sparky_spit

Note that with an original mechanical one that is on the back of the speedo, that it does not give a continuous steady 10v. It is a bi-metallic strip type device and the actual voltage slowly fluctuates between approx. 6v and 13v over a period of a few seconds, giving an "average" of 10v. Because the temp and fuel gauges are also bi-metallic devices, they can obviously cope with this 10v average and display the correct reading. If you replace the mechanical one with an electronic Zener diode type, they will give an accurate 10.1v all the time. Both types are equally good to use, although the electronic version (if you make it yourself from available components, costing about a pound or two) will probably need a "spark-quench" resistor/capacitor combo to protect the input and output from spikes caused by switching lights/horn/wipers/etc on and off. The commercially available electronic ones hopefully have this built in.

Apologies all for thread drift, but....   Yes, the circlips will need a tap with a punch to break them free and then they will come out as usual.  The cups will break free once you have moved them using a vice and spacers/sockets, or G clamp, or whatever your preferred method is.

The best way to fool the Dart Charge cameras is to put a £200 set of spotlamps partially blocking your number plate. Maybe I should have posted that yesterday....    

The only proviso to the above is if you have longer Freelander studs fitted. They won't wiggle in or out without the hub coming off, or a one inch hole drilled through the backplate (later filled with a grommet).

If you make sure everything is clean, you can apply Loctite Bearing Fit around and under the circlip and this will prevent the cups from spinning. Also, paint a white line across the yoke, circlip and the end of the cup so that you can see at a glance if anything has moved later on.

I had one of those from about 15 years ago.  I'm still waiting for a knock on the door and a visit from the "Can't Pay?... We'll Take it Away" lot. What we really need is our government to do something about this petty meddling from Europe.  If only someone would think of a way we could part from the EU.  It must be possible surely?

Okay thanks, I'll bear that in mind.

Quite by chance I'm just fitting an oil temp sender to mine, so here's a picture of it with the flow marked with arrows. The arrow pointing up on the left hand side is oil from the oil cooler going into the filter. The arrow pointing down on the right hand side is oil from the engine going to the oil cooler. Always remember that the input to the oil filter is through the small holes around the periphery and the output from the filter into the engine goes through the hole in the middle.  

Is that from the big rusty pile round the back of your garage?

We are booked into: Charleville - Premier Classe (just one step up from The Brothel) Bludenz - Hotel Einhorn  Lienz - Falken Horst Augsburg - Ibis Budget (probably is a brothel)

Thanks for that. I've had a sheet of 1mm steel for a while, from which I've made various repair patches from for the Spitfire and Mini.  I'm going to make some new bottom front door skin corners so it's good to know that it should be the correct thickness to start with.  I'm tempted by your door skins, but I've done that before (previous Spitfire and one of the Minis) and was never really happy with my (lack of) skills and the resulting finished item.  Brazing in patches to a joddled hole works better for me.

Thanks Mike and Roger.   Mike - if you are able to check a heritage panel for me, that would be nice to confirm it is 1mm/.040"/19SWG.  I'm specifically looking at sills and door skins.

Can anybody tell me which gauge of steel was used by the factory for general bodywork on Spitfires please?  Wings, doors, sills, etc.

No, you can't reliably do it with a dial gauge down the plug hole; the angle is too obtuse.  What you can do is to make a stop out of an old sparkplug with a bit of steel rod epoxied into it, that you can screw into the spark plug hole and stops the piston reaching TDC. Rotate the engine in one direction until the piston hits your stop. Then mark the position of the pulley's notch onto the timing cover, or a piece of card fixed to the cover. Rotate the engine in the opposite direction until the piston stops again and then mark the pulley notch position again. TDC is midway between the two marks. Or you can do it the other way round, using a fixed point on the timing cover and using two marks on the pulley, with TDC being midway between them. Exactly the same result, but use whichever suits your normal method of showing TDC and the static timing mark, etc. Hope it all goes well!

No sign of the woodruff key?  It has to be somewhere.

Have you any ideas of the root cause of the failure Danny?  Sheared flywheel bolts and loose crank-nut/sheared woodruff key cannot be separate failures. Do you know if the thrust washers are still in place?  Fingers crossed that they are.  You may be able to get the crank nose metal-sprayed/welded but if the thrusts have dropped out it might have completely wrecked the crank. In your bottom picture, behind the shim on the crank nose, there looks to be a rubber oil seal?  Or is it just the lighting that makes the chamfered end of the front journal look like an oil seal?  If it is an oil seal, then that should not be there - see https://www.canleyclassics.com/triumph-spitfire-mkiv/1500-crankshaft-piston-conn-rod-and-flywheel Looking at the witness marks on the crank around the keyway, it looks as though the pulley has not been sitting far enough onto the crank, and has left the rearmost 5 - 7mm of the key not actually in the keyway.  Or maybe those marks were made after the crank nut came undone?  EDIT.... On second thoughts forget that. I forgot that the lower timing chain sprocket shares half the woodruff key with the crank pulley.

For the gearbox I use the tube on the squeezy bottle that the oil comes in, through a hatch cut in the tunnel.  For the diff I pump it in using a plunger action oil can. It takes quite a while but does give your thumb a good work-out...

My sympathies about your injury. I once cut into my little finger with an angry-grinder (so named by my grandchildren) and although now healed, it has left that finger with no strength in it. I hope you fare better. Regarding heating the item....  I think the hole will get bigger, not smaller.  I can understand what John is saying above, but I don't think it works like that.  If you heat an item it expands outwards from its centre, so any hole in it will expand rather than contract. It certainly did when fitting wheel bearings to an Austin Maxi (sorry...) in 1985. I am prepared to be shot down by someone cleverer than me though....

The only place I'd use a very small amount of sealant is on both sides of the gasket around the hole where the oil feed up to the rocker shaft goes through the head/block surfaces.

Generally, if you use a GL4 spec oil in your overdrive/gearbox you can then use it as well in your differential and saves buying two different types. GL4 spec gives you protection against unwanted oil attack on yellow metals, which you will definitely have in your diff, and may possibly have in your gearbox. Also, you need an EP type oil (Extreme Pressure) for use with hypoid type gears. So, look for an oil that is the right viscosity (80 to 90 weight) and is EP rated and is GL4 compliant. 80w/90w EP GL4 gear oil is available from Halfords, Comma, Castrol and others. Or you can go upmarket and get top quality competition oils such Millers Synthetic CRS Nanodrive in various grades from 75w - 90w up 75w - 140w, but these are more specific to gearbox or diff (standard and limited slip) and not all can be used in both. 70

There have been a couple of events since the last update, although the October series event (a CMC one) was unfortunately cancelled. The next event, the CMC Halloween in November, went ahead okay and 2 crews from CT competed in it with the following results: Steve Radley/Colin Wake - MK1 2.5 PI Saloon - 2nd O/A 1st CT with 0F and 8minutes Mike Banks/Mark Rutter - Mk3 Spitfire - 3rd O/A 2nd CT with 0F and 11minutes. As reported elsewhere, the CT "Not Essex Winter Rally" was held yesterday and the results can be seen in the specific forum post for the event in the Rallies section. There is just one event left in the Rallies Mini Series for 2018, and that is the Bedford Car Club's Santa Special 12 Car Rally on the 18th December. Entries for that event are now open; see the event info in the Events Calendar to the right of this page. Current standings are: Colin Wake - 89pts plus one marshaling point Mark Rutter - 64pts plus one marshaling point Mike Banks - 64pts plus one marshaling point Dale Barker - 30pts plus one marshalling point Charlie Deards - 29pts Ellis Stokes - 29pts Michael Helm - 26pts plus one marshaling point Mike Bishop - 15pts Nigel Abdullha - 14pts plus one marshalling point Phil Stanley - 12pts  

Many thanks to Mark, Peter and the marshals for a super event today in sunny Norfolk.  The weather was perfect; the choice of roads was perfect and everything was just right. The Expert navigation made us scratch our heads a bit but we (well, Colin actually) got it eventually.  Very clever and enjoyable.   Thanks again for a great competitive day out. Mike and Colin

I have a small stock of genuine Unipart contact breaker points to fit the Delco distributor on a Mk3 Spitfire and also some NOS condensers if you need them.

I think that the Mk4 camshaft has the same profile as the Mk3 one (25-65-25-65) up until FH25000 (in 1972) when it was de-tuned to a 18-58-18-58 one from the Toledo. So, depending upon what engine you already have, it may be a Mk3 profile cam already. Also, I think that if you do fit camshaft bearing shells into a "large cam" block, you can carefully knock them in using your old camshaft as a drift, but you'd need to have them line bored afterwards. Apologies if you know all this already...

Received. Thanks for the info Gavin.