Michael Stoliker's Journal

Tipping Point

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:45:12 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

As the title says, I feel I am at a tipping point in my Triumph ownership. Due to my continued unemployment I find myself teetering on the edge of a decision to keep the cars or sell them to recover what little money I can.

My concern is that if I keep the cars and wait for the economy to improve to the point where employers will take a chance on a 59 year old IT guy, too much damage will occur to both cars from sitting out in the open under covers and tarps.

Frankly, it's getting to the point where I can'teven justify spending money on rust removal tools and paint to preserve the parts I have removed. I've been unemployed since April and unemployment compensation is going to dry up shortly. My best shot at a permanent good paying position over this time period was withdrawn at the last minute due to the economy, and most resumes just go unanswered.

I may need to admit defeat and embrace my inner Walmart greeter. I can't pay the bills and restore two cars on a minimum wage.

Watch this space...

Posted 2012-09-28 12:45:12 by Michael Stoliker

Title

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:57:23 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

The title for the 76 Spitfire came in the mail yesterday along with an unexpected gift...the ignition key. I'm now determined that this car will see the road again. With the body and frame from Rob's 78, and the drivetrain from John's 76, this car will rise from the slow burn of oxidation and with that image the car's name is obvious. Say hello to "The Phoenix".

The Phoenix will be put back together and will hopefully be sold to finance the restoration of "The Tomato" and give some lucky person an experience with British car ownership. The big hurdle is getting the title transferred and recognized by the state of Pennsylvania.

The only missling piece to the puzzle at this point is a usable bonnet. The rust on the original bonnet is bad, but not entirely beyond repair. But with the original accident damage and the subsequent rust damage, it's not worth the time it will take to fix.

Hopefully, I will have a potential replacement today as there is one just down the street from me being given away for free.

Work continues on stripping the 76. I pulled off everything from the engine forward and have two storage bins full of parts. I'm gonna need more storage bins!

The big issue will be how do I get the engine and transmission out? Buying an engine hoist at this time might be suicidal as the wife will be watching my spending. I think I have the answer though. I plan to use a come-along attached to a piece of Harbor Freight scaffolding and a big piece of angle iron. The question is will it be high enough? Perhaps with the stripped frame sitting on the ground.

I guess we'll see soon enough.

<The Phoenix>

Posted 2012-06-02 05:57:23 by Michael Stoliker

I Am Crazy

Mon, 28 May 2012 06:46:46 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I now have 2.5 Spitfires. I went out Saturday to pick up a rust-free (brown paint) Spitfire tub. OK, so it wasn't entirely rust-free, but the previous owner had made some repairs, and the rest of the tub is remarkably solid. In addition, the frame has been stripped and painted. It also helps that I got a pile of parts to go with it.

The plan is now to put the 76 back on the road using the parts and getting the title sorted out somehow. Once on the road I plan to sell the car to finance the restoration of the tomato.

There will be extra parts that I won't need for either car, and these will be sold off to help finance getting the 76 fixed up. I will do what I can to repair any parts rather than replacing them, but the interior is toast. I will need to look for patterns for the door panels and the pieces around the back. I'll also need to figure out what to use for rugs.

I'm planning to either go the spray can or roll-on paint route to keep costs down. The original color was BRG, and I'll try to get as close to that as possible. I also want to go with a tan interior, which appears to be the original color.

Pictures to come.

Posted 2012-05-28 06:46:46 by Michael Stoliker

Number Two

Sun, 20 May 2012 09:33:38 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I'm now the proud owner of two Spitfires. I brought home a 1976 Spitfire offered for free on this website. Being out of work, I should probably have my head examined as I want to put this car on the road as well as my first Spit, the "Tomato". However, since the rust problems are starting to look insurmountable and there's that small problem of no title, I'll probably break this poor car up for parts.

I have to say it breaks my heart to consider this, but it was the plan all along.

On the day I went to pick up the car, with my son Kris, it was raining slowly but steadily. As we left the Lehigh Valley headed for parts south, the rain turned into a drenching downpour and I wondered if I shouldn't turn back and make the attempt another day. However, with a trailer reserved and waiting for me somewhere near Lancaster, I decided to continue on, and the rain finally broke near Reading, PA. It seemed like our luck was changing.

My son had agreed to come only if I could assure him that we would be home by 2:30, and with a two hour drive one way, and leaving by 9 AM, I was certain we would just be able to make that. As it turned out, it was not to be. My son would end up missing his appointment.

I had thought that I would save some time, and jangled nerves, by renting the tow dolly from a location near where the car waws sitting. Dragging an empty tow dolly behind you can get on your nerves quickly as it bangs loudly over every bump in the road! So I thought I was being quite clever by reserving the dolly so close to the car.

This was not to be the case and I felt like an idiot after U-haul moved the pick-up point to a gas station off Greenfield road and added an extra fifteen minutes to out trip down. I still had some margin to get my son back in time. That margin was eaten away as we pulled off the highway at Greenfield and saw a line of traffic waiting for a tow vehicle to remove a Jeep with a busted axle from the road. We sat for another 15 minutes watching our margin slip away and should have turned back then. However, being minutes from the gas station we figured we could slam the trailer on the hitch and zoom out of there making up time on the trip to the car.

Nope! Not gonna happen. The trailer had a broken lamp, and the gas station attendant had next to no tools or materials for fixing the torn wiring to the lamp. We had to wait nearly an hour while the guy stripped and twisted wires together and duct-taped them so they wouldn't come apart. As we pulled out of the gas station and followed the narrow twisty roads between the gas station and the four open lanes of route 222, we watched even more time slip away and my son got quieter and angrier.

Once we got to where the car awaited us, we found John, the owner, busy removing the driveshaft bolts, and we were able to quickly get the car prepped and turned around and pushed up on the dolly. With the car secured, we bid John goodbye and started the slog back to the Lehigh Valley.

My son's mood started to improve as the arrival time on the GPS started to tick down from 3PM towards 2:30 as I speed somewhat beyond posted speed limits (both on the road and the tow dolly). But his mood was not to last as our GPS took us right through the center of Lancaster in very heavy traffic. Not even the sighting of an Amish horse and buggy improved my sons mood now. The arrival time ticked back up to 3PM and beyond. And my son's quietness now was due to him falling asleep to the rythmic banging of the dolly over the joints in the pavement.

He slept all the way from Lancaster to Reading until I had to pull over to remove a tarp that John had secured to the bare top frame. The thin woven plastic had succumbed to the battering it had taken at the hands of the high speed winds of our highway travel. It was rapidly turning into blue confetti and showering the cars behind us.

The roadside was narrow and the trailer wheel was almost in traffic as I crawled out the passenger side door onto the steep grassy slope of the embankment. I removed the tarp as quickly as I could, acutely aware of the cars speeding by at 70 MPH just inches away from the trailer. Stuffing the tarp into the car's trunk, I ran for the relative safety of the van and waited for a big enough hole to pull the weight of the car and trailer uphill to highway speeds.

Back on the road again, my son, who had watched my side of the road antics with great interest, now slumped back into quiet anger as the GPS arrival time now sat firmly at 3:30 and refused to budge no matter how fast I drove. For the rest of the trip home, all I heard from him is "don't ever ask me to come get another one of these cars!". Also, the ominous, "You owe me for this!" I felt it to be the better part of parenthood not to remind him of what he owed me for the last 18 years as I was pretty sure that would not improve his mood.

When we finally arrived home at 3:17, my son, who had been texting furiously for the last 30 thirty minutes went off to go grab a bite and go for a walk on a nature trail with three lovely young ladies he knew from high school. I crawled under the dash of the car to chisel off the ignition lock screws by myself, as my son did not seem eager to stick around and learn something about cars, not that I can blame him!

<No more junk in the trunk>	<It's all on the hood.>	<Trunk Monkey>
<Security system>	<I think it's all here>	<Shall we go for a spin?>

Posted 2012-05-20 09:33:38 by Michael Stoliker

Back To Work

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 06:35:49 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

Here we are with summer gone and winter closing in and the Spitfire still hasn't seen the road. I'm not finding the time to work on the car as much as I'd like and I really need the therapy.

I've finally returned to the rust on the bulkhead and have removed the worst of the metal. I have to decide how much further to go with the rust around the perimeter. As you can see in the first picture, there are some areas that are holed and too thin to ignore. But I'm wondering if some of it can't just be ground down to bare metal and then have the pits treated with rust converter/encapsulator.

If there's enough meat left to weld to, I'm tempted to take short cuts. If I take out all the rust I'm going to have to rebuild parts of the vertical bulkhead to about a half-inch below where the top plate spotwelds on. That's more metal fabrication than I've ever attempted before, and I'm already pushing my limits.

The second picture is the panel I bought from Lee. I'm now tempted to remove the bubble for the brake reservior and lay the rest of the panel up against the bulkhead and cut away around it to replace as much metal as I can.

If I get my new welder soon I'll hopefully post the happy ending to this story next post. In the meantime...find a sand blaster.

<Hole-y _____!>

<The Good, the bad, and the ugly?>

Posted 2011-10-09 06:35:49 by Michael Stoliker

That Old Car Smell

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:27:06 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I've read somewhere that of all our senses, the sense of smell is most closely tied to memory. I was reminded of this recently while working on my Chrysler Cirrus, which having originally come from the Buffalo New York area, is slowly succumbing to salt poisoning.

I was working on the front brakes which had developed a rust induced squeal that when fed back throught the speaker at a drive-through was producing noises that would have made Jimmy Hendrix jealous.

The problem wasn't caused by the brake pads and rotors. It was that the steering uprights were so rusty that where the brake pads rode, there were hollows worn out of the rust scale and metal. When the brakes were applied, the pads couldn't move flat against the rotors and they vibrated in the hollows and made the piercing squealing noises.

I went to a local u-pull it junkyard and got rust-free replacement uprights for less than twenty bucks...good deal! I also went to a parts place and bought new pads, rotors, and also wheel bearing hubs which cost nearly $200. Not so good a deal, but look, I've doubled the value of my car!

As I was removing the old uprights, I was having a problem getting one of the tie rods separated, so I got out my pickle fork and BFH and had at it. The pickle fork did the trick, but tore the rubber boot, and the tie rod let loose with a spatter of grease and a cloud of rust dust.

With the smells of the rust and old grease mixing in my nostrils, I suddenly remembered being 17 years old again in my parents garage in New Jersey. At the time I was working on a Sunbeam Alpine that I had almost forgotten I had owned. Apparently, the LBC bug had bitten me much earlier than I thought it did. At the time, I had managed to get the car running, but I never figured out how to deal with the advanced rust in the sills. The Alpine was quickly replaced by a 65 Chevy Malibu, but to this day I still remember the smell of that rusty sports car.

I recently attended a British car show in Hellertown and saw many original and beautifully restored cars including a number of MG Magnettes. I was reminded of the 57 Magnette I owned briefly when I was 20, and again it was not the look of the car (as they appeared smaller than I remembered) but the smell of the car that brought it all back.

I can't put my finger on any one odor that stands out. Perhaps was the mixture of the leather, the horse hair padding, the large amounts of wood in the dash and door trim. Or maybe it was the smell of hot oily brass and British steel, or the hint of years of barn smell than hadn't worked it's way out of the carpets. Whatever it is, these old cars have a richness of smell that brings back memories whenever I'm near them.

This "old car smell" is a natural contrast to the petro-chemical induced euphoria of "new car smell" that car dealers love to sell as a feature of their wares. I don't care for new car smell. Maybe the odor of new plastic has permanently been associated with back-to-school sales, new binders and pencil cases for me. I value the old car smell for the memories it brings back as much as for the unique flavor that it adds to our cars.

Perhaps that's why I don't want to do a full restoration on my Spitfire, because even though it doesn't have the leather or horse hair padding...it still has an old car smell that seems unique to English sports cars. And I don't want to lose that old car smell.

Posted 2011-09-14 10:27:06 by Michael Stoliker

Hardest Week...EVER!

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:30:29 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I haven't managed to do anything on the Spitfire in quite a while as life has intruded on my dreams again. The Tomato has been sitting in the back yard where it has been exiled since our kid's graduation party. It looks so sad and lonely under the maple tree. The seat of honor under our carport has been selfishly usurped by my daughter's Neon which has annoyingly decide to start randomly, and certainly not when most needed. I've been over every inch of the wiring and can't find the problem. I'm beginning to suspect that the problem is simply that the switches (including the ignition switch) on this car are too cheaply made to be reliable. I'm tempted to bypass the starter ciruit in the switch and wire a push-button start into the dash. The reason for this is that not only does the starter not crank on demand, but it sometimes will not stop cranking when the ignition switch is released.

But, this has been one huge digression, and certainly not why this has been such a tough week. The simple reason for that is that my daughter having finished college has decided that her future is with her fiancee in his native state of California and on Tuesday this week my wife and son and I drove down to Philadelphia to take them to the airport. The weather was beatifully clear, but with temperatures in the 90's and high humidity as soon as you stepped out of the air conditioning it was miserable to be outdoors.

Philadelphia airport (for those of you who've never been there) is a mile and a half long arc of four-lane roadway flanked on one side with block long terminal buildings A through F and on the other side by high-rise parking structures and commuter train stations. At the center of every terminal, cabs, shuttle buses, and the general public joust for position and sometimes pile up 3 lanes deep to unload passengers and baggage as close to the curb as possible. This chaotic dive to the curb is occasionally punctuated by some lucky survivor bursting out of the pack after successfully discharging its passengers. After managing to skirt the outer lane and passing four of these heavy-metal rave parties, we reached terminal E and like a silver shark our Caravan dove into the surf of steel and flesh. My son, daughter, and her fiancee tossed bags to the curb and my wife and I shouldered our way out of the swarm to go find the $11/day "economy" parking lot.

Another mile down the road and we had our parking spot, and ticket proudly displayed on the dash, we began the trek back to the terminal. The sun was brutal and the heat unbearable. We passed one homeless person laid out in the shade of the shrubs growing along the walkway. At least I think he was homeless, perhaps he was just some poor traveler who like us was too cheap to pay the $24 to park in the parking decks with the air conditioned walkways. Maybe he was just a poor soul who would never make it back to his waiting car. Maybe like us, he never spotted the shuttle buses that run betwen the terminals and the parking lots! No matter, we had children waiting for us and we couldn't spare the time waiting on the vagaries of parking lot shuttle buses, so with the sun beating down on those square miles of concrete and macadam we trudged back to terminal E. If I knew then what I know now, we would have only had to trudge to terminal F since there are elevated (air conditioned) walkways between the terminals, but they aren't obvious from street level so we didn't spot them until on the way back.

When we reached the terminal, we discovered our future son-in-law had been injured in the battle at the curbside when a porter had dropped a 50 pound bag on his sandaled foot. My wife produced a bandaid and my daughter showing the value of two years attending school at Temple, dressed the wound and told her boyfriend to walk it off. At this point, refreshed by the air conditioning, we proceeded up the escalators to the promised concourse in anticipation of cooling off at a farewell dinner with our loved ones. The Philadelphia Airport stymied us as we quickly found out that all the restaurants, and in fact, the concourse itself was on the other side of the gates. Only ticket-holding passengers were allowed. So we stood there, separated from the riches of fast food and touristy shops by twenty feet of steel, glass, and the sweaty bodies of travellers inching through the cattle chutes to the handful of gates at the other side. We weren't ready to deliver or children to this creeping hell without a last supper so I conplained bitterly to some poor airport employee about the stupidity of terminal designers until she offered up the Marriot hotel's restaurant to placate me.

Seemingly only another mile away with an obstacle course of three terminals, one train station, a parking garage and a skyway to navigate, carrying only two overstuffed carry-ons, we managed to make it to the Marriot's lovely Sculling themed restaurant. There we had a pleasant dinner of $14 hamburgers amoungst the ambiance and weak air conditioning. Refreshed and cooled off, with deadlines looming, we started our walk back to the terminal. Thinking to avoid the obstacle course on the way back I suggested that we go directly across to the terminals and walk along the terminals to our destination. This was not wise as it put us on the outer diameter of the arc of the airport and I was still not hip to the skywalks between terminals. Our refreshed state quickly gave way to soggy determination to reach our destination through the searing heat and occasional swarms of debarking travellers at each terminal entrance.

We reached our terminal with plenty of time for our brave flyers to experience the TSA's government mandated "Hours O' Boredom" waiting to board their flight. So with everybody saying their goodbyes through the hugs and tightness in our chests we watched our daughter and future son-in-law wade into the crowd to be quickly lost from sight.

We quickly decided that since the flight was still hours away, instead of waiting at the airport to guess which departing airplane held our loved ones, we'd get on to the business of trudging back to our waiting vehicle. Wanting to delay returning to the heat until the last moment we walked to the far end of the terminal instead of leaving by the nearest entrance. At the far end of the building I finally spotted it...a sign which simply held the words "Terminal F", and an arrow pointing to an air conditioned walk-way. Mentally kicking myself, we walked to and through the nearly deserted final terminal of the Philadelphia airport.

Back at the parking lot we noticed that our fallen traveller/homeless man had managed to gather himself and move on. Relieved that we hadn't left someone to die in the heat in our rush to get to the terminal, we moved on to playing PAC-man in the parking lot maze with the shuttle buses playing the part of the ghosts. After a short time of avoiding being run down by the omni-present omni-buses, we escaped to the next level...avoiding getting run down by everyone on the streets of center-city Philadelphia. Believe me, in Philadelphia, a GPS is less a navigation aid and more of a frustrating distraction as the signal gets lost between the high buildings and the GPS only pops back to life 30 seconds too late to tell you that you should have changed lanes 20 seconds ago.

Despite this, we managed to make it back to our daughter's now vacant apartment where my wife would spend the rest of the week cleaning and packing until I returned on Saturday with a rental truck. After a quick provisioning run, I headed home to several days of trying to build a reporting system on top of years of data entry errors and missing information, while my son returned to yet more graduation parties and a week of hanging out with friends and beautiful young ladies everywhere except home. On Saturday, my son having a pressing Streetlight Manifesto concert to attend, my 79 year old father-in-law and I found ourselves at u-haul-topia where the counter person informed us that we had to have the truck back by five because it was rented out again a six. Now feeling rushed, we jumped in the truck and scurried down to Philly where we did our best to kill ourselves loading furniture and boxes from the second floor apartment while my wife stood guard.

It was bad enough that the apartment was on the 2nd floor, but every piece had to be carted or carried down a hallway through a 90 degree turn into a stairwell to another 90 degree turn on a landing down another set of steps and out the side door into a narrow fenced in walk-way around the back of the building to the front again and across the street through Philly traffic to the waiting truck. After doing this about 50 time we finally had the truck full at 3:00 ready for the hour and a half ride back to the Lehigh Valley and Bethlehem. For anyone not doing the math, that left us a half hour to empty the truck, sweep it out, fill it with gas and return it by the appointed time.

When we got home, we literally threw everything on the front lawn and tasked our son and his friend (all freshly scrubbed and groomed for their concert) with getting everything inside before they left. reaching the U-haul store only a few minutes late, we dropped of the truck. Realizing that I hadn't eaten anything all day (and that nobody else had eaten since breakfast), we invited the in-laws out for dinner on us and returned home for showers. We returned home to a house that was barely navigable but at least have air conditioning. Ignoring the piles of stuff to be sorted, we went out for a fantastic meal at the Coopersburg Diner and then home to collapse from exhaustion.

Top bring this back to the subject of Spitfires, the highlight of my day yesterday was meeting Bill Chapman (Chappy444) from this very forum. He and his lovely wife (Anne? damn my memory for names) had driven up from Maryland to deliver a set of beautifully preserved Spitifire seats, and met us at our daughter's apartment. After some confusion about which of the many u-haul trucks, parked up and down Diamond street, belonged to us, we got together to exchange money and seats and talk briefly. Bill said that he was going back to Maryland to pick parts off a Spitfire in a junkyard in Mt. Airy. His wife confided that she finds she enjoys picking parts off cars in junkyards. I'm not sure which is rarer...a Spitfire in a junkyard, or a wife that will accompany her husband on a junkyard expedition. In either case, nice find Bill! It was great meeting both of you! And the seats are awesome!

Posted 2011-07-31 09:30:29 by Michael Stoliker

Lazy Days Of Summer?

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:26:42 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

There's not much happening with the Spitfire right now. I'm being run ragged preparing for my kids graduation party (among other things). My son Kristofer has graduated from High School and his older sister Michelle has graduated from college so there is much celebrating to do...which translates into many errands for yours truly.

See Kris, I mentioned you in my journal, so I don't love the car more than you!

So as my daughter prepares to head out to start her adult life, and my son prepares for college, I may find myself with plenty of time to work on the car...after the party (I just won't have the money!).

More pictures of the bulkhead repair to come.

Posted 2011-06-29 08:26:42 by Michael Stoliker

Spot Remover

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:24:20 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I spent all Sunday morning with a spot weld drill and a dremel multi-tool picking apart the master cylinder tray I bought from Lee Seltsam via the trader forum on this site. True to his word, the panel was in excellent shape with only minor surface rust. The only dodgy part was the metal near a bracket welded to the back of the panel near the relay bracket. It looked like the metal had cracked from stress and then started to rust a bit. This piece of metal will get some extra attention when I start to reassemble the shelf.

The replacement part came from an earlier Spitfire; a 71 or 72? and I noticed some differences. For one thing, the flying buttresses that brace the panel and surround the brake cylinder are higher on the earlier spitfire. In addition, the dimple behind the brake fluid reservior is smaller and stamped right into the panel whereas on the 1978, the dimple is wider and deeper, so it is a separate stamping which is spot welded in place.

In pulling all the bits off the panel I gained some insight into how this must have been assembled when the car was being built. There are so many fiddly pieces that could only have been spot welded if the welder had access to both sides of the panel that it's obvious that this panel was assembled off the car, and then spot welded on as a finished assembly. In addition, there must have been a certain amount of stick welding done around the hood closure panels. These were certainly labor intensive cars to build.

The actual mounting brackets for the clutch and brake masters are still bolt-ons, and appear to be unchanged. Lee threw them in, so I now have an extra pair. I've cleaned and painted these parts along with the flying buttress and relay brackets that had to be drilled off the panel. If anyone needs any of these brackets let me know.

I'll add a picture later.

Edited July 31st. The extra brackets found a new home last week with another forum member out in Utah. So those brackets had to travel from Colorado to Pennsylvania to Utah to find a new home. They're more well traveled than me!

<The picked clean donor panel>

<The reason for all this (Brackets removed)>

Posted 2011-06-06 08:24:20 by Michael Stoliker

One Lung Or Two?

Fri, 13 May 2011 22:29:40 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

It's been bothering me that now that I have my Spitfire running that I haven't been able to get it running better. It feels and sounds like it's running on two cylinders. I had confirmed that that was the case by pulling the spark plug wires in turn and the two front cylinders were making almost no contribution to the engine.

When I pulled the wires previously, I followed up with a compression test expecting to find something horribly wrong with the two front cylinders, so I was surprised to discover that they had higher compression readings than the two back cylinders.

This time I followed up by checking for spark. I thought maybe I had two bad wires & it was just a coincidence that they were next to each other. But no, there was a nice fat spark from each wire.

Standing there scratching my head and looking across the engine at the dual carbs and manifold, it occured to me that the answer might be staring me right in the face. So, I pulled the air filter off the front carb, and after restarting the engine, I sprayed carb cleaner down the throat of the carb.

The response was immediate. The RPMs climbed, the engine smoothed out and stopped sounding like an extended death rattle and snarled like a Spitfire should.

It was pretty awesome that I could control engine speed by pressing a spray button on an aerosol can. The bad news is that I think I have some carbs to rebuild. Something to think about later...it's late and I'm tired.

Good night all.

<The culprit.>

Posted 2011-05-13 22:29:40 by Michael Stoliker

Assault And Battery Tray

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:04:44 -0500

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I haven't done much work lately because of the weather. But I get some parts in from Vicky Brit and thought I'd do something about the the battery tray in the Spit. My battery tray isn't rusted out. Actually it's in decent shape because it was replaced already. It's just the manner in which it was replaced...

Normally, when you replace a battery tray in these cars, you drill out the spot welds on the braces and the old battery tray and lift the rusted remains of the old tray out before cleaning up and welding in the new tray. The person who did this job found a shortcut. They simply hammered the braces to the sides, hammered the edges of the battery tray up to a suitable angle, hammered the new tray down through the ruins of the old one, and welded all around the circumference of the tray's edge to seal the edges. Brilliant! A true time-saver. Now I only have to worry about those tetanus stalagtites hanging down under my dash. Ah well...I can probably cut those out with my dremel tool.

My immediate concern was that after welding, nothing was sealed with paint. The weld was left bare, and the rest of the battery tray was left in red primer and it was starting to surface rust. So since some of the parts that came from VB were a battery mat and a battery hold-down kit I decided it was time to do a clean up. With an abrasive pad and a shop-vac, I removed the surface rust (and most of the red oxide) and took a can of rustoleum stop rust & primer to the tray. I followed up with the closest thing Rustoleum had to British Vermilion paint...something called Lobster Red.

Using a halogen shop light to keep the paint from frosting over in the cold, I applied several coats, and when the paint was dry, cut the acid neutralizing felt mat to fit the bottom of the tray and bolted the battery down. Hopefully, this will protect things until I can come back and make it right.

The big news though is that PennDOT threw my title application back at me. I wondered what the heck the problem could be. Was the previous owner an infamous car thief who'd sold me a hot Spitfire? No, the D.O.T was just sure that somebody had copied the VIN# incorrectly because it was much too short to be a VIN#. They suggested that I make pencil tracings of the VIN and engine numbers and send them back in the self addressed (but not stamped) envelope.

They included a toll-free number in the envelope, but since it reaches an automated phone system I was deprived of being a smart ass and telling them that we have invented several improved methods of producing facsimiles of objects since the neolithic period.

In fact, the recorded message mentioned that I could submit photographs if legible tracings couldn't be produced, but I would have to get the photos notarized by a bonded notary so as to establish the legitimacy of the photographs. Oh goody, the Commonwealth of PA has found another way to share my wealth in common with me.

Well, gotta get to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and find a notary before noon.

<That'll buff out>

Posted 2011-04-01 23:04:44 by Michael Stoliker

Don't It Make You Wanna Shout...

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 14:17:18 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

It's alive!

Well...sorta. I had it running on carb cleaner, which I wouldn't have thought of trying except for all the people that have mentioned it on this board. Good thing it worked too, because my ancient can of starting fluid lost all pressure and just kind of dribbled ether on my shoes (maybe that's why my foot's asleep).

I won't be trying any harder to get it running on its own power until I sort out the timing (the Dizzy's in 180 degrees out) and get the exhaust hooked up to the header.

Damn was that thing loud!

I'm happy with how the plumbing turned out under the hood. The 1500 engine wanted the fuel line to go around the back of the head. The Mark III manifold and carbs wanted it to go around the front. I compromised and met in the middle. I put a rubber fuel line around the back of the head and connected it to some copper tubing that went to the front carb. A short piece of rubber hose at each float bowl fitting connected the copper at the inlet, and another piece of copper went around the front to the back carb. It looks very factory...if I just had a set of pot pie air filters to hang the tubing on. The tubing over the top of the manifold needs a support at the rear, cause at the moment it bounces quit a bit. I'll work something out.

<Plumbing complete Mario!>

Posted 2011-03-06 14:17:18 by Michael Stoliker

Waiting For The Sun

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:22:28 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

Tomorrow the head goes back on and I start sorting the ancillary bits out so that this thing will hopefully run went I'm done. I ordered the Emissions Valve from SpitBits, but it won't be here in time for the restart, so I'll have to use the old one as the big metal cork that it is. If nothing else, having no beather plugged into the valve cover should give me immediate feedback on the condition of my rings!

Speaking of condition, I opened all the water jacket holes that had been blocked so this engine should run much cooler than it did in the past. I have plans to do a chemical flush when the engine is running well (knock wood). So I guess the coolant I'll be starting with is sacrificial along with the oil. Lots to sort out tomorrow along with the usual honey-do list and kid shuttling to do so I better get a good night's sleep.

Good Night All.

<2011 0303stuffandSpitfire0015>

Posted 2011-03-04 20:22:28 by Michael Stoliker

Getting Ahead

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:09:46 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I pulled the head off the Tomato Friday night. It took me almost four hours to get things completely apart and stored away for the night. The most time was spent trying to get the head off. It just didn't want to budge. I decided to try the old rope trick and fed about 5 feet of old-fashioned cotton rope into the number 3 cylinder and cranked the engine. The head popped up as neat as you please. I then struggled for another 15 minutes tugging the head up the studs.

In the morning, I got out the extra large paint roller tray that I use to clean parts, stood the head in it and filled the combustion chambers with mineral spirits. Before I finished filling the last chamber the first two were already leaking down. The best cylinder took almost 15 minutes to completely leak down, the others had been dry for 14 minutes. Fortunately, I had another head. A quick test of this head showed it to be in great shape.

The rest of the afternoon was spent scraping gaskets and cleaning parts.

While I had the intake manifold off I took the opportunity to examine the Emissions Valve to see if it needed a new diaphragm. When I removed the retainer spring and popped the cap there was nothing inside. How the heck does this work? No spring, no diaphragm, no valve...Oh wait, there's something blocking the hole...OK, this doesn't work, it just fills a hole in the manifold. Why not just shove a cork in it?

<Professional emissions repair.>

Posted 2011-02-27 18:09:46 by Michael Stoliker

No Pressure

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:48:52 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I tried the compression check again last night after adjusting the valves and the results weren't much better. One cylinder did come up to 125 PSI; and one that had been zero came up to 25 PSI; but the remaining two cylinders remained stubbornly at 75 PSI and zero. This is a little bothersome because if the problem was a blown head gasket I'd expect the low cylinders to be adjacent. So at this point it's valves or rings. Either way, I guess I'm pulling the head this weekend.

Well, I did buy the car to work on it as much as drive it...and the Spitfire doesn't disappoint! There's plenty of work to be done.

While cranking the engine to adjust the valves, the starter stopped responding. I thought that I'd toasted the starter or the solenoid. Well, I hadn't done either, I'd jammed the starter in the flywheel and remembered why the original starters had a set of flats on the tail of the shaft. It's so you can produce your 5/16ths wrench and back the gear up the shaft. You'll know which way to turn it immediately. I guess I'll have to consider a gear reduction starter or at least carrying a left-handed Monkey Wrench in the car.

Frustrated, I considered wrapping it up for the evening, but I was bothered by the smell of gas dripping off the back carb. I pulled the top off the float bowl to check the needle and float condition. Surprisingly, the float was fine and the needle seemed to work perfectly. I put the top back on the bowl wondering where the gas was coming from I put the hose back on and noticed it was not that tight. I'd bought 1/4 inch hose, which works fine on the fuel pump, but the carb fittings must be 3/16. One hose clamp solved that...for now.

I turned my attentions to the lighting circuits again and decided to find out why the headlights weren't working. After investigating some cut off wires in the dash, I determined they weren't related (made a note to find out who they're related to) so I went under the hood. The back lites were all working except one license plate lamp and one side marker. Little onesy-twosy problems are most likely burned out bulbs or a bad contact. In contrast, every light in the bonnet is dead as a doornail; I expected bigger problems there. I found them pretty quickly by tracing wires back from the light to the center of the nose...someone had neatly cut through all the wires a mere two inches away from barrel connectors that are there to disconnect the hood wiring. Now why on earth would anybody do that? The weirdest thing is that where the wires were cut, you still had to unplug the wires to separate the body harness from the bonnet harness. The person had merely cut through a loop of wire that came out of the bonnet harness for a short length and then dived right back in again. Why would Triumph do that, and why would the person who cut the wires not understand he was gaining nothing by dong so?

Oh well, I wanted to fix stuff right?

Posted 2011-02-24 09:48:52 by Michael Stoliker

Junk In The Trunk, No Cash In The Dash.

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:56:26 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

I went through the contents of the trunk the other day and found some missing nuts and bolts, but what I mostly found is rust. After pulling a couple rebuild kits, a turn signal switch and some shot brake pads from the trunk, I pulled out the spare, ditched the mouse nest, and pulled up the jute-backed rubber mat. There it was, the rust I had hoped wasn't there. The trunk floor has a few ugly holes in it.

I also noticed that the back of the car had been nerfed slightly. I had thought the left rear bumper was in a bit, but it was very hard to tell. Looking at the valence panel from inside the trunk I could see the small wrinkle where it met the trunk floor. This is a very minor thing the will get fixed with the repairing of the trunk flow as the valence has some rust as well. I can get both panels from almost any vendor. The moisture that caused the problem likely came from two rust spots in the drainage channels the run along the sides of the trunk. These are two smallish panels that are available from Vicky Brit. Essentially, I'll be replacing everything between the two vertical inner fender panels. There are two small areas of rust on the trunk lid that correspond to the holes in the drainage channels...I can't tell which started the rust. I'll pass on a new trunk lid and opt to spot repair at $799.95 for a new lid.

Back to the engine for a bit. I shot an 80/20 mix of Quaker State 20W50 and Marvel Mystery Oil into the cylinders and played with electrical system issues. Despite the colder temperatures tonight I got a few things done. The starter solenoid reminds me of the old Ford lumps that made it so easy to use a starter button to bypass the ignition switch when doing compression tests. It made me think about a technique I used to fix those solenoids when they were balky. So after cleaning up the connections and replacing one loose spade connector, I smacked that sucker with my smallest hammer. I can now crank the engine from the ignition switch.

A little fiddling with the beat-up light switch got some dash lights lit again (I don't think the hazard indicator is supposed to come on with the dash light unless it's supposed to be saying "hey, that round red knob with the white triangle up above me turns on the hazards...if you're lucky!" It didn't work for me. But the wiper switch worked...sort of. The sound of thin bare metal being dragged across glass is pure torture and I banged my head getting out of the car to lift the wipers up. While I was up, I was surprised to see tail lights and sidemarkers glowing.

In any case, squirting some oil into the cylinders seems to have some beneficial effect as the engine is definitely cranking faster and smoother. Tomorrow I'll go over the Valves with a feeler gauge and see what's stuck and what isn't. The oil pressure switch is not working. I saw the green jewel for the charging circuit lit so I decided to check the oil light. I jumpered the wire to ground and the little red jewel in the speedo lit up just fine. I connected the wire to each of the prongs on the switch and nothing. Time for a new switch.

The fuel pump is definitely working...so much so that I had to run some fuel hose up to the back carb (single fuel inlet) to kep it from spraying the engine and frame. Now I have a carb dripping gas. Definitely adding rebuild kits to the list. All for now.

<Trunk goodies>

Posted 2011-02-22 19:56:26 by Michael Stoliker

Checking It Out - The Engine Compartment

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 05:29:10 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

Well, the little red Spit came home two days ago and it's time to take stock. I'm trying to be methodical about this, which is hard to do because I want to know everything "right now!"

The big sigh of relief is that the engine turns easily, but that's only part of the story. The previous owner never heard this engine run so it could still be bad. I have to clean up the oil filter mount (somebody got excited with a black spray paint can), get some oil in this engine, and with the starter back in, do a compression check.

None of the heater hoses are connected, and I suppose I could try to start it dry for a few seconds, but I think I'll loop a hose around and bypass the heater core for now. It might be nice to hear it running if I can get that far.

Here's what I've discovered so far:

Most of the ignition wiring is apart and I have yet to identify the electronic ignition system. (I've got to start taking some picture of this stuff)
Needs spark plugs (got them yesterday) I'll leave the high tension leads for later.
Valve cover is not attached (found the screws, may need rubberized washers)
No vacuum advance hose (go with all rubber, plastic w/ rubber ends, or copper tubing with rubber ends?)
I found the coil; an ugly brown molded plastic thing with no mounting bracket.
The dual carbs look good but stick a bit will need to consider rebuild kit.
The dual carb manifold has the old mushroom PCV valve. Will need to open that up and check the rubber.
Need a battery. Bought a battery yesterday & it didn't fit. Back to the store armed w/dimensions. Hold down is missing to.
The right rear head bolt is missing. I think that bolt usually has the lifting eye under it. Where the heck did that go?
No fuel hoses installed. May need to swap float bowl lids to get the dual fitting in the rear (no bowl vents on these carbs).
There are no plugs in the air injector lines.
Lower radiator hose is missing.
All rubber items under the hood are returning to dust. Weather strips, grommets, probably the hoses if they were still there.
Exhaust is not hooked up. The first engine start will be fun!
The header is pitted and looks like it's been around a while. Freshly sprayed silver...bet that'll stink when it's hot! It hits the frame too...have to work on that.
Unplugged wires everywhere. I haven't located the wire for the temperature sending unit yet, but the ignition mess is the top priority...I wish I had a before picture.
The elephant in the room is the scuttle under the brake cylinder. It's worse than I thought with several small holes through, the rest weak. I may have to look into fabricating an entire new deck piece. Why is it that nobody has manufactured patch panels for this yet? Both Canley and Rimmer list these panel, but mark them as no longer available. I hope there's enough left to get accurate measurements.

That's enough for now!

Posted 2011-02-21 05:29:10 by Michael Stoliker

My First Time

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:52:06 -0600

Michael Stoliker's Journal --

No, this has nothing to do with sex.

I brought my 1978 Spitfire 1500 home last night, but I want to start this journal with my first Spitfire experience.

The year was 1973 and I was fresh out of Philco-Ford Automotive Technical school and starting my first job as a newly minted Automotive Technician. As low man on the totem pole I was one step above the guys who washed the cars at Valley Lincoln Mercury. My job was inspecting the used cars, "Dealer Prepping" the new cars, and generally doing any work the line mechanics couldn't make any money on. Basically, I was doing scutwork and getting soaked by the "Lot Boys" who washed cars in the next bay.

The highlights of this lowly job were prepping and road testing the occasional new Ford Pantera that got delivered to the lot (but that's another story) and inspecting the rare interesting used car. Among the boring trade-in Ford Granadas there were sometimes thrilling cars like a Pontiac GTO Judge or some other American made super car.

Being poor and desperate to replace my beater 65 Chevelle, I bought a 69 Camaro off our used car lot. It was what the salesmen called a "Secretaries Car". It looked sporty but had no guts. With a "blah" 307 V8 and a two-speed "slip and slide" power glide transmission it could barely get out of it's own way. I was poor...I was 19 and desperately needed to look cool...I settled. A week later I would regret this.

One week passes and I get a call from the used car lot manager; a character that could have played the part of "the Grizzled Prospector" in any old cowboy movie; "come get this little foreign piece of sh*t for service." I forget the guy's name after all these years so let's just call him Gabby. Gabby loved big American iron, especially T-Birds, so when he called something a little foreign P.O.S., it could be anything from a Volkswagen Beetle to a Lamborghini.

Answering the call, I hoofed it the half block to our used car lot and there sat this little british car in gleaming dark green. Now this was interesting...it was a convertible...it looked sporty...the road test would be fun (it was a Mark IV, I believe)! I put my seat cloth over the seat, hopped in and headed back to the shop. A half-hour and one 72-point inspection (Lube the car, make sure nothing's falling off) later, I was ready for my road test.

I'd only driven the car a total of 30 seconds so far, but I was already regretting my haste in buying the Camaro. Soon I was going to regret it even more and kindle a lifetime desire to own one to these cars.

Putting the top down (probably the wrong way) I headed out on my road test east down Union Boulevard toward Airport road. I chirped the tires, upshifting as I passed the used car lot. I'm sure Gabby took notice as the exhaust pipes howled with a very satisfying note! Left on Airport road I went through the gears again. This car was light, agile, and felt faster than it probably was.

The summer day was brilliant and perfect for this kind of drive so I decided that this needed to be stretched out a bit. Normally I would have turned off Airport road just before the cemetary and taken the side roads back to the used car lot. I decided this car needed to go the full tour down Canal Road: a twisty stretch of road that followed the Lehigh river from the town of Catasauqua back to Union Boulevard. I settled in and roared up past the Airport and turned onto Race Street. I slowed down in Catasauqua, making sure to downshift so that the exhaust made maximum noise as I turned onto Canal Road. The car was amazing down through the twisty-turny bits, holding the road like a go-cart.

The drive was glorious! The sun flashing through the trees. The wind in my hair. Everybody turning to see what was making that racket. I knew I was going to buy one of these cars someday!

Then, the turns were past and the road was straight for nearly a mile until the light at the boulevard. I toyed with the idea of finding another road to go down, but I figured I'd already killed to much time and better get back to the job while I still had one. But first, there was the matter of this straightaway to be dealt with...lets see how fast...

Suddenly I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye...something small was headed into the path of the car. There was a bang and the car shuddered. In the rearview mirror, all I could see was a cloud of feathers. I'd hit a Pheasant at nearly 80 miles per hour. immediately feeling sheepish and hoping I hadn't damaged anything. I headed back to the used car lot at a more reasonable speed, quietly parked the car and put the keys on the board. I headed back to my bay without running into Gabby. I went back to work and forgot about it.

An hour later I was called on the carpet and chewed out by Gabby and the owner. What had I done to the car? Gabby had put the car on a lift to under coat the wheel wells (a standard used car lot practice which made the car look newer). When he looked under the car there were guts and feathers everywhere.

I mumbled a promise that it would never happen again, got out of the office and had to put up with "happy hunting" cat calls from the lot boys whenever I went for a road test after that. It was worth it, and if there had ever been another Spitfire on the used car lot, I'm sure it would have happened again.

I thought about seeing if I could trade the Camaro for the Spitfire, but being poor, I hesitated at the cost and the car sold before I could act, so I missed out.
Philco-Ford is gone. Valley Lincoln Mercury is out of business. I have no idea if Gabby or the lot boys are still around.

Now here I am nearly 40 years later with the car I'd always wanted. I have some time to make up for...

<Window sticker>

Posted 2011-02-20 07:52:06 by Michael Stoliker