sparky_spit

If you contact Michael Helm (Michael on this forum) he will almost certainly know of Andy's whereabouts.

I've found the answer Pete..

Can't help with your ineptitude Colin, I'd get an IT bloke to have a look at it 😀. That looks like Tesco Hythe Colchester? Interesting vehicle - bet there's not many of them left? Good spot!

I suspect it would pretty expensive and possibly festooned in red tape. Might be easier to do what the dear departed Bill did with Dollyroo and "own" a separate car in the US?

Looking through a big stack of documents relating to my Mk3 Spitfire, I decided to work out how many miles my 1296 FD engine has actually done. This is not straightforward as the car has had a speedo change some years ago and the engine has been swapped out for a 1500 FM engine for period of time too, but looking through the pile of MOTs and other notes I kept, I have worked out that the FD engine has done 125117 miles so far in that car and is still clocking up more. It is still on its original pistons/bores and crank journals, although it did get some new standard size main and big-end shells fitted in-situ after the 2013 10CR (I think) as the originals were through to the copper. Anyone beat that?

On the small chassis cars the rear halfshaft/hub/bearing/UJ is nearly always a show-stopper if it fails. There have been a number of shaft failures over the years, usually within the hub, which prompted me to make up and carry a spare made-up shaft on long events, plus a lightweight trolley jack and stands. So that it will fit either side, the brake backplate has been altered so that the brake cylinder and shoes will still fit with it on either the nearside or offside - the rectangular hole and slot being modified to suit. Also, in most cases of failure that I know of, the brake pipes were also ripped off as wheel and hub parted company with the car, so I have made up blanked off pipe ends and ready plugged hoses should they be needed. It might mean continuing the event with only rear brake working but it would be better doing that than retiring from the event completely. It doesn't take up much space in a Spitfire boot and I'm working on the principle that it's not going to fail if I'm carrying a spare....

Hi Paul - I can answer one of the questions with certainty: once an Historic vehicle has an MOT issued it does not have to keep on having it done every year after that, you can please yourself if you do or don't. The only condition to this is that your car must still conform to the rules around what constitutes an "Historic Vehicle". As far as having to comply with any failures that a voluntary MOT throws up, I'm not sure; but common sense would say that any safety critical issue found must be rectified and re-tested. You would be in trouble with your insurance company at the very least if you had an accident while knowingly using a vehicle that had a MOT failure logged against it in the system, let alone the Police and the courts if it were a serious accident. But I'm not sure what the law actually says.

Hi Adrian, doing the job yourself using a roll of copper piping, a flaring tool, and a box of male/female fittings is the best way in terms of getting a perfect length and bend for each pipe. I've done all of mine like this and it is not difficult once you have practised a few times with the flaring tool and its associated male/female dies to get the hang of it. It does not require much strength to make up ends and fittings, so if, for example, you are able to tighten 7/16" and 1/2" nuts and bolts okay then you should be okay with making up pipes. The only other things you'll need is a bench mounted vice to hold the flaring tool, a fine bladed hacksaw (Junior hacksaw is perfect) and a selection of files. The fact that most of the work is done performed on an item that is clamped in a vice should hopefully help any loss of strength in one hand maybe? If you find that bending the copper piping becomes difficult you could always anneal the area of pipe with a small blowtorch before bending. As far as limited vision is concerned, I'd guess that if you can see well enough to generally tighten and undo nuts and bolts etc., you should be okay with doing this? Only you can really decide this of course, but I hope I have given you some idea of what is physically involved. Best wishes - Mike PS - I'm not actually sure of the cost savings over buying all the kit and making your own or buying ready made; I bought my kit so that I'd always have it to hand if I needed a pipe in a hurry. Probably best to weigh up the difference in costs....

Hi Tim - please see the private message sent via the messaging system (hopefully?!)

Bearing in mind the Saab relationship to the Sprint engine, would this fit? 1988 Classic Saab 900 16 Valve SPG Turbo 2.0L Intake Manifold | eBay Cheap as chips in comparison....

Maybe give Dave Pearson at Canley's and ask him?

Hi Steve - Moordale Motors in Potters Bar are well recommended. Moordale Motors, Restoration Triumph repairs maintenance uk (triumph-car-restoration.uk.com)

Are you sure that the front pulley is not slipping round on its rubber damper, so that you are actually setting the timing incorrectly?

BT apprentice at 16, climbing poles and having fun. Managing design/development/deployment of BT smartphone apps at 57. Much less fun. Retired at 58

Perfect - I didn't think of those. I'll order some now. Thanks!

Just before the 2019 10CR I bought new rear trunnion kits to fit to my Spitfire. I ended up not using them as they were dimensionally wrong (see other threads on this) and reused the best bits of my collection of used spare ones. I now need to replace the nearside one as it has developed too much play. Has anyone bought a kit recently and found it to now be okay? And have the top-hat bush flange ends been squared off properly to support the O ring seal? I suspect they all come from the same manufacturer, regardless of end retailer, and just don't want to end up with useless parts again.

I've been following this thread as I have a Mk3 FD engine and a single rail OD gearbox which I fitted years ago. Your last post about the bodged extended clutch pushrod jogged my memory and I remembered that I had to extend my pushrod too, so that I got proper clutch release action. I was using the fine spline friction plate intended for the Toledo and Morris Marina I think. Apologies for not remembering sooner..... Somewhere there is a forum thread about this issue with dimensions etc, although it was many years ago, and might even have been on the TSSC or Sideways forum.

Hi Ben, I have a new and unused/undrilled GRP valence for a Mk1/2 Spitfire. It's a Honeybourne Moulding one and still in the wrapper. I bought it a while ago in their sale as a spare for my Mk3, but probably will never use it, as it would need quite a bit of fiddling with to make it fit a Mk3. If it is of interest I can take some pics and you can see what it looks like.

When I did the last quick-and-dirty engine swap singlehanded, 3 days before the last 10CR I left as much still on the car as I could. The engine came out using a chain block attached to a beam in my garage, with the bonnet still on and the gearbox still in the car. The radiator was moved forward and the gearbox bell housing supported on 2 wooden blocks placed between the chassis each side and the webs on the bellhousing. A bit of wiggling with a jack underneath and the engine came out forward and up. The spare engine went back in very quickly afterwards. Lining up the input shaft was okay, just enough room to do it using a threaded stud in the topmost bellhousing hole and turning the crank pully slightly to get the splines engaged, and more wiggling on the supporting jack. I do have hydraulic bonnet struts which makes the bonnet open much further and almost upright, but as Danny says, you could rig something up to replicate this. Its doable if you are in a hurry, but taking the bonnet off is safer if you have help at hand.

I've tried that method with worrying noises before Clive, as well as putting my hands over ears and singing along with the tune. It didn't work.... Looks like the box is coming out then. If I'm really organised I might get my new, new, engine back together and stick that in at the same time. Pigs might fly.

Hi Wim - a couple of things I have remembered, the cam was supplied by Canleys and was a Mk3 grind on a large journal original. It was 25, 65, 65, 25 with 110 max lift. I fitted it 2 to 3 degrees (crank) advanced to favour increased torque rather than outright top-end power. Carbs were HS4 with AAQ needles and yellow springs to start off with. The ignition map was a compromise between a Mk3 FD Spitfire and a 1500 FM Spitfire using an Aldon Amethyst unit. As said above, all this was just a happy compromise for running in the engine, but it never made to the rolling road to set it up properly (nor the 2019 10CR) as I had crank bearing issues after about 800 miles or so. Its now sitting on an engine stand waiting to be put together again after some remedial work on the crank and me finding some correct sized shells. Motobuild Racing here in the UK can supply King tri-metal main and big-end bearing shells. They use them in their MG Midget 1500 racing engines. The price is pretty competitive too. They can be contacted via motobuildracing75@yahoo.co.uk

I think I know what the answer is going to be, but I'm going to ask anyway.... My release bearing has started screeching a bit when depressed, and is slowly getting worse. Is there any way of getting some lubrication onto it without splitting the engine and gearbox, and without getting oil or grease onto the clutch plate? I really don't want to pull the gearbox out at this moment in time, so am open to any bright ideas and suggestions?

Colin is correct. It makes a really nice torquey engine, with good power right through the revs, and with no downsides that I can think of. I never got to the stage of fine tuning the ignition map and carb needles before I had crank bearing issues (unrelated) so it could have been even better. Hopefully the rebuilt version will be, once I get time to finish the rebuild.

XPK - Mk3 Spitfire, owned since the late 1980's. Never been raced, rallied, or driven round Europe a few times. £Priceless. This is on the Grossen Knockers Pass (we think that's what it was called🙂) in 2019

My single box is similar. From 1st to 2nd is okay as you can easily judge the correct moment to actually make the change as the revs drop, and it is pretty quick if you get it right. 3rd to 2nd is trickier to do without crunching. As I depress the clutch I give a blip of throttle and pull the lever out of 3rd and across the gate, and apply light pressure until the gears mesh and it drops into gear, mostly without a crunch and not quite so quick. So far mine does not need double de-clutching, the syncro rings get there eventually, but it may come to it as the box (and me) gets older and more decrepid.