Spring In My Step

Progress has been a tad slow I’m afraid but I’m still pushing on and making steps forward. My last few tinkering jobs have been to strip and clean the rear drive shafts along with the rear leaf spring. 

The drive shafts I have simply stripped down to component form and given a bloody good clean. I will be replacing all the universal joints, bushes and bearings etc… then tarting it all up and rebuilding. Having followed a similar process for the Cobra build this was really just a straightforward process and considerably easier now I have a bench vice. I have noticed during the strip down that the rear brake drums are odd and in a poor state with considerable amount of pitting and corrosion internally, so these will both be replaced along with all the rear brake components. I also have noticed that on one side the wheel studs are stripped a good few threads. Whilst I can’t recall how much effort I used when removing the wheels I sure as hell will not be taking any risks when torquing up the new ones. So another job to add to the growing list and more parts required. 

I have also finished pretty much all the stripping and cleaning jobs for all the running gear now. I have genuinely lost count of how many hours I have spent wire wheel and brushing everything and removing so much crust and grime. Most of the dust and grime created by doing this I think I have also inhaled and digested so I can’t say I’m sad to see the back of all this really. I intend to give all the running gear the same texture finish as the chassis so I’ll be doing that after I have all the bits for the chassis now, as I only want to do one more session and a one litre kit should be enough to cover it all. With it being a 2k product it’s not like I can do half and just pop the lid on for later down the line when I need it. So with everything stripped and cleaned I have just blasted everything with a good coat of black etch prime to help protect it a little, however I should get a top coat on fairly quickly and certainly before the end of the year when the damp air returns with its cold and misery. 

So with all the running gear awaiting its topcoat and rebuild I had to decide what to do about the rear leaf spring. The original unit to me looked ok and although old and cosmetically poor it looked functional with exception of a missing shackle. I decided to look into just sending it off for a full refurb and rebuild and I found a company round the corner from where I work who I thought would be able to undertake the task for me. 

I haven’t got any images of the leaf spring when it was removed off the chassis, but tired is how it could best be described. I started hedging my bets and looking for a replacement from various suppliers and found that a brand new replacement spring would be in the region of £120 so with that in mind I was upfront and honest with the local company stating I could get a brand new unit for that price. Getting them to give me a price to refurbish my original spring was like getting blood from a stone, keeping in mind they only refurbish leaf springs day in and day out. I dropped it off to them and said what would be ball park cost? Just curious if I was wasting my own time more than theirs….. nothing just a woolly non commitment answer stating they won’t know until they strip it…… frustrating people!!! I left it with them under the illusion they would do what they said, however over a week passed and I heard nothing.

I ended up during the down time doing some research on leaf springs and specifically the brand new units available through various Triumph parts suppliers. I also put the question to the spitfire owners forum if they would rather refurbish or replace if it was them. I’m sort of glad I did ask as a lot of consensus was that the new replacement spring were not of the best quality and were a poor fit. The leaf is apparently to wide to fit on the diff and in the pivot box and the overall length was a tad long knocking out all the suspension geometry, so probs best sticking with the original then. 

After nearly two weeks I had heard nothing from my refurb company and I was starting to get a little miffed with the constant brush offs and pie crust promise of a call back. I was told when I dropped it off it would be a week turnaround…. Once they had assessed and priced the job….. and I still didn’t have a bloody price!!! 

I eventually spoke to someone who said it’s been looked at and the spring was far from good condition (shock, I’m sure they find 90% of the trade in mint condition and no work needed….. I must have been the exception) but they said it would be £150 to fully refurbish my leaf spring. I thought that for the sake of  £20/£30 it would be a safer bet in the long run to stick with the original spring as opposed to risking a possible bad fitting new one, so I gave them the go ahead and again was told it would be a week turnaround. So after another longer week with a bank holiday thrown in also I was chasing them and asking for an update. Only to be told that because I haven’t paid then nothing has happened to my spring whatsoever…… frigging useless tossers, if I had been asked to pay or it had even been mentioned during the previous communications (all proactively coming from me) then we wouldn’t have been having this discussion now. So I begrudgingly paid and was told yet again……… a week turnaround. Bloody incompetence tossers. 

During the weeks whilst waiting for spring I was reading up on the Spitfire club about upgrades people were making to their springs in terms of nylon wear pads located between the end of each leaf. These were strongly advised from most members and reading up on another fellas Spyder build he was having issues with a saggy bottom so to speak, and these would/should stop that happening. So I ordered a set and they have been sat gathering dust along with some new bolts and bushes etc… waiting for my spring back. 

Eventually the call came to say come and collect my leaf (about bloody time) and I the spent the evening rebuilding the unit back into the pivot box along with adding the poly bushes and nylon wear pads. This task was only possible with the use of the bench vice and copious amounts of swearing but after some hard few hours head scratching and bits flying across the garage it was done. A thoroughly fiddly task but satisfaction of getting it done and popping it back onto the diff/chassis ready for the next stage, and it now looks great and the chassis is one step closer to rolling again.

My next update might be a while…. I have a family holiday to pay and participate in, along with the onslaught of life expenses in general so there might be a gap for a bit……..

Good things come to those who wait…… I hope.