Triumph Spitfire Steering Rack Disassembly

For my regular readers (both of them), you know that I have a logistical problem that I have complained about for a while. Specifically, my lack of garage space. In a probably futile effort to more efficiently use the space that I do have, I was able to move some more parts up in the attic and open up some shelf and floor space. This enabled me to put "real" legs on my previously sawhorse mounted workbench (this guy) and move it against the garage wall instead of in the middle of the floor behind the car.

New work bench location. Yes, I have three snow shovels. Last year was bad, okay?

Doing this gave me about 4 feet behind the car so I pushed her back a bit and now have good room in front and behind. The sides are still an issue, but I'm pretty much screwed there. Little steps, I guess.

Behind the car. At least I can get around it better than when the workbench was there.

NOTE: If you decide to do this, I cannot stress enough to keep your parts segregated by group (e.g., driver's side inner tie rod), bagged and labeled. There are items that are easily lost and several stacks of shims that make up required measurements, all of which I'm sure are not easily replaced.

So, to the topic at hand, last night and tonight I worked on taking apart the steering rack from the '64. In keeping with my transmission rebuild, I've decided to include a picture of the steering rack from Canley Classics (and which is also a copy of the one from the parts manual) and will use the part numbers listed to help the discussion.

Should be able to read most of the part numbers on here, hopefully.

I had previously tried to take this thing apart a while ago but got my butt kicked by the locknut (42) and I didn't want to break anything. This time, however, I put the whole rack in the vice, put a large adjustable on the locknut and knocked it with a 4 lb. sledge. It worked, though not in the order intended.

Weapons of choice.

Doing it this way loosened up the inner tie rod (or ball pin (37)) but this was just fine with me. 

(Bottom to top) Ball Housing (36), ball pin (37), and the ball socket (38).

I put the rack in the vice again to remove the rest of the nuts. Because I kind of removed it backwards, the (lock) tab washer (39) came off before the locknut and adaptor sleeve (40) and spring (41).

(R to L) Spring (41), tab washer, adaptor sleeve, locknut and end of steering rack.

Blurry...sorry. The locknut backed off using the weapons of choice.

I did the opposite side of the rack the same way. The order came apart differently this time, but in essence the end result was the same.

Next was to take apart the pinion housing (21) to get the pinion itself out which would allow removal of the steering rack (22). The grease nipple cap (35) and screwed cap (34) came off without issue, but the cap required the weapons. I had some issues with getting the plunger (31) out but it was just because it's in there under tight tolerances and it needs to come out very straight. Painful but easy.

Next was to remove the pinion (25) itself. This proved more difficult. The rack and pinion body is made of aluminum. However, everything in it seems to be steel. Dissimilar metals sets up an opportunity for corrosion...galvanic specifically. While its chances are not great between iron and aluminum, after 50+ years...it's going to happen. So, I used a combination of an overnight soak with WD-40 and some propane heat today to break it up. I did have to use some more weapons of choice (different choice this time) but was successful while being very careful not to damage the splines on the pinion where the steering joint (15) connects.

Using a small pry bar and hammer to pop out the pinion.

The pinion, post clean-up.

The pinion comes out with a sandwich full of stuff. Of note, there is a little pin (not shown) that locks the thing rotationally. Almost lost that about four times before I finally got it in a Ziploc.

The recess for the pin is in the very top.

Also in that sandwich is a rubber o-ring that helps seal in the grease. For me, it was obvious that it was no longer in serviceable shape (squared off on the inside and stiff).

Thrust washer and its o-ring.

Trying to show the recess of the thrust washer where the o-ring sits.

Once the pinion and its sandwich was removed, the rack could be removed. Unfortunately, the rack tube had some corrosion in it because it was a real pain to get the rack itself out. Fortunately, I was able to pry it out with a screwdriver using the rack teeth until I cleared the problem area.

Flat blade screwdriver in a tooth recess, prying "up" in this picture, against the rack tube body.

Future me problem to figure out how to properly clean the inside of the rack tube to remove the corrosion. I'm sure I can use vinegar to break it up, but how to get the tube nice and clean and smooth..?

Other than that, I am soaking the rack and pinion body itself in some Purple Power to get the nasty old grease out of there. I am also soaking the rack mounting hardware (53 through 56) in vinegar to break up the rust for future cleaning and painting.

Vinegar soak. Used vinegar, hence the cloudiness.

Triumph Spitfire Battery Box Removal

After too much time, I finally got around to working on the car yesterday. I wanted something lightweight but also something that I had never done before, so I decided to pull out the battery box. Like most, if not all, unrestored Triumphs and probably other LBSCs, my battery box was corroded through on the bottom. The PO had put down a thick fiberglass matt to fix it up. I'll have none of that, of course.

The corrosion. Post removal, obviously.

View from the top. You can see the little red-ish circles where the spot welds are.

A while ago, in preparation for this and I'm sure many other spot weld removals, I purchased a Blair 11096 Spotweld Cutter Kit from Amazon. It got good reviews and came with all of the necessary pieces to remove spot welds as well as two replacement cutting heads and one replacement pilot bit. The pilot bit itself is much like a regular drill bit and is sprung such that with minimal pressure, it recesses back into the tool as the cutter comes into contact with the metal.

What's in the kit

The cutter and pilot bit.

This forms a concave/convex cut in the metal that essentially cuts around the spot weld. The object is to then go back grind down any remaining metal.

Post cut. You can see the two layers of metal here. The center and right is the box and the left is the body.

The first order of business was to identify all of the existing spot welds. I used a wire wheel mounted on my cordless drill to remove the paint and rust to identify the small dimple of the spot weld. The instructions called for using a small drill bit to give something for the pilot bit to rest in so that the tool doesn't get out of control. This is very important as a few of the holes were not deep enough and the thing walked right off the spot weld.

After pre-drilling everything, I started with the spot weld remover. I spun the pilot bit in the hole for several seconds to allow it to make a nice depression so that it would be stable and then applied moderate pressure, bringing the cutter into contact with the metal. I rocked the drill slightly in a circular fashion and slowly cut through. In some instances, it was easy to tell when I had gone through the layer of the top metal as you could feel the drill take a step downward. Other times, it was not obvious and I stopped often to make sure that I didn’t do damage to the underlying metal. Unfortunately, I punched through a few times.

The dash support brackets need to come out as well since they formed the top of the metal sandwich that was the support, battery box and body. The outer strut was relatively easy to remove, though the chuck of my drill rubbed against it at times. However, I was able to drill perpendicular to every spot weld.

The four upper spot welds of the outer support all done.

The inner support, however, was not as easy as the firewall bows out where the suction vent for the heater is and there was much less room for the drill. I was able to get at the three upper spot welds and then had to pull in on the strut a bit, bending it, to be able to reach the remaining spot welds with the ones closest the firewall being cut at an angle. It all worked, though.

Inner support. Bent it up a bit trying to pop some of the welds.

After that, it was quick and easy work to finish out the remaining spot welds. I completed drilling through the battery box for the spot welds that joined it to the body and re-drilled the common spot welds that held the supports to the box.

Most of the way through. The factory was not always neat with their spot welds. No robots, though.

The battery box came right up. I discovered an area of pretty significant corrosion that was under the inner support that will need to be cut out and replaced. Otherwise, this was a simple job, with the right tools, that only took about an hour. Getting the new one in will require much more work, I'm sure. And me learning how to weld.

Area of corrosion on body. So surprised to find rust on my Spitfire...NOT!

The new box will require some bending as it is stamped with the edges flat while installed the back edge flares up a bit to follow the firewall.

New and old. Not hard to tell which is which.

Close up of where the flare of the back edge needs to happen.

On a side note, some of the reviews you will read for the cutter, if you get that far, mentions lubricant also made by Blair. Of course, I purchased the lubricant back in August when I got the kit. And, of course, I forgot that I purchased it and therefore, didn't use it. I also didn't store the cutter and lubricant in close proximity, to help remind me to use it. Even said to myself "you know, some lubricant would probably be a good idea". Dork.

For Your Other Car #3 - 2007 Honda Odyssey Rear Hub Replacement

At least I'm working on one of my cars!

Around July of last year it was time to replace the tires on my family truckster, the 2007 Honda Odyssey. I'm not a tire guy and believe that rubber is pretty much rubber and the minivan doesn't need anything special. Given that, I looked for the highest-mileage, lowest cost tires I could find. I came across Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring that were about $110 and had four of them installed for about $510 out the door. Not too bad.

Now, I rarely drive the car and everything was fine as far as I was concerned. Over time, though, I started to notice what sounded like some pretty obvious tire noise. Though it didn't change with different road surfaces (which, in hindsight, didn't make sense), it was annoying as hell. It was a low sort of rumble that changed pitch with the car's speed but it drilled right through your head as it seemed to come from everywhere inside the car. Over time, it got louder and onset at lower speeds but it was still hard to pinpoint location-wise.

Around October, we had some mega-maintenance done on the car for its 100,000-mile birthday. Timing belt, water pump, brake fluid, coolant...just about everything. I had Honda do it and paid dearly for it, but the peace of mind was worth it. Honda noted the tire noise on the work order but didn't mention it further.

Around Christmas, we took a family trip down to Charleston, SC and I thought I was going to have a mental breakdown due to the noise. It's very hard to explain but, like I said, it just drilled through my head. I was determined, when I got back home, to get the tires replaced. I went to the place that I got them and they swapped them out for Hankooks which were similarly priced. I should be getting a full refund on the Uniroyals based on the warranty.

After I picked up the car, I was very angry to discover that the noise had not abated one bit. Guess we were all wrong about the tires. The only other thing back there that rotates is the hub. I did a bit more listening and, sure enough, sitting in the back (instead of driving) I could pinpoint the noise to the rear passenger's side wheel. Armed with that information, I jacked her up, pulled the wheel and turned the hub by hand. Felt like rocks and sand. Did the same on the driver's side and while it was nowhere near as bad, it didn't feel as smooth as I thought it should. Guess 100k miles is about all they are good for. So, hub replacement, here I come.

Turns out, the hubs are little engineering marvels (and pretty cheap, too). They are self-contained units that bolt up directly to the rear suspension. Other designs have them bolt to a center spindle, which seems to be how the 2006 and prior Odyssey's were, but I think this design is much more slick (and I could use my Spitfire-sized torque wrench instead of a 180 ft-lb one)!

Self-explanatory. The hubs I ordered came with the o-ring already installed. Nice.

I also ordered another set of rear pads and two new rotors. The rotors were in pretty bad shape and new ones were only about $20 (from Amazon, if you can believe it!) each. I think they were cheaper than the ones for the Spitfire.

I wanted to do the passenger's side first since it was in imminent failure mode. If I ran into problems, I'd get the one that really needed it done and skip the other. Fortunately, it went as smooth as you would imagine the removal and replacement of only two screws and 13 bolts would go (5 for the wheel, 4 for the brakes, 4 for the hub).

First one. Time to dig in.

You can read in my previous post the the brake caliper is a two-piece design. Two 12mm bolts hold the inner piece (the pad housing) to the outer piece (cage?). I would not have pulled those if I wasn't changing out the pads. Two 17mm bolts held the cage to the car and these were also removed to allow removal of the rotor.

The two 17mm bolts. Note the funky washers. They went between the caliper cage and the mounting bracket on the car.

Once the caliper assembly was removed and wired up out of the way, I removed the two Philips-head screws (I had WD-40'd and smacked those during my previous inspection to loosen them up and they came off easily with a large screwdriver) and removed the rotor.

The hub (the wheel studs are attached) and the parking brake assembly, which did not interfere.

Really glad I made the cheap decision to replace the rotors. I had let the rear pads go too far last time and didn't inspect the rotor all that well. Turns out the inside of the rotors were in horrible shape and just ate the fresh pads right up. Way to go, Chris!

Looks better than it was. There is a good 1/16" drop from the rusty band to the shiny metal.

Then came hub removal. This was the part I was worried about as the hub bolts were at a respectable torque (~70 ft-lbs) and were not that easy to get at.

Picture from behind the assy. The front upper and lower hub bolts (red dots).

But, with a short cheater-bar, I was able to break them all free without rounding them off. The hub pulled right off by hand.

Recess where hub goes in. You can see the bolt holes. That little black square on right is the ABS sensor.

I was careful of the ABS sensor. It must be a magnetic pickup of some sort. On the prior design it was a toothed gear that was monitored by an optical sensor (I assume). There was some minor aluminum corrosion (a white powder) but this was easily brushed out.

Now it was time for the new hub to go in. I set it in and aligned the holes and started all four bolts. I then used a star-pattern, similar for putting on a tire, to evenly draw the hub into its seat so that I wouldn't cut the o-ring (it was already on the new hub, remember). I then torqued each bolt down (star-pattern).

The new hub, awaiting its fate.

All pretty and installed.

Other than that, installation was the reverse of removal and there were no surprises. For good measure, I also adjusted the parking brake. There was the adjusting star wheel at the bottom (sorry, no clear picture) of the parking brake assembly. I turned it until the rotor would not turn, then backed it off 5 tabs. The rotor turned with a very slight rubbing sound.

All done! The black dot is the rubber cover for the parking brake adjustment hole.

After I got that all bolted up and done, it was on to the driver's side. This turned out to be easier because of the reverse direction in leverage (I found it easier to push down to loosen vice pull up...or maybe it was just the practice) and I knocked it out in about 45 minutes. All in all, it took about 2 1/2 hours to do all of the work, including the brakes and the post-work test drive. Darn thing drove like new with no noise. The wife was very happy and, at the end of the day, that's what matters most. Of course, I knew that the hub was eventually going to fail. At the best, it would have left her stranded. At the worse, it could have caused catastrophic damage to the car or even cause an accident.

While I'm sure a Honda mechanic would have easily beat my time, I probably saved about $500 in parts and labor by doing it in my driveway. With another 4-8 inches of snow just forcast for tomorrow into Tuesday, I'm glad I got it done!

For the two or three of you that may check this blog regularly, I apologize for the lack of Triumph work. Unfortunately, the garage thing hasn't materialized and I'm not sure it will. I need to adjust my plan...I just haven't. But, fear not, for I will not give up!

Triumph Spitfire Body Removal Preparation #6

Well, after almost three weeks, I'm happy to say that I've finally done some work on the car. However, there is somewhat of reason. I guy that I work with and I both have the same problem...lots of big dreams and lots of no space. He's been somewhat serious about looking for a garage but, as we got to talking, we both fed off of each other and he got motivated to find one within our price range. He found a 20'x50' in a local industrial park so it's more than enough room. The intention, to help supplement the cost, is to provide seasonal or year-round storage for people that don't have room at home for their toys. If we can a few takers, we figure we can make it work while providing us with a place to make a mess and not have to suffer the wrath of our wives. I've kept stalling on pulling the body off the car if I'm going to have to turn right around and transport it to a garage since I will have to put it out back and I'd rather not make the extra work. Keeping my fingers crossed.

As for today, it was more of removing pieces-parts from the body. A lot of different things. No real surprises, fortunately, so that was good. In no particular order...

I was able to finish stripping the dash after partially destroying it. Used a hair dryer to help loosen everything up. There were a lot of little clips that had to come out, but all-in-all, not too bad.

Finally got the dash and all of the plastic off.

Next was the steering column seal. Not too much of a seal on this one, but they are available.

Steering column lower seal dry-rotted and brittle.

Found some little carpet screws (?) on the driveshaft tunnel. Not sure if they hold the carpet down, but they seem to (I've never had carpet in the car). I love the finishing rings.

Cute little things...a regular screwdriver on right for scale.

The handbrake needed to come out and that was just a snap ring to disconnect it from the mounting point. There is a square adjustment nut that also needed to come off and I just spun the whole assembly as the nut was trapped by the clip and so spun right out.

Snap ring removed. The square nut is inside the metal "clip". Cable will need to get pushed through hole eventually.

That black stuff that I had wondered about on the rear seat pan was indeed sound deadening material installed by the factory. I was able to use a metal putty knife and pry/crack it up with little problem. Stuff was nearly brittle, but just flexible enough to get under it. Of note, a plastic putty knife would not be an option here as it would snap.

Passenger's side. Stuff came up pretty cleanly with just a bit of adhesive residue.

I also needed to remove the accelerator bar (finally remembered!) and the connection to the carbs. I drove out the linkage pin with a 3/32" punch and then had to use a bearing puller to slide the lever assembly off of the rod. After that, it was like a puzzle pulling the thing actually out of the car, but I was able to do it. I've heard horror stories about these things on my favorite forum, so I'm sure it will be much more fun when I try to put it back in!

Pin pushed out of lever. The hole on the bottom is for the cotter pin to keep the rod attached inside the passenger footwell.

Bearing puller setup.

Liberated. Interesting that it is curved, of sorts. I assume it's supposed to be that way to help clear the clutch housing of the transmission.

Lastly, I pulled the rear license plate light assembly. As with the black car, this one was also toast and rusted and half not there anymore. I used the sawzall to take care of it. The electrical portion of these are easy to come by, but the bases are not. So, I have a request out on the Buy/Sell/Trade section of my favorite forum to see if anyone has one laying around that is in serviceable shape.

Almost 50 years of rust...spider egg sacks and all.

That was about it. I did a bunch of other little things; pulled all of the remaining interior screw clips that I could find, removed the rubber boots for the wiring hold-down tabs, drilled out the pop rivets for the body snaps for the soft top, etc. I don't think there is much else I can do now other than pull the body. I'll talk to my garage buddy and see what he thinks and go from there.

Here's wishing all of my US readers (and anyone else that wants to celebrate) a happy Thanksgiving!

Stripped!

Triumph Spitfire Body Removal Preparation #5

Slowly but surely. But damn if I didn't forget to do that throttle linkage again! Regardless, another few steps closer to body removal. The stuff that I'm doing now is mostly focused on weather protection (the body will be stored outdoors during a harsh New England winter) and while none of it is required, it is all desired.

I cut off the bottom of the rivets that hold the door check straps to the door, so those will have to be replaced. Someone much smarter than I has come up with what seems to be a removable version that SpitBits sells...good idea. Those are now on my wish list. Also, I discovered that the the driver's side door check strap guide was busted. That explains some denting on the driver's side bonnet.

Driver's side door check strap guide...missing top portion and showing damage because of it (left of hole).

Passenger's side door check strap guide...what it should look like. 

Also, one of the tabs where the check strap rivet passes through the driver's side door was also busted. Years and years of use for both, I presume.

The bottom tab in this picture, but on driver's side, was broken. Spot-weld repair...fun, fun!

The check strap guide replacement is readily available, but, for the door, I think I'll have to steal one off of one of the other four doors that I have. Easy sourcing, but it will be interesting to weld it in!

Once the doors were out, I pulled the windows winders and door handles. They both use tapered pins that will, therefore, only push out one way. There are also two holes, 90-degrees opposed to the pin (why...I have no idea) that head-fake you into thinking the pin is in there...it's not.

Pushing down on window winder escutcheon (iˈskəCHən) to get at pin.

Window winder and tapered pin...it will only come out one way.

The two bonnet latch catches (left) and the two door check straps (right) along with the door check seal clips (top-ish center).

Driver's side door.

If you have been keeping up over the last year or so, you know that I retired from the Navy and got a job at Electric Boat shipyard teaching nuclear theory. Well, the parking there sucks and it is only getting worse as they hire more people (turns out the submarine industry is booming). They also don't like to paint parking spaces that respect the size of most cars these days (i.e., pickup trucks). Needless to say, my Fit got swiped the other day. Fortunately, the person who hit me was honest and I actually walked out while they were calling their insurance company to report it. Anyway, for what I think amounts to a loss of some clear coat and several minutes of buffing, their insurance company sent me a check for almost $1300. There are so many dings in my Fit now that I don't really care and my poor Spitfire needs so much sheet metal...$1300 would about cover it!

I've also decided to start divesting myself of some unneeded parts. So, if you are in the market for some Mk1 or Mk2 Spitfire parts, especially non-engine or transmission stuff, I may be a resource for you. I appear to have a taker on the hardtop, but there is more that can go. Drop me a line in the comments and I'll see if I have it. If I didn't pay money for it, I won't make you pay for it, either, except for shipping.

Spitfire Body Removal Preparation #4

Not too much happening lately. With regards to free weekend time, this time of the year is not so good. Soccer, transitioning into basketball, practice and games, Halloween and other random events have limited my available time. And, of course, just when the hectic weekend schedules start to even out, the weather crashes and it's 22F in the garage. I vow to fight it this year, though, and will invest in a space heater to try and keep my garage, or at least the area that I am occupying, warmer.

I continued to strip the body of stuff that I don't want sitting in the weather. The master cylinders and pedals are out, as wells as the wiper arm boxes, washer jets, and the attachment hardware for random firewall items.

Master cylinders. You can easily see the reservoir size difference (brake on left, clutch on right). Also the defrost nozzles and hoses on the far right.

Much smarter this time with labeling and bagging everything.

Wiper wheelbox (passengers) and end where it connects to wiper motor.

Some random firewall item attachments, recorded for posterity (and future re-attachment).

I also got a closer look at the steering coupling after a while soaking in the Purple Power. Nothing too exciting, but it definitely needs software replacement.

Clean it up and she'll be good as new. Note the lockwire...when lockwashers just aren't good enough. Very popular in the nuclear power industry!

I started to play with the dashboard a bit. I had a misunderstanding that the dashpad was removable and that I could "easily" repair it outside of the car for future reinstallment. Doesn't look like this is the case. The foam is a stiff grey stuff (you can see it in the corner that I broke off in the picture below) and there is a metal backing that defines the edge of the dash that is bolted to the dash "nose". I think I'm just going to go for it and rip it off, using a heat gun to help with the adhesive and curse myself for doing it later. It has to get repaired and that's all there is to it.

Passenger's side dash pad. You can see the metal backing where I broke off the foam.

Another shot of the dash showing where the vinyl is breaking off. Very brittle after almost 50 years. The white primer was me.

Finally, I was going to remove the doors in an effort to make the body as light as possible and I forgot to look up the fact that the metal door straps need to get removed in some way. Turns out there is a rivet that needs to be ground down a bit so that it can fit back out through the hole. However, based on the time, I decided to wait on that until the next time.

Left is the body, right is the door. The pin on the door is what needs to be ground out.

That was it. Until next time...