DVD3500

It has to be "higher" than the original brake lights and it has to be "central". I don't think it has to be perfectly centered as I have seen some delivery vans that have this weird tear drop light that is more on one door than the other. Methinks the logic is that, in general, cars are not wider than 2 meters so if the regular lights are out you can guess that 1 or so meters either side of the light would be safe to pass... That does require the person to be applying the brakes though so not sure if that is really all that helpful..? On a tangent, whenever I have work done on/in/around the house and they explain to me something has to be certain way I usually ask (in a very Arthur Dent way) why it has to be done that way. Here in Germany they usually do in fact know why. I put it down to the very thorough apprenticeship schemes they have here. One exception was at a friend's house where he was having tiling done. The tiler insisted they remove the countertop so he could put up the tiles behind it. When I pointed out that the countertop was perfectly level and plumb and there was no risk of things looking off he begrudgingly admitted that that method worked... Similarly when our dish washer packed up they tried to charge us extra for a "difficult extraction". We had laid laminate down on top of some of the world's ugliest tiles and they claimed getting the dish wash over this 3 mm ledge was "hard". A small car jack was more than enough to move it... and they didn't charge extra...

It would be legal and a piece of cake but as you say when going topless you are hiding the best bits! That sounds very weird to me.. 😄 I have actually found someone who has already done it, more or less. He has the light crammed behind the filler cap so I am thinking of maybe raising it all 2-3 cm (1 to 1.5 inches to the rest of us..) and moving it back a bit for clearance of the filler cap. Have to of course make sure the top/hood can be easily raised and lowered.... This is the first time I wish I had not scrapped the other body I had. I could have poked and prodded to my heart's content...

Hi Folks, (For the TLDR folks jump to the IDEA section) Here in Germany LED lights (except certain headlights) are verboten so simply swapping out the brake lights for something brighter is not an option. Adding a 3rd brake light though is legal. I have a Körbler targa hardtop so that is easy. Lots of kits where I can add that in the rear window. What about when I want to go topless? (the car for pete’s sake…) As I near getting my car’s body and chassis painted I started thinking about improving rear visibility as we have had no less than 3 fatal rear-end crashes in the area in the past few weeks. I had toyed with the idea of eliminating part of the chrome trim on the lip of the trunk/boot and replacing it with a thin LED brake light. Problem was the lid is curved so the light would not be very big and not being curved would look a bit half-donkeyed…. I was thinking about the fuel cap, for example a ring that clamps on the fuel cap and then attach a light to it somehow. However the rules here in Deutschland mean you would have to affix it with “tools” so any time the cap needed to be opened or used would be a pain. (I also could not find a way to make it not look like E.T. with a 100° fever…) Then while on a very boring conference call I had a brain wave! IDEA (TLDR=too long didn’t read) The rear of the convertible top/hood is attached to the car by 2 ½” bolts on a strip of metal. I could fashion a thin strip of metal would slide under the mounting frame out the back and using 90° angles I could mount a 3rd brake light between the top/hood and the fuel filler. I t may be slightly obscured by the fuel cap but that’s OK I think as 96.30894% of all drivers are looking down on a Spitfire anyway… This has the advantage that I could fashion a plug inside the car and swap it when I put the hard top on (you are only allowed one central brake light) as well as being total reversible. Any gaps caused by the extra strip of metal could be mitigated with weather stripping. Since that part of the car is not subject to high winds the metal could be very thin, like .2 or .3 mm I reckon. In fact, it probably has to be thin to conform to the lip around the tub where the top/hood is mounted. Whadaya think?

What about your kidneys?! 😄

Is it me or are LHD Triumph saloons pretty rare anyway? More rare than the sports cars in any case...

Yeah a date on the bareback of a horse seems very comical! 😄 Just joking.. but yes... life can have many twists and turns!

This be he: https://www.facebook.com/mark.field.336

Went on a roughly 100 mile trip with the Pfalz and Lake Constance Spitfire clubs... had to follow in my Enyaq as my car is still in bits! We also had a fairly rare 2500 LHD in the mix. We have some beautiful roads here in Southwest Germany. Did a jump over the border to Alsace and visited the Maginot line. Very enjoyable day and apart from a muffler bracket breaking on one car no problems!

Link?

Which proves the problem is not in the technology but in its execution. I believe you are at about where Germany was beginning of 2022 so there is hope for you....! While we were waiting for our EV to arrive I was hearing similar horror stories and was very scared it would be a pain. By the time the car arrived things had gotten much much better. I did the same trip this past Friday and Saturday. Shaved about 30 minutes off by optimizing my charging. It was a piece of cake again. Sadly, after 2200 KM of traveling to Bremen I took the fiberglass hood/bonnet to the body shop in Stuttgart. We fitted it to the tub and it was awful. Not sure if the support rods moved during transport but it was still about 1 cm too high on the passenger side and the back of the fenders/wings foul the doors. The headlight surrounds still had large gaps and did not match the curves at all. This was heartbreaking because in the shop the guy fit it to two other Spitfires and it looked OK. No clue why mine is so different. It is all manageable but there is no one in the area I trust to do it. As the body shop that has the car wants it out I had to decide to go with the original steel hood/bonnet so the project can move forward and I will prop the fiberglass one up in the corner until I feel like driving to Bremen with the Spitfire and get the fiberglass to match my car. Luckily the trailer was borrowed and the car was a company car so apart from a few hundred € I am only out my time. Still, part of me is almost happy the project is moving forward albeit not exactly as I wanted it to. He claims it will be sent off in 2-3 weeks` time and back in 3.4 weeks after that. So hopefully in September it will be home and I can start on the mechanical stuff that I can do in my own garage. I reckon I will get the suspension up to snuff, then the brakes. Putting the windows in and then the new (custom) wiring loom. That should only keep me busy for what, 3? 4? years? 😄

I thought only one on the driver`s side was mounted from the factory and not two...

Interesting that there are extra rear (possibly fog?) lights...?

I was going to suggest checking for a cat's tail caught on the throttle linkage but the diff seems more likely... 😄

Drove 1000 km round trip to drop off my fiberglass hood/bonnet at a specialist. He has over 20 years of experience and is a Spitfire driver so he will nip and tuck as necessary. He also has some paperwork to make sure the German MOT (TÜV) don't have a hissy about the after market part. That is usually a big deal here. He does it in his spare time so I will go pick it up in 2-3 weeks hopefully and then take to the rest of the car in Stuttgart to then have it shipped off for paint. How long that will take is up in the air. With any luck she will be back home in the Fall and the rebuild can begin. For those who care: Because the hood/bonnet didn't fit in the car and I didn't want to strap it to the roof I borrowed a friend's trailer. Here in Germany trailers are limited to 80 kph normally but this one has a special approval for 100 kph. The whole trip took about 7 hours one way because I detoured about 50 km for charging stops that were easy in and out with a trailer (most charging stations are back in/out) and I am THAT lazy. All in all it was a dead easy, non eventful trip. I was able to cruise at 100 kph even uphill thanks to the torque, easily passing other cars/trucks/caravans. I usually charged longer than necessary as I had never driven so long with a trailer and din#t know what it would do to range. In the end it only added about 2-3 kw per 100 KM. Air conditioning and head wind seemed more of a factor. Return trip was faster as I knew I didn't have to charge as long. In fact on the return trip I had usually hit my target by the time I had "spent a penny" and gotten back in the car. All charging stations used 100% renewable energy. They even had solar panels on the roof. Mr Atkinson is very misinformed...

You mean the later models? Wasn't that shared with the TR7?

What about wiring it into the the cable coming from the brake switch?

As I hope to start my rebuild in anger some time this year I think it is time to join some clubs and bathe in the knowledge and soothing sonnets of other members' wisdom and anecdotes... Being non-British and not having been a member of any club in an English-speaking country as such in my life though I am a little unsure what an "Associate Membership" is...? My guesses are: 1. A semi-membership that means you show support to said club but would rather not be too heavily involved and/or don't want/need the benefits of the club. I have heard these called "silent memberships" or 2. A secret society tasked with putting custard pies on top of the passenger rear wheel of MGBs. or 3. A person who once worked on or for Triumph/BL and is grandfathered into the club or 4. A very silly person who has lived too long abroad and thinks he has a sense of humo(u)r.... Many thanks in advance!

I think it was a MKIV.. 😉

Oohhh sooo tempting..

Yep... as I have always said there are people that LIKE Morris Dancing... 😄

The Germans rounded their borders off around 1939. Didn't end well... *ducks.. runs*

What could she possibly have against a Wedge?

Mark Field late of Jigsaw Racing has them on ebay (Username Le mans-R I think) as well or if not you can contact him directly. DM/PM me and I can forward his address.

You can buy a new 3.63 crown and pinion and put in an a 3.89 case...

So it must be a prototype then....