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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 5, 2013 20:23:41 GMT
Yesterday some rusty bits were replaced with solid metal. this became this, obviously that repair needs to ground down and bit more and blended inn. This area of rust on the nearside sill currently looks like a few more bits of weld to go on there so its continously welded all the way around. Unfortunatly time ran out for my mate who's doing the welding so that will be finished off on Monday. Onto today's work the main stay of which was replacing a broken spring on the daily and changing the handbrake shoes the latter of which caused an issue with one of the retainer springs breaking, necessitating a bodge (read removing the handbrake shoes completely at the side of the road as they were flopping about loosely due to the broken spring) to get home. I also found time to do another couple of jobs on the spitfire. first of which was fitting this second hand wiper motor from spitfire graveyard. Unfortunatly the wipers still aren't working and the connector isn't getting power so a bit of fault tracing through the wiring is required. the second job was to fit a new throttle cable, so now the throttle isn't sticking.
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 6, 2013 18:52:30 GMT
What glorious sunshine we had today, and because of it even though I had planned to do nothing with the spit today I just couldn't resist getting the tools out again and reducing the to do list. First job of the day was a general inspection of the ignition and fuel systems. This showed up the need for new points, the contacts are almost completly misaligned, a new rotor arm is also required as its a very sloppy fit. Hopefully its that and not a very worn dizzy shaft although I may fit an electronic dizzy. It looks like it has the wrong condenser fitted as well, its touching the lobes on the shaft. Ive blown all the fuel lines clear with the compressor, so when I raid my stock of fuel rubber pipe she should be running of her own fuel tank I then changed the two front engine mounts as the old ones were very crispy indeed! I really don't think that old mount would have hung on much longer and the other side was just as bad. New one fitted making the engine feel much stiffer. It looks like the rear mount has been adjusted to take up slack in the old front mounts so will need to be looked at in order to relieve some of the tension in the new front mounts. I then started looking into how the electrics on the car were. A few cleaned up contacts later and all lights bar brake lights were working. Seeing as the feed wires to both brake lights were dead as a dodo I decided to have a look and see if the brake light switch on the pedal was getting a supply. It wasn't and for good reason the switch was missing completely. So I went and raided the parts bin for a brake light switch that came off the 1300 saloon i'm breaking sadly its not long enough for the spit. But at least I now know all the wiring is fine and the brake lights work. Depending on the price of another brake light switch I may adjust this one by screwing a self tapper into the end of it in order to lengthen the actuating rod. This is how it sits with the brake pedal fully released so that switch is definitely not suitable without modification.
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Post by 33grinder on Apr 6, 2013 20:28:14 GMT
Nice to see some good progress with project Spitty Paup, thanks for the update!
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Post by Kenr on Apr 6, 2013 21:25:18 GMT
Paul, they're around a tenner on ebay, don't waste your time and effort, get a proper one.
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 8, 2013 20:30:14 GMT
Well as far as I am aware all the welding required to get the car through an MOT and a bit more besides is now done. One other major welded repair has been done but I haven't yet taken photos. This will be done tomorrow. On to todays work that has been photographed. To start the days welding a small patch was let in where the boot floor meets the rear valance. The all metal visible from inside the boot is now solid. Although I have a bit more cleaning up to do. This area had been marked by the dreaded chalk so I presume that the last time this car was MOT'd it failed on this area of rot but it shouldn't do now. we had spotted some crustyness here, so I decide to remove the front valance and underiders to get a good view of the chassis extensions. Im glad I did as this one need reconstructive surgery. I don't think this would have been an MOT issue but knowing it was there I couldn't leave it without putting some steel into it. This one job took most of the day. Now here is one very strange thing about this car and I cannot for the life of me understand why this has been done. Someone has welded a a flat second skin over a perfectly good floor pan and have used really thick steel to do so. There are no holes visible and ive removed the interior and carpets to get a good look from the top and the original floorpans are perfectly solid. The outer sill in this area looked to have detached from the inner but on closer inspection a section of strenghener and inner was missing around this chassis leg. So a section of outer sill has been cut out, allowing access to reconstruct the missing structure and used to make a repair section for the outer sill with fresh steel. This is what I still need to photograph. uh oh more testers chalk over an absolutly appaling bit of work. Once again though the original floorpan is present and in good order under that lot. Eventually these seconds pans will be removed from the car to assess the real reason as to why they have been put there, im sure there must be a reason. In order to do that though I will be seperating the body from the chassis. This will be a lot harder than it should be though as some idiot has welded the body to the chassis in a few places. On other notes I went to fill up the coolant today and it all came straight out again as one of the core plugs is missing. ;D ; I have discovered that the original seat covers were brown and are still under the current ones. Oh and something that is really bugging me. I cant find the third seat belt mount. The inertia reels are in postition and ive found the inner mounts for the buckles but I just can't seem to see where the third point of the belt bolts.
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thebear54
DAF Nut
Those who say it can't be done, should not interupt the people doing it !
Posts: 1,426
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Post by thebear54 on Apr 8, 2013 22:47:15 GMT
I am surprised Paul. Only two states over here would even allow this kind of welding on a chassis (Vermont is one of them ) Never would have thought the UK allows it. John
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 9, 2013 6:58:36 GMT
I am surprised Paul. Only two states over here would even allow this kind of welding on a chassis (Vermont is one of them ) Never would have thought the UK allows it. John There would have been 3 options here. 1 - repair like I have, the chassis should not have lost any strucutural strength, the patch has been continually welded all the way around using the same thickness as the original, with the welder turned up and a double pass to be sure it is well adhered. It needs a fair bit of cleaning up now as a result 2 -Cut whole sections of the chassis off and weld in new ones. Ideally the best solution but requires perfect alignment. 3 - Throw the whole chassis away and replace it, this to me would be sacriledge for a chassis that is completely solid everywhere else. It also requires a lot of paperwork to do legally.
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 9, 2013 14:18:15 GMT
Nearly had a major disaster with this one. I spotted a gentle flickering in the cabin earlier and opening the door I discovered the passenger rear arch carpet to be ablaze. Thankfully I keep a fire extinguisher close to hand and was able to put it out before it became really serious. Unfortunatly I will now be needing a new carpet set which I am thankfull is the only part required considering how close that fire was to the fuel tank! Not sure what caused the fire yet, but for safety sake the battery has now been removed
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Post by Nick on Apr 9, 2013 20:28:12 GMT
John, as long as a patch is continuously welded it is acceptable in the UK, they dont even need to see how thick it is, Paul, I think your welder needs to be turned up a bit judging by how much you have flattened the welds off with the grinder (just my opinion)
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 10, 2013 15:51:52 GMT
John, as long as a patch is continuously welded it is acceptable in the UK, they dont even need to see how thick it is, Paul, I think your welder needs to be turned up a bit judging by how much you have flattened the welds off with the grinder (just my opinion) No problem next time it will go up on a higher setting. I am getting decent penetration I can see from the patch in the boot floor that the welds are visible from both sides of the patch. A problem we were finding though is the wire feed kept randomly changing. As soon as I can afford it that Wolf thing is going in a skip and im getting a better one!
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