Trimph Spitfire first car!

[jbi]

perfect... hope it serves you well

[JimmyJam]

Cracking 1st car. You'll be fighting them off with a stty stick. Enjoy!

[Chris Stott]

Steffan said:

One word of caution.

The rear suspension is a real Achilles heel on these.

The transverse spring can cause serious wheel tuck in if cornering quickly.

I would take the trouble to learn the limit on these which is not high when potholes, drain covers etc can cause sudden suspension loading in a corner.

Perfectly safe and controllable, but something you should be aware of from the start.

This is great advice!

My brother had a Spitfire as his 2nd car (after passing his test in a Mini)... it lasted 3 weeks before he lost the back exiting a roundabout, fishtailed a few times and ended up parked in the front garden of a Police house having demolished the front wall in the process.

Lovely car to cruise round in with the top down

[Tiger Tim]

Bravo young sir...

Much better choice the the brown 1.0l Nova I had (OVV869Y)

Enjoy!!

[snotrag]

Spiffing. I wish I'd known about the classic insurance thing when I was young, I'd have had one of these instead of a Mk6 Escort.


As above - if your at college or whatever, you are going to have to beat them off. Only 1 girl can ride at a time

Bravo!

[MrBrightSi]

My first classic car was a triumph spitfire mk3. Enjoy it, please don't abuse it and be bold when it comes to tinkering, you can climb inside the engine bay and i really wish i'd stayed with this kind of car as fiddling with my mr2 is painful.


Your car is beautiful by the way, thanks for making me envious.

[hoppo4.2]

That's a cool first car.

This ones mine I've had it almost 15 years got it when i was 13 and it's still a work in progress other things keep getting in the way. It was standard and road legal for my 17 th but I couldn't get any one to insure me. So I took it bits and made it harder to insure.

Not one for the originality lovers.




Well done on a fab firs car just watch the back end and leave plenty of gap. Those old ones can't stop as quick as everything els on the road now.

[Agrispeed]

well, Last night (and stretching into today, I suppose) I have been doing a few jobs, with the new parts I got from... Rimmer Bros :big laugh: I've now fitted:

• New Fanbelt
• Spark plugs
• Condenser
• Contact breaker
• Throttle Cable
• Choke Cable
• and Door Straps

And, recently I did a full Oil change, so its now ready to go... Right?

Noooopppeeee, I am Having some slight issues with the new leads inside the Dizzy, with a lead from the Condenser to the others.. When i put it where Pictures show it going, it doesn't work, and where it fires the car, it doesn't clip, so once it starts once, you have to open it up and put it back... Oh bugger, Old cars I suppose...

If anyone has a picture of the inside of a Distributor cap, I would be very thankful

I also found 3 hidden switches under the dash, while trying to feed the choke cable through (stupidly hard job), which I have no Idea what they do... this is added to the 3 extra ones in the cabin that are visible and I dont know what they do... Although Apparently It did have Rally lights at some point, But I haven't seen a picture of a spitfire with any... although if its an Improvement on the 1 candlepower the lights share as standard, they were probably quite handy

Pics to follow soon


ETA: thats some mighty fine looking spits' there Guys, really impressive! (I bet that Engine makes it umm... Interesting though )

Edited by Agrispeed on Friday 17th February 20:29

[spitfire4v8]

Hoppo what gbox are you using behind the BMW engine? Ive got a 3.6 speed six engine that I might offer into the Spit's engine bay, you know .. just to see if it fits ..

[hoppo4.2]

It is a bit interesting especially on standard brakes.

As for the leads get your self a Haynes or similar book u will find it very useful

I'll see if I can find a pic of the standard set up for you.

Just watch out fit the quality of some of the parts. They don't always fit right. Leads can be too short etc.

Where abouts in the country are you from? I have a spare set of standard wheels and a few other bits around that you can have if of any use to you.

[Agrispeed]

hoppo4.2 said:

It is a bit interesting especially on standard brakes.

As for the leads get your self a Haynes or similar book u will find it very useful

I'll see if I can find a pic of the standard set up for you.

Just watch out fit the quality of some of the parts. They don't always fit right. Leads can be too short etc.

Where abouts in the country are you from? I have a spare set of standard wheels and a few other bits around that you can have if of any use to you.

Cheers,
its not the leads Per se, its the contents of the distributor so pretty tricky to find photos of.

I'm in the cold and uncivilised wild country that is cornwall (not much traffic though!)

[hoppo4.2]

This might help

[Wizardskills]

Excellent first car. I got my Triumph 2 years ago and haven't regretted it a single bit. There will be times you hate it but it is all forgiven when you take it out for a drive. If you haven't already joined, the club triumph forums are a excellent with some very knowledgeable people on there.

http://www.club.triumph.org.uk

[Agrispeed]

well, All fixed now Folks! I just put the old bits back on, and they didn't work, so i swapped them for the new bit, which still didn't fix it, so I put the old bits back, and hey, It now works!!!

and, I have no idea why but, Hey it now works again

so, I gave it a Celebratory wax & polish, and it's now sitting it the garage, looking really rather lovely... we allowed to name cars?

I think Mine has the other Dizzy, rather than the Lucas one, But many thanks for the Pics anyway, Hoppo4.2

[DBSV8]

fantastic first car and tax free motoring to boot ,

excellent choice , enjoy

[MrBrightSi]

Straight 6 bmw spitfire, this thread has become more porn than i could imagine.

[Agrispeed]

£2,600 in January

has a clean chassis, decent(ish) bodywork, but slightly tatty interior, but some generally in decent condition, and has been looked after well. before i got it it had been in storage for 12 months.

was actually pretty clean, and closeish, which was a problem when the nearest others are London area, so transport costs would start to hurt.

but as soon as I got in it I knew i was going to have to buy it, just so different from any other car, with so much personality, the week before I drove it home was the longest week of my life

[hoppo4.2]

spitfire4v8 said:

Hoppo what gbox are you using behind the BMW engine? Ive got a 3.6 speed six engine that I might offer into the Spit's engine bay, you know .. just to see if it fits ..

It's the BMW box with a custom prop

The BMW engine was a pain to fit lots of cutting. The speed 6 is a BIG engine would be very very funny if u got it in

[Chunkychucky]

spitfire4v8 said:

Hoppo what gbox are you using behind the BMW engine? Ive got a 3.6 speed six engine that I might offer into the Spit's engine bay, you know .. just to see if it fits ..

My God, if you could get the power down that would be absolutely ridiculously quick!

[1954etype]

Good call! Takes me back to when I was 19 and put a new body (from a scrappy) onto mine. Coat of shiny black paint and loads of pointless intstruments later, I rolled it outside RAF Biggin Hill in 74 and wrote it off. Happy days!