Good news on the Spitfire, took it for its MOT this week to a new classic friendly garage in the Hildenborough area. Initially it failed on the emissions but with a little tweaking that was resolved. So I now have a brand new style MOT and the car has been put back in the garage until the end of January when the Stag's Tax runs out. I'll then put the Spitfire on the road and leave the Stag on SORN until March.
Speaking of the Stag, post 10CR the idle has been a little lumpy and sometimes cuts out when idling in Drive. Decided to have a look today - found the central bolt holding the carbs onto the O'ring was loose and the carbs were moving. A quick spanner job and the car now idles perfectly.
Took a drive up to Faversham Classics in the Stag, Trevor had rung me to say he'd got one of the heads off my old engine at last and did I want to see the condition.
Suffice to say it was well stuck - only one head bolt came out and he had to spend a number of days jacking up the head so that he could cut through all the studs. No way could that have been done in the car! So my decision to go for a newly built engine was clearly the right one. Apparently he thinks the original engine was a Tony Hart Rebuild.
Saturday 29 October 2011
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Two Weeks later
Two weeks ago I started preparing the Spitfire for its forthcoming MOT. I am pleased to say it is now as ready as it will ever be. I (together with my neighbour Andy's help and advice) have ground, drilled, patched and welded parts of the floor to sill joints, primed and painted the interior and exterior floor sections and repainted the outer sills.
Unfortunately the existing Inca Yellow does not match the paint I bought. So once the car has been MOT'd (fingers crossed) I will be taking the car to a local paint supplier to get a better match, then I'll respray the sills in primer and start again!
One of the other decisions I made during this process was to refit the original seats, replacing the MX5 ones that I fitted for my attempts at the 10 Countries Runs in 2007 and 2009.
The original seats are in a quite good condition having spent the last 4 years in the garage loft with only a small split in the drivers seat. I have also replaced the rear brakes and adjusted them, replaced plugs, adjusted points and generally serviced the car. It still seems to be running a bit rich, so a bit more tuning is needed before the MOT. I even bunged some Redex into the Tank!
The MX5 seats are probably going to be tried out in Andy's Toledo to provide a bit of extra comfort for next years Round Britain run. We have already measured them and it looks like they will only need some minor fettling on the runners.
Unfortunately the existing Inca Yellow does not match the paint I bought. So once the car has been MOT'd (fingers crossed) I will be taking the car to a local paint supplier to get a better match, then I'll respray the sills in primer and start again!
One of the other decisions I made during this process was to refit the original seats, replacing the MX5 ones that I fitted for my attempts at the 10 Countries Runs in 2007 and 2009.The original seats are in a quite good condition having spent the last 4 years in the garage loft with only a small split in the drivers seat. I have also replaced the rear brakes and adjusted them, replaced plugs, adjusted points and generally serviced the car. It still seems to be running a bit rich, so a bit more tuning is needed before the MOT. I even bunged some Redex into the Tank!
The MX5 seats are probably going to be tried out in Andy's Toledo to provide a bit of extra comfort for next years Round Britain run. We have already measured them and it looks like they will only need some minor fettling on the runners.
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