The intrepid readers of this mailing list may remember (or may not, considering
that I only mentioned it once or twice) that I've recently purchased a
Spitfire Mark IV for the princely sum of $400. I figured its about time
to give a progress report.
In true rational fashion I decided that what the car really needed first was
a good paint job. Never mind that the brakes are basically seized, never
mind the fact that the driver's side needs a new front floor. Dammit, if it
isn't going to run right, at least it should have the decency to look nice.
In all seriousness, one of the main reasons I bought this car is that I wanted
to learn a little about body work, and the paint job was the first thing
attacked. The first problem was stripping the bonnet down to metal. You see
the old paint was crazed down to the metal, so it had to be stripped. With
chemical stripper and a LOT of elbow grease, me and a friend or two got the
bonnet stripped to metal in 1 day. The theory was that the next day we would
scuff the rest of the car and shoot it, bolt everything back together put a
windshield in (the windshield was broken), and I would be able to inspect it
monday. The theory was dashed upon the rocks of experimental reality when
it turned out that the paint on the car would not sand at all, it was just
too rubbery. So that sunday was spent stripping the remainder of the car to
metal, and shooting vari-prime primer. The next weekend all we managed to do
was bondo work and several coats of sandable primer, and painting around the
windshield frame. We also broke the (absolutely perfect) used windshield that
we tried to install. The next weekend we painted the car and not a hell of a
lot else.
Which brings us to this past weekend. I spent saturday sanding imperfections
in the paint, and we shot it with another few coats of lacquer. Sunday
we buffed the car out, and started bolting bumpers and lights back on.
It was basically getting dark when we started in on putting in another
(not nearly so good) used windshield. We did far better this time. We had
the weatherstip lip caught all around the upper part of the windshield, and
the windshield actually down in the remainder of the weatherstrip, when I
tried to push the windshield in the rest of the way. I must have pushed too
hard because the windshield cracked. Upon seeing the little crack I immediately
yelled "damn", simultaneously hitting the windshield with my hand, which made
the crack grow to about a foot. Getting the windshield this far was about a
3 hour investment in time, so we did do better, as with the last windshield we
had managed to crack it within the first 45 minutes. We bolted together the
rest of the car, bled the clutch, found a good battery, and I drove the car
around the block. And of course the car stalled out at the furthest point
in the neighborhood, unable to restart. We pushed the car back to the house,
discovered that it was out of gas, gassed it up, and restarted. It still
didn't run right, but a little marvel's mystery oil in the dashpot later,
everything seemed fine.
We then bolted the top onto the car, layed the passenger seat in the car,
put the dash back together (it had been apart to solve an electrical problem).
The headlights were flakey as hell, so we had to fabricate one of those crazy
lucas connectors. The turn signals didn't work either, but by this time I
really didn't feel like debugging it. Basically we were up until 2 AM trying
to get the car roadworthy.
Unfortunately the windshield, the brakes, and the turn signals will keep the
car from passing inspection, so there is no way I could drive it this week.
Hopefully I'll get a chance next weekend to work on it. I thing there's also
a bad wheel bearing and possibly a trunnion or ball joint or something
(the car makes grinding marble sounds whenever it rolls, and it wanders
terribly when driven down the road; it could just as easily be toed out as
it could be a worn out front end component though. I will have to deal with
the grinding marble noise before I feel safe driving it, though).
Now for the obligatory question section of an SOL note. This car right now
has lap belts (or at least it seems to have most of the pieces for them). Was
this stock for a '71 (mark IV), or did they come with shoulder belts? I'll
install something decent if shoulder belts weren't standard, but I'll find
the stock pieces if they were.
Does anyone have any of the following parts laying around that they want to
get rid of?
Good used alternator
Decent door panels
Decent dash top
All items would be for a 1971 Spit Mark IV.
Joe
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