1974 Unibody Triumph Spit6 (with some detours inbetween)

There will be more coming soon hopefully on the Spit. Paint and now a dual brake master setup (was originally going to have a bias valve, but dual masters are a bit safer than the single system I was planning and I can adjust them easier when I sort out some rear discs in phase 2 of the project).

However, before that happens there's a few other things to fix. First of which is my X1/9, so I might as well start the story on that Again, bear with me. This one meanders a bit...

Rewind back to January this year and me, some mates and a load of people from another forum (Oppositelock if anyone knows it) had a 'Europpomeet' trip planned where we'd head to Wales and spend a week bombing around the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia. As I do every year, I said 'this is the year the Spit will be finished, I'll take it to Wales!'.

Meanwhile, January rolls around and the enormity of the filling job on the Spitfire is starting to become apparent. Bother (or words to that effect). Meanwhile, something rather interesting pops up on eBay...



Sweet Mary Mother of Motors it's an X1/9 with an Uno Turbo engine! £3500 as well. I'd seen it sell for £5000 a week or so earlier but the guy was a timewaster and the seller needed it shifted for a house move. No time to lose.

To put this into context I bought an X1/9 way back in 2012 for the princely sum of £330...and it was worth about that at that point. Rust-bucket, non-runner. Still, it's a damn cool car. Got it running (fuel pump diaphragm dead and filter clogged), and pulled the bumpers off (20kg they weigh together!).




Then, Christmas Eve 2012 rolls around and brings with it a really nasty storm. No power for a week. Trees down everywhere...including this one:



Ah.

That's not good.

You can just about see the poor little Fiat poking through the branches at the back. A little (lot) of hacking tree limbs out the way and we get close enough to see this:



Yeah. That's not buffing out.

Strut's pushed through their towers on 3/4 corners. Windscreen and surround destroyed. Not a panel without a significant dent.

Bother.

Here's a pic halfway through chainsawing it up that shows the sheer scale of the tree down.



So yeah, since then I've rather fancied another X1/9.

So, day before we're off on a holiday I flex what pitiful financial muscle I have, reorganise some loans and scrape together £3500. Collar a mate to take me down to Worthing to pick it up, and buy it there and then. First time the planets have aligned properly to actually buy one of my dream cars, so yeah. Pretty pleased

Had a little trouble getting it back. Ran fine when the PO was giving me a run round the block, but halfway back it decided it wanted to run really badly. Bucked and stuttered under acceleration, and died if you weren’t keeping the revs up. This was compounded by a known starting issue where the starter motor clicks but doesn’t want to engage. Managed to get it back eventually though.

Pretty much sorted the running issues. Turns out a little sensor blank on the inlet manifold had come loose causing a boost leak, and replacing that (with some loctite this time) brought the idle back and improved running immensely. Still bucked very occasionally, which was a combination of the factory boost sensor cutting ignition at .7 bar and an aftermarket bleed valve causing it to exceed that on occasion. Disconnected the boost cut (commonly done), tweaked the bleed valve so it wouldn't exceed 1 bar and it ran fine!

Took it out for a spin with my mate's turbo MX-5 for some glamour shots





Couple of things I wanted done before the big trip to Wales. Standard seats and seatbelts went in to replace the godawful buckets and harnesses (in hindsight they weren't that bad, but the PO was much taller than I am so the adjustment was out of whack). Also fitted an oil cooler as a bit of research uncovered the fact that the oil temps in UT-swapped X1/9s are basically freely climbing as there's no airflow around the engine. Took a few trials and errors, but got there eventually.




View through a grille at the back of the car





The Fiat filter wouldn't clear the bulkhead, but luckily I had a spare filter for the Alfa 156 lying around which is a tiny thing and fitted perfectly

Right! One week to go til the Wales trip. List of things done:

- Full suspension bush change, all wheel bearings and coilovers changed on my sister’s MX-5 done.
- Bled the oil cooler and sorted some ill-fitting coolant hoses on the X1/9, discovering a water leak in the process.
- Oil change, ignition leads, fuel filter, delrin door bushes and a mirror blank plate for my mate’s turbo 5.



Oh, and did I mention I was also lending my Citroen BX NA Diesel I'd initially bought for £255 to a Dutch guy for the trip? That needed some work.



My mate managed to diagnose an issue with the fan transistor through the Citroen's barmy wiring (electricity's still largely witchcraft to me, but I'm getting better). By this point I'd pulled out the ding on the front wing caused by my own idiocy, frost and the aforementioned fan failure causing me to roll into a log splitter.

Still to do:

-Replace some leaky coolant pipes and bleed the system on the X1/9, as well as perished fuel rail hose and injector o rings. Ideally a lower mount for the oil cooler too.
-Fix broken transistor on the Citroen, replace front wheel bearings, and fix anything else I’ve missed (turned out that I'd missed some knackered CV joints so driveshafts too).

We also had a third mate who was planning on coming, but had the side seals blow on his RX8. What does he buy? A Midget that used to run! Went down to pick that up on my home-made caravan-chassis trailer.



Worked pretty much flat out on all of that. Replaced everything in the Citroen. Sorted the Fiat at 1am the night before we were planning to leave (except the lower bracket for the oil cooler). Nearly managed to get the Midget running. We narrowed the issue down to dodgy points, but the replacement set we had didn't fix it. We got halfway through installing a Lumenition kit I had for the Spitfire before we ran out of time (fixed it in the end). Luckily, I've also got an MG F so lent that to my mate now I had the Fiat sorted

Here's the convoy as we left!



Mate's turbo 5 and my F off to the left, German chappy's BRZ, my X1/9, my sister's MX-5 and my little Citroen driven by a Dutchman off to the right!

That's probably enough for now, but stick with. The Wales trip was a proper adventure, and we'll learn that my luck with X1/9s doesn't change a great deal...

Thanks dude yeah it's the fab work I really enjoy. All of this filling and sanding to make stuff nice definitely feels like a chore next to actually making stuff

The X1/9's a brilliant little thing. Makes me wish I'd picked up an old tin box to drive around in sooner (one that ran at least).

Lunchtime at work, which means more Wales Trip!

We left our action on day one with an ominous puddle underneath the Citroen, and a plan to sort it devised over a night’s drinking.



Our cunning plan? Shall we see how much fluid it leaks in a day?

So, off we head into the Welsh countryside!



Wales truly is a stunning place, with some truly spectacular roads. Narrow and technical, but in a lot of places with good open sightlines off into the distance so barring rogue sheep you’re pretty free to enjoy them as far as your bravery will take you.

Now, our plan with the Citroen wasn’t as harebrained as it initially seems. Some clever bods at Citroen built in some safety features into the hydraulic system in the event of leaks. By taking feeds from different points in the reservoir, in the event of a leak the power steering goes first. Then the suspension drops. Then, preserved til last, is the braking system. We’d already worked out it wasn’t a brake leak as that’d be jetting the stuff out almost as fast as it could pump it. Not bad for a bunch of drunkards

...didn’t expect our Dutch friend to be catching 4-wheel air mind you, which he definitely did

But wait. Back up a minute. What’s that tiny red speck in the distance?



Can you zoom in on that?



Closer...



Enhance...



Oh look, it’s an overheating Fiat.

Turns out, my 2am coolant bleeding session wasn’t up to belting around the Brecon Beacons. Who would have guessed?

Still, hell of a scenic place to break down.



Unfortunately, as I shut it down it decided to belch the majority of its coolant over said scenic beauty. I had prepared for little top-ups, but nowhere near enough for this.

But luckily, this scenery’s not just for looking at...





Spurred on by the 'no overnight parking' sign, we found a little stream that was pretty clean and after shuttling back and forth a litre at a time managed to refill the coolant system. Spent a lot of effort cleaning up the spilt coolant as well (seems ungrateful to poison the water source that’s just saved your bacon). After bleeding more thoroughly this time, we were on our way again!



Our destination after all this, Halfords in Aberystwyth (spelt from memory, lets see if it’s right...), where we could pick up some LHM for the Citroen and meet up with the rest of the gang. Only, after the delay setting off from Citroen research and the delay with the coolant, we were now running significantly behind schedule.

Still, we weren’t alone when we arrived...



Turns out some of the roads in Wales aren’t exactly kind on low-slung sports cars. Exhausts specifically.

Bit of Halfords’ finest exhaust repair, spot of lunch and the rearguard were back on the way! Again, not many photos. I think we were just happy to be driving





Thankfully the trip back went smoothly, although we’d discovered by now that the BX was going through about 1 litre of LHM a day. At £13 a bottle, we may actually have to fix this.

Later that evening we reunited with the group at a very pretty pub with a very pretty barmaid and hatched a new cunning plan for the Citroen...

Thanks dude, glad you're along for the ride

I've been calling in my 'Welsh Field Trip'. There's a reason for that...

We left day 2 in much the same place as we left day 1: a leaking Citroen and a plan formulated over drinks on how to fix it (with the minor detour of an overheating Fiat).

Now, while our Dutch friend is clearly bonkers for catching air in the Citroen, he’s paradoxically also rather sensible. During the previous day he’d been scoping out garages near to where we were staying and we arranged some time on a lift to have a poke around.


Genuine quote from the mechanics: What is this, work on your own car day?

Luckily, the very helpful mechanic chappy managed to spot what it was. Or, at least, he discovered a random little tube coming from the strut that wasn’t connected to anything. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like there was much around for it to connect to...

Hum. What to do?

Oh wait. Didn’t we see a BX in the hedge just outside the garage?



Lets have a look at that and see if we can find where that hose goes.

Turns out that the misc hose on mine was one of the return lines from the struts which went to an MIA t-piece connecting both struts to a line running back to the reservoir.

Luckily, this was one of the things I had foreseen and had brought a box of varied t-pieces with me. A little jiggery-pokery with some scrap diesel return line the mechanic had lying around and we had a fixed Citroen!



So off we go again! Late, as usual, but on our way with a fixed Citroen

Today was the day when we were leaving the Brecon Beacons and travelling up to the second cottage in Snowdonia. Still a brilliant drive set out for us by one of the guys. I’d been endlessly impressed by how well the little Fiat performed on these twisty Welsh roads next to the much more powerful MX5, the BRZ which handled like it was on rails, and the MGF which wasn’t far behind the first two.

Power: neck and neck with the MGF

Handling and roadholding: keeps up fine with the 5 and F, and only just behind the BRZ which stuck to the road like it was on rails...or had a bonkers driver...or both)

Brakes: Not quite so good.

Yeah. Definitely not quite so good.



Moron.

What happened here is the BRZ, MX5, MGF and Fiat had all been sticking pretty close to each other down this brilliant winding country road. Up ahead there lay a really nasty little section. Three sweepers followed by a little crest then a sharp 90-degree left with some water runoff from the field it skirted.

The BRZ met this 90-degree corner, sharply put on its generously sized anchors, heaved left and made it round.

The MX5 met this 90-degree corner, sharply put on its big 4-pot brakes, heaved left and made it round. Just.

The MGF met this 90-degree corner, sharply put on its big 4-pot brakes, heaved left and made it round. Just.

The Fiat met this 90-degree corner, sharply put on its upspecced but not brilliant brakes, didn’t slow down enough before it hit the water runoff, locked the fronts and plowed straight ahead through the hedge and fence into a field the other side.

Sigh.

Moron

Negotiated it out of the field, paid the rather irritated farmer not to call the police (I gathered it wasn’t his first rodeo), mended the fence I broke with some rope we had, and limped it to the nearest town for a tea to calm the nerves and to assess the damage.

I reckon the left hand side took down one of the fence posts as the tie rod was bent fully 45-degrees, meaning I had some mad toe out. Like ‘right wheel pointing straight, left wheel halfway through its arc’ (see below pic). Not much we can do about that at the moment. Radiator pushed back 4" or so, but seemed to be intact. However, one of the coolant hoses under the car had been split and was leaking a fair amount of coolant.



Ok, so first thing’s first let’s have a go at fixing the coolant leak.



The leak itself was actually pretty straight forwards. Loosen the clamps and slide the hose up a little bit so a good section of hose was bridging the gap between the metal pipes. So far so good.

The real issue came when we went to bleed it. See, the bleed screw on the radiator is only accessible from under the bonnet...which we couldn’t open because the nose cone panel had been pushed up over it. I’d also bought a load of coolant after the near-overheat...which I’d sensibly put in the front boot.

curse word.

We tried knocking it forwards with a hammer but it wouldn’t budge. Next up was to try prying it forwards with a hammer and later a crowbar a very friendly biker chap lent us, leading to this particularly distressing gif Mr Dutchman made:



That got us precisely nowhere, so the next step was to punch a hole through the panel with a screwdriver, and use tin-snips to scissor along the front, allowing us to push the top of the panel down and pull the back of the panel forwards. That led to this even more distressing video:

That did, at last, allow us to get the bonnet open.



Unfortunately, because the rad was pushed back we needed more cutting to get to the bleed screw which was now 4" further back than it used to be. This, my friends decided, was the ideal time for some humour



Some liberal application of duct tape later and we were finally ok to get on our way



Before that though, coolant to clean up, curry across the road and some phone calls to make. Before I left for Wales I was speaking to some very helpful people at a company called Eurosport who specialise in X1/9 parts. I rang them up and explained the situation: road trip in Wales, put the fiat through a tree, bent a tie rod. Is there anything they can do to help?

I’d just caught them before their chap took their last batch of deliveries off to the post office that day, and asked if they could send it overnight. Brilliant people they are they got that sorted 9am the next day, we’d have a replacement tie rod!

Silver lining: I can now say I’ve overnighted parts from another country (Norwich to Wales, but it counts!).

Still had another 50 miles to go until we got to the cottage, but we got there. Managed to scrub off most of the inside tread of my tyre on the way (initially I thought it was wind noise...but no...it’s my tyre squealing along on the road).

11pm we arrived at the cottage and set to work. Fiat up in the air...



...and bent tie rod off, ready for when the new one arrived tomorrow.



So yeah. Not my finest hour, but provided the evening's entertainment at least. Lots of the guys mentioned that it was quite refreshing for it not to be them stuck under their cars at 1am.

Oh, and I should also mention that the BX following shortly behind met that 90 degree corner, sharply put on its surprisingly incredible brakes, listed over 45-degrees and made it round.

Honestly the brakes on that things are phenomenal. The brake pressure isn't determined by how much force you can apply at the pedal but by what proportion of the 2000psi hydraulic system is fed to the brakes. Honestly with sticky tyres I reckon it could stop sharply enough to give you whiplash.

Loving the journey so far, it’s a great write up, and looks like it was a great trip (minus a few breakdowns, but isn’t that half the fun? )
Gutted to hear about the fiat though, hopefully the body panels are easy enough to get too so you can get it sorted once home?

Ah, red NA BX diesels... I had a coolant hose go on mine elebenty years ago - right next to a similar stream, with a fortuitously lobbed out of someones window 1 litre plastic bottle nearby - topped up and made it into town, where the nice Peugeot dealer was able to find the correct hose from my description. I still miss the BX, wonderful car. Been there with your LHM leaks and can confirm the order of losing LHM assistance when the front to rear pipe went. Made it home, just, before the brakes finally went. Sold in the end - for the engine - when it finally secumbed to rust at 286000 miles. Happy days.

Oh, and the other thing was that the BX was indecently fast for something with 155-section tyres and a mighty 70bhp. After each little open-road blat (not exactly at a moderate pace for the sports cars), we'd be thinking that we'd have to wait ages for the BX to catch up. No sooner had we finished with that thought the faded little thing would peel round the corner. Another reason it deserves a bit more oomph

Yeah I can imagine the early 1300s not exactly having much go to them. More power than a Herald, but they've managed to origami a surprising amount of steel into these. They're only a fraction longer than a Spit, but mine weighs 940kg without me in it compared to a 720kg Mk4 Spit.

I'm sure they're stiffer and judging by how (relatively) well my old one took having a tree sitting on it they'd be safer in a crash. Doesn't help speed though.

Funny you should mention front-biased brakes as that's a definite contributory factor to my little offroading escapade. They're front-biased as standard, and with bigger discs on the Uno Turbo fronts mine's even more front biased.

I've managed to source a set of rear calipers from a Lancia Montecarlo which are exactly the same but a 38mm piston instead of 34mm.

I've got a whole big spreadsheet calculating brake bias for the Spit setup so I plugged the figures for the Fiat into that. Stock you've got 67% of braking torque at the front. With Uno Turbo fronts you've got 68%, but with 38mm rears you've got a more reasonable 63%. Much better for a mid-engined thing

Thanks dude, glad you're enjoying it

About time for the next installment I think

We left day 3 in a rather sorry state. Fiat put through a hedge and significantly dinged up. Suspension bent. Tyres scrubbed from dragging them along for 50 miles. Still, the Citroen was fixed, and yet again we had a plan

Up bright and early for when the parts arrived (thanks again to Eurosport!). Sadly, I didn’t make many friends with this given that apparently I’m a heavy sleeper with a loud alarm (sorry guys!).


New tie rod next to the old busted one

While we were mucking about with that, one of our friends decided to give us a perfect example of stereotypical BMW parking



Took us a little while to get the tie rod on, but luckily there was a little local garage just outside where we were staying (whoever chose the locations for our accommodation did a stellar job!).



We hung back for a little while to have the Fiat tracked, the battery charged (a terminal on the alternator had worked itself loose so it wasn’t charging properly on the way back, easy fix), and inspect the diff seals on my sister’s 5 which were leaking (not enough to impede progress).

The rest of the gang set off earlier for the route while we went straight to the karting which we’d booked for 2pm (as our Dutch friend said, many great roads weren’t driven by our group).

Still, we can hardly call the direct route uninteresting...




Looks like we weren’t the only ones to think so


Three more from our bunch

All managed to meet up at karting fine pretty short track, but still buckets of fun. I always thought I was a bit of a hot-shoe at karting, but to save my ego I’m going to say that we have some very quick members of our group



Mr MGB almost didn’t make it to karting. In a refreshing change, it wasn’t actually one of our cars that managed to wound itself! In the next picture you can kind of see the issue the MGB faces with Welsh roads...



That’s...not a lot of ground clearance...

Some finest bodgery to get it going again (it was deafeningly loud with a hole in the exhaust), and he just managed to scrape through don't let the rusty exhaust fool you. Apart from that this car was probably in the best condition of any that were there.



After a very pleasant meandering drive back (where nothing bad happened!), we arrived back at our cottage for a well deserved rest (and some well deserved beers). Honestly, it felt a little odd not to be fixing something, but definitely welcome!