Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #2 - LH Floor Pan Removal / Repair

I ended the last post with saying I was going to build a rotisserie. As it stands right now, those plans are on hold. The boot floor on Dorothy is not structurally sound in the least. Thankfully, I was smart enough (or just lucky) and fabricated the supports to hold the rear of the car to the rotisserie before I started hacking away at the new engine stands. For my design (which I stole from several pictures), the rear support is bolted into the existing holes in the boot floor used for the rear bumpers. As a proof of concept, I attempted to lift the body from the new supports and the boot floor started to come apart a bit. That's not going to work, obviously, so no joy for now.

But, with the front bulkhead repaired, I tacked the front support bracket back in to allow me to remove the floor. I didn't get good penetration on all of the spots, so I'll have to revisit this, but for now it was okay and would support the body.

Not pretty...and this side was better than the other one.

With that done, I decided to just go for it and cut the driver's side floor out. I was conservative with my cuts and left a lot of the original metal to allow lots of wiggle room when fitting the new floor pan.

Rear near the heelboard.

Rear at the radius arm bracket. I revisit this area extensively!

Front showing extensive damage to the lower A post. Should have bought one for this side, too.

The old floor. Lots of Swiss cheese, there.

Since I just took a cutting wheel to it all, I had quite a bit of old floor still attached to the sills. This had to come out to allow me to properly fit up the new floor. Speaking of that, the order in which you do this common repair to the Spitfire is important. Given that the floor and sills need to be replaced, the floor is done first. The construction of the sill parts and the floor is like one big sandwich. The floor sets the base and all of the rest of the sandwich is built from there. So, to replace them, you start with the base and work your way out to the outer sill.

L to R: Floor, inner sill, middle (strengthener) sill, outer sill.

Another angle. Note how the inner sill sits on top of the floor. It won't lean in when installed, either.

My first thought was to just take the cutting wheel to the bottom seam and cut it away in about 30 seconds. On second thought, however, I didn't want to take the chance of compromising the dwindling integrity of the structure. Most of the bottom of the inner sill, especially towards the front, was gone. This left its top, the middle strengthener, and the outer sill as the only things connecting the car front to back (except for the support that I put in between the A and B posts). Better safe than sorry, I cut the welds of the floor with my Blair spot weld cutter. For the few spots that didn't cut fully away, I chased them with a standard wood chisel that I picked up at Harbor Freight. This thing does surprisingly well given that I literally bang the crap out of it to cut metal. I have had to grind the edge a few times, but it's holding up well.

Floor part removed. Extensive damage to bottom of inner sill.

Inner sill gets better, but still some pinholes. Lots of spot welds!

The problem corner. It gets worse.

After getting the part of the floor removed, it was time to remove the remaining bits at the back, under the heelboard. Again, several spots welds needed to be cut away to separate the floor from the heelboard. I had to do this on my back, but it wasn't too bad. I used the cutoff wheel to section the pieces out a bit to make it easier, but I was very careful not to cut into the heelboard.

The following four pics are from the floor looking up, with the front of the car at the "bottom" of the pic.

Floor attached to the heelboard and rear radius arm bracket.

Seat belt mounting eye hole in rear of floor, reinforced with a plate of 16 gauge steel.

Bottom of rear radius arm bracket. Yuck.

With the floor now fully removed, I stepped back to assess for any further damage that I needed to attend to prior to fitting the new floor. Of course, I found some. First was the rear radius arm bracket. The bottom was in pretty sad shape with some metal loss and gross pitting. Given that this is a suspension mounting point, I chose to replace it.

Metal loss. The spot welds holding the bottom part to the bracket are rusted through, too.

I cut the spots welds to remove the bracket. Unfortunately, I didn't understand how the bracket was put together. There are two main parts. A heavy (16-gauge) L-shaped piece serves as the base. The bracket with the bolt holes is spot welded to that L-shaped piece and the radius arm bracket bolt holes are attached through both, capturing them as well. I didn't understand this to be the case, so I tried to just drill out the smaller bracket part and finally figured out that the bolt holes were holding it all together. I drilled out the larger, L-shaped base and it came right out.

Bracket removed.

The black car's brackets were in fine shape so, between the sawz-all and cutting wheel, I got the old brackets out with little problem (I assume I'll have to replace both sides). I cleaned the driver's side one up as best I could and primed it with the Dupli-color zinc paint for when it goes in its new home.

"New" (L) and old. You can see my mistaken first attempt at drilling out the spot welds.

With the bracket out, I made another close inspection and found some pinholes in the heelboard. The pitting was rather extensive, however, so this would have to go as well. Making my way to the "B" post, I noticed some damage behind the inner sill.

Lower "B" post damage. You can also see one pinhole in very bottom of heel board. There were more.

I cut a portion of the inner sill away to get a better look. I figured there would be more damage behind the portion of metal I was going to cut away in the heelboard.

A portion of the inner sill removed to show damage.

Assuming there was damage behind the spot welds that connected the heelboard to the "B" post, I made a template that was bigger than I really needed for the heelboard itself. Hopefully I won't regret cutting away extra metal, but I doubt it.

Template made for piece to replace in heelboard.

Result of template.

Of course, when I cut away the portion of heelboard, I found the damage I expected.

Extent of damage. Sorry it's blurry.

To better assess the full damage, I decided to cut away a portion of the front lower rear wing. I knew I was in trouble when I had to grind through about a pound of Bondo.

The top of the Bondo line.

Bondo all removed. Cut away portion marked.

I didn't locate any further damage that I had to address with this repair, so I templated a new piece for the lower B post. Of note, I am using manila paper for my template material. After I make my template, I cut the new metal and form it as much as possible BEFORE I cut away any old metal. Except for shooting the area with zinc primer, I try to get to the point of being ready to weld in the new piece before I cut any old metal away. That way, I don't cut more than I need to and could regret later.

Template and new metal. Odd shape, but that's how it went.

All old metal cut away and area primed. Note the little tail piece of rear wing that I left to clamp the new piece to.

Initial fit up...some adjustment required. Note the clamp at back on that little tail piece.

Several tacks. Good enough for the day.

I was running out of time for the day, so those tack welds finished it up. You may have noticed that I didn't put the hole in my new piece that was in the old. That's because I was afraid I'd blow the weld out since the hold was very near the weld seam. My intention is to go back, after it's all welded in, and drill large hole. The rear wiring harness will run through there so I'll have to clean it up good. Hopefully I won't regret doing it this way.

Anyway, I'll get that in and cleaned up, then put in the heelboard piece and clean that up. After that, I'm going to put the rear radius arm bracket in, but only with the bolts. That way, I'll be able to adjust it based on how the floor will fit in its final spot and then I'll make it all permanent!

I did briefly fit the floor before I left. I have some adjustments to do, but it looks good!

The future!

Here's wishing all those Dads out there a Happy Father's Day. I'm taking the boys fishing tomorrow so we'll see how that goes!

Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #1 - LH Floor Pan Replacement Prep

As promised, on to the body repair work. For the most part, I will use the British terms for various body parts (here's a "translator" just in case). Additionally, by convention, I will refer to the sides of the car as if you were sitting in it and I will either use passenger's / right hand (RH) or driver's / left hand (LH) side.

Essentially, the lower four inches of the car is rusted out and here's what I know I have to repair:

Replacement panels on hand: floor pans (both sides), floor crossmembers (both sides), inner, middle (strengthener) and outer sills (both sides), sill filler panels (both), RH lower "A" post.

Fabrication work (unless I buy panels): LH lower bulkhead, RH upper to lower "A" post transition, rear wing front lower (probably both), rear wing rear lower (probably both), inner rear wing rear lower sections (from inside the boot) and the lower rear outer valance.

Of course, that's all I've found so far. I'm sure there will be more repairs to do. I haven't look over the bonnet closely, but I am happy to say that one area that I know tends to rust out, the D-shaped bonnet strengthener panels, are both good. Also, I still have the body of the black car sitting in my back yard. Of course, it is slowly rotting away back there, but several of the panels, namely the boot area, are in better shape on that then they are on Dorothy, so I'm sure a lot of donating will happen.

The victim awaits my hacking.

Before I get started with what I've done, I want to recommend a book that I picked up from Amazon that I initially heard about on my favorite forum, titled How to restore Classic Car Bodywork, by Martin Thaddeus. The physical copy of the book is pricey at about $45 while the Kindle version is only about $24. For reference books like this, however, I like to have a hard copy so I shelled out the money.

Worth every penny! It is a British title, so it is a larger format than a typical book of its type over here. The author covers the basics (tools and equipment), metal fabrication, and repairs. The repair portions not only cover repair methods but also the approach, or order of operations, in which the typical repairs should be performed. For example, for the floor and sill repairs (which he replaces in a Triumph Spitfire!) he explains why it's best to replace the floor and then the sills in an inside to outside order. This was a nice touch for someone like me who has never done this sort of work.

Additionally, it is absolutely full of photographs, most, if not all, of which are in color. It's only 128 pages, but the text is very small and in two or three columns, so there's a lot of information packed in there. Being British, there are some different terms used from what us Americans use (other than the typical boot and bonnet), but it is easy to figure it out in context. Take a look and, if you have a Kindle, you can download a sample of the book to get a feel for it.

Armed with the knowledge provided in the book, I wanted to tackle the floors and sills first, one side at a time. The new floor will be attached on three sides until the new sills are installed, so I decided to start with the driver's side since one floor attachment point, the front bulkhead, would need to be repaired first.

LH Lower bulkhead showing cancer.

Same area but from inside the passenger compartment. Note the fiberglass repairs (yuck!).

Before I got too far I decided to poke around inside the sill area and found about three pounds of Bondo as well as oiled paper. I thought it might be a mouse nest or something but learned that oiled paper was used as a repair trick to provide something for the Bondo to hold on to while trying to prevent water collection. Awesome.

A peak inside showing the "mouse nest" repair.

What I dug out of the hole. This wasn't all of it.

Enough of that mess. I turned my attention back to the bulkhead repair. The cancer extended behind the body mounting bracket so, in addition to splitting what remained of the front of the floor from the bulkhead, I had to remove the bracket for a proper repair.

Showing the cancer moving behind the body mounting bracket.

Armed with a few 1/4" drill bits and a pneumatic drill, I got to work. Not too bad, though a sloppy factory spot weld resulted in me tearing some metal before I realized I missed some of the weld. I take care of that in a bit.

Bracket removed showing cancer damage behind it.

I cut back some of the front sill to get an idea of how the bottom of the bulkhead curved.

Sill filler panel cut away. Actually doesn't look too bad in there. Must be more Bondo repairs!

I cleaned the entire area up, including inside the footwell, with an angled die grinder and a Harbor Freight 2-inch Medium Grade Fiber Surface Conditioning Disk to make sure I was going to cut away all of the rusted metal, but no more. These things work pretty well and seem to hold up okay as long as the surface is relatively smooth. If you run in over ragged metal (like at the edge of damage) they get shredded pretty quickly, as you would expect.

Area cleaned and marked for removal. I circled the two holes and put an outline of where the body mounting bracket attached.

Then, I cut a template using a manila folder. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of that, but this wasn't a very complicated fabrication. I provided extra metal for the bottom lip of the bulkhead and also, since I was doing a lap weld, the top to make the lap joint. Using the manila template, I cut another piece of metal from my old boot lid and formed it to the rough shape.

Cut per pattern and the lip formed. I'm bending here to account for the inward slope towards the sill.

I went back to the car and set the new piece in place to check dimensions.

Rough trace of the new piece, outlined on the existing bulkhead.

Using a Harbor Freight Air Punch and Flange Tool, I pressed a flange into the new piece to make the lap joint. 

Initial run of the flange tool. Got a bit sloppy with it towards the right edge.

I used a ruler and measured the width of the flange that the tool makes, and transferred this to the bulkhead to make sure I wouldn't cut too much metal away. I needed to ensure that I cut the metal at a point the thickness of the flange smaller than the initial trace of the new piece.

The flange cut identified. The bottom horizontal-ish line is the cut line.

I followed my outline to cut away the damaged metal and, using the Air Punch tool, popped several holes, about every 1/2" or so, into the bulkhead. I left the right side of the bulkhead alone since I'm not positive how that all sandwiches together quite yet.

Holes punched and initial fit up. I was able to correct most of the large gap on the left side.

To take care of the larger of the holes that I put in the bulkhead removing the body mounting bracket, I used my step drill bit to cut a smooth, 1/2" circle to make it easier to weld.

Nice round circle.

A small metal disk to fill the hole. Tin snips work great on fingers, too <ouch>.

With that, I sprayed both sides of the area with Dupli-Color Weld Through Primer that I picked up at Amazon for about $12 a can. I had previously used the SEM stuff, but it didn't go on very smoothly, coming out...chunky. Hard to explain, but the Dupli-Color stuff went on very nicely and I gave it about 30 minutes to dry before welding. I'm not sure if that's enough, but I could only find times for "dry to the touch" (12 minutes) and recoating. Seemed to work okay.

Area prepped and primed, ready for some action.

I got right down to welding. Some of the welds were pretty nasty, but I had only one spot where I blew through and everything cleaned up nicely. After each weld, I blasted it with several seconds of compressed air to keep the area cool to prevent warping.

The first weld. Not pretty.

Done. Meh. The left most joint was a butt joint vice a lap joint. Note the left gap is closed up as well.

I then tacked in the metal disk. I was pretty happy with this result.

The little metal disk held by a magnet...

...welded in.

I ground down the welds using a 80-grit flap disk. Some spots needed a few more shots of the MIG, but all in all not a bad showing.

Welds ground down.

Most of weld area from the footwell side. Pretty good penetration all around.

I then shot the area with some more weld through primer in preparation for putting the body mounting bracket back on. However, before I can do that, I wanted to fill the seam left by the lap weld. Hopefully as I gain more experience, the seams will be come smaller, but I don't know that I can ever really eliminate them in lap welds. Butt welds, of course, won't have this problem.

I cleaned the seam area of primer with the fabric disk and applied a thin coat of Bondo. My intention with the Bondo is to sand all of it away except that which fills the seam itself, so i don't expect there to be much of it at all. The only other alternative that I could see was filling the seam with weld metal, but I thought that was simply unnecessary and risked damage and warping.

Bondo applied in excess which will be heavily sanded.

That's as far as I got. I'll sand down the Bondo and probably have to do another skim coat (you can still see the seam in the shot above) and then be ready to put the body mounting bracket on. Once that's in, I'm building a rotisserie!

Triumph Spitfire Engine Rebuild #23 - Final Steps and First Start

As I mentioned in previous posts, I have several hours of video that I took while rebuilding the engine. Things like setting the camshaft position and static timing were better covered in those. But, I still have yet to edit and make them presentable. Therefore, there is some important information in the engine rebuild process that I have skipped. In hindsight, it was a mistake to do the video in place of photographs but by the time I figured that out, I had moved past important parts. I will eventually go back and capture that stuff. I will say that there is nothing that I would bring that isn't clearly covered in the workshop manual and that was my main reference.

Moving on...Due to damage, I switched from my original exhaust manifold to a stainless one from Rimmer's. Unfortunately, the fit of it wasn't that great and I had to apply some brute force to get it installed. It still contacts the block slightly, but it looks great!

Stock (L) versus stainless. Bends are pretty close, but off by just enough.

Rubbing against the rear engine plate / clutch housing.

Which resulted in a gap at the rear of the manifold.

I took measurements of the original versus the stainless and discovered that at the final coupling from 2 to 1 pipe, the stainless one was off by about 1/2". Therefore, when it made the turn toward the back of the car, it hit the clutch housing since it didn't "drop" as much. A bit of bending with it mounted to the motor, though, and I got it sorted.

The comparison measurement of the original manifold.

Along with replacing the carburetor's (may be spelled with one "r" or two) throttle shafts and disks (video), I did a complete rebuild including the jet bearings, front and back float bowl adaptors (which are color coded for your pleasure but get brittle easily), float chamber service kit, and the main jets, needles and all of the software that came in a overhaul kit.

You may remember if you've been around a while or gone through old posts that I did a carburetor rebuild shortly after getting the car. However, I did some of that incorrectly so I wanted to do it again. I saved everything as I have since acquired another set of carburetors that I will eventually clean up and rebuild as well.

All clean and pretty.

Fitted to the intake manifold with filters and a new fuel pipe.

Another thing I needed to do was bend the fuel pipe that went from the outlet of the fuel pump, around the distributor, across the front of the motor and to a fuel hose that transitioned to the front carburetor. I used a wire clothes hanger as a template and got to work.

The hanger template. Easy-peasy. NOT!

I guess I was spoiled by the ease with which I was able to do the brake lines and the rest of the fuel lines because this one totally kicked my ass. I destroyed one piece of copper pipe and purchased more, but was eventually able to get it done right. As a matter of fact, I would put my second attempt against a factory job!

The first try and the second. Bet you can't guess which is which!

I also needed to run the vacuum pipe from the front carburetor to the distributor to provide for the vacuum advance, the vacuum of which is provided by the intake action of the motor. The factory used a very small diameter metal tube. Unfortunately, years of bending mine had cracked it in a few spots and I was forced to use a combination of rubber and solid tubing, making this a simple task.

I temporarily routed the exhaust piping and the main silencer so that I wouldn't go deaf when I ran the motor. Some of the exhaust system attaches to the body, so I didn't want to permanently mount anything to the chassis until they were reunited. I also "jumpered" the cooling circuit to connect the head cooling outlet and the coolant return pipe since there was no heater or heater valve.

With that, I was essentially done! I still had the electrical to do so that the motor would turn over (starter circuit) and start (ignition circuit), but I had already made, bought or had the wiring I needed to do that and knew how it was going to go.

The finished product! Please forgive the appearance of the gearbox. I rebuilt it about two years ago and it has been sitting under the garage stairs for almost a year!

Good shot of the cooling jumper from the head to the return pipe.

I came back within the next few days for first start and wired up the starting and ignition circuits. I also pulled the distributor and primed the oil system using a cordless drill and a modified bolt to turn the oil pump. I had an 8" (length) 3/8" bolt that I cut the head off and notched so that it would mate with the oil pump drive gear.

The business end of the bolt. I essentially notched it is all.

The bolt chucked up in the drill.

I then connected my Harbor Freight Engine Oil Pressure Test Kit that I picked up for about $20 (with a 20%-off coupon!) into the bottom of the distributor housing where the oil pressure sender is normally installed.

Oil tester installed. This union leaked a bit, but I didn't really want to tighten down too much on the fitting.

To be honest, I ran the drill for about 30 seconds and started to get nervous when I wasn't feeling any resistance or development of pressure. Of course, like any pump with a specific suction and discharge, direction of pump rotation is important. So, I stayed calm and reversed the drill direction. Within about 15 seconds the drill started to labor a bit and shortly after that, the oil pressure tester started to develop pressure. Oil also was visible up through the distributor bushing, so that was another positive sign.

Within about 30 seconds of rotation, I was developing about 65 psi of oil pressure. I don't know what the equivalent engine RPM to drill speed was, but I was very happy with that amount of pressure! I ran it for about another 2 minutes just to allow full flow and venting of the oil passages.

Shot of glorious oil pressure indication. The drill is stopped here so the pressure is bleeding off.

Once that was done, I put the distributor all back and and did a quick static timing and points gap check to make sure I put it back in properly. One nice thing about directly driving the oil pump is that you don't lose top dead center of the motor, so static timing was easy.

Here's the beginning to end video. It runs about 8 mins or so.

Once that was all done (I did run it in for about 30 minutes which allowed me to figure out some more leaks (no oil ones...yet!) and that the generator bearing needed some help) I swapped the chassis and motor for the body. Now the fun begins!

The start of the swap.

It was fun, though I was ready to be done with you.

The next chapter. The hard part, some would say!