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I am only making all these bits for my car because that is the only way I can get it to look authentic.
My bodyshell is 5 inches narrower than the real thing, so an XKSS windscreen would'nt fit anyway, so I was forced to make one.
Almost none of the interior things on the donar Spitfire were of any use in my car, so I had to adapt a Jaguar handbrake and gear stick as well.
The exhaust system I had to make is the only one in the world, as no-one would be stupid enough to put an exterior exhaust system on the left hand side of the car when the exhaust manifold on the donar was on the RIGHT.
And the list goes on. I cannot make the car an exact copy of the original, as the body shell is different to start with, I have a bonnet on mine, the real deal has a flip front. I have made a proper boot lid, the real deal did not have a boot at all, and so on.
But what I CAN do is to make a car that looks very authentic, and make it a classic looker in its own right, and I am well down the road on that one.
It is a good thing that I'm not a purist really, because that makes me free to do whatever I want on my car, as long as it looks right, and so far I am happy with how it looks, and with the forum blokes breathing down my neck, I won't get away with anything that looks naff on the car.
The recent driving mirror is a good example of forum co-operation!
What is my next project?
Are you totally looney?? Have you lost the plot? does your elevator not go all the way to the top?
Are you one sandwhich short of a picnic?
Seriously though, when I have finished this one (my first by the way) I just want to enjoy driving it.
Paul: I seem to have so much to do, I often don't know where to start next, I usually gravitate towards the jobs I like, leaving the shitty jobs to pile up, which is not really the way!
Goodness me sir! You DO have a good side after all!
Seriously, you're mistaken about the patience, that is one virtue I have NEVER had. Most of my small paint jobs are done with a paint gun in one hand and a heat gun in the other!
I cannot even wait for the paint to dry, and go on to do the rest of the job leaving finger prints in the wet paint.
When something goes wrong, (happens a lot) the screams of anguish can be heard streets away.
There is a big difference between patience and relentless tenacity, but on the surface they tend to look similar. :-)
I had a bit of an admin day today, but later I decided to think about the screen demister slots I need to sort out at this stage.
I was going to cut the slot covers out of the usual stainless, but the original Spitfire ones are made in 3D, and direct the air forward to the screen, and I
could never copy that as well.
They were ugly, and far too large, so I cut and shut them, soldered them back together, then filled over the joins, drilled some holes so I could use my usual self tappers, and now I quite like them.
They will be screwed onto the cover I made yesterday, and I will pipe the hot air to them with some sort of slim hose.
They will be painted black, the same as a lot of stuff around the dash will be.
The black ought to contrast well with the red leather on the dash top.
I am too embarassed to say how many hours this little exercise took!
I have been fairly busy doing all sorts of stuff, and also working on my build.
I have finished the heating ducts in the dash, which seemed to take forever.
They have much narrower pipes to feed the hot air to them than before, but I have used pipes as wide as I could, given the confines I'm working with.
They should work okay, but it may take a little longer to demist than before.
Bearing in mind that 90 per cent of the time I should be driving around with the roof off! (What roof?)
When I make the dash, I want my start button at the top, the ignition key under that, and the choke button under that. It seems logical to me.
At present the Spitfire choke cable is too short to reach, so I ordered a generic new one at 6 feet long.
It arrived today, and I spent an enormous amount of time modifying it to look like the button in the real XKSS that occupies that position.
I had to file all the engraved letters off, then cut and file it to look like the XKSS button, or more like it than it did to start with at least.
The material is very resistant to being filed or marked in any way,which made the work hard to do, but it will pass a not-too-close-inspection now.
I am not even sure what function the original button performs, but I would guess at a manual water pump for the wipers. It has "push" written on it.
I have an electrical one so do not need that switch anyway.
Thanks Paul, that choke button is now with the engraver to put
"PUSH" on it, although in reality, I will be pulling it!
What a crazy world we make for our selves!
Should provide an extra level of security and be an effective anti-theft immobiliser.
I can just picture a teenage twoccer frantically pushing the choke knob in a desperate attempt to get the mixture rich enough to fire from cold after hot wiring the ignition. The deeply impressed thumb print on the surface of the knob should help the police with their enquiries.
Well I have finally got the heater plumbed in to the dash by reworked pipes.
Do not have any pics yet but I do have a pic of the two ducts I made at great effort, but could not use.
Well, I am reading all this stuff over on Paul's thread and Viatron's, about moving the steering column, which fills me with dismay!
I did not even realise there was a problem 'til I read this stuff!
Moving the column is obviously something that is done in the early stages of the build, and looking at Mac's thread, it looks as though it was relatively straightforward working on an open chassis.
At the stage of build I am at now, it is virtually impossible for me to do this mod.
It would have been awkward enough doing it at the "moon buggy" stage trying to work under the dash in the the confines of the open Spitfire footwell, but now I have the body on, and all the rear seat panels etc in place, I cannot physically fit into the tight confines left to actually do the work.
Even if I could, I would be welding upside down, with the weld inches from my face, which is not the best situation to be in.
So, for you Herr Scott, za vor is ovair!
I will just have to live with it, being consoled by the thought that in the past,
350,000 Spitfire owners lived with it too.
Of course earlier, I was outside and studied the situation (in my dressing gown) and thought "bloody hell! it is offset!"
Wished I'd have found out about it sooner...........
Well Paul, if I had not noticed until it was bought to my attention,
most other people won't either!
I have owned lots of Spitfires and GT6's over the years, and never ever given it a thought.
As you say, if you are building a chassis from scratch, it may as well be done at the same time, but also as you say, if you aren't, then its not such a big deal.
I have to say that really, 'cos I'm NOT going to do mine!
OMG, WTF, etc. I've been driving mine now for sixteen months and hadn't noticed the problem.
I've just driven it about 25 miles today and, now that you mention it, my steering wheel is offset to the right hand side of the car.
Luckily, so far I've always managed to compensate for this glaring flaw by sitting in the right hand seat, but god only knows how I'd have managed if I'd ever tried to drive it from the left hand side. Especially as I've now noticed that the pedals are in the right hand footwell too!
Actually, the Vitesse column does sit at a slight angle, but, as none of the rest of the car is symmetrical it'd look a bit odd if it was straight.
I am getting close to being able to fabricate my dash front, so I have been trying to get all the little bit and bobs that will give it the authenticity it has to have.
I think the last thing as far as control knobs go was the choke, which is still with the engraver.
The last things I need are some dome headed rivets, which go on the dash front to hold certain thing on.
They will have to be Imperial rivets, as metric rivets are not "domed" enough, being more shallow headed.
Also in 1955, they most certainly would have been Imperial rivets on a Jaguar.
Metric things were only to be found in Europe in those days, where rich people went on holiday and came back with the shits.
After much trolling of the net, to my joy, I finally found what I was looking
for.
Quaint Imperial rivets with a measurement of 3/16 of an inch by 1 and 11/16 of an inch.
They came in packs of 10 so I ordered two packs, and they arrived today.
Of course I have no intention of riveting anything to my dash, that would have been far to crude for the Jaguar craftsman to even contemplate.
But I had a cunning plan, I would cut threads on the rivets then I could put nuts on, and attach my bits and pieces to the dash in a civilised fashion.
I found that I could cut a 5mm x 0.8 pitch thread and the 5mm nuts I had would be a good fit. So that's what I did.
Just another small step, but, in the right direction and of course, time consuming as ever.
