Over the winter more and more small projects.

Rewired the new tub, buy bulbs, clean contacts, clean grounds.

Everything now works, except the door/ignition buzzer. But I'm just going to leave it off, as I never have liked a buzzer.

Still have various interior bulbs to replace, but she slowly regaining some of her dignity and former glory.

All brake hoses have been replaced and the master cylinder was rebuilt. BUT while replacing the MC one of the seals developed a leak, bubbling the brand new paint on the shelf...ARGGH!

One more spot to fix.

New muffler, went on without a hitch, re-re-built the carb, could not for the life of me figure out why it had to have full choke to continue rumming...
Finally covered the carb throat with my hand and it reved to high heaven. AHHH, leak somewhere.

Come to find out the intake manifold had a stripped stud. creating a difficult to find air leak. rethread the stud, torque down the nuts, and WOW, she'll idle.
and rev. and come back to idle.

Purchased new seat upholstery from an e-bay vendor.
They are very high quality and I'm very pleased. re-foamed the old buns, hog ringed the covers on and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

New carpets from e-bay, were not as straight forward.
Stitched, not molded. The carpet would lie flat on the passenger side , then not reach the driver's sill, or lie flat on the driver's side and not reach the passengers sill. The ONLY option was to split the brand new carpet down the center of the hump, hide the cut under the armrest and "hump cover" and STREEEETCH.

Now to re-vinyl the armrest, hump cover and install.

New seat belts, also from e-bay. They are manual 3 point belts. the inner is just a bit too long, but the outer is perfect. The plan is to shorten the inner, by a few inches and restitch in the original pattern.

By in large the interior is almost complete. And looking pretty snazzy. It needs a glove box, and a few bulbs, and I'm looking for a rear view mirror w/ mount.

I'm still not satisfied with the road wheels, I had painted them dark, almost black, grey. The blend with the faded black of the tires and doesn't look right.
I'm going to go with argent (silver grey) and black hub caps.

One day I'll actually have to take some pics.

August 13, 2009

I began my Spitfire Journey with my youngest Daughter back in April. We had read an ad on a local online classified.

I had always thought a Spitfire would be a fun little car, and I had previously rebult an MGB, so off we go to the hills.

We found the forlorn little car sitting in a field, under a tree and multiple tarps.

Dirty, multiple mouse nests, and several snake skins, but the engine turned, the wheels, or three of them held air, and the rust SEEMED insignificant.

So a deal was struck, a trailer was borrowed and for $500 bucks I trailered the old girl home.

The first order of business was to get her running.
The PO had installed a "new" gas tank, and with a little tinkering and a new battery, she started.

When I finally got "Spitty" into the garage, I began the teardown. OUt came the interior which essentially fell apart in my hands. It only had one seat and sheet metal had been pop rivited to the floors.

As I dove deeper into the tear down, more and more rust was discovered. The floors were shot, the sills were shot, and the rust in the arches was hidden by copious amounts of bondo.

MAY/JUNE 09...

I wrote about the rotten floors and sills in an entry on the experience forum and received a question If I had thought about a complete TUB.

Another deal was stuck and I draged home an essentially RUST FREE tub from Scott in High Point NC.

JULY 09 , Finished removing the OLD TUB from the frame.

New TUB was sanded and painted with a BC/CC paint from duplicolor. Performance RED. Chasis was rolled out and degreased, pressure washed, degreased and wire brushed, then pressure washed again.

Aug. 09, Chasis has now been painted with Black industrial Rustoleum. Engine was cleaned and painted with high temp black.

SO NOW the major parts are just about ready to go back together.

The paint job looks OK from a few feet, but my impatince with sanding is readily aparent. BUT Thats OK, In a few short months I'll have a car that is well rust protected and the onnly one in town!
Will add pictures soon!