Once the gearbox was complete the overdrive was next up. It’s a Laycock J type used on many cars of the era. Mine always worked quite well so I wasn’t expecting to find anything particularly out of order. It basically consists of an epicyclic gear system which allows the input shaft to reduce speed by about 25% in 3rd and 4th gears. Much […]
I finally got to the stage of putting some colour on the chassis today since the humidity was low enough at 50%. Although I’ve not been working on the car at every given moment, I have been stripping the chassis down and preparing it for some time now. The old paint on the chassis was nice and smooth but it started showing signs […]
So I’ve continued with the Spitfire today. Last week I removed the engine and gearbox along with the radiator. I removed the engine with ease using an electric winch I was given and my dad has installed in the garage to do just this (or lift motorbikes). I plan to work on the engine and any other mechanical parts or suspension over the […]
Now it’s really coming on and there’s no turning back. I finished removing everything from the body tub this weekend. The pedals, fuel tank and hand brake cable. Although I hadn’t realised the handbrake cable was still attached to the body initially. We tried to pull the body tub off the chassis and it didn’t get very far. It’s strange to see what […]
I spent a fair while working on the Spitfire today. Mainly concentrating on the interior and the wiring loom. Last time I worked on it I removed the bumpers, lights, quarter valances, various bits of chrome trim and the boot trim. Most of that went fairly smoothly. The only bit I found hard was taking the side lights/indicators out of the quarter valances. […]
I’ve owned my ’79 Spitfire 1500 for about 8 years now. It’s been used as my daily driver every year, through every season with the exception of about 1 year when I was in Australia for 6 months and unemployed for the next 6 months. I paid about £3800 for it back then and it was in immaculate condition. Not a spot of […]