Listers,
I spent Friday afternoon visiting The Roadster Factory, and Classic Motors
(Gene Bird).
Here's what I learned about Vixen uprights and a few other parts......
While the source for the uprights has been previously identified as Herald
drum brake cars, the uprights on Spitfires up to Commission #15,575 are
identical to the ones I removed from my Vixen.
Dave at TRF was very helpful. I took my old upright with me, he brought some
uprights to the front counter, and we compared. He didn't have a Herald
upright, but he had an early Spit, and a GT6 part. We measured EVERY
dimension with a vernier caliper. The early Spit upright checks out perfect.
The GT6 upright dimensions match up except for the hole for the stub axle.
The stub axle on a GT6 is larger diameter, by about 1/16". Looks like using
the GT6 upright is possible, but it means going with GT6 bearings/seals.
Spit and GT6 steering arms are considerably shorter than the ones on my
Vixen. Dave didn't recognize my arms, and didn't have a Herald arm for us to
look at, but we looked at a TR4-6 steering arm and it is completely
different. It will not bolt up to the Vixen/Herald/Early Spit upright--the
hole spacing is wrong.
The caliper mounting plate on the Vixen is from a TR4-6, but is modified to
fit the Vixen/Herald/EarlySpit upright---four new holes are drilled in it to
make it fit!
So I bought the early Spit upright from TRF and headed to Johnstown, PA to
see Gene Bird. Gene had told me he had a set of uprights in stock, I wanted
to compare them to what I had just bought. The uprights Gene has are
slightly different. Not in any of the machined dimensions, or hole size for
stub axles, ball joint, trunnion , etc. but they are just a LITTLE beefier in
the dimension of the stiffening rib that runs vertically, and a LITTLE wider
in the area just above the threaded portion of the upright. Gene would only
sell the pair, I decided to go with what I had.....I didn't think that the
extra material in his parts would make much difference. The way I see it,
the weak point is at the top of the threads, so the only way to improve the
part is to make the threaded portion thicker, along with reinforcing the area
where the threaded portion meets the rest of the upright. If anyone thinks
I've missed, or got something wrong, please speak up!
I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. Got to get the car back together
for Giants Despair Hillclimb next weekend!
Rich Rock
Pottstown, PA
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