>1. Has anyone experienced tearing of the metal at the upper corners of
the cutout
>for the bonnet latches on the front wings? There doesn't seem to any
binding of
>the bonnet to cause stress so I'm unsure of the source of the problem.
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Vibration induced metal fatigue. Almost every older, driven, Spitfire I've
seen has these, as well as MK4's and later developing cracks around the
blend radii where the cast headlight surrounds are mounted-
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>I'm about to have the car repainted so I'm wondering if I can have these
>tears welded and if the welding will hold.
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No, it will just crack again (see below)remember, any cracking from
fatigue/stress will, unless reinforced AND different from what is already
there, (which wasn't adequate in the first place) just crack again-
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>Can the cutouts be reinforced from behind with some sort of mending plate?
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Since I'm doing a frame off restoration on a 70 Spitfire, and the front
wings are about to be replaced this is exactly what I'm going to do. It
would appear the a suitably shaped (inverted squarish horseshoe shaped)
reinforcement, brazed in place should (will) do the trick-(but I haven't
verified this yet)
Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
72 V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
70 Spitfire
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