If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

Back when I went through a shopping spree of new car parts, I had purchased wheel bearings assuming the wheel bearings on the Triumph needed to be replaced. It turns out they didn't.

The bearings were in rather good shape, but I figured since I had bearings that were 40 years younger than those currently on the car, I might as well change them. In hindsight, I should have just left the bearings (more trouble for something that was fine), but for posterity, below is how I replaced the bearings.

Removing the bearing race was easy as it could be tapped out, but installing new bearings was a bit of a pain. At first, I tapped as far as it would go in with a scrap piece of 2x4 and hammer, but since the bearing race sits below the face of the hub, I needed something to tap it even further. I tried using the old bearing to help hammer the race in even further, but I found this left the slightest scuffs on the race where the rollers on the bearings were.

I found bearing installers online but they were 50-plus dollars, so I checked with AutoZone, but they did not carry any bearing installers in their loan-a-tool program. For bicycles, Chris had used quick-release hubs to install bearings on bike wheels and so we decided to build a homemade bearing race installer hub that functioned similarly to the quick-release hub.

I bought a long bolt, 2 nuts, and multiple sets of washers (I couldn't recall what size I needed to fit over the bearings properly - in actuality, you only need 2 washers) from Lowe's. The plan was to thread the bolt with a nut, followed by a washer of the correct size, followed by the old bearing, then the other side's old bearing, washer, and a nut. The idea was was to tighten the bolts and gradually squeeze the bearing races into place.

This setup worked really well. For less than $4, the bolt/nuts/washers pushed the races into place and did not leave any scuff marks on the races like the hammering method.

The picture below shows the setup on a hub. Two wrenches are needed - one to hold the back bolt in place and the other to tighten and squeeze the bolts closer together.


Next up...remove rust from the hub and stub axle carrier and paint.

Good weather = spray painting outside

I had been meaning to publish this post for a few weeks now, but it took me a while take the picture I was going to include with it...

The holidays have been a good time to relax and leisurely work on the Triumph. With the weather being uncommonly warm this week, I spent some time cleaning up the front lower suspension arms so I could do some spray painting outside. Using wire brushes, steel wool, sandpaper, and a lot of elbow grease, I spent about 2 hours cleaning off the surface rust from the arms. Another hour or so was used to prep, prime, and paint the arms to a glossy black. The dremel worked great for this project as the dime-sized wire brush attachment cleaned hard to reach places.

For this project, I used Rustoleum auto paint and primer that I picked up at the local hardware store. The reviews online seem to be ok (not great), but should be ok for this purpose.

The result...(for reference, see previous post on what the arms looked like before cleaning and paint)


Next up... clean and re-paint upper suspensions arms

Winter Plan

Since it's too cold to work in the garage during the winter time, I've decided to work on the pieces that can be restored in the basement - mainly, the front wheel assembly. I purchased a bunch of parts for the front and rear wheel assemblies from Victoria British and the plan is to have the units refinished and reassembled by spring.

After a considerable amount of effort, I have removed all the parts on the lower front arm and readied it to be painted. Removing the bolts from the fulcrom brackets proved to be a difficult task. I tried various methods to remove two bolts that had rusted on to the bracket. Heating and cooling the bolt was a bad idea as the rubber bushing caught fire and caused a toxic smell. I dremel-ed off the end of the bolt and tried pounding the bolt out, but to no avail. In the end, I hacksawed the bolt off and punched out the remaining bolt pieces.

As for removing the rubber bushings, I watched a few youtube videos to figure out what to do. Some people burned the bushing out, but since I'm working in the basement, the awful smell would have permeated throughout the house. There were also a few people with a custom bushing jig that screwed the bolt out. In the end, I made my own version of the jig using scrap 2x4's and clamp. I drilled a 1-1/4" hole through a scrap piece of 2x4 and aligned the hole on one end of the bushing with another piece of 2x4 behind it. I put the clamp over the 2x4 and on the other end of the bushing. Using the clamp screw, I slowly screwed out the bushing by pushing it into the hole on the first 2x4.

Below is a picture of the bushing jig setup and lower arms with the bushings removed.

After receiving order from Victoria British, I was about to assemble the shock absorber and strut unit, but noticed the paint job on the new shocks were already chipping off. I ended up sanding the chipped parts smooth and patching the spots with chassis paint. Hopefully the chassis paint holds up, otherwise I may look into powder coating.


What I ended up ordering from Victoria British... (the total cost is almost equal to what I paid for the car)

Part # Description Qty Price Total Status
5-445 SHOCK ABSORBER KIT-F/R-W/BUSH 1 79.95 79.95 In Stock
5-9931 RADIUS ARM POLY BUSHING SET 1 19.95 19.95 In Stock
5-303 MAJOR FRONT SUSPENSION KIT 1 109.95 109.95 Back Ordered
12-944 SPRING PLATE 2 REQ 2 16.95 33.90 Back Ordered
5-925 WHEEL BEARING KIT FRONT 2 REQ 2 24.95 49.90 In Stock
5-5084 LOWERED SPRNG SET-6.875" 330LB 1 59.95 59.95 In Stock
5-926 WHEEL BEARING KIT REAR 2 REQ 2 29.95 59.90 In Stock
FBK310 FRONT BRAKE KIT 1 REQ 1 129.95 129.95 In Stock
6-521 BRAKE SHOE SET 1 22.95 22.95 In Stock
7-760 BRAKE SHOE HOLD DOWN KIT 12 PC 1 12.95 12.95 In Stock
7-875 BRAKE ADJUSTER ASSEMBLY 2 REQ 2 19.95 39.90 In Stock
7-876 BRAKE SPRING CYLINDER END 2REQ 2 4.95 9.90 In Stock
7-880 BRAKE SPRING ADJUSTER END 2REQ 2 4.95 9.90 In Stock
7-945 WHEEL CYLINDER REAR 3/4" 2 REQ 2 34.95 69.90 In Stock
7-861 BRAKE HOSE-FT/REAR A/R 2 16.95 33.90 In Stock

Testing Eastwood Products

Executive decision...I've decided to make this restoration more manageable and instead of removing everything to the bare chassis and taking it somewhere to get it sandblasted and powdercoated, I would do the chassis restoration myself using products found online. Besides the cost, the logistics of getting the chassis powdercoated seemed more consuming than I was willing to commit to this car. Using products found online, I could incrementally work on sections of the chassis and only remove the necessary car parts for the area I'm working on (plus, the garage is getting quite full and I'm worried I won't remember what parts go where).

So, my revised goal for this car: 1) get it up and running 2) make it look decent and 3) not worry about making it a show-piece car.

The two chassis paint product manufacturers I've found for rusty metal were POR-15 and Eastwood. Reviews for the two products are mixed but for me the youtube video from Eastwood showing the results was the deciding factor.

I purchased the satin finish rust chassis paint set which includes the rust converter, rust encapsulator primer and chassis paint for $100 off Eastwood's webiste. Before using this on the chassis, I decided to try it out on the gas tank, which could use a new paint job (below is a picture of the tank, partially sanded).

First, I sanded and wirebrushed the gas tank to bear metal and surface rust. Then prepped the surface clean with denatured alcohol and applied the rust converter to one side of the tank. I went to do the same to the other side however realized afterwards that I had accidentally applied the rust encapsulator thinking it was therust converter. Annoyed at myself, I decided to wirebrush the encapsulator paint off when it dried, but noticed it was adhering to the metal really well.

As I was wiping away the small amount of paint dust that had accumulated, I accidentally brushed the converter side of the tank and the converter paint dissolved to dust and was coming off! The Eastwood website had mentioned that they do not recommend using the converter on good metal and now I understand why. The converter only adhered to the parts of the tank that had surface rust, but everywhere else the converter paint brushed off.

I decided to leave the the accidentally-applied encapsulator paint on and use 220 sandpaper to remove excess converter paint and apply encapsulator paint. The satin paint finish went on smoothly without issue (thank goodness)and I'm quite satisfied with the end result. In comparison, a new tank from Victoria British would have cost me $199.95.

Engine Compression Testing

This summer has been busy with traveling and so I have not been able to make the most of the weather to work on the Triumph as I would like. It has been months since I really worked on the car, but I finally got around to doing an engine compression test on the car this past weekend.

Engine compression testing was something that I had put off because I thought it was going to be complicated, but it turns out it isn't so bad. First, I labeled the location and corresponding cables to make sure I put them back correctly. I unplugged the cables going into the spark plugs and used a special socket (it has a rubber attachment to pull the spark plug out) to remove all 4 spark plugs.

One by one, I hooked up the engine compression reader to each socket. With the help from Chris, he connected jumper cables to a car battery as I read the compression value - no need for a remote starter switch. The only minor problem was that the original Triumph's car battery was dead, so we moved my daily-use car close to the garage and left it idling while we ran the test on all 4 sockets.

The trickiest part of the whole process to get access to the two central spark plugs. The distributor was in the way, so we temporarily took the distributor out of its mount. Friction made it a bit stubborn to remove, but the most difficult part was putting the distributor back in. After referring to the Haynes manual, we had to make sure the first cylinder was in its end of compression phase (took a flashlight shining into the socket and observing the pistons while Chris hand turned the crankshaft) before aligning the distributor back in.

Engine compression readings after one or two turns of the engine.
1. 70 PSI
2. 70 PSI
3. 52 PSI
4. 70 PSI

Cylinder 3 had some issues with its compression. Whereas the other 3 cylinders had no problems hitting 70 PSI immediately, cylinder 3 slowly crept up in compression pressure. Not a good sign I'm assuming.

Suspension is Off!

With the last suspension bolt MAPP gas torched, quickly cooled, and brute forced off, the passenger rear suspension is off, finishing the removal of the rear suspension. Throughout the process, I tried to keep suspension units as whole as possible while removing so that it would be easier to reassemble in the end. The plan is to restore individual units in smaller projects and reassemble units in the same manner as it was removed.

The handbrake line was also removed with a bit of thinking involved to get the straight clamped ends through the curved bend. The trick was to add slack to the wiring through the bend. This way the straight clamp had enough slack to go completely through one end of the bend and then pass through the second end of the bend only after completely passing the first bend.

Looking at the chassis now, I'm not sure how much metalwork needs to be done or whether I can just get away with sandblasting and painting/powdercoating. The area around the engine is in pretty good shape still bearing the original red paint, but from the middle to the rear of the car, the chassis has a good amount of surface rust and some flaking metal.

Next up: engine compression testing.

Article About a 1969 Spitfire

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle posted an article by an owner of a 1969 Triumph.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/09/MTGL1DBE3U.DTL

Although it was a short article, it was interesting to read about his restoration, driving, and overall experience of owning a Triumph Spitfire. One good part the author notes, "The Triumph is a perfect car for me because it gets great gas mileage - over 41 miles a gallon - and is easy to park because it is so tiny and has a very sharp turning radius." He also notes a downside, "... the Triumph is so small that it could be squashed like a fly, so it really takes a motorcycle mentality to drive it." But the line that struck me the most, "My friend tried to take his car apart and it never quite went back together the right way." I am close to having taken the car apart completely, so really there is no turning back anyway. Hopefully, I fair better than his friend in restoring the Triumph.