1978 Triumph Spitfire 1500 - Lows!

Two days later I collected it, and gingerly drove it the 30 miles home.

Before I get to the drive, the first bit of good news is, for the first time my retro car is a second car, and that means I can take advantage of classic insurance, so a good saving was made there.

So I mentioned I drove it home ‘gingerly’… On the test drive it was running really rough, but sounded much better with the choke half out, so I knew there were some carb issues. Add to this that I’d not driven a car without servo assisted brakes since the servo broke on my Lancia about 4 years ago, and I felt maybe it was better to potter home on the back roads than take the motorway.

Part of the deal I cut with the seller was for him to look over the carbs quickly before I picked it up. True to his word, he had found the float bowls full of curse word, and had given them a very quick clean out, the car ran much better. It was still running rough though, and now that I had the roof up I was hearing many many other noises! My bit of basic reading up on spitfires was telling me that the terrible knocking from the rear of the car on deceleration meant the rear drive shaft UJs needed changing ASAP. There was also a hideous amount of play in the steering. The heater motor didn’t work. The throttle cable was very stiff and notchy. I could go on…

Still I made it home in once piece, and could start to get a better look at my purchase.







From 6 feet away it looked good. Get closer and you can see why it wasn't on the expensive end of the market. The paint is pure orange peel, and it looks like the paint prep was done with a brick rather than sand paper



Obviously theres the huge long list of mechanical issues, but the best point, and the main reason I was happy to part with my money was that the shell seemed solid (oh dear you can see where this is going....). My magnet stuck in all the important places and the floors had tidy looking repair panels fitted when I looked under the carpets and sticking my head under the car showed plenty of patches, but it was all metal and no nasty super thick underseal hiding a nightmare.



After going out and buying some imperial spanners (I'd forgotten this car was going to put me in a world of fractions when I bought it), I set to work fixing the mechanical issues. This is where owning a British car (and living in the midlands) started to pay off. First up, a new front wheel bearing. For my Lancia front wheel bearings were 3 figures and sometimes entirely unavailable. For the Triumph, I was able to buy a wheel bearing kit, off the shelf from a shop 10 miles from my house for the grand sum of £11.

It's a good job parts are cheap, because many were needed. In the first week I bought and fitted a front wheel bearing, a new throttle cable, a couple of wheel nuts (to replace the stripped ones eek!), two driveshaft UJs, rear toe control arm bushes, new solid steering rack mounts (which fixed the sloppy steering) and parts to rebuild the inner tie rod ball joints. On top of this I gave the carbs a proper clean out, and then had to learn how to set-up SUs, which was interesting! I set the timing, and found a nice surprise of electronic pickup instead of points and I bled the brakes. Oh and I fixed the heater motor!

Now it was starting to feel like a car! It's still crazy loud, especially at speed. With the 4 speed without overdrive its making some noice at 70mph! It's still doesn't stop great, and it's still pretty slow, but I was really enjoying being back in a silly old car. That smell of oil and engines that new cars just don't have, the mechanical connection to the car. With the rebuilt steering components and the un-assisted brakes I think that pure connected feeling is more intense than anything else I've driven and I like it.

Pity I can't see your pictures.......

Spitfire body tubs do like to rot a little (ok, a lot). Chassis, generally not so much except in the front.

Here's one my son and I did (him mostly) over the last couple of years. It's his only car now.

www.club.triumph.org.uk/cgi-bin/forum10/Blah.pl?m-1436738085/s-0/

This one was VERY rusty, but had not been messed with before - a huge advantage.

Before going mad on the mods front, a well-sorted Spitfire 1500 is a pretty complete, well balanced package. You can get a bit more out of the engine. Overdrive or a 5 speed helps alot. However, much more power quickly exposes the limitations in the braking department and especially the rear end...... Yes RV8s have been put in before, but the better conversions have completely re-engineered rear ends as well. My approach would be a small, lightweight modern engine, Ford Zetec SE 1600 for example, with 5 speed. Aiming for 120 ish bhp. That's enough to make the car respectably quick, will retain the handling and is just about within the bounds of what the factory running gear can live with.

Your car, your choice obviously

Nick

No pictures for me :-(

Welcome back! I'm bookmarking because I've always enjoyed your threads, and this one has potential!



Reminds me, I have a very old and venerable Britool socket set that came with me from the UK and has travelled around Asia with me, in my luggage, ever since. I was doing the UJ's on the RR's propshafts and Madam's driver insisted on helping. So I'm underneath and shout for a 7/16th, he passed me one 7mm and one 16mm. We had to have a little chat.



Working good for me (smug face smiley)

Fair point, well made. I apologise.

Rebuilt one many moons ago that had gone in all the usual places

Floors
Sills inner outer centre
Front quarters - replaced with GF
Rear wings - lower and arch lips and inner tub
Bootlid corner
Chassis was good - just a crack at the front lower w/b mounts
I rebuilt the 1500 with a bit of head work and a cam - Dolly Sprint alloy wheels
Triumphtune twin exhaust - sounded just right
Factory steel hardtop for the winter

Bint in a Nova rear ended it 3 weeks after getting it back on the road. The exhaust saved it as she hit the tail pipes with her front lower valance - this sheared the bolts on the manifold and boxes jammed against the chassis stopping the Nova from doing much more than twisting the bumper a little and scuffing the paint behind it.

Lowered it with new shocks and harder springs which stiffened it up and it cornered well enouigh to strip the Sprint wheel nuts - alloy! - silly 3/8" things anyway - changed them to M12 Ford type and steel nuts. GT6 brakes.

I would be inclined to go for the 2.5 Mazda V6 and an MX5/RX8 box conversion if building one now and a wishbone conversion to the back end maybe based around an MX5 diff.

Blimey Steve, you love welding cars don't you?!
I spent 20 yrs restoring Spitfires, I've lost count of how many I've done and although they are a piece of cake to work on, you have to be a bit careful welding in new sills and any work to the front chassis rail / hinge boxes ( replace them at your peril)

The best 2 bits of advice I can give you re the sills are:

1. Only use Heritage genuine outer, inner and sill strengtheners.... these are stamped from the original factory pressings and the parts will fit first time... pattern parts are cheaper but never go on as well as genuine. As much as possible always try to unpick it along the factory seams by drilling the spot welds out and then plug welding the new panels on. genuine sills will align perfectly and if they don't then the tub has moved.
As sills weaken over time due to corrosion and age, being an open top car, it will begin to fold and the door gaps will start to close up. you've done the right thing bracing the door gap but that assumes that your car hadn't sagged to start with.

2. Before you fit your new sill, make up an adjustable brace out of some threaded rod, conduit etc and then refit your door..... adjust the adjustable brace until your door gap is perfect and only then weld the new sill sections into place.

If you have a hard top, bolt that on too to help brace the tub.

Floor pans are available and are easy to fit either complete or cut to just replace the corroded section on your car.... they aren't cheap but the heritage floor pans are the proper job and make replacing adjacent panels much easier.

TD Fitchett at Telford and Moss Europe are the best places to get panels from.

Try and get hold of a copy of these books if you can find them at the right price... invaluable for anyone restoring a Spit...

www.amazon.co.uk/Triumph-Spitfire-Restoration-Practical-classics/dp/1873098332

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-Spitfire-Gt6-Vitesse-Herald-Guide-t-Lindsay-Porter-Accepta/282627671909?hash=item41cdec0765:g:0i4AAOSwkRpZo5Ne

Re the clubs, Sideways technologies for modifying...

sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/forum/47-members-cars-and-project-threads/&page=2

Club triumph for driving, tours and meets...

club.triumph.org.uk/cgi-bin/forum10/Blah.pl

TSSC for polishing your car and handing over fees each year for no apparent reason...

www.tssc.org.uk/tssc/index.asp

As a modding type guy Steve, you would probably gain from and enjoy Sideways Technologies, a forum set up by Dave Powell about 10 yrs back,I don't know if Dave still involved with it but he was a clever guy who did a great modded Spitfire...

crazyspitfire.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2008-01-06T00:11:00%2B01:00&max-results=5&reverse-paginate=true&start=5&by-date=false

.

Thanks for all the info guys, looks like I've got plenty of reading up to do

georgeb , cheers My biggest problem with imperial currently is just that split second when I'm need a difference size spanner or socket and I'm there going 'I'm holding 3/4" and I need the next size up, I know it's gonna be a 16th but is that 11/16" or 13/16" '

smokem , Lexus v8's are pretty big aren't they? Being overhead cam, rather than overhead valve like the rover v8 I think it'll probably be too wide. Not to mention that if the ~160hp that an old 3.5 rover v8 is gonna kick out will cause the chassis problems, I think a modern Lexus v8 will tear the poor thing in half.

Darkspeed , that much have been gutting to have someone crash into you like that. Sounded like it was pretty nuts otherwise! The idea of the Mazda 2.5 v6 had crossed my mind, knowing that they go into mx5s well, and that the mx5 engine into the spitfire seems to have been done. I suppose as this engine is also double overhead cam it could also end up being too tall / wide?

vitesseefi , thanks for the link to the thread, it's been really helpful actually. there are so many extra layers in my car, where repair panels have been welded straight over the originals, that it was hard to see what it should look like. From your thread I can see it's actually a very simple arrangement in the sills, much more so than any other car I've done this kind of welding on, that said, this is the first car I've worked on thats not a monocoque so that's probably the difference.

Thanks for the heads up that rx8 box doesn't fit, it must be bigger than the old mk1/mk2 mx5 gearboxes as they seem to fit ok from what I've read? I know there are adaptors available to fit the Mazda KL v6 to the older Mk1 mx5 gearbox. Cutting up the chassis is something I'd like to avoid. I don't mind adding new mounts and stuff to it, but the idea of cutting anything out just makes me uncomfortable.

ian65 , I don't choose rusty cars on purpose! It just seems to work out that way! hahaha. Thanks for those pointers. I know the passengers side has definitely dropped as the door jams when it shuts, but I think my drivers door wasn't to bad.

Before I welded in the brace I did put the door back on and popped a jack under the sill and pushed it up till the gap looked somewhere near right, but will make sure I try the door again before I weld the new sill on

MR TIKI that looks a tidy car, I like the yellow! I'm not entirely sold on the orange of mine, but maybe I'll warm to it over time.

Not much progress to report, I was going to try and do some last night, but I ended up spending all evening trying to work out why my motorbike wouldn't run right, turned out one of the condensers had failed, and the triumph came to the rescue as I remembered it had come with an old spare set of points and condenser. Fitted it up and the bike ran good.

Did a bit more cutting today, slowly peeling away the previous repairs. Now that I've removed part of the sill strengthener, it looks like the inner sill might be salvageable, it's a little frilly on the lower return, but doesn't look too bad. Next up I think I'll try and peel back the extra floors that have been added from above, and then I can see whether I should carry on trying to save the inner sill and floor cross member, or whether I just cut the whole lot out and start over.

Welcome back Steve. Nice to see your ability to unerringly buy a snotter remains intact