MadaboutKitcars

Friday

As Mick O'Malley suggested, I do need to brace my dash from below, but before I do that I need to fit the gearbox cover, which I need to repair and modify first.

The Triumph gearbox cover has for some reason always irritated me the way it is designed, so it is ripe for the knife.

I want to fit it to seal off the road noise etc, but it will be covered by alloy anyway, but it has never needed to be that shape or size, and I am going to change it.

Well it is lunchtime, and I have done a fair amount to it, but after lunch I have a dental appointment and then some other chores to do, so that's it for today I'm afraid.

Once it is finished and fitted, I can then design a brace support for the dash around it.

This gearbox cover is actually the one out of my GT6, as the one from my donar fell to pieces when I took it out. I've ordered a new one online, but will chop this one up and use it in the meantime.

Here are the pics:

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Saturday

If anyone is looking for a Spitfire donar, this is the one, 200BHP engine fitted
plus all the other bits. If I had storage, I'd buy it myself, very much worth a look.
It finishes tonight , so you'd have to be quick

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-Sp...item2c900789ee

Thanks froggyman, I've changed it!

Monday

Before I can strengthen the under side of the scuttle, I have to fit the dash in its final position, and only then can I see where the reinforcements need to go.

So I have to eventually put more metal back into the scuttle, then build a bracing frame under there, and connect it to the original Triumph strong point anchor with the captive nuts of the "H" frame, and then connect it to the new dash lower edge.

So first things first, I have spent all morning fiddling with the two dash halves, I have bolted them together now, so they will go in the car as one piece, which has made things slightly easier....... I think!

I have modded the gearbox cover, so I can get a lower profile on the transmission tunnel, when I get round to making that.

Also I have drilled all the holes in the fibre glass dash top and screwed the dash in place, it will have to come out again, but before that happens, I need to make the dash top cover. I have a cardboard pattern for that now.

I am having a lunch break, and a quick visit to the scrappie, as I am running short of aluminium!

Pics:


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Monday 2nd session

Well. I went to the scrappie, but they had no aluminium, but I found a strip in my shed, which was the right size, but really bent and battered. I hammered it around for a long time and got it flat enough to use as the top dash panel.

The throw away line of "I'll knock one out" was easy to say, but knocking one out took all the afternoon!

At least now I know all the dash fits, and all the holes are in the right places
for assembly after I have to re-fit later in the build.

Now I can take the lot out, and get on with re-inforcing the scuttle, and bracing the dash from the floor up.


Pics:

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yes and for me too, what's up alpha?

Thanks for the encouragement fellahs, glad to hear your problem is resolved Alpha!

Yes I suppose it is Mr Towed, but it just underlines how absolutely naive I must have been to have thought it would be finished for the last Stoneleigh!

Most of the things I have to do to the car now, will be very much on show, so I can't rush it.

Although the dash looks right, its still got to be stripped right out again, so I can do the hidden reinforcing behind it.

I have the doors to sort out, the rain channels to put in place, the locks for the doors, and all the interior paneling, not to mention the inner wheel arches, the list goes on, but so will I,
and each day brings the big day closer. :-)

Tuesday PM

I went out to the car to start stripping the dash back out, when I realised there was one more small outstanding job to do, while it was still in place.

I had forgotten the mirror fixing rod, which even the crappiest replica's have, well, this would never do!

Back down to the scrapyard with my micrometer, where I found a couple of feet of 6mm steel wire, (solid).

Over the years I have developed the "kicked puppy" look when I ask "how much do you want for this?" so he gave it to me for nothing. There is a whole long list of stuff I've had for nothing, as I think he feels sorry for me.

So my cunning plan actually works.

Anyway, the scrappie will eventually get to see the finished car, as I will take it there to put on his weighbridge. I'm itching to know what it will finally weigh.

I think he will be quite surprised to see what I've managed to make with his junk.

Anyhow, I brazed a little foot on the end of my 10 inches of straightened out wire, drilled a couple of holes and now it looks ok.

Pics:

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If only Gary!

I think froggyman's closer to it, I seem to spend more time in the tent than in the house!
I sometimes view the tent as the "emporium of torture" and often dread going out to it!

But I have to keep going now, or I will just own a pile of junk!

Thanks for the kind words Ed, but I have to be honest, some days, I just cannot face going out there into the cold, and find other jobs to do that can be done up in my workshop, or down in my garage.

Well it is a garage, and years ago when I first moved into the house I parked my car in it.

What a luxury that was, as since then, like most people I have accrued a mountain of crap in there, like drying machines,freezers, weight training machines and kit, bikes etc.
And now, there is like an alleyway from the main front garage doors to the door at the rear, and I have to labour at times to keep that clear!

Okay, when I first stripped out my Spitfire donar last year, I was just going to build an XKSS type of car, and leave the gear lever, handbrake etc intact. Then I decided to go all the way, so I modded the gear lever and fitted a Jaguar one, ditto for the handbrake, which was also offset to the left as per.

At that stage, with a sinking heart, I realised there was no going back, so I hacked out the steering lock, and also got rid of the Spitfire light and indicator stalks.

I then loosened all the steering column off and cut 2 inches out of it. as it was nor far too long. (without the stalks and lock)

At the same time I ordered a new nylon steering bush.

Fast-forward to the present, now I have the dash in its final position, I can now alter the steering column length to its finished
geometry and fit the new bush.

So that is what I have just done, now its all tight and shipshape with no play. I am pleased with this because I suspect I will be relying heavily on the steering wheel to get in and out of the car
due to the cramped cockpit dimensions!

It will become a lever and a steadying bar to aid my entry and exit!

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Oh WCA you ARE AWFUL!

Later Thursday

I sympathise with you Ed, not sure what the answer is there!

Well, I went back out and ripped out all the dash, boo-hoo!

I made two steel bridges and got them in place to strengthen the scuttle where I had butchered it, I plasti-cuffed the loom up to it, and lashed all the loose ends, connections and instruments to the windscreen, out of the way.

All this was such a pain to do, working in a very uncomfortable position, half upside down, etc etc that taking pictures was a real no-no, and out of the question, so I didn't do any.

But I have taken one of the end result, which is not pretty.

Having done all this work, which as ever, took much longer than planned. the day was over, so I packed it in.

Next job is to trial fit the modded gearbox cover, then build some sort of frame around it, so I can brace the scuttle from the chassis up, similar to what Triumph did, but without the dreaded "H" frame...........

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Horrible weather Monday morning



Okay, so I continued this morning with getting the gearbox cover ready for fitting. I noticed that some of the captive anchor clips for the fitting bolts were missing, so rather than try to source some, order them and wait days on end, I just made a few.
I trial fitted the cover several times, each time chopping out more material the fouled the Jaguar gear lever, until I got it right.

Way back when I devised my side exhaust system, I ordered a sheet of heat insulation foil type stuff, which I had intended to cover the passengers floor with to stop their feet cooking. After some summer trials when I left the engine running for 20 minutes or so, then checked the said floor, I was surprised to find out that it was hardly even warm!

Just goes to show what a half inch air gap can do.

And that was with the car stationary. So my insulation material became redundant. That is until now.

When I took the gearbox cover off in the first place the insulation that Triumph provided which looked like a plastic bag full of used tampons--- (I'm sure all you Triumph owners know what I mean) having been on the car for over 40 years just fell apart, so I needed a replacement, which is where my foil stuff came in handy.

So I cut to shape, and lined the cover with it. Should work okay.

It is now lunchtime, so I will fit the cover later.
Here is a visual record of my mornings work:

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later Monday

I went out to fit the gearbox cover, and had 10 of the twelve bolts in position
after 25 minutes.

HOWEVER, the remaining two bolts , took another 2 f**king hours!

Basically, it took all afternoon.

I cannot ever remember having to do a worse job. I thought I had had shitty jobs in the past, but they pale in comparison to this bastard.

I will not go into the finer details of the excruciatingly painful saga, except to mention cut and bleeding fingers, broken drill-bits, VOLUMES of extra-ordinary foul language, cramped impossible body positions etc etc.

BUT, the bloody thing is in the car now.

Another day, I will start to build the scuttle bracing frame, and panel out the interior in aluminium. And hide the Triumph gear box cover from view.

And then it is going to start looking like the car it's trying hard to be.
(Or at least what I'm trying hard for it to be)

Watch this space.

One picture represents all that pain!!

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I'm glad you wrote that piece Mr T! I was wondering if it was just me that had an ar**hole gear box cover!!

Well, mine's held in very well now, I hope to hell I never have to remove it in the near future.

I got it on ebay, and it came from Hong Kong Paul.
Google that type of thing in and have a browse, I'm sure you'll find it.
I got it so long ago all the info has dropped off my ebay.

Good luck with it, it is worth getting, and it was very cheap if I remember. The UK stuff is double the price.

I worked most of yesterday constructing the scuttle support frame.
which like all the other jobs took (and still is) longer than I thought, lots of welding, fitting in the car welding again and so on.
I can see why one-off fabrication is so expensive now, it's very time consuming. It was such intense work for me that I forgot totake any pics, but I really hope to finish it today so will post some then

When that is done I plan to start on the interior paneling in ally,
which so far seems to have eluded me.

But it all boils down to "this job cannot be done until that one is done" so it sometimes appears that I am actually going backwards, but of course this is not the case and I am getting ever close to the completion of the car.
I will post the frame pics later today with any luck.

My injured finger really hurt this morning, it had gone septic 'cos I dressed it hastily yesterday, so I had to clean it up a bit to make it heal, which was painful, but its alright to heal now.


All ghouls pay attention:

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Oxford: No, I don't have a mini you :-)

Froggy, the hasty dressing was a length of rusty barbed wire wrapped around it to stop the bleeding :-) It didn't work

WCA, Wow! looks like you were fiddling around with your crossbow, and it went off and got you in the heel! Ouch!!! :-)