Trimph Spitfire first car!

[Agrispeed]

Spitfire2 said:

The door card should just pull off once you have unscrewed the chrome surround around the inside door handle.

You should be able to release the door latch with your hand once you have got the card off.

Yes, I hoped it would be that simple. I have pulled the doors inners out on another spitfire, so vaguely know what I'm doing there. The other thing is that the window wont wind down all the way, so I assume its fouling on something thats come astray.

The other odd one, is when I go over one particular bump in the road the car stalls, but restarts when cranked, I suspect it may be the dizzy spindle jumping up and not rotating properly though, but as it only happens on one particular bit of road i dont mind much.

7 weeks until I'm back to look at it so plenty of time to learn...

[Agrispeed]

back home this week! can't wait to properly use the car, since it did a whole 500 miles last year... hopefully it will stay sunny (I know).

saw a GT6 mk1 mixing it with rush hour traffic in drizzle yesterday in cambridge. Forgot how awesome they are; like a spitfire but they seem to have the power that the spitfire looks like it should.

Spitfires seem to have jumped in value - seen several decent ones for £5,000! I actually own a car that appreciates!

[Gilhooligan]

I'd love to see one of these parked next a mk1 mx5. I always feel like the smallest thing on the road when I'm in mine.

[Spitfire2]

Gilhooligan said:

I'd love to see one of these parked next a mk1 mx5. I always feel like the smallest thing on the road when I'm in mine.

They make a mx5 look bland when parked side by side :-)

but yeah they are tiny when parked next to anything modern.

[yorkebar]

Agrispeed said:

However on the last day I drove it, the handle for the drivers side door has pinged (what it felt like) on the inside and has no resistance, and the exterior handle can be pulled all day without opening the door. This means that the door is stuck shut, which entails a somewhat tiresome procedure of folding the roof to step over the door, which as it turns out girls do not find attractive

I have taken apart the doors from another spitfire, but does anyone know what might have gone wrong? the exterior handle wasn't working very well before sometimes needing several pulls to unlatch the door, and the locks don't work. also, how do you take off the trim panel with the door shut? is it possible.

Edited by Agrispeed on Thursday 31st January 16:19

Almost eery this. I too have a spitfire, as my first car, in red.

And strangely enough just this month, both of the door handles have given up the ghost! leaving my doors stuck closed.... after a bit of wrestling i found out that it was something to do with the locking mechanism, the lever between the handle and the inside handle fills with dirt and restricts travel, meaning that when you turn the key to unlock the door the whole system moves to unlock, then springs back and re-locks the door. very irritating, especially when MOT is less that 2 weeks away.

[Agrispeed]

yorkebar said:

Almost eery this. I too have a spitfire, as my first car, in red.

And strangely enough just this month, both of the door handles have given up the ghost! leaving my doors stuck closed.... after a bit of wrestling i found out that it was something to do with the locking mechanism, the lever between the handle and the inside handle fills with dirt and restricts travel, meaning that when you turn the key to unlock the door the whole system moves to unlock, then springs back and re-locks the door. very irritating, especially when MOT is less that 2 weeks away.

Sorry for the late reply. but another spitfire? i think we need pics!

I've never bothered locking my door, firstly as it only means someone will cut the roof to get in, and secondly as to unlock it you have to climb in (tricky! -In fact after my mot they helpfully locked my car which involved some serious gymnastics to get in...) and unlock from the inside for some reason. the actual catch pull has broken in mine, leaving me with a floppy handle inside and out, I will look at it soon though... 8 or so hours on a train that may well be delayed first though...

as a side note, MOT garages love spitfires! very simple to test and nostalgic.. but they do look at them in detail so be careful... my local garage restores classics as a hobby, and the pic when the garage opened has a spitfire outside! He did however, have some trouble getting in - not as easy as 40 years ago

[Spitfire2]

never asked for a pic of mine. Here's some anyway












And this is why you should oil your trunnions. I blame the previous owner.

[yorkebar]

I'll give a quick rundown on my car for the ladies and gentlemen.

bought in may 2012, made my first mistake and fell in love with the car at first sight. And it had its issues. but the main thing i wanted was a rust free car... and funnily enough..

I got one! apart from a few small bubbles in places it's a solid car.






and after removing the roll bar, changing the creaky steering wheel, changing the ignition system, carbs, intake manifold, and a fair weight in lucas electrics. here she sits today.





and he're the little SOB that i replaced less than a month ago. not even been used that much.. totally broken.

[Spitfire2]

Read this before you fold your hood down again. The way you are doing it will quickly damage it.

http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Spittop.html

[Agrispeed]

Spitfire2 said:

never asked for a pic of mine. Here's some anyway



And this is why you should oil your trunnions. I blame the previous owner.

My sincere apologies! looks very nice! colour works well too..

I thought that picture was intentional at first... It's whats cool nowadays isn't it

Yorkebar; that looks nice! original(ish) orangey red too! is it a 1300 or 1500? looks well kept.

My bonnet and boot panels are dying, but i dread having to get new ones, even fiberglass is expensive!

[yorkebar]

Spitfire2 said:

Read this before you fold your hood down again. The way you are doing it will quickly damage it.

http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Spittop.html

I read that before i bought the car and the pictures shwing the hood down in the wrong position are when i went to first view it, i have a proper cover for my hood and pride myself in knowing how to fold it correctly.

[Spitfire2]

yorkebar said:

Spitfire2 said:

Read this before you fold your hood down again. The way you are doing it will quickly damage it.

http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Spittop.html

I read that before i bought the car and the pictures shwing the hood down in the wrong position are when i went to first view it, i have a proper cover for my hood and pride myself in knowing how to fold it correctly.

Good stuff. Same here although I'm darned if I can find my hood bag at the moment

[Agrispeed]

Well sorry for the late update all!

back at uni now unfortunately, but not before putting the majority of the mileage of the car since I've owned it!

door was a simple fix - the rod from the interior handle had 'pinged off' halfway, and the outside lock was not quite catching. 10 mins and all sorted!

I had a slight dizzy issue (as normal) as its fairly worn and the spindle was jumping out of gear and not spinning! pushed the dizzy harder back together and its sorted! will need a rebuild soonish though...

occasionally having a harsh misfire when the engine is under strain I.e; up a hill. I suspect its running lean (choke use would confirm this) but could be timing due to me arsing about with the aforementioned dizzy problem. No problem apart from that, and my friend will visit with colortune etc and we'll sort it when I get back. overall i hardly got my tools out!

great fun properly using the car though, especially as im trying to wear down the old, and hardened tires down to either a new 'face' or so I can justify new ones (they are currently 4-5mm and I'm buggered if im replacing them on that ) car is much happier since the HG got fixed, and has a lot more power - I even hit 70something the other day! (although it was the loudest experience of my life)

On another note, what do you guys use as a RPM limit? been running my HG in and went from a self imposed 3k to 4k max. but I gather the torque curve peaks just after 4k?

Overall, Not a huge update, but I am properly and thoroughly enjoying the car 100% for the first time, I have no nagging thoughts of sensible things I could've bought now. Everywhere I go i have a huge grin, and so does everyone else who walks past it... It certainly looks different parked in a car park next to my friends 206 etc

Sorry for the lack of pics, was too busy driving! feel free to upload your own, the ones so far have been great

[Agrispeed]

Just to add... In the copy of TSSC mag i saw a triumph gentry. much want... Is this unhealthy aged 19?



Hardly a barried Corsa I suppose

Also my bonnet is dying (more on that later) and I've found a Le Mans fiberglass one and a normal one... discussion? mines not being replaced until it's see-through, mind you..

[N Dentressangle]

Agrispeed said:

Just to add... In the copy of TSSC mag i saw a triumph gentry. much want... Is this unhealthy aged 19?

Not at all. When I was at university I ran a Stanbury TT Special - a Herald chassis kit car I had built. It looked (and now looks) very much like this, although this one's someone else's:







Now sitting unloved in my dad's garage, waiting for its inevitable date with Ebay...

[deeen]

Why are you not using it? Where's the rest of it? How much do you want for it?

[Agrispeed]

I seem to be looking at adverts for GT6 mk1s more and more recently... If only I could be insured on one.

I realized recently that I have not oiled the trunnions on my car since I bought it. To be honest I had completely forgotten about them, but the seller did say that they had been done recently, as part of 'recommissioning' the car after being in storage for a couple of years. I have also got to work out why my car is backfiring under throttle and load. I suspect a timing issue which should be easy enough to do.

So a question. how do you do oil trunnions? I know I will need a oil gun... I'm currently 300 odd miles away, but will be back home in a week or so, when the car will be getting a proper run

also found myself looking at classic bikes for uni recently... tempting.... (although not entirely practical)

[Spitfire2]

Well easiest way is with an oil gun or a decent grease gun filled with oil.

There will either be a little blanking plug or a grease nipple on your uprights. If it has a nipple you can pump oil in until it overflows the top of the trunnion.

However you can also just jack the car up and use a standard oil can to dribble the oil in the hole after removing blanking plug and nipple. This won't work well if trunnion has previously been filled by grease by an idiot ;-)

Oil should be GL4 spec EP90 ideally but 80/90 from halfords is fine. But don't by gL5 (they sell both).

GL4 is safe in trunnions gearbox and diff.

[Agrispeed]

Yes, I should probably do gearbox and diff oil too. I take it they are easy enough? It's been about a year since its last oil change (and I did the HG) but having only covered a little under 500 miles I'm tempted to leave it. opinions?

so where to you 'inject' the oil - is it the top of the trunnion? (not being with the car I can't see any obvious points...)

[Spitfire2]

Where the nipple is on this upright.