1974 Unibody Triumph Spit6 (with some detours inbetween)

Next couple of steps on the Jag. Got the engine bay rust wire wheeled, treated and primed.



By and large this isn't a particularly rusty car, but it's amazing how many little bubbles there are where paint's been chipped away or not covered for whatever reason.

That was yesterday, and managed to get the basecoat on today.



I've been using my airbrush which is brilliant for little touchup jobs, but I'm not sure it's quite cut out for this scale of job. The poor motor was getting quite hot by the end of each coat. I'm also not convinced it will give a nice even fade, even with some blending out, thanks to the mica paint the Jag has. Not that it's overly bothering me as this'll be a daily driver and the engine bay's bound to get mucky.

Still, good for making sure unseen bits don't rust.

Next steps on the Jag are arond sorting the bulkhead area rust. There's some crustyness peeking out from the seam running along the top panel you can see here:



Turns out the spot-weld guy was definitely keen to make an impression as there's a billion of them. Makes a nice change from earlier British cars where the relationship with the construction workforce was diabolical, but it does make removing the panel a bit of a task.



In doing so I've made a rather interesting discovery. These cars like to rust at the bottom corner of the windscreen, seemingly from the inside out. Turns out, there's a little closed box section sitting just beneath that corner which is filled with this weird silicone gel foam.




There's then a dividing panel between the two which is sealed to the upper and lower panels, isolating the little box section bit off (except for a grommet into the engine bay). When I took the grommet out of both sides, water poured out despite the rest of the car being dry.



Everywhere I look on this car it seems like the designers and construction staff were hell-bent on making sure that they didn't rust. Damn near every exposed seam is sealed. The entire floor pan is thoroughly stonechipped. Even things like the wheelarch liners are sealed onto the body along the edge so they don't let water and grit creep behind them (if they're intact).

I think this is another of those 'paranoid about rust protection' things, that just happens to have created an issue rather than fixed one. The panel beneath it dips down in the corners slightly, which I reckon they thought would trap water. So they sealed it off and filled it with silicone, which would work all the while the sealant holds but as soon as it cracks would let moisture in that couldn't escape. Hey presto, rusted screen corners (as has happened on the driver's side).



That also lets water capillary-action all the way along the seam on the bulkhead panel, rusting behind it.



I can see what they were trying to do, but it would definitely have been better to leave the box open to let water drain out as the car corners. Luckily, I reckon anyone who's got one of these can fix the problem by drilling a drain hole right here:



You'll have to drill a hole through the main bulkhead panel just to the right of the two vertical spot welds that hold the little blocking panel in place. Then, using that hole as a guide, drill at a diagonal through the bottom corner of the blocking panel. You can then excavate the foam through the grommet, and any water that gets in there now has a route to get out through the new drain hole. It's not a cure if the process has already started, but if you have a good car then it would prevent it from happening in the future.

Ah I see. Well it was a bloody stupid idea in 1988 and it's a bloody stupid idea now (from a rust prevention perspective anyway, good idea for an initial sale). Pull it all out before it rots out your windscreen!

At the very least make sure there's a drain hole so water can escape.

I might do a bit of a search for it on some of my other cars too. The Spitfire doesn't have it, but that was a pretty rattly basic thing anyway. Fiat and Alfa might (which seems like playing with fire given their rusty reputation).

Thanks for the heads up!

So this is what greeted me underneath the right-hand wing. Not a brilliant start, but about as expected.



Some further investigation showed that it had tracked quite a way up the a-piller, but not very far towards the centre of the car.



It's going to be a tricky little bit to repair as there's so many different pressings involved (5 in the a-pillar alone!). Still, tackle it piecemeal and it all comes together.

You can see how water got into the little foam-filled box section as the mastic isolating it wasn't complete. I wonder if the other side (which has fared a bit better) is a bit more thorough.



Decided to do away with the sealant and just weld the little vertical panel to the scuttle. Sometimes it's easier (and less prone to trapping water) to change the designs of panels a little when rebuilding complex sandwiched areas.



So here's all the rot excised...



...rust treated, and sprayed with zinc-rich primer.



It was at this point that my 'heavy duty' marquee collapsed under the moderate breeze that was blowing. When the wind blew the bent section would get pressed against the roof and move around a bit against the paint. Luckily it's plastic so no major damage (and it's getting a respray anyway), but still. Not ideal.



So the rest of the day was spent starting construction on a bit of a beefier shelter using the original flimsy marquee as a jig. Had some old tubing from an actual heavy duty marquee that got blown down years ago (in an actual storm) so I thought I'd repurpose that to make some triangulated frames which can go together with slip-joints along the length of the marquee letting the whole thing collapse down into flat-ish sections.



Would rather be fixing the Jag, but needs must!

See what you mean!

Right! Now that ll the other distractions are out of the way I can get along with the rust repair.

Cad template...



...metal panel...



...weld...



...clean and paint.



Rinse and repeat.














And done! Lots of tricky little panels to make in that bit, but luckily most of it is hidden by the windscreen seal and finishing panel. Next job is probably to take a look at the other side :S

So what looked like a solid a-pillar area from the outside turned out to need quite a lot of chopping!





Interestingly the foam-filled box section in this is fine which points to a different method of entry. Wasn't able to tell from the thoroughly rotten driver's side but there's actually three separate skins in this area (all of which had blended into one rusty pile on the driver's side). On this side the outer skin is ok on one side, as is the innermost skin. The one sandwiched inbetween has completely disintegrated though. That inner skin continues up the a-pillar, so the likely cause is moisture inside the a-piller creeping inbetween the sandwiched layers. Will see how high it goes, but fingers crossed it's less than the other side

Oh, I've also chopped away the upper skin of the foam filled box section so I can weld that in properly and do away with the sealant which will crack sooner or later.

Fiat updates

So, I went to test the Fiat after its suspension repairs and I noticed that the gearstick was behaving strangely. It was returning to centre in different places depending on what gear it had come out of. Initially I thought the cable was slipping in the end I crimped on. Took everything apart and crimped it again in a different place, but that didn't change it at all so something else must have been happening.

Eventually, after I'd taken everything apart and poked around I found out what was happening. The steel wire that reinforces the rubber outer lining of the cable was migrating inside the sheath! You can see it poking out here.



That would explain the worsening shift quality. Also, because I assume it's been trying to force a gear in when it's just outside of its gate, the linkage housing has bent as well. Not surprising seeing as I've chopped so much out of it.



So, I did a bit of reinforcing to stop any flex in the housing.




I also pinched the smaller lever arm from a spare set of linkages I have as I'd shaved down the other one to fit properly and tried to shim it out to fit the little bronze bush. As I don't have a lathe the shims were never perfectly the right size so there was additional play that wouldn't have helped. Turns out the whole exercise was unnecessary as it works perfectly fine without the modification.



I also found that the linkage was catching on itself when getting into reverse, so I clearanced that a little.



For the cables I figured that the standard MG cable ends must have an end-stop inside them. Initially I thought of a spacer to bolt down against the wire reinforcement, but that would involve precise measuring and cutting. Then I found you can get M16 grub screws so I can bolt those down against the cable ends, then use the actual bolt to clamp the cable end to the bracket. Like so:



Had a couple of iterations drilling through the grub screws. Initially drilled a 7mm hole so the cables could draw all the way back, but it turns out that was too wide to act on the wire reinforcements. Drilled a smaller hole through, but that meant I didn't have enough travel. So what I ended up with was drilling a big hole for 4mm depth, and then a smaller one for the remaining 2.5mm (the one on the left).



I also took the opportunity to try and drill the centre-hole through the bolts a bit straighter using a method I'd seen on youtube with two chucks on a pillar drill. Worked quite nicely, although there was still runout. Having a short starting drill bit would help, as would having a good drill press that you don't need to shim quite so much to get everything square.



Lastly I lengthened the lever-arm on the gearbox-side so there's a bit more side-to-side travel which should lessen the force on the cable a little. With all of that done I now have a linkage that works again properly! Just a cracked coolant hose to replace then the Fiat's roadworthy again

Jag updates

Not much moved fowards with the Jag, but I did make a trek up to Lincolnshire to pick up a secondhand windscreen to replace my cracked one. Only just managed to fit it in with both rear windows down the whole way back!



Also stopped on the way to grab another Rover 2600 engine. The eventual plan with these is to build a hot one to put in the Spitfire after the 2500PI lump. Reason they're getting bought now is that they're getting a bit thin on the ground so bargain ones are harder to come by. Its also tricky to get parts for them so having spares should pay dividends it also comes with an LT77 gearbox which is a bit beefier than the Triumph saloon box on the Spit at the moment.



Garage is a bit full at the moment though!

It's stuck!



Next steps are to clean everything, do a leak check and patch up any holes, and then get some paint on it. Haven't quite got round to that yet as I was helping my mate out with his V8 E36. Ever since he bought it it's had some slightly odd rattling noises coming from the clutch area. There's also some other rather ropey aspects of the build that, while we can see why they were done, we'd rather redo a little better.

All of that added up to pulling the engine, which came out about a week ago.



What we were concerned about was a bolt for the clutch adaptor kit working its way loose and ejecting the flywheel out of the bellhousing. Luckily all of that was tight, but we did find the spigot bearing just loose in the hole in the adapter. That was probably the rattling sound! The only thing we can think is that it wasn't fitted properly as it was a snug fit in the flex plate.

My mate had also sorted a radiator mounting to fit the new M3 rad as the old one was leaking (and a little small).



Everything was coming along relatively well, and on the Sunday just been there was a little socially distanced car meetup we were going to. We looked at how much there was left to do and thought 'I reckon we can make that'. Cue some solid working on Friday evening and all through Saturday!

Job 1 was to remake the fuel lines as previously they'd been run in rubber hose all the way through the cabin. We can see why as there's practically no space between the headers and the chassis rail for fuel lines, but it's not exactly the safest setup.

First off my mate drilled a hole through the chassis rail and welded in an offcut of my Spit's rollcage tubing for the fuel lines to pass through.




Then we made up some fuel lines in the stock position. They still got rather close to the headers so I made up a little heatshield to try and prevent heat soak during traffic.



Engine was back in by the Friday night, which we thought was pretty good going!



Turns out there was still a massive amount to do. Had to re-route and re-make power steering lines, plumb coolant lines, fit the fan using home-made clips. Got us to this point:



That took until about 11pm on the Saturday, where we were reminded that the 540i expansion tank we had really didn't fit anywhere in the engine bay. Some creative clearancing with the angle grinder, a bit of welding and relocating the PS reservoire and remote oil filter and we just about managed to sandwich it in! Some finest cable tie engineering held it down and we were done!

Down on its wheels for tracking at 2am (which luckily was pretty much bang on). Some light work on the Fiat tweaking up some coolant pipe clamps and checking its tracking and we were done by 3am :S

5 hours sleep and we were off to Hayling Island, meeting up with a chap with a Supra, two turbocharged MX5s and an NA one. Believe it or not our just put back together E36 and not known for reliability Fiat got down there with no issues at all! For once it was someone else. One of our mates' turbo MX5s started running on 3 cylinders while we were down there which was a bit galling for him as he's just rebuilt it from having a cracked piston :S

Luckily, it was just a loose wire on the no1 ignition coil. Fixed on site using the crimpin pliers another very well prepared person had brought with them!



All in all a very successful and fun little trip. We won't mention the minor leak in the Fiat's clutch slave causing the gears to get trickier to get on the journey back, or that causing the linkage to pop off the gearstick in a moment of panic at a set of lights we won't mention that at all!