letter through the door from a guy nearby who had a shed full of spares including fibreglass doors and bootlid, new hardtop in primer, and too many other parts to name which we needed. He let us have the lot for £50, which was a truly kind gesture.
We had enough off to remove the body from the chassis, so with help from a couple of friends, it became two parts:
Then it was time to take everything off the chassis:
Voila! The chassis itself (apart from the bonnet supports) is crazily solid. So the only thing we needed to get was new bonnet supports via Rimmer Bros.
Lowering springs! Shocks!
Grinding down all the paint off the chassis
Then degreased any grease that was left on it (only halfway through grinding at this point):
More goodies!
And thats our progress so far, we will continue to grind down the chassis soon, and we are sending the chassis and suspension components to be bead blasted soon, so we can get to work rebuilding it! Another step soon is to source a 3.5 V8.
Will update when anything new happens.
It's a 1978 Triumph Spitfire 1500, originally owned by my dads brother, then bought from him, used for a year and sat on the driveway for the next 7 years. Originally we were going to just restore it back to factory but as it's come along we've decided we want to make it a little different, by putting a Rover 3.5 V8 in it. It' also not going to stay blue, but instead be sprayed black with some black and chrome minilite replicas we sourced off Ebay.
The first step of course was to fully strip the car down, this process took a couple of weeks as we don't have much time to work on it. It started with the simple bits, interior trim, seats, carpets etc but gradually got to the tougher parts such as engine components and drivetrain.
Out came the prop shaft, exhausts and differential
The fuel tank coming out made it easier as it made more space. There was still fuel in it from 7 years ago!
We had a visitor!
There's a lot of rust on this car, so we will have a lot of welding to do!
Taking off engine components was the next step.
It was really starting to come apart now
A new windscreen is definitely in order!
And new rear lights!
Our neighbor luckily had a beam with a hook in his garage so he let us roll the car in to take the engine out:
We managed to score these wheels off Ebay around this point, they will look great with black paint!
Test fit!
Hey! Get out of there!
Also around this point we got a letter through the door from a guy nearby who had a shed full of spares including fibreglass doors and bootlid, new hardtop in primer, and too many other parts to name which we needed. He let us have the lot for £50, which was a truly kind gesture.
We had enough off to remove the body from the chassis, so with help from a couple of friends, it became two parts:
Then it was time to take everything off the chassis:
Voila! The chassis itself (apart from the bonnet supports) is crazily solid. So the only thing we needed to get was new bonnet supports via Rimmer Bros.
Lowering springs! Shocks!
Grinding down all the paint off the chassis
Then degreased any grease that was left on it (only halfway through grinding at this point):
More goodies!
And thats our progress so far, we will continue to grind down the chassis soon, and we are sending the chassis and suspension components to be bead blasted soon, so we can get to work rebuilding it! Another step soon is to source a 3.5 V8.
Will update when anything new happens.